brave exhibitions

  The waiting room was sterile in the way some silverware arranged by an ocd middle aged house wife with a passion for cookery and taxidermy might have been...

  I was unable to look anyone in the eye and hunched myself forward in thought looking constipated but thoughtful although it also gave me the appearance of someone without a neck.                                                                                                                               My hands were clamped tightly round a bookies pen which someone held had used as a chew toy.I knew the inevitability of my situation yet I'd sat here among the living for half a bloody hour doing nothing...                                                                                                             I'd retrieved the forms from a nurse called Betty according to the name stitched in italics on her uniform. The woman had looked up from her work and watched the feeble natured  man approach. She looked me up and down like a lot of people used to do.

"eh...'ere ye ar mister....uqart?",

Its bloody urquhart.....

Betty strained her crow-feeted eyes trying to understand how a name like that had ended up among all the smiths and Jones residing happily and comfortably on the crisp paper.

"'al call ye once the docters ready tae see yae..."  

I  slowly took myself back to my plastic seat and decided I should just pull the scab of the wound and get the irritable feeling spreading through me  out of my system as soon as possible...

Once I’d finished filling in the forms I’d been asked to, I sat with the pastel forms in my hands waiting for the Caledonian screech of a woman desperate to get home to the flatulent arse she called her husband.

"the doctor will see ye now..."                                                    

I walked with a quickened spring and jump to the doctors room.It was like sitting in a giant glacier mint except there was thousand upon thousands of other smells not so pleasant.             "Your test results arrived this morning....Its best that you see them for yourself..."               I took them from his ink stained fingers and opened the results.                                            "I see...."                                                                                                                        "We'll arrange treatment and recommendations in due course mister urquhart..."                          Mr.Keats had known me all my life.I'd visited with a broken ankle as a little boy wearing my brothers hand me downs,I'd visited as a teenage boy unsure of these weird contours called my body and now I visited finding out some news I'd expected yet hoped was going to get forgotten to focus on a news report about old people taking up line dancing….    

I was forty yet my life seemed to have passed like the wisps of hair the doctor had once had in the form of a perm.

                                                                    Stephen would be picking me up in his old Ford probably worse for wear and drunk with  careful precision so I walked into the car park whilst taking out a cigarette and struggling with

 cold fingers to lit the darn thing. my addiction was relieved even before it had reached my lungs.                                      

       A familiar vehicle drew to a halt as I reached the end of my f*g.

It started burning the tips of my fingers but,I felt almost like a dentist had injected my whole body, not just gums with anesthetic. If I bit the inside of my mouth I'd feel nothing.

I felt numb.

  Stephen put a hand on my shoulder although he seemed not so pleased to be showing he felt affection.

  "what did they say?"             

   an ache spread out of me into the weakly lit Scottish air and I hide my gaze,

"Colin?" He grasped my arm in his , "lets go..."                                         

We both found our way slowly to the front of the car and as his radio came into life I felt myself heave and let everything out with one huge push….

---------------

We'd been sitting together in the car for over two hours waiting outside my flat for the rain to finally stop.

We didn’t need to talk….

Stephen looked down at his hands, which gripped the wheel before glancing in my direction.

"Do they know how far gone you are?"

his voice seemed to cut through the heat of the heavily dense air in the small vehicle.. 

“too late to do anything really….we just have to wait and hope it won’t come quick…”

"Have you told Jean?"      

I'd known stephen since we were eleven years of age.He was taller than me by a foot then but around the second year of high school I suddenly sprouted into the BFG.Stephen had been the closest I'd had to family all these years.Mum and my father had split due to fact they both had aged into two people totally different from those they had fallen in love with.Those lovers had casually died.        

       Stephen was the one who told me about the birds and bees.His sister had left a Jackie magazine lying in the bathroom after painting her nails and Stephen had flipped through it and found his childhood disappear into an abyss filled with stuffed bras and tampon ads. He had also been there for me when my father died of a heart attack the year before. I had been there for him also as best friends are ,but I felt like this scruffy Glaswegian who had an overbearing quiff was my very own Clarence. A guardian angel in slacks.

"I haven't.... Just you.” I mouthed , fingering my hair and glanced awkwardly out the window.

 

"They don't have to know.... Not Yet anyway...."

 

I struggled to get my jacket on. It reached the floor and give my the appearance of a British spy during the war.

"Thanks Stephen"

I gathered my things up and got out of the car ,fiddling around in look of my keys.Just as the car was about to leave I called out to Stephen to wait. The window slowly opened and I looked dead on at my friend.

 "I can't thank you enough mate"

"Forget it you bloody numptie! we're supposed to be there for one another at shite times like this!""

     He reached out his hand and we shared one last manly shake.

"see ya later colin ,ya  bloody ball bag..."

I smiled at him without realizing this was the final time we’d say goodbye.

He grinned back at me but as he went off into the sleet and grey downpour of rain I could see a single tear fall from his face and another and another til he looked as sad as the weather he drove on through.

 I woke. 

   My Eyes  were laced with strained lines and  my lungs which were surely weak thundered away as I broke into a sweat.

On my floor and around the bed like a shrine to some god lay hundreds of empty bear bottles.

  The only memory of the night before.

It was nearly evening and I hadn't stirred from my sleep. 

Jean had dumped me the night before when she found the doctors letter. she felt betrayed that I hadn’t told her.

Falling out of my small softly lullibic bed  I slowly floated in my own time to the bathroom.

My medicine cabinet, which had once been a haven for nicities such as the odd condom or even one of Jean’s lipsticks that had melted, was completely full of my meds...

I clasped one of the bottles in my left hand and looked up  at my reflection. I felt pathetic. I listlessly took the many pills which were fighting their own bacterial version of the Somme inside me and looked back into the eyes of this stranger.

I shut the cabinet and wandered out into the street filled only with cheap drink, pills and nothing else.

A shell. A Shell. A shell.

A shell, which you can't hear the sea in.....

    The figure from a distance was magnificent yet as obscure as any of the people down below. I looked down from the edge of the roof and let one of my shoes fall down to pavement six stories down. I could walk out quite simply and land like my footwear. I just needed to prepare myself.

 “WAIT,MR URQUHART!”I furrowed my brow and looked around as a slightly weak old man reached me.” here”

He gave me a folded piece of paper, opening it all I could see was an address.

“wha..”I stopped mid-sentence once I noticed the man was gone.

  I no longer felt the desire to end things so soon.

     I read the address, looked up then reread the address again. This simply didn’t seem right….the address had led me to a building on the outskirt of town. It looked bizarre…not a hospital although it had the uneasy feeling that goes with one. I walked through the entrance to the sigh of a clear silver hallway devoid of anything. No doors, no rooms just an ongoing corridor that seemed endless.

    After what seemed an age I finally found myself at what appeared to be a cleverly concealed door the same colour as the walls. I went to unlock it, but was surprised to see it sweep open on its own.

 “ah! mr urquhart!how nice to see you….you’re right on time!”

it was the same man as before. A nurse stood alongside him and took my coat for me.

“step into my office and we’ll explain everything!” He beamed at me with a sinisterly sweet sincere look.

“we’ve got quite the proposition for you..”

    I looked over his bald shining head to look at the bare landscape outside.

“so will this really work? Will I still have cancer?”

“that’s the great thing….you’ll be the same person inside ,but you’ll be young again. Everyone will think old Colin urquhart is dead. We use a body like your own to fool everyone. we can give you a second chance Mister urquhart….for a small fee of course…”

He gave me offer the consent forms which I signed.

“when do we begin?”

“we can start right now!” He grinned leading me out. we passed a room which was full of fidgety people in blue overalls.

”Its this way mr urquhart!” the doctor said grasping my arm and trying to get me to ignore the room. he looked into my eyes and smiled,

“your new life begins today colin!”

 Waking you feel like a computer that has been shut down and started  up from scratch again.                                    

      Your head feels like someone has shat in it and there’s a nausea that is unbearable. You reach for one of those cardboard things that you're meant to project your fluids into but your throat is saw raw and the bloodiness of it is so painful that you go back under and start to choke....                                          

I was drowning. I could just let the boreal waves wash over me and carry me amongst others, but I fight back trying to escape from the memories threatening to submerge me ,I swallow and it gets harder to breath. My head is tight and thoughts grow clouded.....

“be still sir…”A nurse with a shoulder length fringe came up to me and placed a soothing flannel on my forehead.” it takes a bit of getting used to…your teeth,jaw,skull bones, everything have been replaced…I’ll give you something to help with the pain…”

 Next time I came round it was obvious it was the evening. The clock on the wall above my head seemed to smack into me with its plastic hands and I slowly raised my hands to my face in order to decipher what was real.

“Hello there mister urquhart!”

It was the doctor.

“try not to speak yet. This is our resident speech therapist. He’ll be helping you over the coming months to learn how to speak with your new teeth. we can arrange all the details for your new life once you’re feeling great!”

 Gathering up all signs of my identity I straightened my suit and smiled at the reflection in the mirror.It was incredible to see this person looking back at me.I was this stranger….

My name was Luke Morris as of now.

“I believe you wanted to be an artist as a young man or am I wrong?”

“no I really did ,but I never had the guts to…”

“you have a beautiful apartment in Edinburgh as of now.,a studio full of brilliant works and if things get hard or you want a second change then we’re always here…”

  I’d not been in this area of Edinburgh in a long time. As a young man I’d been one of those lads who wore donkey jackets adorned with badges and an angry grimace.me,colin and other lads would occasionally all venture into the capital to cause havoc and get girls as our parents would have done twenty years earlier in places like Brighton. Now I stood here in the old town just waiting and watching everyone around….

Teenage life seemed even more confusing that it had been the first time round. Then I saw her….

A girl who was no older than nineteen and was truly beautiful.Snow white in a primark dress.

  Though she couldn’t place me she knew me. We both could only describe the feeling as if a part of our body we'd lost had suddenly been found. A fingerprint to which a fingerprint matched exactly in smudgy brilliance.... 

  “I’m Emma..” she looked up at me with doe-like beautiful green eyes.

    The next morning as we woke up to the sounds of the bustle of the town I could say I felt happy for the first time in a long while.

I turned to face Emma and watched with adoration as she slept.

Had I dreamt my previous life?

  “Happy birthday to you! happy birthday to you!”

I looked down at the twenty three blazing candles in awe.

I grinned cheekily at my friends and thanked them.

“where’s Emma?”

I stood up and quickly checked I was ready for what I was about to do.

“outside.”, someone said before topping up their wine glass.

I went over the words again and again then finally I walked out and tapped on Emma’s shoulders.

She was talking on her mobile and seemed unhappy to see me.

”shite..I’l call back soon.” She put her arms round me and kissed my neck.

“how are you luv?”

I got down on one knee whilst trying hard not to tremble.

“will you marry me Emma?”

“Of course!”

  the house was emptied of party guests at a relatively late time and we both fell asleep in one another’s arms.

“BRRRRRRRRRR…”

My alarm drilled into my skull mercilessly to signal the new day.

“Em…”I was holding a pillow in my arms.not a soulmate.I stood up to watch as a note fell and landed on the carpet.

I read it and felt like the horrible words had been written in my own blood instead of ink.

The doctor would know what to do….I could fix this and start again.

     “nice to see you….”

“mr morris?Its me colin urquhart remember!?”

“of course you are!” he motioned to a chair and asked me what was wrong.

“can you make me someone else again…everything  has turned to crap once more.”

“we sure can.” He gave me some blue overalls.” Just wait in that room until your name is called.”

 I was back in physics class at high school almost….

Many people of varying age sat around looking bored.

I sat down in an empty chair and tried not to notice the maniacal looks of some of the people around me. Glimpsing out the room I saw Stephen with the doctor.

I waved at him but he looked blankly back at me before being led away. he didn’t recognize me I realized sadly.

“LUKE MORRIS. Please come through….”a nurse motioned to an open door with a slight smile on face.

”yes!!!”I jumped up from my seat disregarding the looks of the people who hadn’t been called. Lying down in a hospital trolley I waited in the room I’d been left in for something to happen..

A priest and the doctor arrived and I found myself being led away to the operating room again. I lay back happy and contend until it occurred to me that the priest was giving me the last rites.

  “DOCTOR!”I tried to get up but felt myself being forced down into straps, which restrained any movement.

   “where are you doctor? help me!” I strained and looked behind to see Emma staring back at me dressed in the uniform of the other nurses.

“its alright Mr. Morris…calm down. Relax…” the doctor said reassuringly as we went through into the room where I’d been transformed last time. He turned to an assistant whilst putting on his surgical mask.

“Cranial drill please…”

    Emma found Stephen waiting for his surgery to begin and placed her engagement ring in his hand with a sad woeful look in her eyes as if to warn him.

  She whispered something quietly into his ear as he looked on shocked.

As sudden as this reveleation he felt the doctors grip on his shoulder.

“we’re ready for you now mr smith!”he grinned as he took Stephen’s hand in his. 

Reviews

[Call me Jane]

This is very intresting i really liked it! great write!!