The Fullfillment* Centre 2/3

That first night after we had unpacked and I was on the floor in the downstairs room in a sleeping bag, I realised I had rented a place with a streetlight directly outside and no curtains, only a piece of netting over the window. The room was bright and I pulled myself into the corner so the glow was less intense. Still I was unable to sleep, the light, a new place, the discomfort of being on the floor, the smell of damp from the outside wall.  

All of it suddenly spoke to me of my abject failure. I had a history and it all unavoidably rolled through me, a great parade of loss of nerve and weakness, of fear and anger, of self-delusion and evasion playing out before me, my own private montage of guilt and shame, richly patterned. I had got to the age where I could see the continuities, themes, habits I had been unable to break, doubts that had hemmed me in, fantasies I had been unable to realise or abandon. Error compounded by error in a long chain that had lead me here, head still full of nonsense when I could have just knuckled down, made the most of it and, naturally, like everyone I suppose, confronted with that shadow life, shadow self I immediately looked away from it all, looked to the future that was still open to me. Never mind all that, the past, the lives you might have had, it will all be resolved, absolved, in the great endeavour to come. 

That was what I needed what I always hankered after, new beginnings, but how long could you go on always starting afresh, always avoiding routine, responsibilities, the mundane. Forever? Something like a dull panic seized me, that I had swum out to far from the shore and understood I lacked the strength now to make it back. The floorboards above me creaked, footsteps, Chris going for a piss, a sudden half-asleep burst of activity, doors slamming, crashing back down on the mattress, almost instantaneously starting snoring again. 

Was this really the life I wanted? I thought I would send her a message. What time was it in Japan? I battled with myself. Perhaps she had sent me one, resisted looking at my phone for fear the additional stimulus would only make me even more alert, agitated, then relented, picked it up. 

There was a message but not from Ayako. It was from a number I didn’t recognize. 

I came to the house but you wasnt in.