AVANTIKUMAR

I wrote the first draft below when I was about thirteen. Later, the BBC produced a radio drama version for Radio 3. Your feedback is welcome.

THE NOOSE
by
AVANTI KUMAR

My Medical Experience has Convinced Me that Drunkenness is Bad for People

- Eryximachus - Plato’s Symposium 416 B

***

September 8. London.

- Is he awake yet?
- Wasn’t ten minutes ago. Least I don’t think he was.
- Oh yeah…Just lying on the bunk, was he…staring up at the ceiling. Not saying a word, not a whisper of a noise.
- Yes, “they’re” not usually like that. Usually, they’re a noisy lot. I hear some people can sleep with their eyes open. I always think, you know…madmen. Napoleon and all that.
- Lets come back later - when we have to - when they want him upstairs…He gives me the cold slithers.
- Okeydoke. Hope they get him into some place else - for good.

The voices fade away. You can’t help but hear every thing. All sounds echo and amplify in this place.

At the moment; I am inspecting the ceiling, meticulously.

It is dirty-white.

And I am Thinking. I was never asleep. I never sleep. I am in Thought. You can tell by the sound my Brain makes…a distant melody from a flute.

A sound which never stops because it never started.

There is a clatter of doors closing, a long way off; the echoes bounce off the high ceiling and blank walls.

I do not like to be disturbed when I think. I close my self off. In my own private cell. Room enclosed within room.

I get up and and drink from the tap and straighten up. I peer at my reflection. In the mirror. A flat piece of scratched metal screwed into the wall.

My face is dirty-brown. But my hair is straight. My nose is straight. You could take me for a brown and not a black.

I used to watch my body, incessantly, as a baby - my momma told me.

I don’t like my face; I hate my body. Boring. Boring. So I lie back down. After a time. I lie back…and watch my Mind now. I love the inner sounds. Soothing. Cleansing. Comforting. Much more fascinating.

I like the way thoughts emerge, whirl up. Little fountains of light. I can see them all; misty creatures.

The inner realm they call it. Inside, there is a space as big as the universe. Thoughts appear from nowhere and everywhere. And I can see them all. I can feel people’s minds. Can see the thoughts seeping out of the bellies of my friends when I talk to them. Misty creatures. I knew what they meant. I cannot be fooled. I know what they really thought. Of me.

Now. It takes all my time.

Merely watching my mind. No time for tit. No time for chit-chat.

***

- Bail refused.

The hammer blow held my attention.

Ooohh….That was a sickly-green-bitter cold one…don’t like the quality of his thought at all.

I feel hundreds thousands millions of faces look my way. They stare. In a humanoid manner.

An elderly ebony woman comes towards me from out of a mist.

She must think I know her. She keeps calling me “son”. But I don’t think that’s my name.

She must be mad.

Then I move my mouth for the first time since they grabbed me.

No sound. I can make no sound. My mouth moves - but no cry. I shake as an icy thought-ball fires up through the centre of my spine. Thought of fear.

***

Now I’m back in here. Waiting. This place has the smell of stale piss and ancient boiled cabbage.

Why am I here?

I must think about this. A ponder on this matter is the order of the moment.

The door slams open, against the wall, and footsteps approach so slowly towards me.

Those men who think I sleep too much take hold of a body.

My body.

- Someone wants to see you.
- Come on, you.

***

-Hello, son.

This other room is not so blank, not so small, not so dark as my cell. A small table in the centre. Metal grilles at the windows. Different smell. A smell of stale dead fear-sweat.

I sit my body down. The grappling hands leave me. I look across at the man.

Look at him, eyes.

- Son…get your act together. Tell me exactly what happened.

- Snap out of it!

The nasty man who brought me here brings his hands together quickly. Four sharp claps.

- Leave us, Pringle.

The nasty man leaves.

This chair feels hard.

- You can talk just to me, son. Tell me now.

I’m trying. I am trying very hard. There’s this mind-screen in here. I’ll go deeper into my mind. The mind-screen is leather-soft. It’s hiding a small cluster of cells on the right hand side of the brain.

And I am trying, really hard, to pierce it.

So I can remember everything. Find my way out again. Back out there. Or here. Or wherever everyone else lives. I’ll find out why I’m where I am.

There is a core deep inside me where there are no raw feelings, no emotions. I can escape.

All that I like to do is to watch my self. I know everything that has gone before. Teachers used to say things…

…Retentive memory…
…Marvellous mind…
…brilliant…such a nice quiet boy…
…hardly makes a sound…
…quiet…not a word…

There is this screen here, though.

It covers over a few hours of life that I feel I should remember.

I am trying very hard.

- Your friends say it was you. Your friends blame you. Your friends have been released. You’ve got to tell me everything. The truth. Otherwise they’ll keep you in here for a long time.

Don’t you think I want to remember. Want to know exactly what happened. I want to know why even more though. I like to get beneath the surface layers of things. I like to watch the motivation behind all thoughts. Interesting. Fascinating. I’ve always wanted to be a psychiatrist. And sit on the other side of the table.

- You are in real big trouble. Do you understand that? I’m a doctor. I can help you, son.

The man pushes his glasses further down the bridge of this nose, and leans towards me. His face distorts and fills the whole of my vision, from horizon to horizon.

- You are seriously in trouble.

I hope that I’m not. It’s all a mistake. And if you’re my friend, doctor - then let me alone to think.

There’s a spinning pain just behind my forehead - I’m concentrating harder than ever before.

If you do it right you get pictures…in colour. In sound. Close my eyes…Be still. Concentrate. Think. Concentrate…then you you will be able to contemplate.

***

Back in the cell. I can hear voices.

- I reckon it’s drugs.
- Don’t think so.
- Well he’s not said a word. Not natural. Doubt if he’s even heard a thing that’s been said to him. Not natural. Doesn’t even recognise his girlfriend.
- Shock. Gone bonkers. Clean out. That’s all. Seen it before.
- This bad?

If only they knew. That I was saner than any of them. I could - think. I could see - thoughts. I had beaten them all to it.

***

-Suspend…pending further…psychiatric reports…history of…sanity…

Wooden benches in court are hard too. The dock wall is so high I have to stretch my neck to see whose voice keeps fading in and out of my brain. Something strange is happening. I can’t hear everything that goes on.

I can see mouths opening and closing and twisting, quite plainly. Must be too busy. Thinking and trying to break into this memory cluster. I am detaching. Pluperfectly.

- Let me help…Last chance…all about it…asylum…no, treatment
home…special treatment…

Retreat into the brain.

They think the brain is grey and wet. It isn’t.

It’s violet and soft. Like deep space.

Sparkles of colour ecplode here and there. The cells light up as the mind activates the brain…a perfect computer.

My body seems to be moving in a moving room. They’re moving the carcass that holds the brain that contains the mind that holds me. I am a small spot of light.

A person is a spot of brilliant light that sits in the body and movs it
through, touching people, holding life.

I just got a little lost is all.

At last. It is time. I’ve found a way in through the screen. The memory-cell is vulnerable right at this point, just here. I’ll penetrate it.

I’m beginning to see now.

There was a party.

Exams over, college finished for summer. Neil throws a party to celebrate. Celebrate being adults.

-…I can get you out, says the doctor. Back to your parents…Home..back to that girl of yours…what a doll - remember?

The friend means Nancy.

Nancy. Not exactly my Juliet. Not the pedestal princess I dreamt of at twelve. But what I do get is a girl with white willing tangible flesh. Eyes that go liquid at the right time. And skin with the smell of the soft-life.

- I thought you were tired, Nancy says.

-Take it off, I say, in the time I used to have a voice.

- Winstanley!

I once told her that she smelt like rose-petals.

I admit, though, secretly, that she’s not rose-soft, just skin-soft.
Nicely-proportioned - I’ll give you that.

But then ninety per cen of seventeen year old nymphets are bodyripe; look around. She’s nineteen now, I think.

And at the party I couldn’t take my eyes off.

I was thinking, pretty vividly, some ultra-pleasant thoughts about her.

Usually I don’t like disco-parties. You have to go there to play a game. Dance ten feet apart and see how long you can keep your hands off; growing crazy watching something erotic twitch and root for attack. Last one to grab, wins. I’m a born loser there.

This dress that Nancy wore had cunning splits engineered into it. It hugged her thighs and the satin material sprakled in the pulsing lights.

-Come on have another drink, Winstanley!

Neil, the genial host. We chatted and drank ourselves into the mood.

Dark vague shapes turned and twisted. Twin monster teak-boxes thud out the disco-cipher. A new dance - twitch and roll.

I can see the lights. I am there right now. Re-living. There is only the Now in the brain; there is no past tense.

The music changed. A quiet dance. Nancy presses up close, at last.

And a familiar alcohol mist crept up my legs. It fawned for few moments.

And then it embraced me whole.

I was free.

My hands for the message. With cunning intensity they began to arouse a surrender from her softest zones. Her hair cuddled my cheek and I open my eyes for a look-round.

Most couples, dancing happy. But not Neil and Julie.

They were in each other’s arms and that, but Mick Lankey is limping drunk around them, says:

- Just one dance.

-Go away, Julie repeats.

Not many people like Lankey.

As for me, the first time I saw him, his nose made my ind up.

He has this pecualiar nose.

Ever see a nose that was proud of itself?

You’ll agree that noses are ugly things, generally. Noses are things that have no right to be proud. They should hang there unobtrusively. Sort of limp and sorry they had to be around at all. Nancy’s nose was better than most. Least it had a better excuse to be on a face. It was small and what you’d call pert. It made you want to rub your own against it. Cold germs loved us.

Lankey’s eyes had a worse time of it; some kind of rheum oozed out the corners, especially when he was in a relaxed condition. When he was drunk, he was relaxed.

He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a heart-throb.

Instead of sitting meek and quiet, he let the alcohol grab hold of him. Not having a steady girl he got to be a real thorn at parties and things.

His lack of personality bothered the lads.

While he bothered girls.

And the thought of female bothered him; he was a hefty and active virile-type lad, you see.

I hear Neil mouth fury a little while later.

He leads Julie away, leaves Lankey. In the middle. Reeling with a glass of something.

I begin to have thoughts of irritation.

After all, no one had invited him. I drink a little bit more.

I’m an avid drinker but don’t get drunk as a rule; generally.

I watch myself too deeply. All these great glowing clouds, misting vision, filling my ears with thunder.

Sometimes I become sleepy and the thoughts drift and lose their sharp colours. One complete haze.

I feel sort of romantic. What Nancy calls an urge.

I lead Nancy-doll into the far recesses of the room, dark smooching couples all about. Set her down between a speaker and a bookcase. We wrap arms about each other and enjoy each other’s company for a while.

A dew of perspiration twinkles to the surface of her brow. And she begins to breathe much quicker. She whispers:

- King and Kong getting a bit too adventurous.

Nicknames.

I maintain that my body is separate from my mind.

I reason: isn’t every cell within a body replaced completely in seven-year cycles? Not as permanent as mind you see. Nothing to do with the real me. At all. My hands can’t be held responsible if they take an over-enthusiastic liking to her body.

The music changes again. Too loud, too regular. Marvellous.

I notice things the others don’t seem to.

A murky glow-red-atmosphere seeps down the walls, drips from the ceiling, rears up from the ground. I hear the sound of compressed thoughts when I focus on the mist.

I have a little picture inside of something grinning hard and cruel. Vomit-red crashes through visions, new vital thoughts emerge from unconscious depths.

I still believe Lankey deserved all he had coming to him: a part of my self still does.

When he tried it on Nancy, I lost control.

Very, very, rare that.

There is this tapping on my should. Someone grabs my collar. I yell.

And I am pulled right off Nancy-doll. I fall onto my back and look for a while at the ceiling, as if I hadn’t quite seen it before.

I hear a scream.

A sound I knew well. This time - burned through with fright instead of rampant pleasure.

I turn my head. Lankey, his back to me, had grabbed hold of her was trying to pull her up. Not another dance…his favourite rancid music was ramming out.

I throw my glass at him, while I thought things over.

Dancing, kissing, grabbing, music, prodding, panting - all stops.

It all stopped - because I had shouted. Leave her - you, or words to that effect! Lankey turns and looks at me.

Surprised on his face. I don’t open my mouth very often.

He did not remain entranced for long.

The red mist comes back into his eyes, and he smiles. He turns away. He grabs Nancy’s long hair, holds her down, and strokes her with the free hands, urgently.

This is unexpected. This is new. Silence. All eyes on Lankey. No one hears the red mist as I do.

I am not used to action. I prefer to act with the mind. However it seems to be up to me.

Therefore, I sort of jump on him. Not with heroic agility, more with confused sluggidity. I slap his nose, deadly-hard.

He lay back on the floor and his eyes looked up through blood. I prepare to jump on him again but Neil puts a hand on my shoulder and says…

- Easy, easy. Cool down.

Someone starts the music up.

But the happy mood does not come back. Many people seem angry.

Blood-crimson mists came out of the walls, attracted by the anger.

I never realised thoughts travelled about in great clouds. Like thought attracted to like thought. I’d always been too busy examining me.

Some time later, I look over.

Lankey again.

He was tearing the clothes off some body.

I see uncommonly strong red pulses travel through his arms, the cloth tears easily. The girl unconscious. I look around and see red glances gleam out of the eyes of the boys.

Lankey is dragged off by several pairs of hands. I glimpse female flesh, dark red bruises.

The guys ram fists and boots into Lankey, together, synchronised rhythm.

Awful systematic penetration. Gnarled hardened weapons.

Secret intimate silence punctuated with broken panting breaths.

Physical exertion. Sweat. Odours. Fluids.

Even now that Lankey is flat out. Stripped, bruised and flattened. They are not finished.

Somebody bursts into the room. Cannot see who.

Anyway, he lets out an excited cry and holds up something.

I recall thinking how out of place it looks. Rope looks good in coloured
pulsating light though. A snake reflecting moving colour.

I cannot, and never would, understand why they allowed that desire into them.

My decent educated friends. I grew up with them. I’d watched their grey transparent thoughts for years. Now this…

…I run into a far corner, alone. Nancy is out of it, alcoholised and
exhausted. I slide down, squeezing and pressing my body into a hiding place. I couldn’t get out. The crowd block the exits.

There is the sound of tight angry laughter from all around me. The darkness lifts up arms and takes me into her bosom.

***

-It’s guilt. Won’t open his mouth, won’t move, won’t respond.
- Aah..complete withdrawal.

They rearrange my legs and hands.

King and Kong.

Now impotent, no longer admirers of female flesh, lie still.

I sit inside a cell. Body-prison.

Ultimate suppression. Final control.

- Look at the lake…
- Got a surprise for you…Here she is…
- Say hello then…

Dimly.

I recall tight dresses, with splits. This one is bright green and hugs the
owner extremely well.

- Darling…brought something for you…Look at me…please…

Seems familiar that face. That body looks friendly to me.

King and Kong lie still.

I seem to have forgotten every thing except one picture…

***

Lankey looks across at me as they toss him, pretending it’s his birthday. He begs, struggles and kicks as they reach out to catch him for maybe the thirtieth time. Noise. Laughter and agony. He is sober, so am I…

Then I let out a scream from the centre of me. The first sound. My first and only sound.

I’d been used to many different pictures, different visualisations inside my head. Some sensuous, some terrible.

I could never bear feeling a violent thought. The uncontrolled feelings,
violently vibrant emotions.

I would never survive seeing the final, the very last picture I had allowed to build within my brain.

The last event which had taken permanent living root within that brain-cell.

***

The lake ripples in the sunlight. Two different voices.

- Strange case. Been out of it for ten days. Ever since they brought him from sentencing.
- Lets take him closer to the lake. Fine day like this - he should be out in the air. Hey you, laddie, you should be out in the light, shouldn’t you?

A large ovoid face comes into vision, horizon to horizon. Gentler, kinder voices than before.

- Right…I won’t bother with the blanket….

I can only hear now and then. The inner flute sound, and the thunder within, takes over much more now.

I don’t seem to be able to concentrate on anything for too long now. I can only see the outside now and then. I can’t seem to unfix my eyes.

Not like before.

- Put your legs up on the sill of the chair, lad.
- Don’t bother. He can’t hear you at all. Just wheel him closer.
- Sometimes they can hear.

You see, to be perfectly transparent with you, I’d pierced the screen. I’d broken through to the essence of the memory-cell.

Only it had closed behind me and I can’t escape back into the world of big fluid thoughts. Can’t get out of this one mind-cell.

I can see only one picture with complete clarity..

I feel no pain. I vaguely sense a female face with the pretty nose. I look into a pair of liquid eyes.

She wails, her mouth shapes tears.

I can’t hear her though.

I can’t hear those men anymore. I can’t hear this girl.

She seems to flicker. Her knees seem to go weak. She fades from vision.

I turn to the lake. Ripple-bright under sunlight.

Turn away from this girl who seems to know me.

I turn to the lake.

The lake has just one image impressed over its surface.

My one and only picture.

My only thought.

Big and in living technicolour, wherever I look:

There’s a person.

Covered in wounds, body dangles.

Guys stand him on a chair. Then kick it away.

Loud screams and laughs.

This person’s face convulses and goes through colour changes.

Pink; red; to white, then blue…

I think the one Thought.

Because I can no longer recall any other.

I have a picture of two enormous eyes, depthless terror.

Suddenly flicking wide open, in a bloodless face.

The eyes stare wide. Unseeing. At me.

***

©1984, 2007 AVANTI KUMAR. All rights reserved.

Words: 3590
This is a work of pure fiction and any resemblance to living persons is entirely coincidental and unintentional.