Hooting horns and other early-morning sounds joined forces and attacked his slumbering senses, causing him to slowly turn over, half awake. But what really made him sit up was the warm liquid being squirted onto his ankle with water pistol like force. He opened his eyes just in time to see the large, scrawny brown dog lower its raised leg and waddle away. He stared in disbelief at the dog piss soaking into his grey socks, making it appear black in spots. He cursed beneath his breath and looked around him. Luckily no one was about to witness his embarrassment, except for a fat cat scrutinising the rabble from an overturned garbage bin. He felt pains at several parts of his body – head, neck, right hip, left rib cage, and right wrist. He looked around once more, trying to identify his whereabouts. No luck. He tried to remember circumstances that could have led to his being where he was. No luck again.
“Hell! I mus’ be really plastered, I doan even know whey I deh or how I get hey,” he thought.
He shook his head mournfully.
“I really gat to stop drinkin suh hard. Dis is de limit.”
He wondered what time it was and looked at his left wrist – no watch. He dared a look at his fingers – no rings.
“Damn thieves!” he muttered.
He got up and started dusting his clothes with his bare hands, and noticed for the first time that he was dressed in a black suit, waistcoat and all. He tried to remember the name of the person whose funeral he had attended, but drew a blank. The pain in his head was intense.
“This place stinks,” he thought, and began walking away.
The foul smell followed him like a faithful pup. He’d been walking for nearly half an hour, trying to organise his roving thoughts. But the pain was too much and the sunlight hurt his eyes. He thought about soliciting help from some passerby, but decided against it as he’d probably be reprimanded for being so drunk. The stink was overwhelming and the suit made him feel hot and confined. He felt strangely restricted, as if he were behind bars or in a locked room or something. He asked the time of a passerby, but the man paid him no heed, only wrinkled his nose and increased his pace. He felt hungry, as if he hadn’t eaten for a long time.
“Gotta find food, gotta go home… Home, where is home?” he thought.
He searched his memory for ‘home’ but it didn’t deliver any information. He tried once again to get the time from another passerby. The woman didn’t answer him, didn’t even look at him; she just clutched her nose and hurried away. It was then it hit him, the annoying stink was everywhere he went because it was on him, his clothes.
“That damn dog! He must be do more dan just pee on me. The mangy bastard; gotta get outa these clothes,” he thought, with a growing feeling of panic.
As he walked, questions kept popping into his aching head: Who am I? Where am I? How did I get here? Where do I live? Where do I work? Who is my wife? Do I have a wife? What is her name? Do I have kids? Brothers? Sisters? Mother and father? Who are my friends?
No answers were forthcoming.
He walked on. A big burly man walked into him, nearly knocking him off his feet, and didn’t even say sorry. He just turned up his nose and cursed. He hurled a few expletives at the man’s retreating back and poised himself to run if the guy turned back; but the man paid him no bother. While looking at the man he had carelessly veered off the pavement onto the street. Just in time he saw the speeding car and hopped back onto the pavement. The sudden movement caused a brief moment of clarity in his head and he vaguely remembered a time not so long ago when a speeding car had come around a bend straight at him, and how he’d had to dive to get out of its way.
“Gotta be careful. Seems like dese motorists out to get me. Damn lunatics! Grown men behaving like little boys showing off, as if driving fast and reckless does mek yuh a man.”
He continued on his way. Where to? He didn’t know but he was determined to get there. Seemed like everybody was in a hurry this morning; he’d lost count of the number of persons who’d nearly bumped into him, save for his nimbleness of feet. Every time he made a sudden move, his body ached. He needed to sit down. He needed some food. He noticed a little café tucked in between a fashionable boutique and a popular record bar; a place he’d been to before.
“Not while smelling like this though,” he remonstrated with himself.
He stepped into the café. The place was clean and artistically decorated, and the breakfast smells made him smile and pat his stomach. He walked hesitantly, aware of the stink on him and settled into a seat in a far corner, a fair distance away from any of the other diners. Nevertheless the people around him immediately began to show signs of discomfort. One man opined that a garbage truck must be out front. Another patron said it smelled more like some dead animal, probably a cat or dog that had just burst in a nearby alley. A rough looking guy teased his friend loudly, accusing him of farting; a joke that did not go down well with the other eaters. The owner went over to the guy and with a stern look on her face coolly informed him that her café was meant to be a classy place, and, as such, did not encourage such gross behavior. The guy, crude ignoramus that he was, declared loudly, expletives included, that he was spending his money there and therefore was entitled to talk as he felt fit. The woman flounced away, sensing that the best course of action would be to ignore him.
The pains were getting worse. His eyes felt like they were falling out of his head. His stomach bore a hollowness that he had never felt before. He beckoned to the waitress several times, but she simply ignored him. After half an hour had passed and he hadn’t been served, he got up, and avoiding all eyes and faces, tiredly walked out of the café.
“Can’t blame them,” he thought.
He’d been sitting on the bench in the little park for more than an hour, trying to piece things in his head, but the pieces were slippery bastards, refusing to stay still long enough to fit into place. He felt cold even though the sun was baking hot, and he began to shiver. He felt like crying, not because of the pain, but out of sheer frustration; the feeling of helplessness, the blank spaces in his head that refused to fill, the dark enclosure. His eyes began to droop as sleep crept up on him. He began to dream of flowers and singing voices. He floated on clouds, skydived into oceans, walked through fire, and burrowed through mountains of earth. He was superman, could do anything, but nothing mattered. Time had no meaning. Distance was not measured. Nothing was quantified. Life was not good, because there was no bad to compare it with. Everything simply was. He awoke to the sound of chattering voices. He was feeling even weaker than he’d been before dozing off.
He got up into a sitting position and looked around dazedly at the figures of people going by him in every direction.
“What was the world coming to?” he
wondered. “Can’t anybody see I am sick, don’t anybody care?”
People were just going by him like he was nothing. He remembered pieces of the dream he’d had. He wished that he could be as strong in real life as he’d been in the dream. How wonderful it was to be able to do all those things.
A stray dog came close to him and he wearily shooed it away, not wanting to be peed on and whatever else, again. A young couple came and sat on the bench next to him. They didn’t look happy; he sensed that they had been fighting or something, and had come there to talk it over. They both had items in their hands which they placed on the bench on either side of them – a newspaper included. Within seconds they were shouting and swearing at each other, oblivious to his presence. The young woman was the first to get up, saying that she couldn’t sit there because of the smell. The man tried to pull her back down on the bench, but she broke free and started walking away. The man hastily gathered up their stuff and went after her, leaving the newspaper behind.
He was glad that they had left; his head couldn’t take the shouting. The headline of the newspaper caught his eye and he picked it up. Through bleary eyes he read: Driver in fatal hit and run accident caught. Then, he saw a photograph that looked familiar. Under a smiling picture of himself he saw the word victim. He thought about it, and the more he thought the more he felt panic building up inside his chest, but his heart was calm, not pounding wildly as the situation warranted. The truth hit him hard, like a blow from a sledgehammer to his head. It all came back to him then – the speeding car, his futile leap, the impact, the pain, the darkness.
Vertigo embraced him. His head spun, his eyes grew dark; he knew he was going to faint. The last thought he had before he hit the ground was: “How could a dead man faint?”
