Friday, June 16, 2006

stalker stalker

I just read someone’s blog today about a stalker who harassed her with a deluge of nasty comments and obnoxious emails after she said something [obviously innocently] in response to his comment.

And then I read the comments.

~shudder~

I can feel the rush to my head. Cold sweat, hot prickles gripping the back of my neck. Fetid memory of that horrid day not nearly two years ago.

A long day that stretched endlessly, punctuated with painful rushes of fear.

He’s going to hurt me.
He’s going to hurt me.
He’s going to hurt me…

At that moment right then when fear takes over, the shapes of things get redefined. It squeezes your brain with iron fingers, strings up your bowels, washes your eyes over with vacuous bleak black. No heartbeat, no limbs, no head. Just a pounding puddle of stinking foul fear instead of a brain.

Bad trip. Worsened with his drunken breath over miles of telephone exchange. No less putrid with the distance. No less comforting for the miles in between.

Just the suggestion of a threat, the thought of his fat fingers curled in a fist, cheap whiskey on his breath, slurring sick words, and so much of pure bottomless hatred…


And I had actually allowed him to touch me once. Smiled at him. It makes me ill. To. Think. Any. Further.

There’s a rising in my throat. Clenching, full and bilious.

Sick. Sick. Sick. Dirty dirty dirty.

Then too I'd wanted to scrape it off me, dissolve it in acid. Smash it crush it trash it, shut down every bit of memory, till it could hound me no more.

Two years down, I thought I was over it, till I read those messages today.

I didn’t want to know then. I don’t want to know now what was going through his head. I don’t want to go there, ever again.

There are some things that are best not experienced.

*********


8 comments:

n.g. said...

but you did, and it sucks, and well, its wrapped up in a little corner of your persona, making you wiser and completing you a little bit.

H said...

thanks Almitra. thankfully it's two years in the past. this episode taught me that closure is a very very elusive concept. especially to those who get told goodbye.

I'm just so squeaky new with this whole business of blogging that I didn't realise I had my comment approval activated. hmm. shall try to deactivate it.

NG. you're so right. it teaches you. especially about closure [wink - now we know what to attribute that diatribe on closure to]. But honestly, this taught me about how easily i could have seemed like a monster to someone else when i was in pain.

n.g. said...

pain is so essential for a filmmaker, h. maybe you should be thankful for him. pradeepda used to say, and IM SURE ive told you this before because its one of the several things he told me that i remember vividly, how can you show pain and make people feel it, if you havent felt it yourself?

H said...

true. I suppose there is merit in it as a tool in one's profession. But i guess i'd like to see it more as something that helps one be a tiny bit less blinkered about someone else's perspective.

You know I am really eager to see your work. Was just discussing it with a dear friend, and he said something interesting -- that sometimes when you're good at something, like bringing out the humour in a situation, or expressing things in one form [like writing, speaking etc] it sometimes doesn't quite translate as well in another medium. And consistently i find that's quite true of my work. Somehow it's always like a well-conceived, well intentioned recipe for a cake, that goes phut in the oven.

H said...

oh and yes, in a very warped sort of way I am thankful for the experience. Warped because it seemed like he was holding up a mirror to me. That raging ugliness could well have been mine.

Ben Ditty said...

ugliness could never be yours

H said...

Aw. Ben. If only we could always show every bit of ourselves. We'd then be seen for the ugly beautiful gargoyles that we are. Ugliness is a very big part of my identity. :-)

Ben Ditty said...

No, any ugliness is mixed in with the beauty, it can't be independent. It's all part of you, tumbling down through a vortex unto the central point that is the awesomeness of H :)