kagablog

Sinead and her Mother were living in a small, ramshackle house in a dingy corner of suburbia. The area was leafy and swamped with shadows. Although I had never seen this place before, there was the distinct impression that they had been living there all their lives, and that I had visited the house many times in the past. Apparently they had both shuttered themselves into the house and covered all the doors and windows. Neither of them had emerged for many months. The neighbours were concerned that they might have died, or worse, that something terrible had happened and one of them was trapped. They contacted me in another country and asked if I could assist them in coaxing someone from the house. I agreed and within no time at all, I was amongst a small group of neighbours approaching the small, bent house. The house was swallowed by dark, mangrove trees and squashed between similar nondescript structures. Dim clouds hung suspended in a timeless twilight. There was no sign whatsoever of life within the house and it was impossible to see inside. I had the idea of smashing a hole in the living room window and calling for Sinead. The neighbours concurred with this plan of action and someone handed me a stone. I broke the glass and looked through the jagged fissure. The inside of the house was filled with a thick white mist. I called for Sinead several times. Dark shapes moved in the mist, responding to the commotion. The front door abruptly flew open and Sinead’s mother lurched out onto the veranda. The neighbours and I recoiled in panic. Her eyes had milked over and she was screaming vehemently at us all in some sort of indistinguishable gibberish. Drool flew violently as she tossed about the veranda in her black pullover. I was about to flee when Sinead emerged from the house. We all went silent and watched as she pulled her mother back to the front door. We called to her but she seemed utterly oblivious to our calls and imploring gestures, as though we were somehow invisible to her. She seemed haggard and drawn, a shadow of herself. A drained vein. She pulled her mother back into the house and shut the door. We could hear many deadbolts being drawn and shutters pulled down. Heavy twilight silence fell over us. The small crowd dispersed awkwardly, in an embarrassed manner, filing off to their own dingy corners of the street. I was left alone in the dark shadows and buzzing yellow street lamps. I decided to contact some acquaintances who specialised in certain hostage situations. It seemed to take me years to track them down and plan a rescue operation. I remember small hotels in foreign cities and many pointless meetings in cramped basements. Eating food out of ancient vending machines while we went over the plan, over and over again, testing and re-testing military issue equipment, drawing endless blueprints and schematics. When the time came to execute the rescue operation, I was so bewildered by the complex series of tasks which I had to deal with that I missed the entire thing. Two men in riot gear ushered Sinead into the back of the black van in which I had been told to wait. She was wrapped in a blanket. The men told me that they did not have time to dress her. She was wearing a sleeping nightie beneath the blanket. She seemed dazed and unresponsive. Barefoot and listless. We drove off into a world of closed rooms and underground corridors. She was now a refugee of some sort and could not be seen by the public. We had to keep her in safe-houses and anonymous hotels, hiding her face when she walked the streets. One day I walked into the room and found that she had vomited blood all over the front of her nightie. She was glutinous with some strange form of sea water. My partner, a heavily muscled African-American watched the door with one hand on his sub-machine pistol. I had to cut the bloody nightie off her with scissors. She remained unresponsive. Swaying naked in the pastel room, her hair wet with congealing matter, staring over my shoulder at a distant mirror.