Reality check

The bugs are back, crawling in the corners of my vision only to scurry out of sight when I try to look directly at them. I heard once that your vision is more sensitive at the edges of your eyes. Maybe that’s why I can never see the bugs when I’m actually trying to see them; they are only ever wriggling at my edges.

The return of the bugs makes me agitated. I am staying with my brother and his wife until the council can find a house for me. A suitable placement in the community. The place I lived before had to close but I didn’t mind. There was too much screaming there anyway and sometimes I couldn’t sleep. When they give me a flat I will live by myself and will have to make my own toast and tea, which at the moment my brother makes for me. He does not like me touching hot things.

My brother’s wife does not like me. She never looks directly at me, but always keeps a watch on me from the corner of her eye. I am her swarm of bugs. Except, as my brother pointed out to me when I told him this, that I am real but the bugs are not. But when she will not look at me and will not talk to me I wonder if I am real. And then I have to check. I pinch myself and scratch and cut until my skin comes away and the blood comes and then yes I can see that I am real, but she does not like this and will scream and then I know she can see me and that she knows I am real too. I wish she would just talk to me, then I would not have to bleed to check that I am still here. But she won’t, and so I do not have choice. I do not like the screaming. I have never liked the screaming.

Ever since she heard about the cat she has not liked me and is afraid to be in the house with me. I was not sure if it was real or not. It kept darting away, but I caught it and I checked. I didn’t have a choice. But it was not like the bugs. It was real, like me. The noise was like screaming, but different to the way that people scream.

I have heard my brother and his wife arguing. Or at least I have heard her shouting. I push my ear against the wall to try and hear what my brother says. But all I can hear is the murmur of his voice, calm and quiet, reassuring her. That I am better. That I am safe.

When I was living in the place before, they would give be tablets to take everyday. My brother leaves for his job early in the morning and asks his wife to make sure I take them. But she does not look at me, she has stopped handing them to me and now leaves them in a neat row next to a glass of water on the counter. She does not want to touch me.

I have told her that I have swallowed them but for the past few weeks I have flushed them down the toilet and it is thrilling to know that I can do things that would make her angry. But then I feel sad to think my brother would be angry too. But I have a secret, and that gives me feel a funny squeezed feeling, like a hug that holds me tight. I have not had anything that is mine in such a very long time.

The days are very long as my brother’s wife and I stay in the house all day and wait for my brother to come back. She watches television that is very loud and lots of people in brightly coloured clothing shouting and arguing with each other and I don’t know what’s going on. Sometimes I ask her and then she will turn off the television and leave the room or she will ignore me and carry on watching. I do not know if she has heard me so I speak more and more loudly and then eventually she will tell me off for shouting and I feel angry because she made me feel like I am not real. But then she will be scared and when my brother comes home she will say nasty things about me and my brother will tell me that I am real and that he sees me and that makes me feel better and then we play cards together and he listens as I explain the rules to him.

The woman on the TV do much more than we do. They go for lunches and to parties but we do not do anything or go anywhere. Sometimes she leaves the house but I do not know where she goes and I am not allowed to go with her. I must stay at home and not touch anything, which is a silly thing to say because gravity means that we are always touching something.

In the place I lived before we would play games and do arts and crafts. My brother’s wife will not play with me. She says she does not know any card games. She ignores me when I offer to teach her. My brother got me some paints and I used them in my room but she got angry because the paints went on the carpet which was white but we did not have carpet in the place before and it was not a problem if we got paint on the floor but here it is and now I am not allowed to do painting. I do not know how to fill my time. I am now happy the bugs are back because they give me something to look at. To think about.

She still will not look at me. When I try to look directly at her she scurries away. I wonder if she is real like I am real. I do not have a choice. I will have to check. I do not like the screaming.