Ten Journeys Read online

  How you would have got from the invitation to the consummation is the mystery to me. When it comes to such matters, I feel as though I am still a fumbling teenager. I wonder if she had expected me to be an experienced lover.

  I have heard nothing from the room next door, for which I am quite glad, as I have had enough of being a witness to others’ pleasure. Perhaps she has found someone else’s room more convivial.

  I can’t help feeling a slight bitterness and definite frustration that I am yet again facing the night alone. Much as I chastise myself for remaining chaste, I believe that I would loathe myself so much more had I succumbed to her charms. I dare not think how I would feel tomorrow morning, waking up to the realisation that I had betrayed my one true love. The thought disgusts me. I need some more whisky and an abrupt change of subject to shake off this repugnance.

  I’ve been wondering what you’re up to. I miss you.

  Yes it’s stupid, it’s not like we live together but we’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately. I miss you and can’t help feeling jealous of whoever you’re talking to right now. It’s also rather annoying that the phone signal appears to be out of range so if you are trying to text me then it won’t get through.

  I read through the first part of this letter and I think that it will be heavily edited by the time it reaches you, but I will keep this version for myself. I have my own little private store of letters that I’ve never sent to you. That’s not too stalker-ish, is it?

  It is a very strange thing to write something on the computer and never print it, never speak it out loud. The letters on the screen are only dots, each character saved in computer memory as a series of zeros and ones. Does that mean that the words do not exist? They are ethereal, rather like dreams, neither existing nor not existing but stuck somewhere subjectively between the two states.

  If the written word is only a symbol of the spoken word, writing without speaking is unreal. But is speaking real? Each utterance of speech is symbolic of the physical world item that it represents, and how many of these items would exist without speech itself? We live in a self-perpetuating myth of representation where the only truly real thing is an action performed without thought. To be human is to be false, where the only honesty is to follow animal instinct.

  I am quite philosophical tonight. I can’t blame it on the movement of the train anymore but perhaps I can blame the whisky. I am getting quite giggly over the thought of writing all of this to you; that you might one day read it.

  It is possible that one day I will simply grab you and kiss you.

  How I’ve thought about this! But again, as soon as the thoughts slip in, the action is stalled. And I’m quite convinced by now that this letter will never be sent, at least in its current form.

  This letter is a tree falling in the forest with no-one there to hear it. These things that I’ve been talking about, these feelings, might not be real. My love is the sound of one hand clapping. The cat is not yet out of the bag. Or are you already aware? Perhaps it is a Schrödinger’s cat; that I will not know whether it is out or not until I open the bag.

  I can tell that I’m drunk now that I’ve slipped into cliché.

  Until it is printed, sent or read out, until it has a recipient, it may as well not have been stated. But I will always know what I have said. I am my own recipient. Therefore it exists because it is viewed which in Descartian terms, or perhaps more rightly Berkeley-ian, means that I am God. The logical conclusion of this is that I am omnipotent within this sphere and able to control everything. I can create a page of rambling text and instantly remove it. I delete therefore I am.

  More whisky, imaginary bartender!

  I can live in this fantasy world quite comfortably, so long as intruders such as earlier this evening do not interrupt it. I have to work, of course, to teach and write papers, to travel from home to work, keep the flat tidy and feed myself. But all of this may be done in a state of half-awareness while I anticipate my alone time.

  Once I am inside my own head, I can be anything and do anything. The hollow reality of our existence does not matter in the non-material, it has no matter and therefore cannot matter. I need no longer be the awkward old buffoon that others take me for. I do wonder if that is how you see me, or do you see the real me?

  I have always thought that you do see the reality that is me, behind the façade. Lately, though, I wonder if I have disguised myself so well that you don’t see me as you used to, as we used to be always together.

  I wonder if the disguise is so encompassing as to deceive even myself. Perhaps I really am a fool. I have certainly been made a fool of enough times.

  I wrote a poem on a paper serviette while we waited to be served:

  I wanted to kiss you

  But I was afraid.

  “Are you afraid of me?” You asked.

  You smiled. This was funny for you.

  “No,” I said. “I am afraid of myself.”

  You will say that this is not a poem because it does not rhyme. Ignoring as you usually do the fundamental question that it raises. Who is the I here, and who is the you? You probably don’t even remember the incident to which this refers.

  It happened approximately five years ago, at Christmas when mistletoe hung around the bar. Everyone else was kissing and you grabbed me as a joke. So funny it would have been, everyone laughing, but I turned away. I realised that this is how you see me: a joke.

  This may be the reason that I fear rejection; that this is a very real fear and not simply my usual level of anxiety. And I am not entirely sure how I would react. I would not be able to cope with the rejection. I would have to kill myself, or you, or both of us.

  It reminds me of that slick comment that people make when they’re attempting to be seen as important: if I tell you then I’ll have to kill you.

  Please do not misunderstand me. I do not want to kill you; that is not a part of the fantasy. I would want you to turn to me and say that you feel the same and all this time, these myriad lovers, have been a smokescreen and you also were secretly pining for me.

  I simply have not been able to see any evidence that this is the case, and this is what has stopped me from hitherto mentioning my own feelings. If you ever found out, if you laughed it off, that would be the point when it turned. That would be when the kiss became the kill.

  It is interesting, is it not, how similar the word ‘kiss’ is to the word ‘kill’? The lines of the l’s in kill are straight as blades, where the s’s swirl together like spooning lovers. With a penned letter the discrimination can be slight with some handwriters twirling or looping their l’s and with others the s’s becoming reduced to a single mark. Phonetically, the s and l are both in the alveolar region, it simply changes from a fricative to lateral approximant.

  Words words words, to paraphrase Shakespeare. The substitution of one letter for another (twice) makes all the difference to the meaning of the word itself, and to the poem as a whole if it is repeated as you can see:

  I wanted to kill you

  But I was afraid.

  “Are you afraid of me?” You asked.

  You smiled. This was funny for you.

  “No,” I said. “I am afraid of myself.”

  The truth is that I am afraid. Afraid of what I might do, either way. Once it is out of the bag, how far will my passion go? Would I kils you, or kisl you? That is funny. I’ve had to break off for a moment to laugh at the absurdity.

  No, I can never tell you about all of this kiss/kill business, even if I manage to tell you how I feel. I can scarcely tell myself. I shall probably delete this whole letter and start again tomorrow.

  I have envisaged suicide. I do believe that this is how my life will end, eventually. We all have the right to decide when and where we die and I would rather this way than some chronic lingering disease. How close to the act I have found myself at various points in life. As a teen, how enamoured with the sight of my own blood I became. Always controlled, never allowin
g the cuts to become too deep or infected. Knowing it was wrong made it all the more desirable, secret and delicious. The fantasy of death became almost sexual, replayed in so many different scenarios.

  To maintain the charade of modern society with all of its empty purpose, we require a moral code. Without this, those who have already decided they will die have no limitations to their behaviour. We see this in school shootings, and now in universities too, for shame.

  What might a person, who knows that death is imminent, has already planned for it, of what might that person be capable? For revenge or to prove a point, or simply out of boredom.

  Shooting is such an American Dream; I would not be so crass. Guns appear to be easy on film and TV but in reality I’m sure that I’d fumble with the technology. Better the slice of the knife with which I am already so adept.

  The knife is a more accessible instrument, hiding in plain view in everyone’s kitchen. A blade is the primeval tool, what differentiated humans from animals so long ago. And the act itself has the synchronicity of metaphor that I relish. Your rejection may feel like a knife to my heart, so what better way to illustrate this than to reciprocate? The cut and the thrust. The blade is capable of a delightful surgical precision; you can see how it would be right up my street so to speak.

  But no. It will not happen. As I said, once the thoughts begin the action is stalled. It would require some overriding animalistic rage to take me to the point where I lifted the blade against someone else. But for myself, that is another matter, and one which continues to revisit.

  Only I know that I can control myself. So long as I have something to live for, someone who relies on me and some sort of goal each day, I can stave off the inevitable. Mostly these thoughts visit me during long hours awake at night. Perhaps this is why I drink to sleep, to muffle those unwanted feelings.

  I’ve finished the whisky. It was good, a single malt. I think it must have been expensive, but the price barely registered.

  I must go to sleep now and try not to dream about the presentation. Or dream about sleeping, that’s the worse kind as it gives me no rest.

  Dear,

  I am enjoying the conference. My presentation is over. I am quite relieved. Now I can take pleasure in the remainder of the seminars and relax before it is time to leave.

  I was rather worse for wear this morning at breakfast. I can never sleep properly in a new bed. But thankfully the presentation went down well. I had a very interested response from one PhD student but it might simply be that she’s looking for postdoc work.

  I’m writing this at the back of the seminar room with half an ear on one of the other presentations, Sleep: The Final Frontier. It may be my front ear, ha ha. To all outside viewers I could be taking copious notes on the nature of non-REM sleep. The professor sitting next to me is dozing with his eyes open. He is obviously a veteran of second-day conference seminars.

  I began a letter to you yesterday on the train here, but it became rather bland so I’ve discarded that and begun afresh. The journey was uneventful and last night was a bore. I think the presentation has been on my mind somewhat. Now it’s done I feel so much better. I didn’t think that I was nervous but perhaps I was, just slightly.

  A colleague of mine seems to have spent the night in someone else’s room. I heard no movement from hers this morning (it is adjacent to my own) and yet she arrived at breakfast at almost the same time as myself. From a different direction. I have been scanning the delegates in an attempt to establish which of the other professors she has attached herself to.

  It is not that I am disapproving, only that I hope she will not decide to leave the department to set up home with someone in Europe as this would cause unnecessary delays with our research.

  As you are aware, in affairs of the heart I am no expert, but I have noticed that sometimes one falls in love with a wholly inappropriate and inconvenient target.

  I’ve come to some realisations over the past few days. Mainly since our recent conversation when you asked me why I had not found love. Do you remember that? There is something I need to tell you regarding this topic. It is not easy. It is never easy to confess to living a lie. You think I’m not in love with anyone because I’ve never talked to you about it. I’ve never exposed myself to that extent. But what can I say?

  Words are not enough to encompass the feeling I have. Words just slip around and turn over themselves with their own self-importance when in fact they are nothing, nothing at all compared to the strength of feeling they are so inadequate to convey.

  I love you.

  It feels so simple to say those three words, yet each is weighted with a heaviness of luggage that it drags around on broken wheels.

  There is nothing that I can say that won’t become a tired cliché once it is out of my mouth or onto the page. It is difficult to find the right way of saying it that will make you realise that it is not a joke, or some passing fancy. It is very difficult to say it in a sober state, easier to contemplate last night after a glass or two of wine. But I must be sure that you know I’m sober or you might think it’s the drink talking.

  I had thought that you must know; must have been able to see it burning behind my eyes as it burns me up inside when I look at you. You are a bright, hot sun and I am the cold planet orbiting but never fully turning my face to you for fear of a scorching. You might assume that the cold planet is ice and iron throughout but let me assure you that deep inside is a fiery molten core waiting to erupt at the slightest pressure.

  These feelings have been smouldering for twenty years or more. When we first met during freshers’ week, when we were both nineteen (so young it now seems and yet so mature we thought we were!) I was immediately attracted to you. Initially I thought you quite irritating, I admit, yet also fascinating.

  I was not the only moth drawn to your flame, though, and I soon found that I was vying for your attention with some of the most popular students. I was so happy to snag your friendship with my expertise, but even then I am not sure that I had fallen in love. This came gradually, which is how I knew that it was not merely infatuation but a true and abiding love that would last as it has.

  Do you remember that first experiment in our study partnership? The alcohol consumption survey. How we giggled when we discovered that the psychology students scored by far the highest, twice as high even as the medics! Are all psychology students so disturbed and disturbing? It appeared so then, and I doubt that it has changed.

  Even then it became obvious that I would remain in the academic echelons when you entered the real world. Yet you did not shun me as some of the others did. They thought me intense and ‘strange’ (strange even for a psychology student!) but you understood. I always felt that you did anyway.

  I can pinpoint the moment when I realised that I was in love with you, but that I would never be able to tell you so. It was the morning I awoke from that nightmare to find you still there, holding my bleeding hand. The others thought that I’d simply had too much to drink (which I probably had) and they laughed at my idiocy: climbing on the bar, breaking glasses against my head and goodness knows what else that I don’t even remember. Only you realised that I was having an episode. I don’t know how difficult it was for you to coax me down and drag me back to my room. I will always appreciate that you did this, cleaned my wounds and held me, listened to me chattering away all night until I finally drifted off and you stayed with me the whole time. I woke up with a mouth like salted velvet, full of self-loathing, to see the care in your eyes and I knew. You were there for the peaks and always there for the crash.

  You are a caring, giving sort of person. You tell me that you need to be needed, and this is your problem. You attract needy people. How can you not see that you have attracted me?

  I hate myself for not being able to tell you, and sometimes I hate you for not giving me enough time. Most of all I hate the people you bring into your world so easily, leaving me still on the outside. I hate them so much I could kill
. I fantasise the slaughter in a Macbeth fashion, the dagger dripping blood. You’ll all be murdered in your beds, ha ha.

  Damn it.

  Dear,

  I’m writing this as I am on the train on my way home from the conference. I have twice now begun a letter to you and been unable to complete it. I don’t know how to say what I want to say, but I am determined nonetheless to say it.

  This weekend has been a journey of self-discovery. Sometimes it takes moving away from what is familiar to examine our home circumstances afresh. I have come to several realisations

  I’ve loved you for years. At first it seemed like a crush that might wear off, but it’s been burning inside me and growing until I can’t bear it any longer. I have to tell you. Surely you already know. I have wondered if you would make a move but you never did, though you so easily moved in on others.

  I feel certain that you will reciprocate, but if you do not then please don’t let it affect our friendship. We are both mature enough to acknowledge our feelings and work around them.

  On re-reading these letters I have had my eyes opened to some of the more fearsome aspects of my character. The anger and self-disgust that last night’s letter demonstrated has appalled me. I am determined to never drink again. This will be difficult I know, but with you beside me, I am convinced that I will be able to remain positive and abstain. It appears to me that my more destructive side becomes apparent when I have been drinking. I feel sure that were I to remain sober, I could win your love. Will you allow me to attempt that?

  I do not wish to sound mawkish. This is supposed to be a love letter. Allow me to begin again.

  I love you. I have always loved you. You have been my world and without you I would die. You are like air to breath or sun to bathe in, water for the thirsty and rest for the tired. It sounds like a religion and in a way it is: I worship you.