The Panic Room

It is this sliver of last evening that comes immediately to mind–being cornered by jute bags. I’d pressed the red button with my feet. The jute bags started to inflate around me until it builds into a looming tower and the only open space is the size of hole only a bit larger than the one Alice would have fallen through. I can see a small stretch of the ceiling. I’m unimpressed. The installation hasn’t lived up to its title. It isn’t The Panic Room I imagined it would be. In fact, I feel cocooned and calm and isolated from the glitterati at the opening. I sit down with my glass of wine. There’s a green button I know I’m supposed to press to deflate the jute walls, but I’m not ready yet. I wait a few minutes. The jute bags suddenly deflate themselves and expose me. How ironic that the panic room panicked and overheated itself because I didn’t panic soon enough. I walk away from the crime scene. I know there’s a camera that’s filmed me but I don’t care. I didn’t break it, I’m not buying it.

 

 

Last night I slept like a hibernating bear. And for the first time in weeks, on my own bed. I’d forgotten how glorious the mornings usually are in my room. Wind wafting in through the two balconies, grazing over my body, lulling me into a more advanced state of sleephood. I thought I’d call it a lazy sleepy Sunday, thought I’d bask in the afterglow of my dreams. But a call on my phone interrupted the haze. It was your neighbour. She sounds distressed. She tells me your balcony is leaking. I wake up instantly. I tell her I’ll be over as soon as I can.

 

 

My breath starts to collapse. My heart announces its fear and beats ferociously. The muscles around my chest start to quiver as I envision disaster. I retrace my steps. Yes, I’d closed all the taps. I’d shut off the washing machine, so this couldn’t possibly be my fault. Why did this have to happen on my watch? It took you three years to trust me with your keys, and now this! I can sense impending doom. I should have slept in your bed last night. I shouldn’t have abandoned the house.

 

 

I eat my breakfast mechanically. I wouldn’t have bothered but my flatmate had taken the trouble to whip eggs and lace them with slices of Gouda. She’d even toasted bagels and buttered them for me. I hold the bread to my mouth, my teeth sink into it impulsively. I search for the bits Gouda, but all I can taste is disaster. I try to make conversation, but every sentence is a dead-end and brings me back to the subject of collapse.

Images flash in my head at the speed of half-thoughts. That night when I walked into your bedroom and stepped into a flood, and the astonished look on your face when you discovered the waterfall that had taken over your wall. Minutes later, as if on cue, the ceiling in the store room began to leak. And then a week later, we witnessed the fury of termites as they chomped through the false ceiling of the room on the roof.

 

 

Since you’ve returned its been disaster after disaster. And we’ve tackled them elegantly. Built a partnership out of it. But this time you’re not around to help pick up the pieces, to contain the flood. And the fact of your submission, the gesture contained in the keys you handed me, the significance of it frightens me although I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’d rather you let me house-sit than leave it unsupervised.

 

 

I rushed over and scanned the balcony from downstairs. I ran upstairs, negotiated the three locks that kept me from disaster. I walked to the balcony and couldn’t find any water except for the memory of it contained in the large stain in the corner beside the clogged drain. You returned my call and instructed me to unclog the drain. I did. I explained the situation. I tell you it must have rained here last night and since there was nowhere for the water to go, it seeped through the layers in the ground until it found four or five little outlets and then it began the process of catharsis.

 

 

I’m trying to contain my hysteria. I know now its completely unwarranted. Everything is fine. I wish I was as calm and relaxed as I was when the jute bags inflated around me in that artificially controlled panic room. I should have had more respect for your time zone. Shouldn’t have called you at that unearthly hour of morning and invaded your sleep. But nothing could have salved me. Your voice was the tonic I needed. “Thank You,” you said over the phone, and I believe you meant it. By then I had begun to leak salt water. Trails of pearls dripped across my cheeks. I tried to say something in between my long, deep breaths, but my malformed thoughts didn’t translate into sound. All I managed was a monosyllabic goodbye after which you disconnected.

 

 

There are many things I’d never tasted until I met you. Single Malts, for instance. Or Sour-dough Bread. Marmite. Rage. Sprouts. Jealousy. Gouda. Burnt Garlic. Grilled Tomatoes. Stir-friend French beans. Fear. Paradise. Black Pepper. Love. Today I added Panic to that list. This morning I finally understood its texture, and the post-quake tremors, and the painful feeling of clotted blood and shocked muscles and contracted lungs. And finally, the cathartic aftertaste of salt water that salved my dry, dry tongue.

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