The Dead Don’t Talk

He sits still staring at the picture. It is flat on the floor in front of him. It is a picture of three young men dressed in dark and sombre suits, plain dark ties, with their hair neatly slicked back. Underneath someone has written: Robert, Henry and Joe. They wanted to look their best. Of course they did.

He barely moves. He stares at the picture. Sometimes he holds it, but mostly it sits square and flat on the floor in front of him. Nothing moves.

‘I don’t understand why he is naked though, do you?’

‘It’s a thing. Don’t read too much into it. Just watch what he does when the clock chimes, that’s when it gets really weird.’

‘Why is there a clock in the room?’

‘Because he won’t settle without it.’

‘I suppose the ticking can be reassuring.’

‘They took it away once and he just walked round and round for the next twenty four hours nonstop. He only sat down when the ticking came back and then he cradled himself to sleep crying. But don’t worry. It’s okay, it’s out of reach. He’s safe as long as they remember to wind the clock, of course.’

The clock is ticking, a loud, steady, deep tick.

After a minute or so the mechanism whirrs, there is a clicking noise and then a coiled spring is activated. The clock chimes. Once. Twice.

He cries almost automatically like a baby whimpering as soon as the sound begins. Then when it stops, his cry turns to a sudden howl and his upper lip blubbers violently until he struggles to breathe and he gasps as if he is taking his last breath. Then he calls out. The first word is almost a question, half hopeful, then more fearful and then an anxious voice which rises to a penetrating scream.

‘Mama? Mama! Mama! Mama! Mamaaaaa!’

In another moment, the sound is lost in his terrible sobbing which crashes over his body and then fades with what seems to be complete exhaustion.

‘Watch what he does next.’

He sits still on the floor. His penis twitches and he holds it upright. Then he urinates. The stream of urine rises into the air, a fine strong arc of piss that falls over him and lands in a pool around him. He laughs. Then he giggles and calls out, ‘I won! I won! Hey Bob, Hen, I won!’

‘Okay. I see. So he won a pissing competition! How old is he?’

‘Wait there is more.’

He lies down as if sleeping but he touches himself.

‘Oh no! Do we have to? Really? Isn’t there a curtain or something, surely? It would be bad enough having to listen to him.’

‘No just watch! You need to see it all.’

Afterwards, he wipes himself clean, rubbing the fluid into his skin, erasing it till it’s gone. Then he looks at his hand. There is a large droplet of cum still on his wrist. He rubs his hand feverishly and sniffs the back of it. He slaps himself. Once. Again. Then he sees it is on his leg too. He rubs his thigh repeatedly and slaps that until his muscle is angry and red.

‘Does he do this very often?’

‘Every time he masturbates. Watch.’

‘How often does he masturbate for fuck’s sake?

‘When he hears the clock chime two but look what happens afterwards.’

He slaps himself where his leg is red and makes a strange cry. It leaps from his mouth like a yelp or a bark.

‘Why is he doing that?’

‘He tries to rub it away – the redness.’

‘But he’s just making it worse.’

‘He thinks it will help.’

He barks with each slap that lands on his leg until he is crying once more, but by then only from the physical pain now and the tiredness of course.

‘Normally he collapses here, from sheer exhaustion, or if he is sedated. And he used to when he got drunk before, before he was here.’

‘Yes, like the last time we saw him.’

‘What happens when he is not, when he is awake and he can just do what he wants?’

‘Watch.’

He sits up, the red mark on his leg is agitating him.

‘He is not stopping, look. He’s going on. This won’t be pretty.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It gets worse.’

‘How much worse?’

‘It’s not good, I’m afraid.’

He sits up and thumps his leg. The pain makes him recoil and he strikes himself again and again. Calling out wordlessly with a series of sudden yelps until he screams a long drawn out shriek that makes him lose breath and he has to stop, gulp some air and then he slams his hand viciously into his thigh with the fingers clawlike. He drags his nails down deep into his flesh. Blood rise to the surface. His next cry is one of orgasmic ejaculation and total relief.

‘Oh! Oh! No! I’m not watching anymore.’

‘We have to watch.’

He is crying terribly now, much too loud he knows, so loud that people will come. He gapes wide and then he bites his arm and the pain bites deeper than his teeth into his flesh so his sob is swallowed in the injury. The noise is gentler and so he shakes and cries some more.

‘It’s better when he cries, of course.’

‘It wears off a bit?’

‘A little.’

Suddenly he smashes his head on the floor.

‘Oh shit!’

Again… and again… and again.

Eventually he collapses.

‘Can’t we help him?’

‘Why? We just have to wait. Anyway, he’s in hospital.’

‘He’s being looked after properly, isn’t he, Hen?’

‘Sure. Anyway, we can’t open the door.’

‘Can’t they do anything more for him?’

‘They say they are talking it through, that it’s all just guilt.’

‘From what?’

‘Because he was driving, Rob, because he’d been drinking and he was driving.’

‘Where were we going? I don’t remember.’

‘To mum’s funeral.’

By six in the morning, the clock has stopped.

The orderlies come. They unlock the door.

‘Shit! What a mess!’

‘Hey, Greg, this one is totally fucked up this time.’

‘No, Jon, I think you’ll find this one has fucked up! It looks like he’s well and truly dead this time.’

Their shoes squeak awkwardly as they walk in. The noise seems an impolite intrusion into the silence that hangs in the room as if an invisible curtain has been drawn across it.

‘Oh great, what a total shit!’ Greg says. ‘He’s pissed all over the floor again and there’s blood everywhere.’

‘So?’ Jon answers.

‘Well, we’ll have to be the ones to clean it up, won’t we!’

‘Is that all you can sodding think about?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This poor bastard has just died and all you can think about is having to work and do your fucking job.’

They clean him up. Lay him on the trolley and place a sheet over him. Then they wipe away the blood and the shit and the piss that has leaked from his body.

Their shoes squeak on the clean floor as they move toward the door.

‘That’s better. They’ve cleaned him up, look Rob.’

‘Oh yes, much better. He’s half decent now.’

‘Who is? You guys, who’s better?’

‘Oh! It’s you. We’ve been waiting for you. It’s you, Joe. You look much better now Joseph. You were in a right state a little while ago.’

‘Well we can all go now, can’t we, Hen? It’s nearly two o’clock, isn’t it? It’s nearly time we got there.’

‘Sure, Rob, sure. Mum’s been waiting a long time.’

The shoes squeak as they move the trolley towards the door.

‘Did you hear that, Jon? Did you?’

‘What?’

‘Did you hear that noise? I’m sure I heard voices.’

‘You and your fucking noises, Greg. I’ve told you before, the dead don’t talk.’

‘Did you hear that, Joe?’

‘He said the dead don’t talk, Rob.’

‘Shall we tell him, Hen? Shall we?’

‘No Joe, you mustn’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone. Ever!’