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Shorts
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| Being normal | |
| By ellyb39 | ||||||||||||
| 30 September 2006 | ||||||||||||
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The dust motes blinking in the light of the front door seemed less agitated today. I knew then it was going to be a good day. The mat was where I had left it, sedately laying on top of the shiny laminate floor. My shoes quietly waiting polished and ready. Sun shining through the door as I completed my rituals, my saviours, touching certain places, checking all the signs. Then I could leave the flat. Knowing that all the tins were aligned, that all the cushions faced one way, that the curtains had no crumples or untidy misalliance. On the way to the office I checked the cars, no red ones, and another good sign. The bus came and nobody got too close to me. In the clinic they taught me to breathe and adjust my vision to avoid the things that made me panic, to send my mind to another place so that I could deal with all the decisions sent to me by the universe. Travel is a nightmare with the traffic lights blinking on and off, phones ringing and worst of all people saying things. They want responses which I can not give. They talk about the weather, the queues, they laugh and frown. I try to respond correctly but sometimes they look at me oddly, quizzically and even nervously. I can function. I told my therapist I could. I can live in the real world, if only I can keep the other one at bay. Every hour can be a challenge, especially today, I had only started the job yesterday, and it had gone well. In the huge hanger of an office I was an anonymous cog in a small cubicle. I could put my head down and concentrate on the work. I can do it, I can. I am not frightened of a lot of things, some of my friends are petrified of odd things, like black beards (that’s called pogognophobia you know) Joanne had that, she could not possible have worked for my boss, he has a great big beard, but I quite like it. I am normal you see. Some people even scream when they see spiders. I like spiders they help me to make decisions and choices. Their shining webs holding them steadily. I even like the rats I see at night scampering over the waste ground at the back of my flat. I leave them bread; sometimes I even go and feed them. Today here in the office the bright fluorescent lights shine down, flickering on the screen and making everything flat. My work is straightforward, even a bit boring, but I can do it. All day I work hard earning my money like everyone else. I can hear them chatting but I can blank them out if I try. I look at the figures, they add up, they work. I immerse myself in them making them match, marching across my screen in neat rows. Luckily for me our uniform is a round necked tee-shirt with ins.com written across it. Not very flattering for somebody with as big a bust as me but I don’t care. The girl in the cubicle next to me has long dark hair and a pretty smile. She wears a very short skirt with her tee shirt, she has big jewellery on and long nails, I am terrified of her. She has been trying to catch my eye today, smiling openly, not the twitching looks of the people in the clinic; she does no rocking or tapping, no inappropriate words. That’s what some of them do there you know. They are unpredictable in that clinic; I think some of them are quite mad. Not me. I am normal, I don’t twitch or rock, just occasional episodes, and Doctor Ben (he told me to call him that, he sounds like a TV character, but really he is a little fat bloke) tells me I can deal with them now. Anyway back to today, she seems quite nice really. The day wears on. I eat my sandwiches at the desk, from the left side of the box first and two bites at a time. Carry on work until 5 o’clock when every one starts to switch off the screens, clattering around rustling papers, and turning off printers. I stretch and start collecting my things. Coat on first then bag on left arm. Check pen is placed in the right place and screen facing at a certain angle. Hang on she is talking to me. This is what she is saying. ‘What a day, I hate this crap job. How are you getting on? ‘She grins her lipstick is on her front tooth, does she know? I smile back. I am having a talk with her, this is good. ‘Fancy a drink in the wine bar, I’ m just about parched, come on ‘she grabs my arm, ‘come with me we’ll make friends.’ I smile again and she pulls me down through the room past all the blank screens and the empty chairs, they look at me, Liz, with a friend going for a drink after work. I bet they are surprised. Those chairs look surprised. In the wine bar I am sitting on a high stool next to a long bar. I am drinking a cocktail, yes, me. My shoes rest on the bar of the stool and I ignore the speck of dirt on them. At first I have to breathe deeply but now I am fine. She is yelling over the music, her name is Shelley, she is telling me about her broken marriage, and I look sympathetic. I try to make my face have the right expression. I must be doing the right thing because she tells me more, all about her life, her friends. We have another drink, I give her the money and she orders it. Her face is red now and my eyes feel funny. I push my glasses up my nose and wipe my lips. That is when it happens. She puts her cardigan down on the bar and I can feel it coming. I start to choke, I am panicking, she is staring at me, they are all looking but somewhere I remember Doctor Ben, and I ask her to move her cardigan, and I explain why. I am calm now; I tell her the truth, that is what they told me to do. She looks unbelieving ‘you’re winding me up’ she says. ‘Buttons, who could be scared of buttons?’ Who indeed. I explain that some people are frightened of all kinds of things, why surely she is scared of something? ‘yeah rats spiders and stuff like that, heights, wow, I could tell you what happens if a mouse comes in my house, I freak out…’and she goes on to tell me a long rambling tale about a mouse in her kitchen. I tell her my phobia has a name, proudly almost, it’s kompounophobia, but most people call it button phobia. I am very knowledgeable about my phobia. That was how they taught you to deal with it. They said knowledge was power and I had to be powerful in my life. I am trying hard. She is being really nice about my problem. We have more drinks and I am enjoying myself; I like her, she is kind. She does not seem to notice that I am copying her. I watch and do what she does so that I am the same. As I walk back to the bus stop the world seems a much better place. I am happy, I have a friend and a job and I am walking home from work with all the other people on my own in charge. The days pass by and I see Shelley every day, sometimes we have a drink and sometimes she has to meet a boy. She meets a lot of boys. They like her skirts and her low cut tops and she tells me about them. She likes to talk even if I don’t say much. She does not ask about me in the evening. She likes to sit on the edge of some people’s desks and lay her head back and laugh. She got in to trouble the other day and our supervisor shouted at her. She didn’t care though and said he was a ‘tosser’. I laughed too but did not really know why. She likes the guy in the end cubicle, he recoils away when she sits on his desk, his face flushes red and he does not look up but she carries on anyway. She tells him jokes that make him blush even more and look very uncomfortable. She shrieks with laughter at her own wit and comes back to her desk winking at me and giggling. I feel a bit sorry for him really. Then this evening she went to the dentist and I could see him at my cubicle. He is actually asking me out for a drink with him. I shake, can I go? He looks so scared, I know how he feels. So here we are in much quieter place than I go with Shelley. I can actually hear what he is saying. He asks me where I live and I tell him. He is very quiet. He lives with his mum; he is the same age as me. I am amazed at myself. They would be so proud of me, sitting here with a man, talking and drinking. I tell him about my button problem and he is kind and understanding. He is frightened of snakes, he hates them and had to have hypnotherapy because he had nightmares. I feel drawn to him with his shy ways and his gentle smile. He asks me to meet him the next day. I tell Shelley at lunchtime the next day when she brings her chair over to my cubicle to tell me about her date last night with the married bloke from accounts. Her face changes and she is ugly. It contorts and she hisses at me ‘you knew I fancied him. What can he want with you..? You knew I liked him!’ ‘But Shelley…I stammer, ‘you like all the boys’ ‘So now I’m a tart am I? ‘Her face is twisted with rage she is almost spitting. ‘Why you stupid weirdo, keep away from me’ My heart is racing and tears trickle down my cheeks. I pull my chair into my cubicle and carry on with my work. I know that when I get home I will have to spend all night rearranging the tins and scrubbing the floor now. She keeps glaring at me in a hatefilled way. I am only just holding it together. I am so glad when it is time to go home. She hasn’t spoken to me now for a week. Darren (that is his name) has taken me out after work twice now. I wait until she is gone. She is giggling about me to the others but I don’t care, I am used to that. I am having problems keeping the pencils aligned on my desk. My hands keep getting dirty as well and I have to keep rubbing them with wet wipes, I see her watching me. I like Darren though. He likes music as well. He and I chat away about books and art. He never wears shirts since I told him. He held my hand yesterday and it felt all right. I want to touch his crimply hair and stroke his long nose. He wants me to meet his mum. She screamed when she saw the spiders. They fell out when she opened her drawer. They scattered black blots on the table scratchy legs, panicking looking for shelter. The supervisor told her not to be so silly, and she fanned herself with paper until she was calmer. One of the men cuddled her and she liked that. I kept on working and pretended not to notice. Darren said later that she liked the attention and was a thrill seeker. He is frightened of her. The spiders were there again the next day and this time she jumped up and knocked her coffee over on the keyboard, she was in big trouble then. By the time the supervisor came the spiders had run into the cracks in the floor or under the desk and the keyboard was ruined. She had to report to the big office. Her face was all blotchy when she came back. Darren says that she could get the sack or letting her go they call it. She has been pretty quiet for the last week. She has not been flirting round the office and has got on with her work. She ignores me as if I am a table or a chair. She has another friend now to go to the wine bar, a girl at the end of the row, she joins her and they march out of the room, confident and proud red lips proclaiming their way. Darren says I had a lucky escape from her. It was this morning when the worst happened. She became completely hysterical and screamed and screamed. Her mouth was frothing and she jumped up on a chair, she could not seem to speak. Everyone came running to her and she pointed at the empty drawer…’RAT’ she yelled. They all looked, the place was disrupted, women panicking and some of the men. They were shivering and looking really scared. I carried on typing. Rats don’t worry me do they? Nobody could find the rat. The supervisor was really cross this time. She was called into the office again and this time when she came out she was crying and had a cardboard box with her. She had to pack all her things up. She glared at me but I didn’t say goodbye. This afternoon I asked Darren to move all the buttons she had been putting in my desk. I had such a job to work for the last few weeks, they made me so scared. I thought I would stop breathing when I saw the first few that she had put there. I had to double my medication last week when she put them in my bag and under the keyboard. I knew it was her. She had looked at me as I could not breathe. Years of hiding helped me then. I had shaken and shaken for an hour when I accidentally touched one. They are foul nasty things and they make my blood run cold. I put my hand in my pocket on the way home and stroked the rat,. He is quite tame now, it has taken quite a few weeks to train him to come to me. Darren is taking me out tonight. I love my new life. It is great to be normal.
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