Story 4: Guest

Dylan sat on his toilet. The hot itch of panic wafting through him from shoulder to coccyx.

This was the place he came to re-calibrate if a thought had nestled into his brain and refused to leave. The white tile and dampened acoustics gave the room the qualities of a sensory deprivation tank. The perfect environment for a nice mindful poo, often the catalyst needed to shut down internal chatter and break the thought cycle. It wasn’t working this time though.

Dylan’s frequent panics were usually rooted in ‘what ifs’ or massive extrapolations of something that could be ‘a symptom’, this time however there was an actual discernible cause for concern. 

“Dylan, are you coming out soon? You’ve been in there ages!” called Anne through the door.

“I’m busting out a nug! I’ll be done in a minute!” he called back, he and Anne had a shorthand.

“Ok, but I need a wee soon, Dylan, Please.”

“I’ll come to you when I’m done, I’m nearly done”

“Now, tell her to go downstairs” whispered the small scratchy voice.

“Could you go downstairs?” asked Dylan.

“What did you say to me?” said Anne, offering an opportunity for Dylan to correct his misstep. 

“Sorry, I just, it’s not a nice one and I need a bit of space, sorry.” he blurted, head in palm.

“Fine, I might need to go to the cafe if you’re not getting up,” her annoyed tone rescinded into the background followed by the chinkle of keys being lifted from the bowl.

“Ok, love you, bye” he said faintly, coinciding with the front door being shut.

“What was I saying?” asked the voice.

“You were asking about my mum”

“Yeah, tell me about your mum.”

Dylan had been fielding questions like this for two days. The voice was internal and additional to his own. Every question was about something within his peripheral vision. This current bout had been sparked by passing a wall-mounted photograph of Julia, Dylan’s mum. Who’s that? That’s my mum. Tell me about your mum. The questions weren’t nuanced, but they were persistent. Like Frost/Nixon if it was allowed to last three weeks and Nixon had to provide a potted history of the tape recorder before incriminating himself.

Dylan had tried to ask his own questions, but to his new mental occupant this was a defined relationship and Dylan was firmly the subject.

“What is that?”

“This? It’s a toilet roll.”

“For rolling the toilet? Like toilet wheels?”

“No, you unroll it, and use it to wipe yourself”

“Not what I expected.”

Dylan had a suspicion of what was happening here, but didn’t want to acknowledge what felt like a very naive explanation. In many ways it felt preferable just to embrace unevaluated madness and hope the interrogation would subside, than to give his theory any credence. Also, he was susceptible to the occasional swell of pride that came with aceing some of the low ball questions; ‘Oh yes I know this one, that’s a lemon, part of the citrus family, lemons are sour’.

What had happened in Dylan’s estimation was; as he was drifting off to sleep two days prior, a moth was in the room. 

That’s about the extent of it.

He was semi-aware of an itching sensation around his nostril and by filling in the gaps he had arrived at the conclusion that a moth had crawled up his nose, was in his brain and was conducting some kind of profile. The moth’s motivations were unclear.

The front door clacked closed.

“Hey! I got you a treat from the cafe, I’ve eaten mine,” called Anna, returning.

“Great, thanks honey!”

“Oh my god, are you still on the toilet!”

“I’m just finishing up, sorry I zoned out.”

“What is a treat?”

“Generally it’s something sweet you can eat. I better go down.”

“Down to have the treat.”

“Well yeah, down anyway, I’ve been here too long…”, Dylan caught himself, “why am I explaining?”

He stood up and flushed the empty toilet, his clicking knees reverberated around the room.

“Why are your knees-”

“Enough, please!” 

“Did you say something?” asked Anna who was passing the toilet as Dylan exited.

“I was muttering to myself, what did you get?” said Dylan as casually as he could muster.

“A chocolate horn with nuts on,” answered Anne.

“Horn, nut horn.”

“Amazing, thank you!”

As Dylan began to descend the stairs, Anne peered over the landing rail at his thinning head. 

“Dylan,” she called as she squinted.

“Yeah?” he responded.

“You’ve got a moth on your head.”

He clasped the back of his head and felt its crisp wings and furry body against his fingers. He brought it to his face.

“Hello my curious friend,” he whispered, inspecting it in close detail, his eyes about five centimeters from its body. He’d never really looked at a moth before, in any great depth. This was a large one, it had an elegance that wasn’t apparent from a distance. At its extreme end was a slim tip, he traced the contours of it’s tail up to it’s middle section. He elicited an involuntary little high pitched noise as he was hit by a wave of morally complicated appreciation. The meeting of its tail and midsection gave the impression of a voluptuous hip meeting a slender waist. It’s neck was fur lined which put him in mind of a Mink Fur scarf as worn by an elegant socialite. Under that scarf, was that the nape of a long sanguin neck? Is that possible? It’s saucer eyes were a transcendent pitch of pure black, if he, fell in, could he, get back out? Surely this creature shouldn’t look twice at him.

And yet…

Here we are.

“Hi,” said Dylan, coyly.

 The moth gently flicked its head as if to be engaged in the same process. Dylan giggled and deflected his gaze.

“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Anne.

The end.