guilty trousers ·
4 August 04

I am physically exhausted. mentally too. It’s been a hot sweltering day outside, the sun is fiercely hot and it continues to burn the skins of all those wearing short top and low cut bottoms.

If it was just hot, it probably would have been more bearable. But I have this theory that thinking can not only mentally but physically exhaust a person. I don’t know why I think so much it’s become habit, or perhaps therapy.

I don’t talk to anyone, I don’t like to talk to anyone about these things, just having someone there, it makes things worse. A problem shared is a problem doubled. When someone else is there, I feel, and I have no idea why, emotional about the problem. I become soft, weak, I start to feel emotions that I don’t want to feel. So I don’t talk to anyone. I won’t talk to anyone.

The first dream I had ended creatively. I drove off a cliff, in a Thelma & Louise-esque manner, except it wasn’t a hot desert, there were no cops chasing me, I was neither with Thelma nor Louise, and I wasn’t wearing tight shorts. It was a miserable fucking day, the clouds were dark black, like the cloak of the Reaper. Lightning danced through the sky like a violent, disturbed snake waiting to bite at the Earth, and anything else in its way. I heard the rumble of thunder, pounding the skies like a giant with a belly ache.

My birth name is simply that: a name without purpose, without meaning and without value.

I was in a small car. Rusted paint work, damaged seats, a musky smell emanating from the back. The car heater was working periodically, and the speedometer all but broken. One of the windshield wipers wasn’t working, the rain was only being wiped on one side of the windscreen. It looked like an artificial waterfall.

As I stare out of the side of the windscreen I can see, all that lays before me is wet ground, covered in short bursts of dead, yellow grass. It’s mostly low level mud, and beyond that I can see the stormy, angry water forcing itself this way and that. Beyond that, the clouds are darker still, beyond the darkness that overcasts my car now, that towers over me like a demon. The headlights are on, the light inexplicably shows me the face of the water, the ocean, the sea and all that interconnects. It is ready to kill, to eat, to tear apart anything that enters its mouth. I can hear it smashing the rocks beneath me, the drop is quite far, and I don’t need to exit the car to know this.

I rev up the engine, the car growls tensely, preparing itself for the punishment I inflict upon it. I place my thumb under the top of the wheel, and my fingers over it, tightening my grip. I close my eyes, and grit my teeth, as I try to drain myself of all resistence. Resistence will cause more suffering, I must imply as little of that as I can. I see the end of the world ahead of me, the end of the Earth where I have traveled. There is land beyond this in reality, but for me, this is where the world ends. Going further will take me on to another world, a world I won’t even realise.
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The foot presses the accelerator, the clutch is released and the car moves forward. It feels like a blistering pace, as I see lightning strike the sea, I feel as though I am racing the bolt of fire as I drive faster, and faster. The scenery rushes past me, and I feel the road beneath me disappear.

I am facing forwards, and now the rush of speed increases as I looked downwards, at the oncoming rocks, the seat belt is on, so I am in place, but the car turns on its head, on to its roof as it spirals downwards. I feel a hug impact, but I cannot physically feel anything, nor can I move as the water gushes in. It’s dark, and frightening, in that sea. It comes to swallow me up. Hallucinations take over, and I see monsters and demons coming for me, waiting for me to die, to take and fight over who gets to eat my soul.

I hold my breath with what little energy I have. My mind says not to, but my body says it wants to live. The water has already filled the car, as I fall deeper, and deeper into the sea. I am aware that a certain depth will cause and explosion in my brain, and I want to stay awake for it. But I cannot, as I lose all energy, and begin to breathe in the water. The lungs fill quickly, as I throw up in the water, and swallow what expelled from my belly. This all takes place in a matter of minutes. Its so dark, I don’t know if I’m dead, or whether I am alive and still falling. The darkness is so great, opening, or closing my eyes makes little difference, therefore I keep them open. Seconds later, and I have faded away.

As I watched the car fall with my body inside, my soul is devoured, shark like by the waiting demons. The snap and tear at my soul, ripping it horizontally and vertically with pace and viciousness. I watched them devour me, and then it ends.

The headlights are on, the light inexplicably shows me the face of the water, the ocean, the sea and all that interconnects.

The second version was less metaphorical. The day is bright this time, the sea is moderately calm, and the Sun is burning brightly. There are flowers across the ground, daisy’s, dandelions, and some such. I’m not affluent about varieties of flower. The grass is a gorgeous green, and I smile as I see little insects crawl along the ground, some entering the car.

I turn on the air condition, or in this case the car heater, and turn the setting on cool. It’s a rusty piece of crap, so I don’t really have air conditioning. I’ve just finished my sandwiches, Cheese Ploughmans I think it was. I decided to go for a sensible choice of sandwich, as a sort of ironic twist to an act which is less than sensible.

I wash the sandwich down with a bottle of orange juice. One of those Oasis Fruit Punch type deals, orange in colour, but contains several citrus fruits. I find this too sticky for my mouth, so I have a bottle of Evain with me. I open the driver side door, and steady my feet on either side, then wash my mouth out and wash my face with the Evian, avoiding the insects on the ground. I know at this point I care, but when I drive off, if they’re beneath me, I won’t care.
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Making my way out of the car, I take a good long stretch. I cover my eyes as I look past at glistening beauty of the water ahead of me. It’s angelic and majestic, and will be a good burial ground. The water will look after me, and ensure that everything that goes in will be use either as food or as a home. I give a thumbs to the water and shout, “Cheers doode!”.

It’s about 11.30am, and the Sun will hit the peak of its heat in an hour or so. I’m wearing a T-shirt, light brown in colour, and long combat shorts. The sandals I’m wearing are blue and black in colour, with a Puma sign on the strap. I think to myself, “It’s a fucking gorgeous day today” as I sit on the boot of my car. It shakes a little, as I become momentarily concerned it will be pushed forward. But it won’t, and it’s a nice place to sit.

Ahead of me now, I see more ground, more grass and in the far, far distance other cars driving around. Someone looks my way, and I wave at them, they wave back. People don’t know how to react to a hello; particularly when they don’t know who you are, it’s just an instilled politeness. I laugh and grin to myself, as I spark of a cig, and take a pull on this nasty death stick. I tap the boot twice, and the boot taps back. They’re ok inside the boot, they won’t even notice what hit them when they die. If luck is on their side, the boot will come out ok and they’ll survive.

The lungs fill quickly, as I throw up in the water, and swallow what expelled from my belly.

I pick up a long stalk, and place it my mouth. I check the tires to see they’re ok, I push the car a little to see the suspension is good enough. I wanted to put a ramp ahead of me, but I just couldn’t find anything that would work well as a ramp. I just needed something that would give me lift, instead of lift me over, which would be the worst thing.

There’s paint in the back of the car, and I take it out. I grab the brush and start painting words on the side, “Ultimate Ride 50P”. That was how much I took of the person, before I stuck them in the boot. I told him, “50P will give you the Ultimate Ride” and I told the truth, and I was right. I take out the brand new fluffy dice and pine tree fragrance from the back of the car, and place them on the rear view mirror. The car looks better every minute. I decided to twist the wing mirrors, so they look more like wings. This of course breaks the movement, but now they look like wings.

The foam pieces I brought with me, I place on the boot of the car, using lots of super glue and lots of patience. Once dry, I throw a load of paint over it, to give it that “incomplete” look about it. There’s holes in the boot, and I hear spluttering and spitting as the paint drips inside.
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“You all right in there? Hope you ain’t drinking, since you’ll have plenty to drink when we get in the water.”

“Mother fucker! You’re going to die!”

“Yeah, all in good time mate, chill for a while.”

Feeling tired, I decide to sleep for a few hours in the car. I wake up due to a tapping on the window.

“Hi, are you ok?”

“Oh yeah, I’m just having a quick sleep.”

“Your car seems…well have you done something? Do you want me to call doctor?”

“Naw. Hang on, my mate might need a doctor.”

I go around to the boot and open it.

“Mate, do you need a doctor?”

“Fuck you cunt, let me go!”

“I don’t think he needs a doctor, but thanks for asking.”

“Um…who are you talking to there?”

“Oh this? This is my imaginary voice, or at least the most misbehaved one. I sometimes think they need to be taught a lesson, don’t you? No wait, there’s no need to run from me. I’m PERFECTLY SANE! CATCH YOU ON THE FLIPSIDE?? BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!“

People don’t know how to react to a hello; particularly when they don’t know who you are, it’s just an instilled politeness.

As they run off, I watched them head towards a warden of sorts who lives in his little shed. They start finger waving at me, as I wave back, he gets inside and brings out a whistle, blowing my way.

“It’s ok, he’s fine, he likes in the boot! Don’t worry about it!”

I shout at them, as they run back and disappear somewhere. I turn back to the boot, and look the bad voice, and shake my head and tut away. I close the boot, and stretch my arms. I get inside the car, on this wonderfully hot and gorgeous day.

“Seat belts everyone, this will be quite a bumpy ride.”

I start the car, drop the clutch and step on the accelerator. The car drifts forward like a magic carpet. I let go of the wheel and raise my hands in the little head room I have and shout,

“Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

As the car falls at incredible speed, I grin, the rocks come rushing forward smashing through, and then I feel the flames burning through my flesh, and then I feel nothing. Everything ends.

I had another dream, but it was a different death. This time it was less extravagant. I wondered what it would be like to shoot myself with an automatic weapon like an AK47. I imagined that I would place it at the upper part of the inside of my mouth, in order to ensure the bullet reaches my brain. But then I wondered about the recoil, and how I would end up shooting the words “hello” as I fired the gun. Perhaps I would end up with bullets as teeth instead of calcium rich pieces of what, bone? Are they bone. No idea. I didn’t end up dying for some reason, instead I end up with a bloody mouth, and lots of bullets, and the inability to speak. People shake their heads in disappointment and shame at the cock up. I shrug my shoulders in innocence.
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Walking up the street, having these thoughts, I had other thoughts as well. One of them was that I would never stop thinking, and whether or not my brain would be happy with this as therapy, or whether this was not helping at all but increasing my voices, I don’t know.

But I realise that even having a laptop, I could never keep up with the millions of thoughts I have, open, vocal thoughts. I would need to type forever, in order to commit myself to this kind of therapy. I would wake up, type and type, then eat while typing. Shit while typing, bathe while typing and then go to sleep. I would then repeat the cycle ad nauseum, until I kill myself. Because typing would work for only so long before I need something faster to keep up with my thoughts. A Dictaphone would kill me, as it would be too slow, as I wonder if I type faster than I speak, or speak faster than I type. Interesting question, and perhaps something I will look into at some point.

The other mildly interesting point that came across was who I actually was. I don’t remember when I said I preferred being called Sekhu. It’s possible I did say that, it’s possible I have said and done a lot of things, but with the speed at which my thoughts are processes ed anything that happened becomes old very rapidly, and thus is placed in the archives in my head. Because the archives are so huge, I tend not to go through them, as I cannot purge them. The only way I could go back to my archives is through sheer force, or hypnotic regression.

Perhaps I would end up with bullets as teeth instead of calcium rich pieces of what, bone? Are they bone. No idea.

Which leads me on to the point of who I am. Or better still, who I am not. Actually, I’m not certain on how to tackle the question. Let’s say I preferred the name Sekhu to my real name, I have to wonder what exactly does my real name mean to me. It means nothing. My birth name is simply that: a name without purpose, without meaning and without value. What value has any name? What does it inspire? Identity? If it is so easy for me to be called something else, then who am I really? Do I even exist?

Well I exist physically in the flesh, but mentally, is it possible that the one that was born has died, and that slowly, another persona has taken over? Perhaps this has peaked my interest in drugs again? A rebirth of of my teenage years? Perhaps I’m regrowing, or regressing, I don’t quite know what would be the best term. Perhaps it’s a mix of several things, but it begs the question of who am I? Am I Sekhu? If so, who is this person? Am I Jin, and if so, again who is this character?

Have I become what my friends are, taking their personality traits, amalgamating them into one entity and calling this person something else? Is this new person even aware of the past, or that this past has some relation to his existence? So I exist in the flesh, but am I who people think I am mentally? How much of ME as in ME is actually let in this mind, and who is taking place or forming instead?

All these questions and more will be answered in the next episode of Guilty Trousers.