Eat Your Own Brain
Extract (from “The Diaries of Sun-City”)
Dear Diary,
It is Monday. I live inside a small city on a small world. The city is the only city; the world is the only world. The city is built in the shape of a sun. Its concrete rays house the living quarters; its circular centre is where we work and shop. The city is entirely enclosed; no one has ever been outside of the city; it is generally suspected that the environment outside of the city is uninhabitable.
People write diaries for a particular reason here, where our social etiquette is constricting. These unwritten laws are self-imposed. They are born from fear. We are closed people. We creep around, suspicious of each other.
Diaries are so popular that they have their own shop. The shop is called: “We Are Diaries”. I have not owned a diary until now. The idea of placing my most secret, most sacred feelings out in the world terrifies me but today I bought a small black plastic bound book with blank, white pages and the word “Diary” embossed on its cover.
I walked from the shop and through the city centre with the diary in my pocket and caught the bus that runs up and down the concrete ray that houses my flat. My flat is at the very end of the concrete ray.
Inside my flat I sat facing the far wall, with the diary on my lap open at the first page then I began to write in it with pen and ink.
Why can I not tell Miss Baraclough that I care for her? It would be wrong to of course, inappropriate. She would be offended undoubtedly, that would be expected of her. Reluctantly her colleagues would be obliged to sever their relations with me; my associates would be informed and, to avoid being chastised themselves, forced to sever their relations with me also. I would feel the need to feel ashamed because it would be expected of me. Yet I would not. I would not feel ashamed when talking to you dear Diary, I would be proud. But I cannot say it to her so this ink is wasted.
Dear Diary,
It is Tuesday. Despite my dismissal of its worth, I have decided to write to you again. When I opened the diary this evening I discovered the first page to be blank!
My memory of writing on the page is clear but the page is blank. Is my memory lying to me?
Dear Diary,
It is Wednesday. When I opened the diary this evening the first page was blank again. Is the ink fading? I am scared. Imagine saying that to a colleague. “Mr Barton, I am scared.” Imagine his horror, his embarrassment. Tomorrow I will whisper it to his back.
Dear Diary,
It is Thursday. When I opened the diary this evening the first page was blank again. I decided to count the pages. I counted 362. The pages are disappearing. Someone must be stealing the pages. I have begun constructing elaborate scenarios from my suspicions. Who would want to know my secret thoughts? But had I not once wished to see inside Miss Baraclough’s diary? If I had spied it when visiting her in her flat and she had left the room briefly to make a cup of tea would I not have been tempted to steal a glance at a few words? But it would have been my own hopes and fears that I would have read there. From this confession dear Diary I deduce that the pages of my diary could have been stolen by absolutely anyone.
I expect that by tomorrow evening this page will have disappeared.
TO BE CONTINUED...