One memory served for the many Sundays spent at home in the family’s terrace house, Homelea. He had spent his last year at school in the surety of his vocation. His whole life had been based on the assumption that he would take Holy Orders. He had concentrated all his energies in the effort to distort his vision, because he had willed that, at the climax, the statue of Christ would move and speak to him.Īt fifteen he had decided to become a priest. The candles had seemed to shoot skywards. He had held his breath to make himself feel dizzy. There had been a statue beside the altar, and a bush of flowering candles. Once, as a child, he had knelt at the back of an empty church. Thought became the clock noise, so that he thought: Trk trk, trk trk, trk trk - ‘No!’ he said aloud, covering his ears with his hands. Then he relaxed the pressure of his hands, unable to stop listening to the clock which now sounded different, going: Trk trk, trk trk, trk trk. It limited his consciousness like a wall. Then he lay smoking and flicking ash into the Watney’s Ales ashtray. He felt in his pocket for the cigarettes, because the act of striking a match and lighting the cigarette would knock a few seconds off the boredom. They were inescapable great lumps of matter. He tried looking at the wall, and the wall expanded and loomed towards him. He thought that it was wrong that objects should intrude so much. It seemed to swell, as if the appearance of the jacket had come forward from the jacket itself.

His suedette zipper jacket hung from the door. The objects in the room had an oppressive life of their own, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. The window was wide open but no air was coming in. It was not caused, it simply existed it was part of him. He lay on the bed, on top of the grey ex-army blankets, fully dressed except for his shoes.Īs he became more awake he knew that it was still there: the pain circuit inside his head. When he woke it was evening but the air in the room was still heavy with heat.

The Furnished Room by Laura Del-Rivo