(Time is Worthless) When Hands are Magnets
This doesn't feel right.
It's the first half formed thought that jumps into his head as he slowly regains consciousness, his memory strangely fuzzy and wrong.
Without opening his eyes he performs an inventory of every muscle in his tired body. He feels more than a little nauseous as his stomach churned. And although he did not have a headache as such everything around his temples felt tight and strained. As he flexed his fingers he noticed with a groan that even his fingers felt achy and stiff.
He felt like he was very hangover, only he couldn't be because he was sure he had only had two beers last night. While his memory was fragmented he was sure in that fact. Besides his mouth did not feel dry or furry or how it normally felt after a few bottles of whiskey. This did not quite feel like a hangover, it was odd, he felt odd, the whole thing was just odd.
Suddenly a little fearful he forced his eyes open expecting to see unfamiliar surroundings. Only they weren't really that unfamiliar. He was in his own bedroom, a room he hadn't actually spent much time in lately finding it easier to crash at Tom's rather than fretting about getting home in the early hours of the morning. But his bedroom did not feel right, not like home even if it did not look that different. He just knew instinctively something was not right.
Alarmed he bolted out of bed tripping a little as his legs did not fully cooperate and his stomach rolled traitorously. It really was not right, none of it. He felt almost tingly, like when a certain woman blew on the back of his neck only this was all over his body and constant. It was still night, or it was a new night and he had slept all the way through the daylights hours. It was a small victory just working out the small details especially as that even with the room bathed in darkness the solid shadows furniture did not seem to be in the right places. And everything was so quiet, too quiet and yet he still expected someone to jump out on him.
His toes curled into the carpet as he looked down not quiet surprised but still confused to see that he was clad only in a pair or wrinkled faded jeans. Coldness seemed to follow the realization of his state of undress. He touched the radiator. The heating was on but he couldn't seem to feel it and perhaps his urge to cover up was more to do with concealing vulnerability.
Automatically he opened a draw only to find it void of any of his clothes and maybe he was more materialistic than he thought when the irritation started to build and press against nerves so he found it impossible to stand still. He was never the tidiest person but this level of almost empty neatness made him feel like a child again. It reminded him of all the times his mother had threatened to give all of his things to the charity shop if he did not tidy his room. She had never carried out her threat but irrational paranoia wondered if she had been spying on him all the way in Ireland and had finally had enough of his domestic skills.
But he recognized items that must belong to his wife and even those were sparse as if no one had been home for the longest time. He ran a hand through his ruffled dark hair trying to remember how he had ended up back home in place that somehow was not his home.
He thought about calling out but he could already tell from the stillness that there was no one else lurking in any of the other rooms. Not even Ozzy whimpering from being left alone for too long.
All that he could remember was joking and drinking with his cousin and falling asleep on a pile of beanbags because Tom was too cheap to buy proper furniture. The football had still been on but he had been too tired and pleasantly drunk to switch it off. Instead he let the distant roar of the crowd lull him to sleep, the screen painting his skin electric.
And then, then he was in this strange version of the place he called home. It was all making a kind of sense that made no sense to him.
Fed up with feeling lost he began checking each room only to find the same half unlived emptiness. Even the fridge was bare. And as he squinted into the artificial brightness he had to swallow the urge to hyperventilate. He would not panic, would not be scared of acute nothingness.
Automatically his first thought was to call his brother. The one person who would always pull him out of whatever mess he got himself into. Even though he had never liked the way Paul would never let him forget all that he had done for him he was grateful for his older brother. Every time he had to stop himself and remember Paul was gone it was like a further piece of him had fallen away.
There was only a short list of other people he would want to call. His wife was not of the list. He patted down his pockets but his mobile was not in his jeans so he settled for the house phone. His fingers dialing a familiar number as if they had a life of their own. And then…nothing just white noise as if the number had never meant anything. But that was not right it had been hers. He desperately needed to hear her voice, to have her laugh at him and then he would be sure he was just being silly and any missing time was due to too much alcohol and nothing more.
It wasn't till he slammed the phone down that he saw it. A hoodie he recognized as one of his own, a crumpled pile of grey and black left on the corner of a sofa. It was silly but finding something so small that he recognized as his own made him feel a hell of a lot safer, more grounded. Pulling the fabric over his head he studiously ignored the way it didn't smell right anymore but it fitted right and suddenly he felt more like himself.
Finally deciding there was nothing left for him in this house he opened the front door, the chill of the night air making him conscious of his naked feet but not enough to stop his first attentive steps into the street. Still he was the only soul around and maybe he should start to worry that there had been a zombie attack and he was the lone survivor in a bleak post apocalyptic world. If that was the case he would really need to find some shoes.
The light wind was enough to chase away the lasting effects of sleep, it was almost calming. And if he strained he could just about here a few birds singing. In-between the inky darkness of the cloudy sky there was a murky brown that reassured him dawn was approaching. He could not see the stars.
He hurried along gazing upwards like a small child trying to see into the heavens given the direction of his steps no real thought. When he finally looked down he stopped dead. The factory he had spent so long inside was twisted into an unfamiliar shape of destruction, police tape cornered it off and the smell of smoke and decay threatened to overwhelm him.
This really was not right.