They told him he was going to be the gatekeeper.
He has since thought that calling it that was just a cruel joke.
When it first started he had been in his room for about a day - it was hard to tell but about a day seemed right to him.
Outside the gatekeeper's room there suddenly showed the room opposite his shifting and another taking its place. He went up to the glass - or plastic - separating the two rooms. He was never sure whether the partition was made of hardened plastic or reinforced glass; he sometimes preferred to think it was one substance, sometimes another - in the end it did not matter but it gave him something to think about.
The other room opposite was around the same dimensions as his room but lacked the bed and books his did.
There was a man in this room,
"thank god!"
this man said.
"what's happening to me?"
The gatekeeper got up to the glass and said
"I don't know. They told me I was the gatekeeper"
The man kept on telling him that he wanted to get out and he had to help him.
The gatekeeper said,
"I don't know how to get through this glass, I'll see if I can do something"
After he said this the other room span round again to show yet another man in another blank room.
What this man said was similar to the first.
The gatekeeper tried to help the new man, he tried using a bed post to smash the glass but it wouldn't budge. The other man was there for about a minute and again the room revolved.
This continued, with a succession of different people saying they needed help and they didn't know what was happening and the gatekeeper trying his hardest find ways to help them.He was continually explaining that this had just started happening and they weren't the first and that they too would disappear after a minute.
This went on for several days, he couldn't be sure.
The gatekeeper grew exhausted of it. He cried, he screamed, he tried to explain that he could not help them. Each time he got the same message from them - the same desperate plea for help and each time he could not help, could not even adequately explain he could not help.
He gave up after a while and tipped his bed to the side and hid behind it.
He read and ignored the ones who cried out for his help.
He wasn't sure how long this went on for.
He grew bored. Where before he had tried his hardest to help the others now he played tricks on some of the visitors.
Sometimes he would jump out from behind the bed just as they were about to leave.
Other times he would tie his bed sheets up to form a toga and jump around his room chanting for as long as he felt like.
The others were never sure about this. The gatekeeper laughed at their reactions. At least they no longer asked for his help when he did this.
For great periods of times the gatekeeper would come out from behind his bed and stare into the other rooms.He would look to see if there were any clues in their blank surfaces, ignoring the shouts of the others, ignoring their gesticulations, just looking at the internal architecture of these continually shifting rooms.
Occasionally the gatekeeper would look for patterns in the people, in their voices, in their movements but he found none.
After a minute they were always whisked away, always replaced.
This was a long time ago now.
The gatekeeper long since stopped worrying about them.
Occasionally he wonders what he must look like them to them, sitting impassively reading his books next to the sign he wrote that reads
IM SORRY I CANT HELP
but mostly he doesn't notice them at all.
Thursday 30 September 2010
Deity
He was a terrible deity.
Some people just shouldn't be given the gift of omnipotence and he was one of them. It's not that he was evil or even bad per se ... it was more like there was just so much more that he could have been doing.
"Jimmy" I said to him one day. "You're wasting your powers."
He just looked at me, shrugged and laughed. I wonder if he ever cared about the world's problems or if he was as flippant as this from the off.
Sure, I enjoyed some of his benevolence occasionally, but he was more like a fancy gameshow than a god - a fancy car, a new microwave, that kind of thing.
Once he showed me a press clipping of a horse that had been born with a horn and the face of Mr Magoo. The article called it a "Magoo-nicorn". He thought it was hilarious.
Sometimes he tells me he messes with a single persons life - changes little things they've done, packs them a different lunch, changes the name of their first girlfriend. He told me the names of some of them but it meant nothing to me.
Sometimes I ask him "Jimmy, why do you do this stuff?"
He told me once something about a promise he made to himself a long time ago. Another time he told me that the universe needed a god but wouldn't accept one who actually did anything. Mostly he just sits around drinking beer and watching daytime TV.
Like I said he was a terrible deity.
Some people just shouldn't be given the gift of omnipotence and he was one of them. It's not that he was evil or even bad per se ... it was more like there was just so much more that he could have been doing.
"Jimmy" I said to him one day. "You're wasting your powers."
He just looked at me, shrugged and laughed. I wonder if he ever cared about the world's problems or if he was as flippant as this from the off.
Sure, I enjoyed some of his benevolence occasionally, but he was more like a fancy gameshow than a god - a fancy car, a new microwave, that kind of thing.
Once he showed me a press clipping of a horse that had been born with a horn and the face of Mr Magoo. The article called it a "Magoo-nicorn". He thought it was hilarious.
Sometimes he tells me he messes with a single persons life - changes little things they've done, packs them a different lunch, changes the name of their first girlfriend. He told me the names of some of them but it meant nothing to me.
Sometimes I ask him "Jimmy, why do you do this stuff?"
He told me once something about a promise he made to himself a long time ago. Another time he told me that the universe needed a god but wouldn't accept one who actually did anything. Mostly he just sits around drinking beer and watching daytime TV.
Like I said he was a terrible deity.
Friday 3 September 2010
Sausage Rolls At The Wake
I hadn't cried at the funeral.
At the wake people were chatting to each other. Some were laughing, some making chit chat, catching up with old friends or family they haven't seen since the last one.
I was talking nervously to a distant relative about what exactly it was I was did and was going to do and half heartedly asking them the same questions. To end the conversation I said
"well, I'm ummm just going to go over to the buffet, hmmm"
more of a stall than anything. I wouldn't be expected to talk when I was consuming food.
I looked at the spread and focused on the sausage rolls. Small and not quite brown, not quite yellow - definitely gray in the middle.
They always stuck me a such a prosaic food to have at events like this. After the catharsis and tears of a funeral you're greeted with "party" food familiar to you from the first gathering you went to as a child. Maybe they're a sure sign, along with seeing everyone else who's mourning, that life goes on, no matter how devastated you are, no matter how much everything hurts.
I had felt nothing all day.
But I continued to stare at the sausage rolls. Lumpen, sweaty and unappealing. They looked pathetic.
And it was like the dam burst inside of me. Whatever I'd been using to hold myself together had been pulled away. I started shaking and walked quickly into the empty room next to the main hall.
I was already crying by the time I slumped down on a chair. It was the first time I had cried in years.I cried for everyone I'd lost and would never see again. I cried for the parts of my life that had gone or changed and for the futility of wanting them back. I cried because I knew that I could never make the time I spent with people any better than it was, I could never have made it any different and I could never get it back.
And eventually I just cried.
It was as if i was sititng comfortably sitting at the back of my head whilst my body went about the business of crying. I began to wonder when I would stop. I knew I could if I wanted to but I was deciding o carry on. I needed to. I disappeared for a while - went for a holiday in my head and came back at a later date.
I don't know how long I'd been sitting there but at some point I had stopped crying. I got up and went to the bathroom to clear myself up. My eyes were red but apart from that my complexionw as normal. I was ok.
I splashed my face with water and returned to the main room. I walked to the buffet and took a plate, loading it with sausage rolls as many as I could. It seemed like the right thing to do.
At the wake people were chatting to each other. Some were laughing, some making chit chat, catching up with old friends or family they haven't seen since the last one.
I was talking nervously to a distant relative about what exactly it was I was did and was going to do and half heartedly asking them the same questions. To end the conversation I said
"well, I'm ummm just going to go over to the buffet, hmmm"
more of a stall than anything. I wouldn't be expected to talk when I was consuming food.
I looked at the spread and focused on the sausage rolls. Small and not quite brown, not quite yellow - definitely gray in the middle.
They always stuck me a such a prosaic food to have at events like this. After the catharsis and tears of a funeral you're greeted with "party" food familiar to you from the first gathering you went to as a child. Maybe they're a sure sign, along with seeing everyone else who's mourning, that life goes on, no matter how devastated you are, no matter how much everything hurts.
I had felt nothing all day.
But I continued to stare at the sausage rolls. Lumpen, sweaty and unappealing. They looked pathetic.
And it was like the dam burst inside of me. Whatever I'd been using to hold myself together had been pulled away. I started shaking and walked quickly into the empty room next to the main hall.
I was already crying by the time I slumped down on a chair. It was the first time I had cried in years.I cried for everyone I'd lost and would never see again. I cried for the parts of my life that had gone or changed and for the futility of wanting them back. I cried because I knew that I could never make the time I spent with people any better than it was, I could never have made it any different and I could never get it back.
And eventually I just cried.
It was as if i was sititng comfortably sitting at the back of my head whilst my body went about the business of crying. I began to wonder when I would stop. I knew I could if I wanted to but I was deciding o carry on. I needed to. I disappeared for a while - went for a holiday in my head and came back at a later date.
I don't know how long I'd been sitting there but at some point I had stopped crying. I got up and went to the bathroom to clear myself up. My eyes were red but apart from that my complexionw as normal. I was ok.
I splashed my face with water and returned to the main room. I walked to the buffet and took a plate, loading it with sausage rolls as many as I could. It seemed like the right thing to do.
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