It was so still. I stood in the warmth in the white warmth breathing. I had worked out just how much breath I could take in and ease out without my chest screaming. My breath was all I could hear. I stood in the centre of the yard breathing slowly and steadily surrounded by ripped tarpaulin and plastic bags. The door of the house was open and the sky was white. There was white everywhere. Things drifted into my head and out again. Words and offerings cravings and needs all of them tugging me around demanding that I follow them. I let them come in and roll out again roll on into the whiteness without me. I didn’t know what any of this was. I stood breathing in breathing out watching it all come in and all roll out in the silence of the still trees and the empty weight of the stone beneath and around me.
In the barn on the other side of the farmyard I found a frayed stretch of blue nylon rope and a broken handle from an old broom or rake. I used the handle as a walking stick on my way back to the house and found it made the journey easier. Inside I leaned on the door until it closed and then I sat down on the edge of the bed. I wondered what I should do. Did I just strap the handle to my leg? I supposed it was that simple. It was slightly shorter than my leg and that seemed to be about right. But my leg would not straighten. It bent outwards at the knee and the knee would not bend without terrible pain.
It was agony. I tied the blue rope tight around the top of my thigh and then I wound it in a spiral down both my leg and the stick pulling it tight as I did so. I thought I was going to die it was so painful but I would not scream. This was my mission this was my pride I would not scream I would do this without screaming. By the time it was done I was sweating and shaking. I lay back down on the bed and hauled my splinted leg up onto the mattress. The leg was shaking and my hands were shaking but I felt heroic. Was I supposed to sleep with it on? I wondered. How long should it be on for? Was this right? Had I made things worse? I didn’t know anything. But I looked at my leg and through the pain I could see that it was straighter than it had been. I hoped that was right. It was too late now.
I lay there letting the pain and the shaking subside letting the sugar run through me and the water do its work. It felt like morning. I had images in my head. Shapes but no names. People feelings fear and anger and shame and purity and wonder all of them making shapes inside me. The shapes came the shapes come the people come and go. I am coming and going rising and falling with all of it around me. I know so little here I know nothing. My name is Edward my name is Edward Buckmaster there are circles around me I am a stone dropped into a pool. Something has happened I am in pain I am still in pain. Someone is waiting for me where the moor ends. I think there is much that I do not see.
It would be impossible for me to guess how much time passed in this way. Every day was the same and this was how it had always been. Every day in this stone room with the table and chair with the cupboard and the window with the white heat outside and around me. I was here and perhaps had always been here or perhaps had never been here before but I didn’t think much about it. I had my body to think about I had to rebuild I was being born again in the world retraining my muscles understanding my pain.
In time I developed a daily routine. I would wake in the morning or what I presumed was the morning because when I began to think about it I saw that it was impossible to tell what time of day it was. It always seemed to be hot and light I never saw the darkness come or go and I had no watch so I simply told myself that it was morning when I woke. Every morning then I would lever myself stiffly out of bed. Every morning I would pay attention to the level of pain in my leg and in my chest and in my body as a whole. Every day on waking I was seized with a panic a kind of fear that the pain would be worse that something would have gone wrong in the night that I would not be able to move because if this happened it would be the end. But in fact every day the pain was either the same or a little better. I would lever myself out of bed and I would lie on the floor and slowly I would stretch and flex every part of my body until I felt I was ready to move.
Then I would open the door and I would go outside into the white heat. Every morning after I had stretched and flexed life back into my body I would step out into the air to remind me where I was to remind me of my life. I would take the jerry can with me and slowly I would hobble and shuffle on my splinted leg across the yard and through the wooden gate. As my confidence had grown and my body had come back to me I had begun to explore the place. The first priority had been to find water and beyond the gate and down the track I had found a place where a small stream pooled and the water seemed clean and fresh. Every day I would fill the can with as much water as I could carry. Then I would hobble and shuffle back up to the house dragging the can behind me and pour myself several mugs of it and sit at the table and drink slowly and feel the water echo down my throat and into my stomach because this was life. After that I would light a fire and heat water for tea even if I didn’t want any. I would eat a little bread though not too much because I needed to ration it. I had no idea where to find any more food or how I would get there even if I knew. While it lasted I ate chocolate and every other day I would allow myself some painkillers if I needed them.
I would sit by the fire as it warmed willing it into my body holding my hands over it feeling the heat rise. I would make tea and drink it at its hottest feel it scald my lips my tongue my throat feel the life burning down into me. I would stand and walk around the room. All day I would try not to sit or lie still for too long. I had decided that I must train my body back into working shape. Making a fire tending the fire drinking water collecting water moving through the door out of the house back into the house in the white heat of the day and the white heat of the night. There was nothing else. Nothing seemed to change nothing seemed to move but every day I was sure my head was clearer every day I was sure the pain was less and less.
At first I started counting the days but I soon gave up. Perhaps it has been about three weeks since I opened my eyes out in the yard. This is my best guess. Three weeks of sleeping eating drinking collecting water walking slowly around the stone. Three weeks of the white heat that is everywhere three weeks of the silence. Three weeks of slowly gathering strength. I am lying here now on the bed but the splint is gone. I untied the rope and unwound it a few days ago. It was a risk but I think it has paid off. I can put a little weight on the leg now and the knee looks more like a knee again. I have been using the former splint as a walking stick because I still can’t walk properly though I have come a long way. My leg is straighter though still not as straight as I think it should be. I still get headaches. It is still hot and white and quiet. There are no birds no sounds outside I hear nothing. I am sweating again as I lie here but that is because of what has just happened. I need sleep. I’m sweating and exhausted and the pain is beating inside my skull it is clawing at me trying to break free. I almost feel like I have relapsed. But it was worth it. Because today I found what I went looking for.
Let me go back. Six days ago I think it was six days ago I woke with what I supposed was the morning light. I got up slowly and eased my stiff body out of bed. I still seized up in my sleep and I still felt like a corpse every morning. I walked around the room a couple of times and I began to unwind. Then I walked to the stove and lit a fire to make tea. I went over to the door and opened it and hobbled stiffly out into the yard as I did every morning. The pain down the left side of my body was still constant. My knee bent in the wrong direction but at least it bent now. I thought my ribs must be healing. At any rate I was still alive. I stood in the yard and I faced the four directions in turn. The sky was still white it was still hot and the ash trees were silent. Above the farmyard loomed the great brown slopes of a moor. Some mornings I would stand in the yard and look up at the moor and feel it was my protector. Other mornings I would feel it was my jailer. Some days I refused to look at it at all.