Under a Watchful Eye(72)

The work must be completed. And then we will discuss terms.

‘Definitely not. No. No. No,’ he shouted down the dim, white corridor that formed at the end of his bed.

Paint flaked from the walls of his room. The ceiling was stained yellow with water rings.

I am making progress on the fear and dread.

‘You shouldn’t even be in here,’ he said to the woman who now stood beside the bed. She’d come from out of a door further down the white corridor, three times. The third time she’d made it inside his hotel room. She wore a long satin dress, a headscarf and dark glasses. A fur stole culminated in the face of a grinning animal, a horrible fox. Something black stained the front of her gown too, like the residue of a wound. There was a faint light behind her, or around her. But surely this was also part of the dream. He knew he was dreaming, but his level of awareness was unpleasant.

Sink. Heavy, heavy. Sink deep.

Legs going heavy. Sink downwards and stand free. Reduce breathing. Blank mind. Blank mind. Blank mind.

Enlarge yourself. Float out.

From here to there, and back again.

. . . sinking, heavy, heavy . . .

. . . everything’s gone black . . .

Let us go out of ourselves!

In delirium Seb felt his feet moving upwards and towards the ceiling.

No, his legs were still upon the bed. But he was clutching the mattress with his fingers to prevent himself from rising.

. . . we are the soul-bodied . . .

Thin Len was so tall and he went through that nursery on all fours like a big spider.

Let us enlarge!

. . . this awakening was not like the others . . .

You’re never as alive as you are when you leave your body.

Leave your body and walk a few feet over months.

. . . the gliding, the gliding of the double, the gliding, the gliding, the gliding of the double . . .

This coat is too tight . . .

Cast thyself down!

I can’t get back!

Is this the second death? This is not my greater self. Where are the everlasting arms?

I can’t get back!

Can you help me? I know you are close. Where is the light? Do you know?

I can’t get back!

The voices filled the room, overlapped each other, rotated, repeated. Seb had been listening to them for hours, or only heard them once. He didn’t know.

The room was bigger than it should have been. It was a building cluttered with dark and heavy furniture. High ceilings soared above his head, then went further and further upwards.

He was inside a tunnel that smelled of wet bricks and stagnant water.

No, he was inside his hotel room.

The old house again.

No, he was outside in darkness, beside a river.

The room, this was his hotel room!

There was nothing there at all, nothing there at all . . .

He was in a field of black grass. The air was misty.

The room, in the hotel.

The old building with high ceilings, furniture everywhere.

The hotel room.

A corridor of black doors.

Seb sat up in the very bed that seemed intent on releasing him into the air. He whimpered at the darkness that pressed upon him from all sides.

They let go of his hands, but his fingers remained as cold as their own had been, those people who had been sitting beside him.

He threw his body back against the wall and shouted, ‘Get out!’

Fumbling at the stiff, plastic light switches, he became aware of a glimmer above his head. Before the first light came on in the room, he looked up for a fraction of a second and saw a pale smudge submerge into darkness, as if it had been enveloped by water flowing across the ceiling.

You’re dreaming. That’s all.

There was no one in his room. The walls, floor, bed, desk, and chair were now present again. The silencing of the voices was absolute. Everything visible was now contained within four walls and held in place by gravity. That realization made Seb gasp and he was close to sobbing with relief.

He got out of bed and turned every light on. Blinked, and then blinked some more.

3:00 a.m. on the screen of his phone.

Seb held his face for a while, pulling his eyelids down as far as they would go before pain became an issue. He touched a wall with a shaking hand. Belched, sat back down on the bed, his head sunk between his knees, and he told himself that he’d only been dreaming of those places and voices. He could not accept that a dream in the dark had the ability to replace the world with another place – a teeming space, and one peopled so quickly.

With what? Memories, bits of things he’d read, or had they been suggested to him? They hinder.

He didn’t want to be inside the room. He tugged jeans on. Staggered through the vestibule beside the bathroom to the door of the room, using his hands against the walls.

Unsteady on his feet, his balance shot, he didn’t know where he was going, but he wanted some other place that hadn’t been filled with voices. He really had to get out, just out and into . . .

The corridor outside his room, on the third floor of the hotel. Pale blue carpet, cream walls, ceiling lights.

Aiming for the landing before the lifts, he was surprised to see that the two fire doors down there were closed. The glass fitted into the top half of each door was reinforced internally by wire mesh. Fire doors, they were usually held back, but at night they must close. But someone was visible through the single pane of glass. Seb stopped moving. A night owl, night porter, someone with an early start. Sun will be up soon.