The train hurtles its way under the city.

Fourteen down. A thinking thing. Five letters.

Brain.

We lurch round a bend and my pen jolts. Blue biro zigzags across the newsprint. The letters dance and my mind jumps back to the cardiac monitor in the hospital. I remember how I kept my eyes fixed on the screen. How I let its blips and bleeps flood my ears. How I was too afraid to look at the person lying at the end of the tangled mess of wires and tubes. How I was too afraid to listen to the rise and fall of your breath.
All that earth and water piled on top of my head makes me nervous, you once said. Well, I thought it would be safe down here. I thought my mind could slip and slide for a while, and maybe I could stop thinking. But I was wrong.

I fold my newspaper into quarters and stuff it into the pocket of my overcoat. I know, I know. The coat is a mistake. I found it at the back of the wardrobe this morning. When I tried it on and examined myself in the hall mirror I could see it was too big. I’m shrinking and it hung like a sack. I did consider tying an old trouser belt round my middle, but thought better of it, so I just dabbed a wet tissue over the mysterious dark stains down the front and quickly left the house. Don’t worry. I’ll take it to the charity shop.

I allow my eyes to close and relax into the rocking of the train. A warm sooty breeze rushes through an open window. We slow down as we approach Camden Town and I open my eyes a fraction. Through narrow slits I watch a man in a dark suit get off the train and run along the platform. He has abandoned me in the carriage with the young girl sitting opposite. Quite a thing these days, to be almost alone on a train. She has her eyes closed and headphones plugged into her ears. I open my eyes properly and look at her. She looks Japanese. Really though, she has the strangest hair cut. Razored almost to her scalp on one side, spiking outwards on the other. The tips of each spike look to have been dipped in purple paint. Her skin is sallow, her cheeks pimpled. Her eyes open and she catches me staring at her. I remember the stains on my coat and feel myself blush. She pulls her small slouched body upright and fiddles with something attached to her headphones in her bag. Her eyes catch mine again and I give her a faint smile. An expression of confusion moves across her face and she looks away quickly, pushes the thing back into her bag and closes her eyes again.

A tin can rolls down the floor and knocks against my feet, dribbling an orange liquid that looks toxic. I’m glad to see I’m wearing my brown leather shoes. A bit worn and scuffed, I admit, and with stringy laces that have an annoying habit of coming undone unless I tie them in a triple knot. But I’m just relieved to find I’ve not come out in my slippers.
My eyes close again and we rattle through the darkness. I can smell something sweet, caramel. Perhaps it’s the dust burning on the brakes.

I spent the first few days drowning.

Or were they weeks?

There were hardly any sounds. People smiled a lot and spoke to me in murmurs.

And then, one day, someone turned the volume up.

It was like stepping out into a different world. It was all so loud, deafening. Everything gleamed as if made of diamonds. The colours hurt my eyes. I went to the supermarket and was astonished by the uniforms of the checkout staff. They were so vibrant, so alive. It was like I’d never seen the colour green before. I pushed an empty trolley round the aisles, searching for things I recognised.

The woman behind the fish counter had a name badge on her white coat that said ‘Hello, I’m Maureen’ and a white hat perched on top of a mound of silver hair. For a second, I thought I was back in the hospital. She smiled at me and asked what I wanted, but all I could do was stand there, my jaw slack, staring at all the fish. They were arranged in neat rows on white trays, sprigs of plastic parsley sprouting between them. Stripped of their scales and skin and bones. Slabs of white, pink, yellow flesh.

This is what I did.

I left the trolley right there at the fish counter and went home.

I opened a can of soup and sniffed its contents. It was ox-blood red. The smell was unrecognisable.

I poured whatever it was into a pan.

I turned the knob on the stove and listened to the hiss of gas.

I pressed the ignition hard with my thumb and the gas spluttered into life.

I watched the blue flames lap the air like cats’ tongues.

I held my hand high above the flames, turning it one way and then the other, searching for heat.

I felt nothing and gently lowered my hand until my skin grew warm. And then, I could just feel heat. And then, not even heat.

I stood mesmerised, watching the flames lick my hand.

But there must have been a noise, maybe a car driving past outside, because my concentration broke and suddenly there was a deep, searing pain tearing through my skin. My lips stretched into a smile and I felt nausea rise through my body. I wrenched my hand from the flames, saw the white crust branded on the palm, and flung it under the cold tap. I stood there until my hand grew numb again, until the muscles in my legs could hold me no longer.

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