Climbing The Walls

The thought of it makes me want to puke. Makes me want to vomit in my cornflakes and throw my chair against the wall. It'll pass, like all these things pass and I run the water in the sink and wash my face............

Better........

He stares at me a lot, like he's trying to fathom something, extract my secrets. He frightens me sometimes and I have to look away ............This tiny creature and his huge eyed gaze that I can never accept as devotion, never enjoy, never take pride in.

Sorry kid!

The door goes and I let Karen in. I return to the living room and don't look at the cot.

"How's he been?", Karen's voice trailing in from the kitchen.

"Oh...not sure....". I instantly know my mistake. 'He's fine' would have sufficed.

Karen appears with an incredulous look on her face and turns towards the cot.

"Not sure?"

She turns back to me, face like thunder.

"I've been gone three hours and you're not sure how he is?" She turns to the cot and picks up her son. "Was daddy watching the horse racing and eating Choccy biscuits while he should have been talking to you? Was he? Yes he was, because he's an ignorant arsehole, isn't he?"

I smart as she spits out the last four words.

"He never seems to sleep, or cry or anything" I complain. "Karen, he's like that all the time. Alert, staring at me, like he's expecting something. He scares the shit out of me.................He's not normal.................."

"Oh right, and you're a ruddy expert? Come on Joe, he's your son and you treat him like he was sired in the pits of hell. For fucks sake!"

She's hissing through gritted teeth now, plainly incensed at my inability to relate to the bundle of joy in the corner. My mouth is dry now and I want water, I want something to stop the choking feeling in my throat. I brush past Karen and I'm in the toilet and the door is locked............the hum of the extractor fan drowns out some of her shouting, but not the banging. I decide I don't care and proceed to slake dryness in my throat. No cup or glass to hand, I wrap my mouth around the tap in the wash basin. It's slightly warm, unpleasant, the metal of the tap sour on my tongue but the constriction starts to ease and I find myself able to breathe and swallow again.

I can hear sobbing outside the door. I'm on the floor, back against the cold tiled wall, and I can hear my wife on the other side of the door crying. I reach up pull the string, the extractor shutting down, the bathroom light with it. Her crying is clearer now, I can hear her against the door as she gently convulses with each sob. I feel like shit for doing this to her, but it's not intentional, it's not planned or malicious. My darkness infiltrates her life and the damage I do............It's nothing I can fix.

Soon she stops, and I hear her pick herself up and shuffle through to the living room. The silence is narcotic and I lapse into unconsciousness in the dark.