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Now I think of it, I know if you’d looked closely you would have seen they were slightly underslept. -that’s not a word-read more…

I can’t tell you the name of the town, but I can tell you it was October. A warm and mild October, the evenings were drawing in, there was a hint of chill in the late afternoon air. I was there on the quayside, looking into the mud at low tide, wondering what it was that drew people here at this time of the year. I wasn’t alone. There were others around me but I seemed to be the only one that saw it.

A great long eel like creature, writhing in the mud. It was mesmerising. I was rugged against the expected cold. I looked at those around me. It seemed to be revelling in the mud, enjoying it. No one else seemed to have spotted it.  It seemed to be there for my sake and mine alone.

I was staying in town, just the week. I hadn’t really noticed that there were a lot of women my age in town, all with sunglasses and caps, an oddity at that time of year. Now I think of it, I know if you’d looked closely you would have seen they were slightly underslept. Too tense, agitated, as if they had an appetite that was unsated. I thought nothing of it at the time.

I went back to my holiday cottage, puzzled by the fact that I was the only one who had seen the creature in the mud. I ate my dinner. Washed up. Went to bed. I don’t remember much beyond that. A strange buzzing in my head, a kind of dull excitement that made sleeping difficult. Dinner hadn’t quite filled me.

But in the darkness, I couldn’t tell you the time, late night, early morning, low tide, I found myself by the quayside. A strange sense of being too early, of the tide not being far enough gone. It didn’t matter. I took off my clothes and walked down the steps. I could hear the water softly lapping, but I wasn’t here for the water.

I laid down in the mud. Without even thinking about it.

I felt it all over me. It was both hot and cold as I sank further into it. I writhed about in it. My whole body thrilled to the sensation of it. It was slippery and wet and I felt delirious joy in its slimy moist stickiness. I rolled and wriggled and laughed out loud. I sighed and screamed and whored myself to it. Sated, eventually. I got up and went home.

I had the good sense to shower before going to bed. I slept, at first the sleep of angels and then the restless sleep of an appetite that could not be met in the daylight hours. I donned cap and glasses and stalked the town. Like everyone else.

The next night, I did the same again. I knelt at first and covered myself in the mud and then I lay down and writhed and screamed and hollered my enjoyment. And I was not alone. There were others, other women, doing the same as me. We did not touch each other. We did not speak to each other. Each of us existed and acted alone, screaming mud fuelled ecstasy into the darkness.

It ought to have woken half the town. But no one came to watch. I was only to stay a week, but I begged another week from the landlady. By day I wandered through the town, a ghost. By night, I rolled and played in its muddy foreshore, happier at that moment than I have ever been, either before or since.

By the third week and tired of the mud, the landlady, accustomed no doubt to such strange behaviour, took me to the woodshed. There was a bed, browned sheets and a heater. I stayed there. I did not eat. I could not sleep. I longed for the night time, for the mud, its warmth, its coolness, its slimy, sticky covering. Every night, the same compulsion drove me to the shore, to luxuriate in its murky wetness. Every morning, the hunger and longing came again.

And then one day, just like that-the wrong tide, a different moon, the spell broke. I slept and awoke, hungry, dirty-covered in mud. Horrified, I showered, ate, left.  Leaving the sunglasses and cap on the bed. I have never been back. I cannot explain it. I wait for the hunger to come again.

I am lonely, here in the wall, please read to me?..read more

I can’t remember when it started. I do remember how it started. I got up one night to use the toilet. And there it was.  On the wall. A shadow. Specifically the shadow of a child. No actual child casting the shadow. It was the middle of the night but light enough for a shadow because we always left the outside light on. It shone through the panelled glass door so that we could see our way to the bathroom. And there on the wall, in the half light, a shadow. It was playing. Skipping. In a world of its own. I was intrigued but I needed the toilet more.

Then the next night again, there it was. I went and stood before it. Not close, against the stairwell. Again the next night. I watched some more and then one night.  It stopped. It stopped what it was doing and turned to face me. I couldn’t make out any face but I knew it was facing me. It was just a shadow. A dark shape on the wall.

It seemed curious. About me. Again the next night, it seemed sad. So I did what every mother would do. At 3am in the morning I read it a book. It seemed comforted. It slumped to the bottom of the wall and lay sleeping. I went back to bed.

Still I didn’t go near it. I sat across from it. Out of reach, but every night, 3am I got up to go to the bathroom and I read a book to the shadow, just a picture book. It didn’t take very long. I never went near the wall, I just felt I needed a distance. Instinct. I must have done that for two or three years, read a book every night. The interrupted sleep was difficult. My husband thought I was mad. He just couldn’t seem to see it. There was no shadow for him. Just a wall.

It grew, over time, the shadow grew, got older, bigger, like a child growing. The books got longer and more complex. In 2013 I did the entirety of Harry Potter-all of it. Sitting down and reading to the shadow over a series of nights. About an hour each night, sometimes more, often more.  

I didn’t understand it. It seemed to get more demanding. Somehow. More down cast every time I stopped and soon I was reading for 2 hours, then four and the toll on my voice, the lack of sleep. Did I say my husband couldn’t see it? He must have left about that time. I stayed on, a devoted mother.

The lack of sleep was consuming me but there was no way to stop. I kept reading to it every night. But I never went near it. I stayed away from it physically. After awhile I never even vacuumed near that wall, I didn’t want to wake it in the day. Soon we were into modern fiction and I was reading the Booker-out loud. I never meant for it to happen.

I went to bed early, got up in the middle of the night and read to the shadow. It never said anything, it couldn’t. It just sat there and listened. I never went very close to that wall. Did I say that already? Ever. I think I never really felt comfortable in its presence. I was attached to it, obligated, but still- fretful.

And then one night I did. I just went closer.

All I really remember is a loud sound, like a bang and feeling sticky all over. Like I was caught under the wall paper. And I could see him. I could see him as a real three dimensional person, walking into my bathroom, a whole human fully formed. He dressed himself in something my husband had left behind. He rifled through my bag and he left the house. Out into the night. He never returned.

I can’t see myself to tell you what I look like now. In the light that shines through the glass panels I know I am visible. In the night. I wait. There are new people who have moved in. I wait for the night. For that person to get out of bed at that exact moment, to see me. I have practiced it. Planned it.  And I know.

I know.  You’re reading this. I know you know. You know which wall I mean. I know how you try not to look my way at night. I was like that once too. But I am lonely, here in the wall, please read to me?

I know what you’re thinking. If you find the bones of a human hand in the raised bed of the house you rent, you should…read more

I remember it clearly. I had decided on planting a herb garden in the raised beds on the patio out the back. It was not long after my mother had died. She had always wanted a herb garden. The garden beds had been completely unused since I arrived. I had turned the soil that day and was looking at it from the kitchen window. I could see something snowy white in the blackness of the soil. It pricked my curiosity. Then I ate dinner and forgot about it.

I live alone.

I went to the work the next day and somewhere, somehow that fragment of an idea crossed my mind. So when I went home, I went out to the raised bed and I dug around it. That little piece of white. It was not as white as I remembered, more a cream, perhaps it was how the evening light had caught it.

I rent this place.

It was a bone. How odd? A bone. I dug a bit more. There were more pieces, more fragments. I kept digging and by the end, I had all the bones for a human hand. I had found the skeleton of a whole human hand. I know what you’re thinking. If you find the bones of a human hand in the raised bed of the house you rent, you should…

I didn’t.

I took it inside. I gently washed the dirt off it, just like I had seen on that forensics show on the telly. I even got out an old toothbrush for effect. I felt like an archaeologist. I wished I’d had a white coat. I told myself I had not found a whole body, just a hand and what was the harm in keeping it. The next day I went shopping.

I bought a box.

A glass one, clear on all sides, I searched skeletons and I laid out the bones exactly as they should be in the box and then put it on the shelf. I ate dinner. I watched the telly. I tried not to look at it. But it was like- it was calling me. After all, this hand, hadn’t it stretched up from somewhere deep in the soil below to find me. Hadn’t it sprung through the soil of its own volition into my field of view.

Sometimes.

I took it out and sat it on my knee and stroked it. That hand that belonged to someone else. That elegant fleshless skeletal ornament. It was quite beautiful. Then suddenly the lease finished. What to do, the herb garden was thriving. I pulled up what I could to take with me. I packed my things into boxes. It was late summer, time to move on. All the time, there was the box with the hand, on the shelf. The hand that had given me so many nights of comfort in front of the telly. But it was someone else’s hand.

So I left it.

In the box.

On the shelf.

When I moved out.

Because it wasn’t mine. Because the next person might be lonely too. And I think that’s how I came to be here, people say. They say such bad things.

I see him on the platform as the train pulls into the station. I wished the train didn’t stop here. Still there he is, shaved head caught in the morning lights. It’s still dark outside.  Why this morning? I am tired. He gets on the train, sees me, makes his way this way and not that way. He sits on the seats across the aisle from me.

Tattoos, hair cut so close to the skin it’s barely there, the over done muscles, track pants, the whole package. I make myself smaller. I want to be invisible.  He carries an air of menace with him, as if he’s wearing it as a coat. It pervades the carriage-look at me. Look how tough I am. He might as well be sitting on every seat. Entitlement mixed with resentment and disappointment at life. We all know how that turns out.  And  there is just him and me in this carriage.

I look at my bag-on the seat next to me, my gloves beside it. It’s cold. I pick up my gloves. I do it to soothe myself. I toy with them The gloves are a gift from my mother. They are pastel pink. They aren’t quite proper gloves. They have no fingers, I’m sure that has a name.

He stares. For the first time I think he really notices me. He is looking at my legs. Unnerving.  He looks at my bag. It is expensive. I don’t mind if he takes my bag. It’s everything else I am worried about.  My stomach churns. I feel the soft fur of my gloves. Soothing me. A contrast to the harshness of his eyes, his whole demeanour.

He is much bigger than I am. He is taking up more space than me. He is just staring at me. At my shoes. My legs. I put my gloves on. A further act of reassurance. He looks away. Looks back again.  At  me. I want to scream, stop looking,  you don’t have the right to just look every time you want. I try to look bigger now, more confident.

Oddly then he looks away. A victory for me but also a flash of something else there, something I didn’t get.

I toy with my gloves nervously. They are pale pink, did I say that already?  Fringed with fluffy fur and a tassel to tighten or loosen them. It doesn’t actually do either. They don’t exactly scream-‘martial arts expert who could whip your butt in a fight.’ On the other hand that is not me so they are honest. I have no idea why my mother sent them to me, they are not really ‘me’ in any event. I am somewhere in between the pom-pom lover with scented candles in the bath and the martial arts expert. I’m not exactly sure where on that spectrum though. I let other people judge that by looking at my hand bag. But I do love these gloves.

He is looking out the window now. Having devoured me with his eyes he is now looking away. I hope he is embarrassed. He isn’t. I know he isn’t. There is something else there though. Something I didn’t catch. What is he thinking? He can’t be thinking I could put up much resistance. I tell myself I could, but I know I couldn’t.

I look at my phone, wonder if I should call someone. I go through my bag for my keys. All the time he is taking quick glances back at me. I start to worry even more. I can’t read the situation. There is something else going on. I mustn’t panic. I try and keep my hands still, sit them calmly in my lap.

Its then I clock it. He is not. Not completely looking  at me. His phone rings. He grunts into it, some macho bullshit conversation and all the time he is staring into my lap. But not at me. I move my hands. I move them again. The tassel tie flipping about as I put my hands through my hair. Dear god why did I do that? Am I trying to tell him I am interested? Dear God I am terrified. That was stupid. My hands are just fidgeting now, trying to stop the shake and all the time he is watching them. My hands, but not my hands. 

I am not mistaken.

I am not mistaken.

I repeat the words in my head. It is not me that he is looking at. Not me that he is interested in.

He is looking at the gloves.

He is looking at the gloves.

I repeat the thought, calmly. Panic dissipates. Confusion. I take them off. I put them on the seat beside my bag. He is still looking at them. He is leaning back taking up more space but he keeps glancing at my gloves.

His call ends. Mr ‘he-man’ hang up his phone.  Our eyes catch. Lock. Its momentary. I see it then. The something else. The unspoken something else. I look at the gloves. I love those gloves. I mean my Mum-I love them for that reason alone. Still he looks at them. Then at me. At my eyes, into my eyes. Pleading.

I try and look righteous. I have no idea why. I love these gloves. A man like that, no matter how much he wants them, can never buy these gloves, can never own these gloves. Not even for his girlfriend. He can’t do that. These gloves, these beautiful gloves are out of his reach. I am trying to think it through. It’s my stop next. These are my gloves but those eyes, that plea. He could never wear them, they wouldn’t fit. But he can never own them either. This is his only chance. A world utterly forbidden, pastel pink, fur and tassels.

I stand. I pick up my bag. I leave them. I just leave the gloves there. On the seat. I can see the seat. I can see them on the seat. My mother would understand I tell myself.

I see him reach out. I look away. I look back. They are gone. He has gone to the other end of the carriage to get off.

I don’t look. I get off the train and walk straight ahead.

My hands are cold. I am warmed.

My coffee is talking to me. Its telling me to run. This faceless man across from me. Where did I meet him, a dating app, a friends friend. My recollection has dissipated into my coffee. It is telling me to run. I should run. He does have a face. I am just here being polite. I owe him nothing.

My coffee-its telling me to run. Not obviously. Not out loud. Its just the way I am focussed on finishing it that says-run. I wonder what would happen if I sprang up, jumped over the table, leapt over him and legged it.

He might not notice. He keeps talking. I stare into the murky brown. There is no point disputing it. He is wearing a jumper the same colour as a milky coffee. Run. There is no choice. Run. He keeps talking. He doesn’t even seem aware I am not interested. For a moment I think I will start to pull faces to see if he notices. Is he absorbed in himself? Is he talking because he is nervous?

I see the waitress look at me. She knows. I feel her sympathy oozing out towards me. It’s her job and as soon as I finish this coffee, she will have to offer me a second. I know it, she knows it. She looks distraught. He has barely noticed there is someone else in the room. He just keeps talking about himself. I’m sure he’s wonderful but I am not listening. At least not to him.

I am listening to my coffee and it is saying, ‘Run’.  

I look at my bag. I know I should walk. It would be polite to walk. It will be odd to run. I can feel myself smiling. I have only 30 seconds left on this coffee, otherwise it’s a second one. I can’t do a second one. The waitress looks at me. She is near the door. She knows. She has seen it all before. I have to run. I feel the words form in my head. My  legs. My legs are thinking the deed. I want to run. My coffee says run. He is still talking. I can’t even remember what he is saying.

I grab my bag. Fling a fiver on the table. And I literally-run. I see the waitress ahead of me, our eyes lock as she flings open the door. I run. I fling off my heels.  I keep running.  And it feels good.