The Teller is a crippled man abandoned by his helpers.
Trapped in a slipper bath within a vast and austere bathroom, he calls out until exhausted, his voice echoing from the floor and walls. Tiled, black and white in a chequered pattern. Paint flakes from deep skirting boards, the door frame, and the carved plaster ceiling rose. His grasping fingers cannot quite reach the handle of a broom he hoped to use to rouse attention. Glass in the tall window opposite is grimy, and most of the panes are cracked. His only view is of the sky.
He senses the time of day by the warmth of weakening sunlight reflecting an increasingly golden glow.
Deprived of human contact for hours on end, half-submerged in the cooling water, his consciousness drifts. The room contracts until it is his entire universe. At first, empty and desolate, he gradually becomes aware that there is a certain vitality to decay.
He perceives teeming activity in acute detail – a beetle struggling to climb the slippery wall, its blue-black carapace gleaming. Menacing, he feels, until it falls and begins to climb again. The repetitive jingle of birdsong suddenly strangled to silence, grains of dust drifting across the floor. The ash of dreams. If only he had taken more notice of the world outside when he was whole and free.
The Teller’s mind wanders through memories that mix and congeal, splinter, then fuse – the accident that broke him, regrets, passions, desires, observations, his past and present take on a fresh potency. The meaning of human existence is locked within that room, within himself.
“Soulful, whimsical, sexy, ruthless, nasty and, in parts, heartbreaking.” Human dilemmas unravelled in prose and narrative verse. It’s one hell of a ride! The imagery will stick to you like ketchup on cashmere.
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Book cover: “Ovular Curios” – By Norag Archipelago.
© Rod McRiven 2024
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