The Riverman

This is chapter 1. I'm really looking to see whether this dark and solemn introduction to the protagonist is too jarring, or sets up the kind of uncertainty and alienation the rest of the book covers.

Pale frosted breath contrasted with the sombre road ahead, a bleak mire of lampposts and the occasional car speeding past the only light on an otherwise dead road, leading nowhere, going nowhere. Each exhalation from my lungs created the only movements I saw; like blustered smoke from a chimney, a few seconds illuminated by the dull pale streetlights, then disappearing into the ether. Other than the dull thudding of my footsteps, this was the only other thing to entertain me on the stretch of road ahead, and it seemed a stretch indeed to call either of those actions “entertainment”. Two actions necessary for life and to return back to the warmth of my russet armchair hardly seemed like ways to keep occupied, but it was all I had. Pondering on the absurdity of these claims only caused me to exasperate further and create harsher internal gales, blowing even more air up into my face.

 

The discordant orange-white hue of the lights continued to illuminate my exhalations of air, casting an almost ethereal glow to the outline of my breath before it dissipated into the black nothingness. The colour the lights produced - subdued, hazy, like an otherworldly spectre of light that we never meant to create, only chanced upon in late night fancies �" casted a quiet molten glow on the cracks in the pavement. I tried to dodge them, snaking my feet inwards and outwards, looping my steps to keep them away from the fissures until I almost tripped over myself, and decided to stop. I knew there was no need to be so cautious about stepping on them. Nothing would happen. Yet I always tried to avoid it, in case from between them a great demon rose and taunted me on this quiet stretch of road which nobody else could see. Continuing down the main road to reach my street, I tried to count the number of streetlights creating the odd light. I saw the same colour each time I left my house after dark (which was become more of a regularity in the deep husks of winter, where it seemed to get dark before the day had begun), but wondered little on how the colour was made, merely reflect that it was made at all. The given way around the city seemed to be the genetic make-up of three different lampposts working tirelessly together to dye the scene for me. One large stem of a lamppost rose from the small islands meant for crossing roads, and at the top of the formation parsed into two lights, dangling slightly like hanging fruit over each section of the road, giving the overall shape of a still-standing viaduct looming over a Loire river. These produced the harsher orange light, ferocious and baying drivers to stay awake with a dose of artificial Vitamin C. The smaller lampposts dotted on the pavements produced the white light. They were simple affairs, small in size and more useful for lighting up the streets for people to walk along. Yet when dozens of these structures all rolled into one down the expanse of the road, they created the mirage like vision of the indescribable colour within my head.

I suddenly stopped thinking about the light as a car playing particularly loud music drove past. Startled, I checked my phone and realised I’d spent at least 5 minutes staring at the lamppost without moving. Worried that someone had been watching, I quickly shuffled off back down the road, not caring whether I stepped on the cracks.

 

The cold had now penetrated my bones, so my walk turned into a kind of skip and hop, causing my shadow to dance with itself under every meagre splash of light I passed. The damp in the air was causing condensation on my unkempt beard and I felt small, dewy droplets descend onto my lower lip from my moustache. I almost tripped over a can discarded onto the pavement, after which my haphazard step had sent starkly into the knee-high wall on my left, creating a tinny thud as it collided with the brick and mortar. The presence of the can angered me; why, when a bin was mere metres away, had someone just left it on the floor? It doesn’t rot like a human, turn into dust like the thoughts of every ambler who recreates scenarios in their heads under the same saggy trees where the can had been thrust. It just sits there, voidless. Why should a paltry scab of aluminium, left with such wanton insignificance, feel a more permanent fixture on this road than I? Again the chill caused me discomfort, but my internal anger heated my organs allowing me to stand there, breath increasingly unsteady as I viewed the can with contempt. So small, so pointless, so simply designed with a singular function, yet it had managed to outlive its function and now exist in a kind of limbo, the wind causing it to incessantly attack the wall. The tinny sounds became subdued as the energy of the can was extracted into the night, yet it still seemed to me mocking me.

A light from the house behind the wall was suddenly switched on, presumably unsettled by the noise of the can, and I realised how unfavourable my position was; perfectly still outside their house, staring at, what looked like to them from their angle, directly into their garden. With speed that frightened me I paced off past their gate, past the exact same flesh coloured wall, and onto the rest of my journey. But then I slowed down, because I couldn’t remember why I was here in the first place; I knew I was returning home, but why had I gone out? Everything before the car seemed like such a blur, and I wondered if anything had even happened on the travel, except the shuffling of my feet against the wet leaves. It was deeply unsettling to me to have forgotten why I had left, and I felt myself quicken to get back home.

 

The turn off to my road was on the next right, where the same white van was always parked in the free parking spot. Usually a hindrance and obscuring your vision when crossing, it was also a warm reminder that soon I would be home. I enjoyed walking late at night, but there was a fine line between when it is enjoyable and when it becomes simply another miserable, fleeting activity. This usually occurred after around 45 minutes. Before this time, returning home seems a waste; why bother even leaving at all if you’re only going to return so soon after. But longer than 45 minutes and you began to feel tiresome, and on particularly cold evenings, your nose became a bright red beacon unless a well-placed scarf had deflected some of the weather. The street looked like every other street in the town, probably like every other street in the country; two rows of semi-detached houses, not quite symmetrical due to a slight bend in the road, but close enough that an equilibrium between the two sides had been reached. All of the houses were modern, built in the last 100 years, all of the same style of brick, with the same layout and amenities; a small drive situated to the right hand side of a small front garden, walled off with the same knee high walls the aluminium can was probably still battering. The only discernible difference lay in the gates each household used to bridge the gap between these walls. Some were small and picketed, not dissimilar to what you would find on a farm. Others were green or white and made of a rusting metal, looking like faux-regality. Perhaps these distinctions really had an impression on the households; maybe the Walter’s at number 28 felt more like their house was a castle because of this flowing gate, squealing with fanfare at every royal visitor entering their de jure homeland. And perhaps the Dennison’s at number 41 truly felt like they lived on a farm due to their miniature stable style gate, and in their dreams their two rabbits and their Yorkshire Terrier morphed into legions of stallions and cattle, the garden outside filled with a trampoline and small swing-set suddenly became a farm in Patagonia, self-sufficient and glowing in the beauty of the Argentine sun. Maybe they were all yearning to individualise themselves with the only outward feature they could change, desperately trying to convey the personalities of entire generations and family’s with one mundane item. Or perhaps they had just picked whichever was on sale when they visited B & Q. Either way, all that nonsense over a fence wasn’t worth mulling over, and I was soon glad to be indoors, the final draft of wind disturbing the deathly silence of my hallway.  

 

 

I practically collapse as I enter the living room. Exertion of my body tires my greatly only after the exertion occurs, but when it hits me it affects me with a viciousness. Sitting on the armchair, I take a few moments to steady my fragile heartbeat, and I stare at the painting to my left. It seems out of place with my mind-set; a close up image of a cow’s face, but with a purple background and a heavy stylus etch of the animal’s features. It is only after staring at the cow I realise I can faintly hear music from my stereo, which must have been left playing before I left the house. The song is Nick Drake’s “River Man”, attempting to take me on a journey down the Thames, serenely into a shallow sleep amongst the reeds. The song only adds to the sombre atmosphere of the room, so I fight against it with my energy to go to the bathroom, but by the time I reach there I am spent. I splash my face with cold water, getting an uncomfortable amount of the cool liquid on my sleeve, left to pester me with damp for the rest of the evening. I look at my scrawny appearance in the mirror. The beads running down my slightly dishevelled and uneven beard mimic the frost hoars from earlier, but both cause me discomfort and chill. I am lucky I have a bead, for my cheeks would look gaunt without it, hard and spent. The thick mane covers my jawline and hides the paleness, too. My eyes look sunken, and seem to be turning greyer each day, as if any semblance of vivacity is being sucked from them, either inwardly or outwards. My hair is unkempt, but I feel too tired each morning to go to the barbers.

My breathing during the stare-off with myself has fogged the mirror, and obscured my piercing vision of myself. Oh well. I stumble over to my bed, and collapse on top of it, over both bedsheet and duvet, and close my eyes.

 

Sleep does not come so easily, however. I know at least 3 lights are on, and so is the stereo, and the curtains downstairs are undrawn, allowing a glimpse into the living room for passers-by. I try to guilt myself into action, but nothing moves me. I don’t seem to care about the polar bears dying, or the aggravating light hitting my face, when my alternative to this guilt is a barren nothing and a lack of movement. I want to pick the second option, to just lay and feel nothing, not even the bedsheets beneath my clothes. I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to be drawn into the awkward slumber where I cannot control my destiny or my thoughts or my actions, the terrifying expanse swallowing me up. I simply want to be, like a rock near the riverbed. I want to hear the gushing water, feel the cool breeze touch me gently, but I don’t want to be carried away by it, taken by feelings unknown to a destination unknown.

 

I struggle with myself to push myself upwards and swing my legs round, planting my cold feet instantly into my slippers. I trudge slowly down the stairs, the sounds of the stereo becoming gradually louder, but I’m too lost in the thoughts of the water I conjured up previously to recognise the song. My body wanders through the house like a ghost turning off the rest of the lights, and I wearily draw the curtains; in my last glimpse into the night, I see nothing outside.

 

I try to close my eyes but the thoughts of the river have left me to be replaced with the vivid imagery of a restless void. I open and close my eyes rapidly, each time I try to glue my eyelids shut with my will, but a vision or face appears in the dark, jumping out like a horror movie villain, and I have to open my eyes again. The bottom of my back begins to feel numb, the feeling of anxiety crawls up my back like a spider, its legs reaching out and prickling each ribcage until it reaches my neck, where it rides over me in a single wave and disappears. But soon the erraticism stops, and the numbness remains consigned to my lower back, and an uneasy sleep takes me.