XXXIX | Something To Do
❦
In the storage room
where
all the paints
and brushes
and canvases
are kept,
someone
is already painting.
Humming to herself.
Occasionally,
she’ll speak,
pointing her paintbrush at the canvas,
stabbing it
with Malay curses.
She feels
my eyes on her
and turns to look.
Fatima.
Her paintbrush lowers—
she hands it
to a non-existent servant.
It drops
and turns the floor red.
‘Traitor!’ yells
the self-proclaimed
kaiser
of the asylum.
I stand
as still as possible
in the doorway,
hoping she’ll vanish
like a dream.
(She doesn’t.)
She stands on the stool
she was sitting on.
‘Get out,’
she commands.
Our eyes meet
but she’s not looking at me,
her eyes
see something beyond.
I don’t think
she knows
who I am—my name—where she is, what she’s doing.
So I walk into the room,
(ignoring her)
to get an empty canvas
from the back.
She’s opened
every bottle of paint
and placed them
(in no particular order) around her stool.
I almost kick some over
on my way
to the back
of the storage room.
She’s screaming now,
waving her arms in the air,
asking me
to look at her.
The canvas
is heavier
than I thought it would be,
so I rest it
on an easel
and prepare
to drag it outside.
I won’t be able
to do anything
if I stay here
with this crazy woman.
Fatima
grips the top
of the easel
so I can’t push it out.
I use more strength.
She’s stronger
than she looks.
Her mouth,
curved in a snarl,
eyes
glittering
with
malice.
I push as hard as I can
until I feel
my muscles ache
and Fatima
is using two hands
to stop
me
from ‘taking her things’.
Then I let go
and watch her fall
from her throne
towards me
into the open bottles of paint
that spill
over
the splintering canvas
and breaking easel.
I back away
from the mess
and topple
a bottle of paintbrushes.
Someone’s
come to look
at what’s going on.
How long
has he been standing in the doorway?
Gavin’s eyes are wide
but not surprised.
I’ve been here
much longer than
than you’ve been alive,
I can almost hear him say.
This is nothing.
He turns
abruptly,
disappears.
❦
No one else
comes
to look.
I’m alone
with Fatima
who’s getting soaked to the skin in paint,
unmoving.
I shake her shoulder,
ask if she’s okay,
if she needs help getting up.
No response.
Red paint pools
between my toes
as I lift her hair from her face
to check
if she’s passed out.
Her eyes
meet mine
like a hiding ghost waiting to pounce
and a paint-coated hand
reaches out to scratch me.
I stab at it
with the paintbrush
I find in my hand,
blood-curling screams
drowning out
every other sound.
They continue—
the inhuman screams,
my fight with the hand—
even after
I’ve lost
feeling in my throat.
An alarm begins to blare
through the stone walls of the asylum.
A nurse
steps into
the storage room
to drag me to safety.
I’m lifted up,
feet brushing over
Fatima.
She turns over
and I see
wooden shards
sticking out of her neck,
red paint
pouring out endlessly
from that opening.
I’m pushed backwards,
my arms
feel like they’ve been
wrenched
from their sockets.
More nurses
converge
to where Fatima is.
There’s one in front of me
I vaguely
make out,
telling me stuff—
her mouth moving
in slow-motion,
backing me into a room full of books
I also vaguely
recognise.
Sticky rubber-gloved hands
tighten
around my wrists.
The alarm
continues blaring
without
stopping to breathe.
The nurses
continue multiplying
like maggots
in a dead body
until the storage room
is full to the brim
with them.
I’m enveloped
in a white hug.
It’s okay. It’s okay.
Someone says
over and over.
You don’t need to remember
anything.
❦