Buzz

Sometime sI have bad dreams...

Buzz

My eyes snapped open. Blurred smudges like squirming amoebas faded together then disappeared into the pitch black nothingness of night. The shadows cracked like old slate in a thunderstorm and my vision sharpened. My bedroom crept through the fog of ink. I was awake. I could hear a truck rumble down the road, rattling the windowpanes a little, then roll like a broken stone off into to the distance. The day came back to me like fragments of a dream, shattered with sharp corners, hard-edged and with missing pieces. My whole life was a second-hand puzzle.
In my heightened state of awareness it felt best to dismiss the memories - they were not going to help me, to help me sleep. Instead, I focused my hearing on the low hum emanating from the living-room, a barely audible whisper through the wooden bedroom door. It could be the VCR, though I could not recall ever hearing the sound before; a low, inconsistent pulse, like the sound electricity makes underwater, or a sleeping beehive or a broken dishwasher. I could not put my finger on it.
My mouth felt like felt. My tongue was a brand new sponge. I sat bolt upright, my single bed creaking with disapproval, my muscles howling in the moonlight - bones feeling dusty like they could crack and splinter at an moment. I wince at the cold touch of varnished wood against the pads of my toes as my feet touch the floor. The humming seems louder now, with an added nuance, a tenor frequency as accompaniment to the bass, a note I had not noticed before. A new key. My muscles yawn as I approach the bedroom door.
The noise was making me itch! As I stood tall, I did not feel ready to turn the handle. It was as if cold, clammy fingers were holding me back by my shoulders. I could feel their sweaty palms against my naked skin. I shook away the thoughts and they scattered like bats at dusk. I opened the door and flicked the light switch. The room was familiar; the leather sofa, the lazy-boy armchair, the home entertainment system and the five remote controls that came with it, the fake Banksy on the wall. Then I noticed the source of the noise. Flittering against the window on the other side of the room was a large black fly. It stared at me with two protruding, engorged red eyeballs  whilst rubbing its hind-legs together like it was playing the violin. I became angry that this bug had the nerve to awaken me from my slumbers. Without a thought, I picked up the heaviest read I could find, an Ikea catalogue, and approached the insect. There would be no mercy. I pitied the thing. Instead of swatting, I stabbed at it with the edge of my weapon. Drawing the magazine back , I surveyed my work. In some cruel, clumsy attempt at butchery I had crushed its head between the pages. It stood there, on six legs, playing its mini fiddle, headless. I stood back. It struggled to walk a few steps. I felt a little nauseous. I wanted to put it out of its misery, but how could I? I had already rid it of its most vital organ; its entire head! The episode was beginning to disturb me. I got the sudden urge to rid the world of this invincible monster and to ease my mind of this uncomfortable, somewhat awkward silence between us, and so I brought the catalogue flat down, heavily, upon the hideous thing. I did not sleep well that night.

The next night I awoke with the same noise rattling my eardrums. It was a humid, sticky night. I squeezed my eyes tight shut but it was not my imagination and it would not go away of its own accord. Again, I began to itch. I was already standing in front of the bedroom door. I did not feel ready to open it. I scratched at the invisible insect bites on my thighs, my arms and on the back of my neck.The feeling of frustration mixed with pure, agonising pleasure made me feel like a mad man in love. The hum was such that I could feel a woman's lips, an inch from my ear, her hot breath stirring my insides as she spits endless Z's into my soul.  Just before it became too much to bear, the split second before an explosion, the countdown to a launch, eyes meeting during a car crash - I swung the door open and punched the light switch. I was bathed once again in glorious light, drenched in gold, and the sound was gone. My ear drums could relax but my eyes became crisp and everything adjusted to the change in exposure. My pupils were fixed on the windows at the other end of the hand painted wallpaper. They ignore the clean, polished wooden floors and the CD's organized in alphabetical order, the mirrored coffee table and the 32-inch flat screen television. All this was trivial. Way beneath the numerous large, black, lumbering flies that lolled around the window frames. I felt nauseous. They crawled over one another indiscriminately, furry legs brushing together - they were disgusting. I had never been squeamish of insects before but he sheer amount of bug-hair and greasy, tacky abdomens and quivering feelers that had spontaneously appeared like a biblical plague in my painfully plush, modern city bachelor pad was too much. I vomited on the floor next to my £700 sofa and feinted.
I woke up tasting it. Looking straight at the window from my vantage point from the floor I saw nothing, my right cheek was squashed against the floor and really hurt. I peeled myself and into the bathroom to clean myself up. The morning light felt like dead people's kisses on my skin. I cleaned the sick from the floor, feeling embarrassed, ashamed in the presence of some higher power I could not recognize, and went back to work as normal.

That night I woke as if the sun had burnt out. The digital clock blinked its green 3am. The humming was back, only this time it had a new tone, an amalgamation of a million pulses that terrified me to the core. I prayed to whoever that I was dreaming and pulled the covers over my head, knowing already that there was no way I was going back to sleep. I decided to weigh my options; I could stay in my makeshift cave and escape into petrified nightmares - or rip the plaster clean off, taking some skin with it.
After some time I settled for the latter. I was a fully grown adult and I was not going to become a prisoner in my own home. The noise was there, of course, and became louder as I approached the door. My hands felt like tinfoil. The door slowly swung open.
The room was a cloud of itching, scratching hooked feet and too many wings. They buzzed around the lightbulb like dragons blotting out the sun, It was a tornado of tiny things, making my insides vibrate - I laughed out loud, insane. Grabbing an old t-shirt from the floor, I ran through the storm towards the window with my face covered. The bugs hit my face like fat rain falling from all sides, leaving me soaked with rage at mother nature. She was here, uninvited, on my £1000 mahogany bookcase, crawling over my £600 dinner table, nibbling - devouring my £800 curtains (Handmade in Egypt). She was evaporating my privacy, leaving all my guilty secrets uncovered and open and in full view of the world and myself. I gagged and swallowed it back down.
I struggled through the mess toward the window, fumbling at the latch with my one hand free, the other pressing the t-shirt to my face. I could smell the CKOne still inside the cotton. The window was not co-operating with my requests. I choked on the bitter smelling material and threw it to the floor. The flies saw their chance. They swarmed all over me like I was muck. The were in my hair, scratching at my eyeballs, invading my ears and nostrils, biting me from the inside. I screamed. Like black, liquid tar they poured into my throat and flew deep inside. They squeezed my heart like it was a piece of old fruit, and it exploded within my chest with bittersweet ecstasy.