Metamorphosis (Part 1)

“Hello !”

“Oh……hello”

I walked past George into my room and closed the door behind me. I just cannot talk, I am not in a mood to talk at all today. There were so many things to do in the office today and now I am totally exhausted.

I sat down on my chair and turned the television on, this is my habit, made me feels like there are someone else in the room. The first picture which comes out from the dark screen is the face of a familiar news reporter, and he is going on about the war. The war, the war ! who cares about the war now ? I can still remember the days when I follow the news closely, trying to find out the latest news on the war, but it had been too long, far too long, then we lost interest. Now people care more about David Beckham’s affair than people dying in another country. I turned the television off, it is just too much now, I do not want to know anyhting about what is going on other than my own business at the moment. I turned the radio on, some classical music came out from the speakers, a tune which I do not recognize, it sounds like some kind of requiem. After a while, there is the news again, about the war again, I turned off the radio, I do not want to know what is happening around me, I do not care, life is painful enough, I lost faith in a lot of things when I realize human beings are so powerless when facing absolute power. One person’s decision can affect millions and millions of others.

I got out of my chair and lie down on my bed without even taking my shoes off.

“ Many drawings to isse tomorrow ! why did the bloody client had to change everyhting at the last mintue ?” I thought.

I reached out to my stereo again and pressed play, this heavily distorted guitar riff came out from the speakers.

“Yeah” I thought, sometimes I can only escape reality in extremely heavy rock music.

After about 5 mintue, there is a knock on the door.

“Keith ! Keith ! Cut it down, mate ! I am trying to watch tv, man !” there is George shouting outside my door, from the corridor. I choose to ignore him, he is a very irritating guy, always moaning on little things.

“Keith ! Keith !” he continued shouting.

“Shut up and fuck off !” I shouted back “I had a bloody hard day, not like you students who can just stay home and get up at miday, fuck off alright !?” he did not answer back, may be sometimes it is best to be rude to stupid people. I smiled, closed my eyes and trying to take a nap before dinner.

I must have fallen asleep straight away.

Then I see Barbara, Barbara ? I have not seen her for quite a while now, almost two months. We used to be very good friends, and we started off with just very good friends, then something changed, inside me. I did not know when I started to care about her so much, i was going through a difficult time, stuck in a job which i do not like. We became close friends when I was working in my old office, she was a senior of mine, she was a quiet and charming lady, with a mysterious atmosphere. I was a stupid kid when I first met her, I do not care about anyhting, my work, my life, my family, anything. She opened up my heart, encouraged me, gave me confidence and direction, taught me how to be a better person. She opened up my world, introduced me to philosophy, literature, art, and a lot more, she was at that momet, the most importabt woman in my life. But even person like her is not perfect, she is a bit pessimistic, and always seems to be thinking, thinking deeply, thinking quietly. Even though we become good friends later I still do not know what she is thinking sometimes. I tried to know her better but there is like a surrounding wall around her heart, which I never managed to climb through. But even that we became good friends, very good friends who can talk about anything, I am glad to see her changing, to become more positive, to become happier, and more beautiful. Then I realized I might have fallen in love, and I still do not know what she is thinking, may be she liked me, or may be I had just misunderstood the whole thing. I still remember one night after a party, we were chatting, and she said she likes me, but that was the first time a woman express her feelings towards me, I was lost, and actually a bit scared, and I might have accidently hurted her with what I said, then things started to go wrong, I realized she is not calling me as frequent, and she seemed to try to stay away. Then this was the point when my emotion went out of control, I confessed to her, in a very bad way, in a very bad place – the store room of my friend’s house, while we were trying to find the vaccum cleaner. She was shocked, and rejected me, well, yes I deserved that, what a wrong place to say things like that. Then I made another series of mistakes by pushing her too hard, and desperately trying to show I could be a nice guy. I assumed that really scared her. Then there are no more phone calls, text messages or anyhting. I messed up the whole things badly. Later I just wanted to apologize, I just wanted to say I am sorry but she would not listen, then we have not spoken, since then.

But now she is coming towards me, I walked towards her as well.

“Barbara, I am glad to see you. How are you doing ?”

Barbara did not answer, she just stood there without saying anything. I looked at her, she looks a bit pale, may be because of stress with work. But her eyes are still as beautiful as before, as black as black marbles. I cannot take my sight away from her eyes, then all of a sudden she started to become transparent, and vanished in front of me.

“Barbara, Barbara !” I shouted “where are you going ? I miss you you know, Barbara, you can’t just leave me like this, Barbara !”

Then there is bright light, so bright that I have to close my eyes, then I heard a sound, it was a guitar solo, a very loud and fast solo, but even though it is so loud I can still hear my heart beating fastly and loudly. I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling. I looked at the clock on the table next to my bed, and it was about ten. I totally forgot about dinner.

“Alright, ok, I will have something in the morning.” And I closed my eyes again.

Barabra does not appear this time, this time I feel I am falling, just like the momet when you ar cliimbing the mountain and you slipped, a kind of imaginary feeling. I do not know how long I have fallen for but then there is total darkness.

I opened my eyes again in the morning.

“……great, I have go to work now, just like every other day”

I hesistate a little, because it is only six in the morning when I look at the clock, it is too early yet to get to work.

“what the hell, I will get up anyway, still have lots to do though.” I thought.

I try to move, but then I realise one thing, I cannot move any part of my body apart from my eyes. My arms and legs are not responding. I try to lift my head a little so I can see what is happening, but there is no use. I stare at the ceiling, the white ceiling, I can only stare at the ceiling. After about thirty seconds I start to scream, scream for help, Geroge should still be in bed, he does not go to school today. But there is no sound coming out from my throat, no sound at all, at least I cannot hear it myself. The only parts of my body who seems to be moving are eyes only. What is happening? Then suddenly, my vision started to become unclear, and less bright, slowly fading to darker and darker, I realize I am slowly losing my consciousness.

I do not know how long there has been, but it seems a long time. Then my mobile phone starts ringing, and it gets me up. I once again try to move, and without any success, I can only listen to my phone carry on ringing and ringing. I lie in bed helplessly, with my phone ringing on a table not far away. My mobile phone ‘s ringing tone is a digital version of Beethoven’s 5th symphony, the symphony of fate, which at this period of time seems very very ironic.

The phone rings on for a short while, then stopped, and once again there is complete silence, complete silence, how can it be so quiet on a working day, but it just is, dead silence, icy silence.Darkness starts to appear in my vision again, the last thing I can see is total darkness, pure black.

Beethoven wakes me up once again. I still cannot move. This time it rings on for almost a mintue and then stop. I tried to raise one of my arms, and I feel it moving !

“Great” I thought. And there seems to be movement with the head as well.May be I can see better what is going on. So I try to raise my head as well as lifting my left arm. This time, I can see my arm, but I cannot recognize it.

This object which comes into my vision is not my arm, but I know it is. It is a twisted pile of muscle, looks like a twisted wet bathroom towel, wet soggy and heavily distorted. And this is how my arm look like at the moment. It is now pink and semi-transparent. You can see blood vessels underneath the pinky skin. I have seen this before, but not in real life, but in Francis Bacon’s paintings, it looks just like those heavily twisted human bodies with that shocking pink colour. I stare at my arm for a while, yes, this is my arm, but it is not.

I start to scream, with no voice, this time funny sound came out from my throat, sounding like when you are scratching a wooden table with your long nails, but much much lower. Even that I carry on screaming, screaming for almost one mintue. Then I stop, and put my arm down. I lift my head up, trying to get a better view of my body, I still cannot move, but at least now my head is responding.

What comes into my eyes is a heavily twisted ‘body’, pink, semi-transparent, and slightly shiny. Imagine going into the butcher and see all this meats hook up on the hooks. This is what I think of when I first see it. I did not scream this time becaeuse I fainted. And the last noise I heard before is Beethoven’s symphony coming out from my phone.

I do not know how long I was out for, it also seems like a very long time as well. I try to move about starightaway as soon as I regain my consciousness. I find it even it is difficult and slow, I manage to move. I crawl forward slowly, millimeters by millmeters, and by doing this I am closed to the wall and manage to lean my head on it to get a better view of my body.

Every single part of my body are heavily twisted, all in a ridiculous pink, like twisted toilet tissues. But the pink seems to have toned down to a darker colur this time, more purplish pink, and still semi-transparent. What exactly has happened ? Is the whole thing just a bad nightmare ?

I do not know.

I then hear a noise in my head, it sounds like something is breaking, cracking, the kind of noise when you step on an snail in a dark evening.

“ Keith ! Keith !” it is George “ Are you ok ? You did not go to work today. Someone is here to see you !”

Who ? Who might it be ? And what a time to come to visit me !

“ No, George, I do not want to see anyone.” I shout, with no voice.

“No, no, do not come in, do not come in !” I carry on shouting. Again and again.

Then I hear the sound of the door opening.

“Keith, are you in ? “

It is Barbara, of all people.

Barbara, the girl I love.

Can things get anything worse ?

She entered the room, and saw ‘me’ lying in bed. Can I still call myself ‘I’ ? I do not know, but she saw me.


(to be continued)