Blood Pretzel

The feeling of waking is always unfamiliar. I guess pain does usually comes as a surprise. My eyes are coated in gel- thick and dry and weighing enough to stop my eyes from seeing when I open them. The smudge between me and my surroundings is like one of those tests one of those professors would do (I see rabbits). They’re mocking me. Get on! Go! Go! They shift.

The aches all over my body remind me it is there and I wriggle to seating. From the faint smell of pastries I can tell it is morning. Has to be between seven and twelve. Could be one. I focus my vision for a moment and stare, straight ahead. The colour grey is moving by at a fast pace and consumes my field of vision. That makes it seven-ish. I can’t move yet- I know that. Sit still until it all slows down- that’s the way. When I was little I used to look out the car window as we moved fast and I would try pick out an individual tree. Then I’d feel my eyes cross each other and my head would hurt. I can only watch the blur. For now I look to the sky- it is still and slow. Better. After the grey goes by, I take the time to look around. The people who are walking go one way, or the other. They carry broken compasses. I feel dry and dirty at this time of the day. The dirt pixelates me out of place.

Clink. Clink. Clink. The sound of an hour of the day. My clock makes nine clinks before I can buy a coffee. Sometimes I say to myself that I’m being paid to smile because when my clock clinks I smile at the people who pass. But I make more clinks if I’m asleep. No people coming for a while- time to look in cup. Shit! A card! Mistake. Can’t! Could. Ooooh, it feels heavy. Too much. What do I do? What can I do? A pretzel. A prostitute? A pretzel! Can’t go wrong- man won’t miss pretzel money. Who would drop a card? Butterfingers! Hold tight. How could I say no to such a nice offering? Karma would bite, no? Pretzel. Got bit by a dog on Liverpool Street. Karma likes the taste of me. It drew blood. This is bloody money. Blood pretzel. Mmmmm, ah. Warm. Scoff. Cigarettes? I’ll buy a pack. What if theres no money on. Wouldn’t look right. Might get ratted on to the police. Might be made to move. Cigs later. I’ll get some down the bridge. Could probably get a couple packets for a card.

Okay, I’ll trade the card at the bridge. No use to me anyways. It feels nice. It’s been a good day. I’ll write it in now, so I don’t forget. Then I’ll get another pretzel. Where is my little black book? In the bag. Pen? Yep. The page is full. I must have wrote it in already. It only just happened. How long has it been? It says here there is twenty grand on the card. Who told me that? I didn’t know that. Says it in here though. Ahh shit there’s ink on the next page. Oh, it’s filled in. Maybe I’m a couple days off. No- it says I found the card today. So what did I do tomorrow. It says I went on a train from here, via the side which is next to MacDonalds, till the forth station, exit, take a left and two rights and stop at number twenty-three. Went? Is that right? If it happened tomorrow and all. Could have filled in the wrong day. Not like me. Not like me to do so much detail either. The whole next three days are filled in. This could be fate talking to me. A guiding hand has wrote this. Twenty grand. A lot of money. It says in here that the pin is “one-two-three-four.” Could check? Don’t want to tempt fate when it’s looking right at me. Besides, the card is heavy, the money is there.

Tomorrow is decided for me. I will not sit here all day and lie down sometimes. I will move. I am being moved by the hands of fate. What a gift, an exchange- twenty grand has come from the future and now I go forward in time and as it says in the book, I “know what to do” and I really do. How could I not. It has been communicated to me through my memories, in the little black book. I see this memory more clearly than the others. I see myself walking up to the back window, walking easier than I’ve ever walked before. My eyes are open and I don’t feel the aches anymore. Maybe I wrote this in the future. It is my diary and only I write in it. The handwriting is much better than mine. The lines are not shaky. It’s all clear. A refined hand wrote this. That twenty grand changes me! I’ve never seen something as beautiful. I spent the night sleeping well, with the spirit so awake inside of me.

It’s been so long since I was in a house and now I’ll come through the window, like a bird lost on his path. The house isn’t big enough for the bird but it will still fit through the window. That could happen to me. I might have changed shape. I knew a guy who went into houses like this, through the window. He’d take everything he felt like but he said they’d always try stop him by changing the walls and corridors, moving doors and making the rooms spin all around him while he wasn’t looking. To make you feel trapped. He says the bigger the house, the more of a maze they could make it. He stopped robbing and I haven’t seen him in a while. I’m more alone now. I wasn’t like the other people I was seeing. Some of them could be violent. They would be better at this than me. I’m not violent. I figure it’s like magnets. The energy has found me because I have none. I feel an affinity to the task because I am powerless. I am low so I do the low jobs. The divinity is everywhere and it can do other jobs other ways. This is just for me. Twenty grand is a lot of energy.

My aches are lesser today because I am rising. When I put my hand through the glass, I don’t feel a sting. I’ve always been numb but I’ve always felt numb too. Not today. It is not numb. I am protected. I hear my calling and I move, avoiding the moving walls. I grab a lamp. There are no voices in my head and the world is quiet. My calling is all. I am one with energy. At some point it was finished. I realised that after the energy had left me and I was at a trot in a forest. The forest isn’t the way to my new handwriting. I must find my little black book. There was more planned. The week was written in stone, written in my little black book, with such clarity that I could never have hoped to attain until I had it in my pocket, but now it’s in my trolley and this clarity alludes me. I don’t know where the energy is taking me, I can’t hear it’s calling- the words in the little black book.

“You will look out of place in the neighbourhood and so now, sightings of you will be on the news. I know of a little shed in the forest behind my house. After it’s done, go there and you will find a sink. Wash yourself but leave no trace. In there is a change of clothes. After changing, burn your clothes. Her blood will be all over them. I suggest getting a train to a new city. You can use the card I gave you to buy a ticket. Its untraceable. Please, if you are caught, say nothing about this book. Thank you. Enjoy the money”