I tried to do something yesterday

I left the house to buy something from the corner shop, anything really, a chocolate bar or some plasters, because I cut my thumb three days ago and I had to suck the blood out and bandage it with loo roll and Sellotape, which I emailed my sister about. Yesterday, I perched on my front step without shoes on and breathed for ten minutes, to the dot, and looked at the second-hand dial slumber around my watch-face.

Been working out. I pushed my sofa back all by myself, and shuffled around the armchair. I balanced my laptop on the shelf, and played an exercise video. The trainer’s name was Hawk Ocean, and he wore a black vest and a red bandana, and he yelled. I left puddles on the empty floor, and I slammed the laptop shut, but my arms pulsed for hours after. I think of my sister a lot. I lie back on my new sofa with my new arms and imagine her face when she sees me, all coming together. When the Jehovah’s Witnesses come by, I watch them through the camera.

In the morning, Hawk Ocean tells me I’m a man, and I need to start acting like one. I close the laptop, and do the pushups in silence. Later on, I take my shoes off and sit on my front step again. My sister comes tomorrow with my groceries. She’ll see how I’ve rearranged the living room, and my arms, and how I’ve cleaned all the dishes and replaced the curtains in the corridor.

Today, I sit on the steps for five minutes, then I walk towards the shop, and there’s people singing in the street with warped faces covered in white rags. They’re looking at me and singing girly songs. At the end of the road, way up about where the shop is, there’s a shadow of a huge person standing right in the middle, and when it sees me it starts to walk towards me. I go home, and I lock the door. I sink down behind it, and I remember Hawk Ocean’s words. I say out loud, I’m a man. I check the keys in the door and squeeze my body up, my eyes, my fists, my stomach, until my head hurts. Later that night, somebody knocks on the door, so I turn off the lights and hold my knees in the shower, listening to my thudding chest. One day they’ll come into my home. I feel my arms.

The next day, my sister doesn’t come, so I call her up and there’s no answer. It’s a message from God maybe, that I can do this before she gets here. She can see my plasters and my bar of chocolate. Maybe I can get a bottle of red South African wine, which is her favourite. I check my security camera, and the man at my door isn’t there anymore. When I open it to sit on the steps, there’s nobody singing. I sit there for five minutes and see the shape of the clouds, the wind in the grass, my bright-yellow sweater, my garden path, the bright grey shapes of the stones in the tarmac. Today is the day.

But the phone rings, so I rush back indoors, and I don’t lock the door. It’s my mother. She says, I have awful news. Please take a seat? I’ll be there this evening, we’re boarding a flight now. As mum talks, I hear someone knock on my front door. Then it opens, and after that, loud steps, like a heavy figure ducking down beneath the frame.

In the evening, when my mum comes in, she puts her hands to her face and tells me what a wonderful job I’ve done with the living room, and how strong my arms are.

Then when she walks into the kitchen, she doesn’t say anything at all.

I say, Would you like a glass of South African wine? I bought it today, I say. Do you like it?

My mum says, Jesus you won’t cry or anything.

I’m a man, mum. I’m a man, I say.