The Mercy Journals Read Online Free Page A

looking at me. I had never thought of eyes as weapons, or as shields, but I was defenseless, unable to open my eyes and look back at her. I did manage to lift the corner of an eyelid and see her tongue lick her lips and disappear back into her mouth. I had to shut the eyelid again because the ceiling tilted to the floor, the nearby wall whipped past the ceiling, and the light fixture ricocheted off everything. I gripped the side of the mattress.
    Her hand covered mine, the inside of her wrist touched the hairy back of my wrist, and she leaned over and pressed her warm lips on my cold ones. It wasn’t a kiss so much as an experimental applying of pressure. Her tongue pried where my lips met. I sank fast. I opened my mouth and fell down a whirlpool to the centre of the earth.
    I won’t write another word. This memory I intend to keep.

March 17 |
    The words above, what I’ve written until now, I have just finished transcribing by pencil onto paper from my mobile. My hand is aching and cramped. I haven’t held a writing tool for so long the activity feels only distantly familiar, like snapping Lego pieces together.
    When I began this document the only action for “writing” I could imagine was voicing words into my mobile. My words were transcribed on screen and I saved each entry to a cloudfile named Allen’s Oblivion. But two days ago I came home from work and sat and stared at my mobile. My mind writhed with memories and thoughts but my lips were sealed shut.
    I fed the goldfish and watched for a while, following the flounce of their long, feathery, pale tangerine fins as they moved.
    I poured myself a drink. I needed a brain cushion. I saw my Beretta in the cupboard beside the bottle and had the thought Get the bullets , and that triggered the thought, Is this going to be a suicide entry? I missed my old strategy—I missed it intensely, the shrunken life, the banal pleasures of the everyday, the routine, oh the routine, but Ruby’s presence in my life has slammed that door good and tight.
    I sat for hours mutely watching my fish, suppressing the bullet-finding urge, and wracking my brain— Why can’t I write? Writing, what is writing? A man voices memories alone in a room. Without a witness the act has no reality. The man could be doing anything. Writing needs a reader. I had to find a way to publish the entries. But where, where coulda person publish words these days? I don’t know what the situation will be in the future, but at present bandwidth usage is severely limited and individual access is staggered. News is text only, films are watched at cinemas. Everyone’s mobile number has a cloud storage quotient that cannot be exceeded.
    Every pie quadrant of OneWorld has a Citizen’s News site, but my entries weren’t news. A site called “Global Graffiti” was recently launched, a kind of trial balloon established by OneWorld where people can post messages of up to 500 words for twenty-four hours on language walls, comments activated.
    I poured another depth charge and went to my armchair. I wanted a minimum number of readers so I posted my voicings under the obscure title “Mnemectomy,” and drank until I passed out.
    When I got home after work the next day, my graffiti had attracted comments. They were mostly the usual money scams, urgent pleas for funds, offers of sexual services or testosterone boosters, but one was from a fellow vet.
Me too brother. Can’t shake the memories. Let me know how the writing thing works out for you. It does seem like a long shot I gotta be honest but if it’s any good I’d like to try it myself. Don’t know how much longer I can hang on. Your talking worms really sketched me out.
    I used to be an altruist, but not any more. When I read that comment, I wanted to smash my mobile screen. I deleted the post immediately. I’m not looking for a conversation. I don’t want anyone else inside my head. No readers! No audience!
    I pressed my forehead against the coolbox and