Writing for Fun
February 2017
Another World - Anne Wilson
Bending over and peering at me, she smiles. It’s a nice, reassuring smile – one that makes me feel safe and secure. Words spoken with lips that open and close make me suppress an urge to chuckle. I don’t know why I find them so funny. I don’t even know what they mean, but I can’t seem to stop the reaction. I smile back instead, but I’m not sure if she’s noticed – not properly. I want her to. She seems lovely and I feel drawn towards her and crave her attention in a way that I don’t understand. I want to touch her.
She turns away and suddenly I find I’m angry. Why isn’t her attention still on me? She seems to be talking to someone else now. I can’t see the other person from where I am and I struggle for a better view. She’s speaking differently to this person. I can hear it clearly. Her voice doesn’t go up and down as it does with me; it’s more serious, more even. The other person is speaking back to her, but in a much deeper tone than and it sounds harsh to my ears. They start to ache.
Tears fill my eyes, but I can’t wipe them away. They roll down my face but no-one helps me. If I start to breathe in deeply and she can hear me crying and see my body heave, then she may come to me. I try, but nothing happens. I’m really angry now. They’re still talking to each other and she’s ignoring me. I see something by my side. I pick it up and using all the strength I have I can just about lift it into the air. With one jerking movement it seems to drop out of my hand and it falls out of sight. Suddenly I see her bending down to pick something up.
She leans over me again and I can see that she’s shaking the thing I dropped, which makes a funny noise. I laugh, so she shakes it again, this time closer to my face. Suddenly I’m being lifted into the air and dangled in front of her. Soft lips touch my forehead.
I will someday grow up to experience the real world; one which will not be as nice as this. Please let me stay this way. I love being in another world.
Bending over and peering at me, she smiles. Her voice is soft; persuasive even and I feel as if she’s speaking to a child rather than a young man. I feel a contradictory mixture of security and anger. Safe, but at the same time insulted by the tone and the underestimation of my capabilities.
I blink, but it evokes no reaction from her, so I blink again. Nothing.
I try to move, but my whole body seems as if it’s weighted down and belongs to someone else who’s not a part of me, with me as a spectator. But it is mine. I know every inch, every contour. I don’t know the uniformed woman, though, and her close proximity begins to unnerve me. The room feels hot and I can feel trickles of sweat running down my brow, but when I try to lift my arm to mop them away, it remains resolutely by my side. I try to raise it again and in my failure to do so I shout out; or at least I think I do. No-one seems to hear me. Is my voice even audible? I don’t know and really start to panic.
It seems to me that my head, at least, is twisting and turning from side to side and she must have obviously noticed my discomfort because she mops my brow, uttering more soothing words. I’m completely baffled.
Why am I here and why can’t I move?
I realise I’m in bed but I’m not in my usual room and that other people are standing beside the uniformed lady. Do I know them? Yes, I think I do. There’s a young woman and an older couple who look familiar. They all have brows furrowed with worry, which strikes me, even in my current predicament, as faintly ridiculous. Occasionally, they turn to look at each other, muttering quietly as they do so and I strain to hear what is being said. What’s the use of asking them to speak up? They won’t hear me. No one can hear me.
Something suddenly flashes through my mind; barely perceptible at first but enough to jolt me into recognition. I am lifting my arms as if to block out something coming towards me. Lights dazzle me until I’m almost blinded by them and I can hear a screeching sound in the distance. Then, absurdly I appear to be turning over and over until eventually I arrive the right way up. I can remember no more and find that I don’t want to. I scream out, or think I do but the faces before me remain concerned rather than alarmed. Obviously, I cannot be heard by them and there’s nothing I can do to let them know that I’m here, still a part of their lives, still the same person.
I know now that I am in a no-man’s land, unable to move or communicate my thoughts and feelings to others and with no ability to alter it.
Please don’t let me stay this way. I hate being in another world.
Bending over and peering at me, she smiles. I’m sure I’ve seen her before but I can’t quite place her, this woman stroking my hair and talking about what I’ve just had to eat for lunch. I smile as if I really care and it seems to please her. She then seats herself in a chair opposite me and talks non-stop so that I don’t have to bother speaking at all, which pleases me.
Names tumble from her lips – some of them half familiar, yet all from what seems an eternity ago. I hear what they’ve all been doing, what they will be doing and what they hope to do if it’s at all possible and there’s money available to it with. All of it trivial but recounted to me as if it’s terribly important. They seem to matter to her, these people, and if it pleases her to tell me about them, then I’m quite happy to listen. I’m not going anywhere, after all and she seems so nice.
She clutches my hand in an intimate gesture which makes me draw back involuntarily and it seems to upset her. Tears fill her eyes and I don’t understand why because we really don’t know each other all that well and I would never let anyone touch me that way unless I cared about them. She starts to fiddle with a ring on her finger, turning it round and round in an agitated fashion which communicates itself to me so that I shout at her and tell her not to come back. She’s disturbing my afternoon and I won’t be able to rest now because of it. It’s not fair.
Minutes elapse in silence and I wish she would go, but she still sits there, gazing into space and occasionally sighing deeply. She looks at her watch several times and I can’t understand why. Am I boring her? If so, why is she here? She does look lovely and I’m sure we’ve met before, but I can’t recall where. She seems much older than I remember, though. Is she older than me?
No-one tells me how old I am any more and I don’t exactly know but I seem to remember being in this same room with a sponge cake covered in white icing and candles and trying to blow them out whilst other people laughed. I’m sure one of the other people there was someone she mentioned when she came in. Someone who was going away to study something which could cost everyone a lot of money over the years and who might never be able to pay it back. Is it the same person? It’s not very clear and I’m feeling tired and confused now and looking forward to my tea.
Suddenly she stands up and I have to admit that I’m a bit sorry to see her go. She says she’ll come back and pay me another visit shortly and that feeling pleases me for a reason I can’t really understand.
Right now I like being in another world.