Nosebleeds

Nosebleeds

The woman opposite me sits erect, her legs folded like pendulums, back braced against the hard chair. Despite this, she looks comfortable. I am not. The hard seat digs into my lower back; my weight is off, my posture is poor, and I cannot seem to find my balance.

The air in the compartment tastes recycled, and my mind has fixed on the fact that by this point, it has passed through her mouth, my mouth, the air conditioners, the wet pink insides of our lungs. Now the air is in my chest and asks to be spoken.

Her gaze is fixed at a point some way over my left shoulder. I can sense her expectation, clear my throat and begin to speak.

“Let’s talk about these nosebleeds, then.”

No sound but the rumble of the train.

“I had my first one, well, maybe two, three years ago. They used to scare the shit out of me. I thought they came from nowhere, but now I can recognise the signs. The edges of my vision move inwards. I can feel my heart beating in the tips of my fingers. My chest tightens. Then there’s a feeling like the ends of two soldering irons touching the back of my head, then it’s like the moment before an avalanche, and then a feeling of release, and then blood, always from my right nostril, sometimes both. It used to be more like a running tap; now it’s a steady drip-drip-drip. The blood is much darker than you might expect.”

Her gaze has shifted downwards to her clipboard. 

“And then, well, I black out. Sometimes it’s only for a few brief seconds, sometimes longer. I never remember it. And in that time, I write. I’ve learned to always carry a pen and paper with me. Before, it’s been on the floor, on dirty windows, on the walls, with the blood itself, if you’ll believe it.

“I see”, she replies, very quietly.

The train shudders its way around a bend.

“I make myself read it, afterwards,” I continue. I think it’s important that I read it, even if it’s often unpleasant or embarrassing. Lines from half-remembered poems. Instructions for a washing machine. Treatises on Japanese theatre. Sometimes, just a single word over and over again. But some of it is good. Really good. You just have to know what to look for.”

There is one from last Tuesday I have not been able to shake. In the notebook it runs on for two and a half pages, cramped and left-handed, though I write with my right. It begins with instructions:

Rinse cycle should not exceed forty minutes. Rinse cycle should not exceed forty. Forty. Forty is not prime. Forty-one is prime. The bathroom mirror has a hairline crack shaped like the coast of Portugal. The bathroom mirror has. She said the word tender. Tender tender tender tender. RINSE CYCLE SHOULD NOT. In Noh theatre the mask is the face and the face is the mask and the mask does not move but the face does. Tender. She said. Do not. Do not open. Do not open the.

The ink ends there. The next page begins in a different hand, and I have not yet worked out whose.

There is an uneasy silence, which seems to stretch for hours. A muscle twitches in the back of my hand. I find this sort of vulnerability difficult and find myself counting seconds for a response. Nothing.

“Each session has a sort of motif. Hallmark. There often seems to be a fixation on inanimate objects. And some themes have run through all of them. Bathroom mirrors, stains, the colour red, prime numbers and anagrams. Sometimes I see quite clearly where certain events, er, occurrences in my life, people, etc., have been reflected in what I’ve written. And sometimes, it takes a bit more time to see what it is I have been reaching for.”

A smile is creeping up my neck. It feels good to talk about all this. I might even be enjoying myself. This conversation is very much in line with the direction I am aiming for. The seat seems to have softened under me, and I stretch back and glance at my watch. After all, there is no going back now.

My chest contracts. Last time I looked, the watch read 14:47. But now, as clear as day, it reads 14:46. There can be no doubt. 14:46. Eyes up, eyes down, look again. 14:46.

This is a catastrophe. The unthinkable has happened. Time has reversed itself. Things are slipping backwards. 

I stare at my hands. I stare at the creases and at the calluses. I picture them unwrinkling, becoming smooth, soft, butterfat like the hands of a child. I see regression, being sucked back through time towards the opening from which I came, and the tightness of wet red walls around me, muffling my screams, and then darkness, floating in a portal, becoming nothing. Was this to be my fate? And then what? Would I be suddenly retracted into the body of my father, to live as nothing but a head with a thin white tail, an anxious paratrooper, prepared for a D-day landing that had already occurred, in the past-future! Marinating with my fellow sperm in a testicular prison… Oh God! This is too much to bear!

I steel my nerves and glance again at my watch. 14:47. Thank God. Thank God. All’s right with the world. What a fool I am!

The woman opposite me is staring at her clipboard. I feel she is losing the thread of what I am trying to tell her. What was I talking about again? The nosebleeds?

"As I was saying," I continue, " it's not exactly a dangerous condition. Just rare. Just interesting. Don't you agree?"

No reply. Clipboard. Legs. Shirt. Watch. Air. No reply.

This is no good, I think. This is not what I mean at all. Of course, she already knows about the medical aspects, my condition and the studies. The studies…

“Studies!” I yell, suddenly angry. “Fucking studies! Me, I haven’t studied, but I’ve spent years in thought… to this day, this moment, I’m still thinking, thinking and thinking… why, ever since she left, I’ve had nothing to do but think, my head is bursting with thinking, thinking on everything, you name it! Meanwhile, time is slipping backwards, not that you care. Not this shit you want me to believe I wrote, nothing excepting that which I’ve found myself. It’s nothing more to me than dusty signposts, all pointing to each other. Indexes and memoranda… Half-truths, half-smiles, half-measures. I have something special! The things I've written, by way of my condition, insights, ex- sights, red prose and notebooks.”

The woman's gaze is fixed anywhere but mine. I'm not stupid. I am fed up with these games. One thing should lead to another, after all.

“Who would bother? What’s the point of all these signs?” I yell. In that moment, the room around me, and the words hanging in the recycled air seemed to represent all and nothing. Everything refers to everything else, and my head feels as though it is about to split open, like a jack-in-the-box, without rhyme or reason of its own, a luxury of disorder, a splendour of chaos. I can’t swallow all this. It's too much. Too much is being expected of me. What do they want? Which are the right words, the right paths? It’s unnatural, the heat of this expectation.

I can smell thick circles of blood. Iron on my tongue. Recycled air in my lungs. The clock is slipping backwards and forwards. The room, and what happens in it, is self-contained. What exists in the body should stay there. That which spills out is the grotesque. Some things belong inside. My head is burning.

Underneath her crisp clothes, I realise the woman is naked. The significance of this eludes me. And the words… vile, mean, dirty, slippery, sensual, sacred, faithful, fresh, tender. Easy? Or profound? Or just obstinate, or disillusioned, bored, indifferent, passionate? Timid? Impudent? What right do I have? Whose words are these? Perhaps this judgment goes both ways. Perhaps I will finally know. Everything refers to everything else. I’ll know soon enough. I’ll finally find out. Something will reveal itself to me. I can feel it getting closer every day.

The train grinds slowly to a stop, and the woman stands up. It’s then that I finally recognise her. It's then that I finally recognise her. Not the face. The way her hand goes to her collar without touching it. She said, once, the word tender. A gesture from a room I have not been in for years.

The muscles at the corner of her mouth tug at her red lips. Is it a smile? A sneer? The mouth, the seat, the air. Impossible. She turns and walks and steps out of the train. Two more stops to the airport. With relief, I realise I have said nothing out loud. The doors hiss shut. I can feel the engine humming. Today will be a good day.