SWNOVELS Chapter 15: Smudge
Frank Homely clutched his head, as he crouched on the floor. “What damn fool had put an iron bar sticking out the wall?” He got to his knees, and the splitting pain cut through him like a knife. So he just rolled over and sat there a while. Tentatively he felt his skull; it didn’t feel damp. So he’d not split it, but he could swear blind there was a dent in it. It still felt tender, and he glanced once more at the offending object he had collided with.
It was some sort of bracket; you would hang a flower basket from it. The thing had a perfect right to be there, but that still didn’t stop the pain. Mind you now Frank thought about it, that was down to a dull ache now. Perhaps he’d take an aspirin if it were still around at teatime. He looked at the door; the object of his attention before he’d crushed his skull, while he absentmindedly turned the radio down. The door’s first coat of paint may have distracted him at that critical moment, or maybe his mind was on the catchy song. As the last bars played out the announcer came on.
“And now for the latest on the super dense non baryonic object, passing near the Earth.” He continued with the details, but Frank wasn’t listening now. He just stared at the door he’d been painting. It was as if the paint had smudged and run, but shaking his head Frank realised it wasn’t just the paint. The frame seemed to have run too, but that was impossible. The clean lines of the frame bent and twisted just enough, to make Frank to shake his head again, but that didn’t help. Maybe it will go off after a while he thought. It must just be the blow to his head. He reached up again, but try as he might he couldn’t find the dent, that he would have sworn was there moments ago.
“Well got to get this job done” Frank shrugged, and took out his brush. It was tricky, but Frank managed the task of painting the door. Even if his brush twisted as it got close to its target. Finally done he packed up, and placed his wet paint sign in front of it. Then he set off home.
Frank tried not to stare at the lampposts and people, as they seemed to melt like a view through wet glass. But apart from the self-consciousness the people seemed to display, from being stared at by this odd man. They certainly didn’t seem to be experiencing any trouble. “It must be me”, thought Frank. “If it’s not gone in the morning, I’ll go see a doctor.”
Frank lived alone, so with no one to discuss it with, he just busied himself with his evening meal. Closing his eyes when he opened the misshaped can of beans. Unfortunately his hand still slipped, and he spent ten minutes clearing up the blood. After that, he just took the strange shapes his utensils were bending in to in his stride. And finished up with his hands in a bowl of water, washing Dali clock shaped plates.
He lay down early in the dark to get some relief from these hallucinations, and listened to the radio. “And now we go to the Ligo observatory in Louisiana, where professor Hanford is about to explain this strange phenomenon.” An eastern European voice came on next. “What we have is apparently a cloud of what most scientists call dark matter.” The reporter cut in. “I thought we were led to believe it was just one object?” “Yes initially we thought it to be just one; but dark or non baryonic matter, that’s to say matter with properties with nothing we normally experience is hard to detect. Because of it’s usual lack of interaction with our normal baryonic matter, such as atoms and the like. But back to the cloud we are experiencing. Although it is of immense interest to the scientific community, it not only has little effect on the earth, but I would say that if it did, it would only affect localised areas. And then only slightly, due to the dispersed nature of the cloud.” “Well there you have it. Thank you professor Hanford, we can all rest easy with this good news.” Frank rolled over and switched the radio off; he was soon snoring like a buzz saw.
Frank woke with a start, as he got the strange sensation of dizziness and falling upwards. Then he landed on the floor, tangled in his sheets. After about half an hour, Frank had found his neutral space. It was one where his walls didn’t twist back and forth. So he made his breakfast, and dressed. “I’ll just drop in at the doctors on spec” he decided, and stepped out his door to catch a bus. The street seemed normal, there were no strange twisting forms. Then the bus arrived. Only its front end mushroomed out at the last moment, and Frank was knocked sprawling. He rolled, and the last thing he heard was the screeching of breaks, before he passed out.
Frank was too hot; he struggled to get free of the sheets. Then strong arms unexpectedly held him down. “Lay still Mr Homely, you’ve had a fall. But you’re all right now. You’re in St Swithenths hospital.” Frank struggled through the thick molasses he felt his mind was stuck in, until he could just about open his eyes. Over him stood a waif of a girl in a nurse’s uniform. His first thought was “I must be weak as a kitten, to be held down by her.”
She turned her head and called out, “Doctor Wendigo, Mr Homely’s regained consciousness.” And Frank turned his head to one side, to see a bearded man in a doctors coat beaming down at him. “Now Mr Homely, lets not exert ourselves too much.” He took up a clipboard to examine. “You don’t seem to have any lasting damage from your little traffic accident. But I think we should keep an eye on you for a little while, just in case.” Then Frank was left to survey the ward.
It was full of various men, either propped up or lying down. He exchanged a smile with the man opposite. Then he lay back to wonder what was happening. Some time later a new doctor came round, checking on various patients. When he got to Frank’s bed he picked up the clipboard. “Good afternoon Mr Homely.” Suddenly his body did a strange contortion, as if it were a rubber band being pulled to one side. Frank gave a start and the man looked concerned. “Are you alright Mr Homely?” “You just bent out of shape and then back again” Frank began, but his words trailed off, as he realised the ridiculousness of his statement. Was he hallucinating? He had to be. So did this mean he was going mad? The look of concern on the doctor’s face didn’t allay Frank’s fears. “Perhaps we should arrange a scan. Nurse can you take Mr Homely down to CAT suit three.”
In no time Frank was being carefully being lifted from his bed, and on to a gurney, to be wheeled through the ward doors. Several floors down and a lot of corridors later, Frank read the legend CAT suit three, as the door opened. Then he was wheeled in to the pristine white room. There was a device set in to the wall, like a tunnel with a platform sat in front of it. Frank felt strong hands lifting him on to it. “Just you relax Mr Homely”, the attendant reassured frank. Then he was inserted in to the machine. The wall spun around him, but Frank could tell this was a controlled movement, not like the wild swirling he had been experiencing. And before he had time to nod off, Frank was once more staring up at the smiling attendant.
The next morning, as Frank sat in his hospital bed tucking in to a slice of toast, he glanced over at the window. It slowly stretched out like a soap bubble, and then sprang back in to shape. He had thankfully had a peaceful night. And as he flicked through the hospital radio stations being pumped in to his headphones, he chanced on the news. “And from the weather forecast, we go to professor Hanford.” There was a sound bite from the professor. “Yes, it seems the cloud of non baryonic matter is trailing off from our readings, but I think we have got sufficient data to keep the scientific community busy for years to come.”
Just then a fresh-faced nurse came in to view, as she remover Frank’s head phones. “Time to tidy you up Mr Homely. Doctor Wensleydale will be here shortly. He’s our head brain specialist, and we don’t want you all crummy when he sees you.” She indicated his toast. So with practised ease, she had Frank spruced up and ready for the great man.
The figure that came in to Frank’s view next, was a big jovial man with a full beard. “Well Mr Homely, you certainly are an interesting case”, he boomed down at Frank. “Apart from the healed dent on your cranium in the area of the frontal lobe, you seem to be in prefect health. Mind you, I must say your Parietal lobe seems to be rather over developed, and you even gave our technicians a run for their money. They seemed to be a patch of an unknown substance in you brain tissue, but I think we can put that down to a mechanical glitch.” He looked in to Frank’s eyes with a torch, and smiled at the nurse. “I think we’ll keep Mr Homely in for observation for another day, and if no further bouts of dizziness occur he can go home.”
Over the day Frank didn’t have any more attacks. So the next morning, a little nonplussed at still not knowing had been wrong with him, he was given a clean bill of health, and released. He stepped in to the street, and made his way to the bus stop. Back home Frank mulled it over, so he had an over developed Parietal lobe. He didn’t know he had even got one, let alone how big it should be. “Just one of those things”, he mused stepping out in to his garden.