They sat in his little living room, she on a faded sagging couch, he on an armchair bedizened with a patchwork of stains. Charity shop furniture. Functional – barely. It was the afternoon of the interview. Stark had got the day off work. It was a Tuesday, but he didn’t care. He was set on getting drunk, and if he had to go into work the following day shit-faced, then so be it. He hadn’t asked his sister to come round, but she did when he didn’t answer his phone. He was glad she did. He was in just such a mood to share his misery.
He had a box of cheap beer, placed on the floor beside him. He had already killed off three bottles. Three more, then back to the corner shop, if he was able.
“Are crate-shifters allowed to smell of alcohol?” Maggie asked.
He took a swig. The beer frothed up over the bottle, to create another stain on the chair, but he hardly cared. “Of course. Alcohol’s a fuel. Keeps us ‘crate-shifters’ going. Shouldn’t you be extracting a banana from someone’s anus?”
“I’m on late shift tonight. And it’s not usually a banana, for your information. It’s generally a deodorant stick. Once, a six-inch ruler. Which can be awkward. And delicate.”
Stark gave a frosty laugh. “Sounds fun. Perhaps I ought to try it.”
“Is this the answer?” she said, gesturing at the beer. “Oblivion?”
“I would think so. In fact, a definite yes. Oblivion sounds perfect.”
A silence fell. Then she spoke, her voice soft.
“What happened?”
Stark took a long breath. “You would have loved it. High drama. A tragic scene. Ending in anger, swearing, and a theatrical exit. In essence, a shitstorm. Next time, I should sell tickets. That way, I would make a little money.”
She blew through her lips. “Interesting summary. Perhaps you could be more specific?”
“What do you think they asked about? Take a guess.”
She nodded. “I don’t need to guess. They asked about ‘it’.”
Another swig. He wiped the top of the bottle with the palm of his hand. “It. What else. They’d have to be mad not to.” He gave his sister a level stare. “I’ve been out the game for too long. I’m too old. Why the hell would anyone want to employ someone like me, when they can get someone eight years younger, and who isn’t fucked up. I’m kidding myself. The whole thing is one massive joke, and it’s on me.” His bottle was finished. He placed it by the side of the chair, where he had placed the others, leaned down, and pulled out another from the box. There was a bottle opener strategically placed on the armrest, which he used to prise off the top. He immediately took another long glug.
Maggie regarded him critically. “I don’t think that’s the answer, dude.”
“I think drinking oneself to a blissful state of unconsciousness is the perfect answer.”
“I’ll give you the perfect answer,” she said. “Fuck them. Fuck them all. What’s the issue? There’ll be other jobs, other interviews.”
No there won’t, big sister, he thought. There was only ever one interview. And now there’s nothing.
“You should be home,” he said, voice tainted with the slightest slur. “Don’t you have a husband somewhere? You shouldn’t be wasting your time on a loser wading through a river of self-pity.” He gave a sardonic smile. “Though I love the attention.”
“Sure you do.” She chuckled. “All the symptoms of a narcissist. My husband? Who’s he? I barely remember what he looks like. He’s working. He works. I work. Married life is reduced to a series of soundbites and fragments of brief pleasantries. We socialise by schedule. We are like… passing ships in the night. Excuse the cliché. Have you got food in? Or is this a new alcohol-only diet.”
“As endorsed by Dr Budweiser.”
“The one and only.” She looked at him solemnly. Again, she kept her voice soft. “You’ve got to move on, little brother. Easy to say. It just trips off the tongue. A few glib words. But it’s the only way. I’m not saying you should bury it. You can’t do that. You were shot. You almost died. A momentous, horrendous life-changing event. But you lived. It will stay with you the rest of your life, because it’s something that can’t be shifted. And because it can’t be shifted, it has to be…” she frowned as she searched for the right word, “…accepted. Once it’s accepted, then it’s lost its hold on you. Don’t be a prisoner to the past, dude.”
Stark sipped his beer. “You want to hear something funny?”
“That would be a pleasant change.”
“I was in a coma for just over eight weeks.”
“Strangely, I remember that episode in your life. Did you think I’d forgotten? Was that the funny bit? You really should do stand-up.”
“Do you know what goes through a person’s mind when they’re in a coma?”
She regarded him curiously. “You’re being serious? You should know.”
He said nothing, held her stare.
She sighed. “Technically nothing, I suppose. If you’re in a coma, there’s no response. To light, to touch, to sound, to anything. If the heart weren’t beating, it would be regarded almost as a state of death. Generally, if a person dreams, they give off certain brain pattern signals. Signs of a sleep-wakefulness cycle. A person in a coma gives off nothing. Generally. I should really charge for these little morsels of advice.”
“Technically. Generally. You love your adverbs.”
“Sure do.”
He put the bottle on the floor beside the others. Suddenly, he didn’t want to drink anymore.
“Let me tell you what went on in here…” he tapped the side of his head, “…when I was in a coma. Just to set the record straight.”
She said nothing. This is new territory, he thought. Something he has never told anyone, including his sister.
“I was in a vast space of darkness. I think it was vast. It felt vast. And it pressed in close. Constricting me. Suffocating. And it went on and on. Endless emptiness. Never ending. Here’s the thing. I was aware of this. I knew I was trapped in this place, wherever this place was. I was conscious. And the worst thing was – I thought I might be there forever.” He took a deep breath, licked his lips, swallowed back a ball of dread. “Eternal nothingness. It was terrifying. And I felt the terror. Every moment.” He lowered his voice, remembering, and wishing he didn’t. “Every moment.” He hesitated, trying to articulate into words something impossible to describe. “When I… got out – woke up – I felt different.” He gazed at his sister, as if the mere act of looking at her would bring sense to what he was saying. “Different. Changed. Perhaps some of that darkness… had infected me.” Here, he pressed one hand on his chest. “Seeped into my soul.”
He took another deep breath. His head spun. He was feeling uncomfortably queasy. “Or maybe it’s the drink talking.”
“Whatever it was, whatever happened, there is one certainty,” said Maggie.
“Tell me. I need some certainty.”
“It’s over. It’s past.”
“I still get the nightmares.”
“But not as frequently. And in time, even they will pass. I promise. Time has that effect. It heals, eventually.”
Stark’s response was only a small sad smile.
“If you say so, Maggie. You’re the doctor. You’d better get home. I think I’m going to vomit.”
Stark didn’t vomit. Instead, he watched the news on television, which depressed him more. He listened to some music through the headphones, then decided to have more beer, thinking “oblivion” didn’t sound so bad after all. He fell into a doze in his armchair round about midnight…
…and immediately plummeted down into the same nightmare – always the same since the coma, spanning over five years. An image, powerful and vivid, striking terror to his core. The gaunt shape of a man, standing silhouetted in some cold, dark place. A brooding figure, bristling with malice. And he – Stark – is beneath, deep in the ground with the worms and the slugs, clawing for the surface, unable to breathe, gasping for air, lungs burning. Soil enters his mouth, clogging his throat, filling his chest. Suffocating.
He woke abruptly, in a state of panic and fear, drenched in sweat. He took a minute to focus, find his bearings. He wasn’t buried under the ground. He was in his flat, in his living room, sitting in his chair. He took deep breaths, filling his lungs.
He got up. He felt old and weary. And drunk. His head spun. The world whirled. He staggered to the toilet.
And it was then he vomited.