Kit Whitfield's Blog: #2024MakeAMonster day 11: Cosy

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Friday, October 11, 2024

#2024MakeAMonster day 11: Cosy

#2024MakeAMonster

Cosy

I was walking in the park the other day when I saw it: the hollow of a tree, filled up with rainwater. Copper leaves lying atop, and the surface shimmering like silver.

Johnny stopped me when I went over to touch it, though. He said it could have all sorts of dirt in it. I shouldn't have got angry; I know he was right. He always is. It just looked - cozy. The water fitting so perfectly to the edges, nestled in place, a perfect little teacup of a pond.

'Of course the water's up to the edges,' Johnny said. He looked puzzled. 'Don't touch it, though. It's probably full of larvae.'

He was probably right. He always is.

Later that night he was angry with me because I got distracted and burned the dinner, and he went out without telling me where. I was tired, because I knew it wouldn't be over. He'd come back tomorrow night, probably, and then I'd have to think what to say. If I didn't ask where he'd been it'd show I didn't care if he was safe, and if I did I'd be picking a fight and showing I didn't trust him, and whatever I said would be wrong. I'd have to figure out the right thing by having a long fight with him and waiting and waiting until I could see what would fix it. There would be a right thing to say, but it'd be a long time before I found it.

I couldn't think about that right now. I threw the dinner in the bin. It needed emptying, he'd told me that, and he was right. But I was too worn out, and it wasn't all the way full yet; there was still a little space at the top, and it itched at me. It should be filled all the way up. That gap gave me a cold feeling.

The heating was on but I was still chilly, so I went and ran myself a hot bath. I timed it exactly: when I got in, the water rose right up to the overflow and not a drop more. I could sink in it, paddle my fingers and let the ripples run over my skin.

It was a pretty narrow bath, and Johnny was always saying we should get a bigger one. I didn't feel like we could afford it, but he said not to be selfish just because I was smaller than him; we'd pay halves. I liked the tight sides, if I was honest; it was comfortable to squeeze into. But I supposed that soon enough the bath would be gone.

I lay there, splashing. Little silver ripples on the surface of the hot water. My body filling the tub from edge to edge. The movement of the water tickled; the more I flicked my fingers, the more I could feel little currents running under me, almost like tiny snakes. Not real, of course, but little larvae of movement. The water infested with comfort. I stayed in that bath a long time.

The next day the bin was still full, but there was that empty space at the top and I couldn't make myself take it out. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that a rat had got in from somewhere. I could hear it thrashing around, and when I looked down I could see the little thing: grey-brown fur and small pink hands, struggling against the sides. It wanted to get out, and I should have done something, but I couldn't think what. Every idea was wrong. If I released it, it'd be in the house, but if I tried to trap it, it'd bite me or something like that.

In the end I had a thought: I carried the whole bin up to the bathroom and turned the shower head on it. Water filled it up, and the rat struggled around a bit more, but it drowned in the end.

There: solved. No more rat.

I should have found a way to get rid of it, I knew, but I couldn't just leave it out for the bin men. I'd killed it; I owed it more than that.

Johnny still wasn't home, so I went out to the park. The tree-stump was still there, all glossy and secure. It could be there were larvae in there like Johnny said, and if there were, they'd want things to eat. So I put in the rat. Back to nature. It was a burial of sorts. I'd murdered it, but I could leave it somewhere nice and cosy.

Johnny came back that evening. He yelled for a few hours, but I figured out the right thing to say in the end. We went to bed, and I lay under the covers wishing I was back in the bath; the sheets were too flat and clean and nothing felt friendly. I wanted to be back in the water with currents running over me.

A few days later Johnny said he'd had enough and it was time to replace the tub, and yes I could afford it if I went into my savings, and of course he was right, if I did then I could. He said some kind of mould had got into the whole thing and he couldn't stand the smell. I could have told him about the rat, and how I'd emptied the water down the drain afterwards, but I didn't. I took the money out of my savings because that cost me less in the end.

But I couldn't settle in the new tub. It was too long and too wide, and I floated about. It just wasn't cosy. I lay there and thought about the rat tucked into its watery tree, and how held its little corpse must have felt. All I could do was paddle my legs - there was more room for them now - and make waves to wash ripples over my skin, which was as comforting as I was going to get in the new tub.

I didn't mean to splash the floor, but I suppose I must have. A few weeks later we had damp in the walls. Not black mould, exactly, but little flecks here and there. Johnny said they looked like grubs, and he wasn't paying for this when it was all my doing. And he was right - there was something a bit like larvae about them. Sometimes when I blinked hard to keep from getting weepy they seemed to writhe.

Well, I told him I'd get a man in to have a look. But I did something wrong. I lied.

What I did was, I took the money out of my savings and started a new account with it. Different bank, not one I mentioned to him. I don't know why, except that I didn't want an argument about it. And I could move the larvae myself. It wasn't even difficult. Once he was gone and I had the heat of the house up to full blast, I just went around with a cloth. A gentle little flick, and each smudge fell off into my hand. I stroked the air above them, just a soft caress to make some ripples, and they curled up in comfort.

I went out to the park and tipped them into the little pool in the tree. The rat was quite gone. The pool was still there, its top bright as moonlight. When I gazed into it, I saw something like my own face, except that face was smiling.

The new tub didn't feel quite so big now. Johnny said he didn't know what I was thinking hiring that cowboy who replaced it, because the mold was worse than ever now; every day we cleaned it, or at least he told me to clean it, and whenever either of us washed in it the water left dark scum. Little grubs of grey-soap limescale.

It's all right, I told him. I cleaned them up every day. I tucked them into the tree in the park, the cosy little pool. Everything in it fitting just so, like a hug.

Then came the wet week.

It was pounding rain on the roof. The window in our bedroom started to leak - just little trickles of water round its edges. Johnny said, hadn't we agreed I'd get it repainted before the winter came? And now look. I couldn't do anything right, not the simplest thing.

I agreed. I couldn't. There wasn't much point trying any more.

What I was thinking, going for a walk in all this weather, Johnny couldn't imagine. I didn't even explain it to him, so there was going to be a row when I came home. All I knew was that it was better to be stroked by the raindrops than it was indoors, so I went out to the park. It was damp dog-walkers and birds hunching in the branches, and at one point I saw a rat run across the path. It didn't stop to blame me for what I'd done in my bin. I'd drowned its rat friend months back, but it didn't have a bad thing to say about me.

So I went to the tree with its comforting little pool, and I bent over the surface to gaze. The face in the water wasn't mine any more; the patter of rain broke it up into a million ripples. But none of them were crying.

I went home with a handful of dead leaves. When Johnny shouted at me, I threw them at him, and then when he grabbed at me all the little creatures came out. They'd been black grubs of mould before, but I'd given them time to grow somewhere comfortable, and when the larvae rests for long enough, it opens out its wings.

They didn't buzz as they flew around the house. Black mosquito-wings shimmering faster than eyesight, but they were as big as my fist. I'd waited a long time for them to grow.

I never did see what the larvae did to that rat I drowned. From what I saw with Johnny, here's what I think: first of all they ate the skin. Peeled it off bite by bit, little loving nibbles all over so the muscles showed through. Then they'd have eaten the muscles, and by that time the water would have soaked through as well - all that damp clinging close, nestling right in amongst the meat. I think it would have bloomed under the water, spreading out into clouds among the feasting creatures, and they swallowed it down till there was nothing soft of it left, just the bones that had always been hard at its core.

The bones take longer to eat, but the little creatures will get through Johnny's eventually. I have a festival of shadows in my house now, and when I open the windows to let in the rain they dance in it. When they need a rest from their meal they huddle up close to me. Sometimes they pierce my skin too, drink little sips from inside me, but I can run as much water as I like now and I keep drinking, and I don't mind it too much. When they swarm me all over it's like the dark itself is hugging me. It's almost cosy.

posted by Kit Whitfield # 1:12 pm

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Friday, October 11, 2024

#2024MakeAMonster day 11: Cosy

#2024MakeAMonster

Cosy

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