SPRAWL, ch.

3
Light shone through Sean’s bedroom window and even though it was mid-afternoon and April
and was quite warm outside he still felt cold in his jeans and hoodie. He got up from his bed
slowly, his body still aching terribly, reached towards his wardrobe and pulled out a jumper, any
jumper, it didn’t matter. He sat back down and finished rolling a joint. It was Friday and he
wondered if he would go into town that evening.
“What’s up, man?”Sean answered his phone, a bit too chirpily.
“Fuck all really, just seeing what you’re up to tonight?” A friend asked.
“No real plans.”This wasn’t actually true. Sean had been thinking in some detail about he was
going to spend his Friday evening. He wanted to smoke a joint in his house before going to town
at about 11, he wanted to bring cans in with him because he didn’t have much money, he wanted
to meet new people, dance with girls, feel warm and protected as he queued at a bar somewhere
trying to shout orders at staff who obviously gave less of a fuck than him. “What about you?”
“Think everyone’s heading in to Circuit for the reggae. You gonna buzz?”
“Yeah man, sounds good.” Sean hated Circuit, and reggae for that matter. “What time yous
heading in at?”
“Probably about halfelevenish.”
“Sound.”
Sean hung up his phone and placed it carefully on his bed, beside his keys, grinder, cigarettes and
rolling papers. He wanted to inspect his broken hand (which he still hadn’t had treated) but he
decided against it. This was the best he had felt all week and he decided not to ruin it by dwelling
on his injuries.
The weed further relaxed Sean and by the time he had finished smoking the joint he was feeling
well enough to tidy his bedroom. This was a chore he had long been neglecting, but it was Friday
and Sean couldn’t really focus on anything and he still had plenty of weed left which meant that
he didn’t obsess or lose his temper. He gathered all of his dirty clothes into a pile on his bedroom
floor before picking them up and putting them in the washing machine. He changed his bed
clothes, put books on shelves, gathered change, elastic bands and other curios that he had
accumulated over the months and months of stagnant paralysis. Smiling, he got a waste paper
basket from his parents’ bedroom and swept the dust, keys, miniature statuettes, souvenirs, old
college papers and whatever else he deemed unfit for keeping into it. The sun was still shining.
Invigorated by this new sense of productivity, Sean went down stairs to get the hoover from the
hall. It was an old machine and one of the dust filters was hanging almost completely off, held on
by some electrical tape. The wire was worn and frayed, exposing sections of the inner yellow and
red cable,and the end of the tube was split right down the middle so you had to hold it in position
when the vacuum was on. Despite all this Sean still decided to use the machine. He carried it up
the stairs and into his nearly spotless bedroom. He opened the window, filling his room with
April sunshine and allowing the gentle spring breeze to sweep around his neck and through his
hair, his ceiling lamp swayed as the breeze drifted softly through his bedroom, his curtains
billowed and fell, a smell of cut grass and lilac surrounded him.
Sean smiled and plugged in the battered hoover, looked out his bedroom window as Spring
sunshine poured over the neighbourhood, and turned it on. Dust immediately shot out of the
broken filter, covering Sean and his freshly tidied bedroom in a surprisingly thick layer of fine
grey and brown sediment. The dust quickly settled, leaving his room looking like a relic, as
though it hadn’t been lived in for hundreds of years, as though it were a pharaoh’s sarcophagus
being breached for the first time by some intrepid European. His clean bed sheets now looked as
though they were implicit in some terrible crime, his beige and cream carpet was remarkably
lunar, he felt.
Sean grimaced before unplugging his hoover. He could feel his chest tightening as his lungs filled
with the spiteful dust. He had to get out. Turning to leave the bedroom, not even entertaining the
idea of staying to clean up this new, bigger mess, Sean noticed a small piece of card lying on his
bedroom floor, just to the right of a book of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
He leaned down, and picked up the card. The writing was too faint to read, but when he brushed
away some of the excess dust he could make out the words “WHAT ARE YOU?”
Sean was inexplicably sickened by this bizarre and perplexing find. He was unsure where the
card had come from or what the message meant. Turning the card over in his hands he noticed
more writing on the back, “1,4,9,16,25”
“What the fuck is this shit?”