Observation

• Paige Gullifer, Grade 11, Goulburn Valley Grammar School
• Short Story
• 2017

Excellence Award in the 'Write Here Write Now 2017' competition

“You’re not yourself today, Anton.”
Himself? What substance and composition constituted himself? Anton did not know, and loathed this observation, for it drew awareness to the fact; his unknowing, his ignorance. This was all indicated with a contemptuous sigh. It was not that he intended to be insolent about it; perhaps, if one was able to glance into the darkly humming eaves of his mind, they would patiently remark upon the incredible pressure there within; it was a culmination, an amassment, of some misguided purpose, undirected and loud, so awfully loud.
“Anton, pass the salt.” His mother’s sonorous voice drifted up the table length in a haze of golden light - or so that was the quality it inspired; it possessed an eternal gentleness. Perhaps such people did not feel the same pressure; the noiseless cacophony of existence. Perhaps it was but doused upon the mindless, those with no direction to themselves.
He abided by his mother’s request, and then rubbed his head tenderly. There was certainly an ache there. Rudy would call him a hypochondriac, always complaining of some new ailment. It was not that he was always sick, rather, that he felt he was never well. Each emerging pain seemed distinct, but connected to its predecessor in some way; all symptoms of something greater. Not any impeding disease, perhaps, but something parallel to the strange little soul-ache that accompanied his existence.
Rudy was talking of chickens now; his uncle was following his words with brutish admiration. How he admired his brother’s roughness! Yet admittedly, he too carried admiration for his brother, if only for the unwavering purpose that occupied his every movement.
“You see...” the words seemed distant, though his brother sat opposite him. A crumpled, jagged line of separation divided them; a curtain - all the dinner guests could see it, that he knew - it was the jagged line that cordoned off his floating helplessness, his lack of self. In clumsiness, and a brief moment of disorient, he could see it - his soul spilling out, brushing languidly against the barrier that so divided him. He could stare dismally at himself, or rather, the fragment of what he saw; for as he looked, he realised he was devoid of everything; of passion, of ambition.
The stuff of human nature, rotten at the seams, was his essence, and it oozed and spilled upon the table. Would a napkin contain it? It would not do to stain the pearly tablecloth – it seemed, at this moment, even more vivid, more real, than himself.
His brother continued, “...and we would take the slaughtered chickens, and rip their feathers out, and then dip them again in the boiling water, to soften their flesh...”
Here was his own mortality, shoved crudely before him; Rudy, blushing and beaming, was eating with repugnant vivacity, speaking between mouthfuls. He was so very ignorant, so very alive.
Anton rose quickly, his fork clattering to the floor.
“Please, excuse me.”
Thirteen pairs of eyes rose, and his soul shivered beneath them.