Why I Was Late [SFW ASMR]

Transcript

When I got the call about your car accident, I dropped the knife I was holding, cut myself, then all the blood put me into shock and I vomited a little, so I had to hurry and bandage my hand and jump into the shower before I could drive to the hospital. So I was rushing, stepping over the edge of the bath, just feeling the first touch of the shower spray, and out of nowhere, a fluttering sound, then a black shadow. Something came smashing into the side of my face, a thrush.

It had flown in the bathroom window, but right then I didn't know what it was. All I knew was I was getting into the shower and something popped me on the side of the face. I slipped.

My head cracked on the tabs as I fell back into the bath, and I was flat out, unconscious, legs bunched up against the side, and my left ass cheek was covering the plughole, so only a bit of the water was draining away underneath me, maybe a quarter of what was pouring in. I was lying there knocked out, and the bath was filling up. I guess I was drowning.

So in that moment, I'm going towards the light, and I'm surrounded by impressions of myself, my voice and face, my body, my gestures, as a child and as an adult, all these images of me from different angles, front on, profile, close up, far off, it was like this continuous wave of myself, different places, different ages, at times they slowed down and I could almost reach out and grab hold of myself, and at other times I'm more distant, and the images, they're merging so rapidly I can only just register them, like for a split second, it's the 8 year old me, getting dressed into my pyjamas in front of the fireplace, balancing on one leg, and it's the smell of wood smoke, and feeling worried that my young self might lose balance and fall into the fire, and the next moment, there's me in my late 20s, at the bar, you know the wine cellar, laughing into a bottle of beer, which is sitting actually in the fridge at Aunt Sue's in Gray Lynn on Christmas Day, in the sand at St. Clair in Dunedin, it's all over the place, seeing myself like that was kind of like the first time I saw myself recorded on video, do I really walk like that, and all those impressions mixed in together, they made an endless explosion of feelings towards myself, anger, love, embarrassment, hate, it was kind of hard to tell how long this went on for because years were being crammed into seconds, but after either a moment or a decade, I started speaking, yelling out, hey, I called, is anyone here, a voice replied, it sounded a lot like my own voice, but lower pitched, yes, it said, where am I, I asked, you're here, the voice replied, for a moment it was like I felt my stomach drop away, it was a mix of vertigo and deja vu, and I became lost again in the impressions, I was looking on at myself as a 6 year old on a swing kicking my legs out towards the sky, and then almost immediately I saw myself yesterday getting into my car outside the supermarket, I tried to speak again, and the other voice, the voice like mine, was still there, am I dead, I called out, well, said the voice, not completely, then where am I, I said, who is this, who am I talking to, the voice was kind of bored and condescending, you know damn well who I am, maybe, but I want to hear it, fine, you're talking to yourself, yeah, it was pretty obvious really, where am I, I called out, the impressions were still looping around, there I was in my early twenties watching television, there I was at 11 years old lifting up my bicycle off the pavement with burning red hands and a little stone embedded in my palm, you're at the in-between place, I self replied, the place in between what, between death and death, like purgatory, could be, I don't get it, you're talking to yourself in the place between death and death, that's all, nothing to be frightened of, there I was lying on the beach placing a book over my face, horseshit, I said, there's no place in between, there's really nothing here but me and all of my memories, and they've all turned transcendental or some shit, I thought I'd hit the nail on the head, but no, my other voice replied, these aren't your memories, they're other people's memories, it's like the old saying goes, you die twice, fuck off with your Banksy quotes, I said, actually Banksy ripped it off Irvin Yulong and he was right, the first time you die is when your heart stops beating, and the second time when nobody remembers you anymore, I'd hit it before but it still took a while to sink in, or maybe it felt like something I'd always known but now I really got it, I'm not sure, anyway I was seeing us through a kitchen window, both of us, bouncing on the trampoline in the rain, so whose memory was that, I said, that one just then, you know, it was mum's, bring it back again, I want to see it properly, bring it back yourself, how? put yourself in her shoes, try to see things from her perspective, so I did, I thought about mum and I tried to empathise with her, to align myself with her state of mind, it worked, at least for a few moments, I could see us out in the rain, your heel was braided to look like Leia and you were a couple of inches taller than me and I was grabbing at your legs as you bounced, what about dad's memories, where are they, no reply, talk to me where are they, the dead don't have memories, they did, suddenly I felt the kind of alone you feel when you wake up after a nightmare, I wanted to call you straight away, just hey sis and have one of those conversations where I don't have much reason to call you but you tell me about the lame date you had and we talk about our gym playlists and make a time to catch up for a drink, and then suddenly I realised I was seeing through your eyes, your memories of me, so I focused on them as hard as I could, there was one in particular, I'd forgotten about it, it was when you were finishing at uni and I was just starting, we're hanging out at the lake at western springs, sitting on a wooden bench under a couple of oak trees, and I brought along this dry old loaf of bread from my flat which I'm planning to feed to the swans when we reach the lake, but before we've finished our lunch this raggedy brown duck comes up, it's really small, a kind of runt or something, I think you were a bit annoyed at me at the time for something, maybe because I slept with that friend of yours, but in the memory you were watching me break a hunk of bread off the loaf and throwing it to the duck, then it was stepping down to pick it up, taking it in its beak, I can still see it, it tips its head back and gulps the whole thing and then starts this weird little quacking noise, waving its head around, at first I think it's just a weird duck making a weird noise, but then I realise the bread's so stale it's like an old brick, and you realise it too, you dick, you say, it's choking, I jump off the bench, heroically, go over towards it, but it scuttles away from me, still choking, waddling off under the trees towards the lake, it's ok duck, I say, jogging after it, I'm gonna help, no, dumbass, you call, leave it, I got it, I call back, and I round the duck and cut it off, by now it's whacking its head around wildly, trying to dislodge the bread, I dive at it, miss, then scramble up on my knees, then dive again, then I have it by the tail, I pin it to the grass and scoop my free hand under its belly, let it go, you yell, coming across the grass towards me, I begin patting it hard on the back of the neck, you can't help, you're saying, let it go, I realise you're right, what do I think I'm gonna do, the Heimlich manoeuvre, so you take it off me and put it down, and the little duck stumbles off, rasping and choking as it goes, for a moment I think it's dead, but you know better, we watch as it reaches the lake, flops in, opens its bill to drink, the water softens the bread, and a moment later it's swallowed the lump down, and it's paddling across the lake like nothing happened, so what does it all mean, are you the duck, is your car accident the bread, I don't know, anyway, in the prison tent, I got lucky, after maybe 20 minutes the hot water cylinder was pretty much emptied out, so the bath was draining under my ass again, and the showerhead was just pissing cold water onto my face, I woke up, the bird that had flown in was gone, but I was still lying there, you were in hospital and I was lying in my fucking bath like an idiot, yeah, I know you're laughing right now, but get this, I could still be in the place between death and death too, imagine that sis, two of us killed in one day, it didn't happen, but that's not the thing, the thing that really gets me, is that there might be a memory inside of you now, the voices of the rest of the family at the hospital bed, trying to comfort you, telling you it's okay now, you'll pull through, everything's fine, the doctors are here, but none of those voices are mine, so I just want to say I love you and I'm sorry I was too late, but I also want to say you're not gone yet, not for me, so when the images flash by, please look out for yourself, you might see yourself watching the little duck on the lake, it means I'm thinking of you.