Chapter 5 - What time is it?

It looked like, it was , a creature. It floated above the bed, upright, perhaps two foot high. It wore a white gown like a choirboy, it had no discernible arms or legs, its face was an almond with large typically alien-like black eyes and no other features and it had long ginger clean hair, swept either side of its ‘face'. It hovered still and I communicated with it telepathically. How we got the ball rolling I don't know but something like a mental tug-of-war began. It controlled me. It let me know that. ‘You never had any free will, ever. You're my slave. I've controlled you all of your life.' I dismissed it but it wouldn't disappear. We ran through things in my life and a recognition arose in me that it had always been there. I lay talking away to this. ‘You always knew you could communicate like this. That makes me real. I have power over your whole existence.' I denied it and tried to shut it out, pushing myself into the bedding, but I knew it was still there. I cracked, 'you're not there, you're not there, it's not real.' I opened my eyes and it was gone and I sighed and then it was there again. What are you? ‘You are mine. You are nothing without me. I have always been here and you have always known it.' Get away from me. I can't go anywhere. We battled. I tried reverse psychology, mind-games to get rid of it but it was always there, always winning. My fear dispersed a bit. ‘I know you think your fear is gone but it hasn't. I can make it come back. I control everything.' I moaned, sweated, wept. Then it produced my watch. Give it to me, it's mine. ‘It's mine.' Let me have my watch, you can have anything but give me my watch. I tried to lift my arm, tried to grab for it. I wanted it so much, to keep me connected. ‘Take it then, if you want it that much. Take it from me. Remember I know what you're thinking so you can't surprise me.' I tried to grab for it as a dog would a biscuit. But I never had the strength and it went on torturing me like this. At one point I pretended I didn't want the watch anymore. Oh, I don't care. You keep it. In my head I tried to imagine that I really didn't want it. ‘I know you really want it.' I don't. I pretended I was going to do something but kept insisting I didn't want it and tried to travel to a point where I could fool it and myself that I didn't know what I wanted to do. Then when I didn't know whether I gave a fuck either way anymore I surged up and seized nothing but air. ‘You see I know.' It laughed. I laughed. My body twitched in laughter or dry tears. Who knew which? ‘There you go then.' My hand was clenched tight and I felt something in it and we both fell quiet. I could feel my watch in my hand. I tried not to think it, I fooled him, but it sort of slipped into my conscience uncontrollably. I opened my fingers and looked in my palm at the watch, which was in lots of pieces, broken up. Its laughing was like a roar of superiority that shook me and defeated me until I resigned and joined in the laughter and accepted it. Beaten. Then I leapt up out of bed as suddenly as I could and threw a punch with my right hand ripping out the two needles and smashing my fist into where its little almond head would be and the window pane shattered through the mesh and almond face disappeared. I sat at the edge of the bed woozy and exhausted. My head was spinning. There was nothing in my hand, but fresh blood pissed all over it. I sat shaking and wondering what the fuck was going on with me and I heard something said across the room. It was something eerie as fuck that I heard and immediately forgot and I said ‘What? What did you say?' And in the darkness the big man's silhouette leaned forward and he hissed out a whisper: “Sometimes I speak to them too.” And instantly he fell backwards in bed and was asleep. I huddled the blanket and sheets around me and jabbed the needles in and shut my eyes tight.

The next day was the first time I felt like I’d woken up from sleep since I got in there and I blinked away the eye gunk. Straight off I checked up to my left and there was nothing there except cracked pains of glass tangled into the mesh. Frankenstein sat on the chair with no sign of my watch. The big man was asleep too. I looked at him snoring away and wondered… I realised my body wasn’t feverish. It was the first indication that I was recovering. My mind felt anything but clear but sleep had given it a shot of tonic. The nurses came in a helped me out of bed. I was so weak I couldn’t stand and I flopped on to the other bed as they changed the sheets. I felt numb, a little better but numb after the night. I wanted a visitor now but one didn’t come for a long time. I managed to drink some water while they changed the bags over and washed the dry blood from my arm and scolded me for getting the drips ripped out like it was my fault I’d been visited by an alien god. They gave me some fruit but I still didn’t feel I could eat a thing. They told me off. I nodded, collapsed on the bed and slept and slept. When I woke someone was there. I didn’t know who it was but I talked to them about all kinds of gibberish and fell back asleep. The next thing I remember was watching the TV on top of the cabinet at the end of the bed, which was never on, of course. I made up a whole film in my mind. The film lasted hours, until Jess showed up. “How are you?”
“I feel better. I want to go now.” I cried a bit. “I think I will. I’m gonna get out of here and go back to England. Can you get James to come in?”
James came in presently and I asked him to draw some money out for my bill. “Are you sure, dude? You don’t look too good.”
“Speak up will ya? I’ve felt worse, believe me. I just want out now. Africa’s had enough of me. Hey, how long have I been in here?”
“Six days.”
“Six days?”
“Yeah.”
James came back a while later. Jess said I could stay with her ‘til I was strong enough to get the flight. I packed my things; A towel and a dog-eared copy of Frankenstein, to be precise. Then they helped me to walk from the ward. I waved goodbye to the big man. He was perched up with his hands crossed together across his gut. He just stared at me blankly.

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