Ground Control

The light didn’t work. It hadn’t done for months. In fact, Kit Downs couldn’t remember a time it had ever functioned in a proper way. Not since he’d moved to this flat at least, all those months ago.
Kit lay flat in his bed, legs stretched vertically out, twitching slightly, toes pointing furtively out from under the covers. He lay staring up at the ceiling light. It dangled in a suggestive, almost supplicating way. Nosing down from above, it enervated Kit as much as it brought hope. Around it were spread carefully sculpted circles of white plaster, rising like the rings of a forgotten planet.
The circles slipped away from one another, dancing before Kit’s eyes. They inched from the ceiling before disappearing in the gloom. At some point up there, the circles ceased to be. They ceased as they became the flat ceiling sky. Here Kit could be certain of what he saw. A flatness, a sameness, a familiarity. He could close his eyes and imagine exactly what this flat ceiling would be. Save for a few unremarkable cracks, the result of numerous stresses and strains over the years, Kit understood this white ceiling. This is how he felt.
The circles around the light were not of a piece in the same way. Where did they come from, he thought? What were they?
It wasn’t simply that the light didn’t turn on. Rather, it was that there was no switch with which to engage the light in the first place.
Kit felt dozey again, certainly not awake. Just like yesterday in fact. And the day before. He’d felt this way for a long time, as long as he could remember. And it wasn’t simply that he hadn’t had enough sleep. He had. For Kit Downs made sure to do this of all things. He had some principles at least. Principles that he followed diligently as any good person would.
It was this sensation however, that caused Kit so much indecision regarding the simple matter of whether or not to get up. He had thought repeatedly that a few extra moments wrapped in a warm, feathered duvet might serve to displace the mental and physical torpor that had quite seamlessly become a condition of waking up each morning; that if he just thought hard enough, or even not at all, this frankly debilitating effect might cease to be.
On the other hand, Kit remembered an old saying along the lines of there being no better time than the present, something his mother had told him. Kit however, was one to reflect on the benefits of diving headlong into anything, and rarely would such a consideration result in a decisive outcome, in this case, the act of raising oneself from a position of supine comfort to one of braced readiness.
Except braced readiness would be a step too far for Kit, whose main motivation for actually tipping those scales of uprightness in the end was that if he didn’t, he would, on this morning at least, be hideously late for work.
Kit wondered whether his brain chemistry could be held accountable for these recurring feelings of unease and mild depression. It would certainly absolve him of a great deal of moral responsibility. The fact was though that science had thrown considerable light on the issue, but that it continued to remain unresolved in the minds of people far smarter than Kit.
Kit debated furiously in his head, scrutinizing the opposing sides of the argument. Was this something he had to live with, an unquestionable aspect of his mind and personality? Or was there a way in which things could be different, a path discoverable somewhere that led to contentment and happiness, a path where all the questions would just go away, where everything could finally be forgotten?
Or was it rather that somewhere along the road Kit had taken a wrong turn, a turn in which all the resentments, petty vices, squabbles and protracted conflicts had been exacerbated into a mean, closed-down, inward-looking beast of a thing that threatened to consume Kit’s entire being? That would certainly mean he had a great deal of moral responsibility.
Either way, even if Kit possessed the will to reason, he had neither the time nor the space to now. He would get up and stop this thinking. This one, at least, would have to wait.
Kit Downs’ ritualised morning routine had begun to bore him. The same grievances flitted through his head. Kit stood up, a blank expression across his face. It was as if a strange force propelled him through each day, the same sequence of events begun without much resistance, the same outcomes foreseen from the start.
Kit would find himself grinding the coffee beans next to the kitchen top, rotating the creaking handle around, trying to avoid too much mess. He would find himself with two slices of bread in his hand, popping the lever on the toaster as it failed to catch. He would fill the kettle, water cascading from the poorly oiled tap. Each time he’d stop for a moment to figure out exactly what he was doing, his mind chasing something as if to catch up.
He wasn’t calm.
He’d think this wouldn’t be forever.
The days trickled by.
Each time he’d have no choice but to go on.
The radio by Kit’s bedside poured out the morning news. Somehow it all seemed too loud. Kit felt a slight blockage in one ear which might have accounted for his obscured sense of hearing. As Kit placed his feet inside a pair of blue, dust flecked slippers, one foot sounded noticeably silent.
Kit Downs’ body ached. Especially his back. He’d felt like an old man in a young man’s body for a long time. Now the whole age thing seemed to be taking over completely. Kit bent down to adjust the front of his left slipper, remembering too late how not to arch over in such a way. He slung a grey, shaggy dressing-gown over his shoulders and wrestled briefly with the arms. Already, he pictured what lay ahead.
It wasn’t that there wasn’t pleasure to be had in the simple morning customs. The first sip of cold fruit juice; the combined crunch and quench of a bowl of cereal; the warming sensation of a shower against the cold of the window. These were pleasurable experiences, and Kit Downs knew himself to be lucky to be able to indulge them. And he only ever had himself to think about on these mornings. He could do whatever he liked.
Rather, it was something else, something in the approach perhaps to life’s challenges that Kit had trouble with. And on occasion the thought did arise that maybe this was the root of a lot of the suffering; that were Kit able to distinguish what was important from what had to be, a lot of the pain might just go away.
Kit yearned for something new but doubted he could learn anything now. He had thought of going away, of travelling abroad. But he was unsure if he even wanted change. If only he could find someone maybe they would lead the way. Useless, he thought. He often had his head in the clouds. Kit stared up at the roof of the curtains.
As Kit Downs tugged at the long flowing green shades that bookended his world, a quite unexpected scene came into view. Across the expanse of his once green garden lay a covering of concrete, the like of which Kit had only ever seen across the cordoned off fences of building sites and other unchartered territories. Kit almost tumbled over in fright. Positioned around his garden, little islands of construction workers had sprung up. The men wore hard hats and stood pointing instructions to fork lift truck drivers and people sat behind miniature cranes. Concrete mixers turned over and poured into spaces where once there had been grass.
Kit jerked the curtains back immediately. Surely not, he thought, shaking his head vigorously and blinking twice. Kit tried again, the curtains a call on a world slipping from his hands.
He looked again. Still the same sight. The only change being the position of the men who traipsed across the hard ground. Kit’s window was closed so he couldn’t make out the full scale of activity. His eyes had widened in shock and miniature laugh lines creased his temples. Kit ran a cold hand through his jet black hair. He felt his breathing quicken, his head thump. He thought he recognised one of the men, but couldn’t be sure.
Kit withdrew the curtains again, darkness falling across his room.
Kit Downs’ garden wasn’t particularly big. The kind of size that meant it was mentioned as a kind of add on during conversation, a convenient extra. Oh, I also have a garden, Kit would say to his friend. It’s not much but it’s something I guess. And to have a garden in the city was quite something, or so Kit was told. I’d kill for a garden, he’d heard someone say. And perhaps this year at least, Kit had come to value his own space a bit more. He’d bought a Camellia plant and sown some herbs. They were nice.
But Kit had been wont to neglect his garden more often than not, becoming fed up with the incessant weeds that sprung up every few weeks regardless. He often looked outside and sighed. And even if there was no one else in the house to see it, it still made him sad. It’s just Kit never seemed to have the time. Time was golden. Time was what he didn’t have.
Kit overheard drilling and turned his head to the curtains again. Perhaps I can just go to work and forget about all this, he pondered. Burying his head in a computer, tapping his fingers all day long, filling tiny boxes with numbers that added up and for a moment gave Kit a sense of completion and contentment. This had become a reliable method for Kit over the months. And why tamper with the formula he found himself thinking. That’s what I’ll do, that’s exactly it.
But what if ‘all this’ didn’t go away? What if it remained there when he got back? What then? Would Kit have to take some action, make a decision, even enter the garden himself and confront the men? What would they say? And what if they had some legitimate reason for taking to Kit’s turf? Kit couldn’t remember agreeing to have his garden concreted over. But then, what was the process for this kind of thing? If Kit hadn’t been in his garden let alone been seen there for months, was he really in a position to defend it? Kit sighed heavily and drew up tightly the cords of his dressing gown.
Kit took the first of two steps across the floor, picturing the way ahead. He wondered if he imagined himself walking down the road towards the station the way he usually did, past the new tower blocks where city workers dwelled behind closed-off gates, ready to make a beeline to the station and on to the train - he wondered if this would reinstate a sense of normality and calm. Kit briefly felt himself crave this ordinariness, yearn for it almost. That certain sense of peace and self-possession, the undisturbed, unruffled momentum he safeguarded each day. Like the driver of one of those forklift trucks, gently easing on and off the lever!
No, it was useless. Kit simply couldn’t stop thinking about the garden. He had to position it somewhere in his mind, package it up and ferry it away if it was ever to leave him be. Except, at least right now, there was nowhere to accommodate such a blustering, incomprehensible specimen of a thing, no way to extinguish its complexity and indeterminate questioning. It hung there like some immovable shadow and before Kit could do anything, he had to contend with it, face it front on.
No doubt his friend Ralph would tell Kit to just drop it, to just go and get on with things. Ralph was a go-getter, an impulsive risk taker, an unthinking child. Kit thought for a moment of contacting Ralph. Anything had to be better than his current condition of stasis. Ralph was presently on a rock climbing expedition however, away in the country without a phone signal. He was climbing three peaks in three days, then he was going abroad.
Kit thought momentarily of escaping the door. There were of course his mother and father. They may not be within easy reaching distance, but at least they could be contacted via telephone. His father would have a fix. It may not be the one Kit was after, but it would be a solution. That was for sure.
Kit’s mother had visited Kit’s house only the other day, coming up from the coast. She had complained about its state of cleanliness, Kit’s lazy attitude to appearance. There was dust everywhere, she said. Kit you really must clean this apartment more frequently, it is beginning to resemble a flea pit. Kit was unsure he wanted to resume this debate so thought he’d mull over the idea a little longer. Kit got the sense too that he had begun his own life now and that on this occasion at least he would have to sort the matter himself.
Kit cast a glance at his bedside clock, noticing how he had less than half an hour to get to work. Were he even a fraction of a second late, Kit’s boss would begin to suspect something amiss. This wouldn’t do. Kit had no reasonable grounds for being late and knew the gravity his boss ascribed to such flagrant breaches of company protocol. Kit didn’t wish to become another Nixon. Nixon was always late, always made to stand example to others. Each week there would be a short conference, a gathering where Nixon was made to divulge his long list of failures. Mr Horrigan, the boss, would stand back, attentive and smug, nodding steadily as if to convince himself of the currency of his correctional exercise. This man’s attitude is totally out of line with what this company believes in, Horrigan would say to the class. The strange thing was however, that Nixon never seemed to do any work. After the conference, he would sidle off with Horrigan, never to be seen again until the same time next day. The yells of punishment that emanated from Horrigan’s office were timed to perfection, orchestrated regularly at set intervals.
Kit could still hear the soft whine of workmen filtering up from the back garden. Like a constant reminder of barely audible noise that had become the backdrop to his day. If you focused for a moment, it was almost possible to exclude the unremitting hum. Almost, but not quite.
Kit was beginning to feel restless, almost unclean. He began to sense that if he didn’t get ready for work, he mightn’t even go. He was safe at least behind these four walls. But this morning of all mornings felt odd. Kit Downs was starting to feel discomfort in a new flurry of sensation, borne from new places and unaccustomed activities. He turned to peer out the window again. Nothing had changed.
Kit knew he couldn’t stay in his room all day. He knew he couldn’t curl up in a ball and wish it all away. He had just been offered promotion at the company as well. Head of public relations and sales. The role promised big rewards and long-term prospects. On the horizon lay the hope of great achievement. It may mean longer hours and less social time. But he must to seize the opportunity, he thought. This surely was enough to spur Kit on.
Was Kit ambivalent? Light had begun piercing the curtains as the morning got late. Kit saw that work was due to start any moment. He shot a glance through the keyhole at the telephone propped on a wooden side table near the door.
It was mid-October and the leaves in the trees had gone brown. A thick wind had picked up to make the boughs outside tremble and shake and scattered leaves fly up off the floor, blowing forever outwards. Kit had the fleeting impression of stepping out into the brisk autumn air, feeling that invigorating pinch so particular to the time of year. The promise of shorter evenings cloaked in darkness in the months ahead so far away still, but almost present. The fading of the summer months and years gone by when days stretched out forever and each bright morning was met with the same youthful burst of expectation and carefree hope. The seasons and the promise of a new birth again next year, when things drifted off to sleep in deepest slumber, quiet and sedate, opened their eyes and rose up buoyant and bright, with the promise of joy, of jubilant, speckled grass and the sweet yawn of spring.
Kit felt his head go fuzzy again as he tried to order his thoughts. Stay, go. Stay, go. Kit turned back in a flurry and hastily closed the door. It was an impulsive act without clear rationale. The kind of outburst one might expect from a child. Kit leant up against the wall and let out a muffled sigh. He simply couldn’t think what to do. He ran back and forth from his bed, lay down, curled up in a ball, stood. A nauseating sickness tightened in his stomach and he couldn’t for the life of him make it go away. Kit became desperate and his breathing quickened. Thoughts flashed through his head as in a stupor. His job, his friend, his mother and father. Kit felt instantly weak, bereft with anxiety and indecision. He felt worthless and helpless, poor, incapable of acting in the right way, like so many times before when he simply didn’t measure up.
Like the steadily shifting reflection of the sun’s rays across rippled bath water, Kit experienced a flood of conflicting, tormenting emotions. He wanted in one respect to cry out, expel the sense of sin and guilt and plead forgiveness for all he knew. In another Kit felt angered, ready to fight back and summon the forces he reckoned on to put an end to all this nonsense. In yet another, Kit felt all of a sudden quiet, calmed to a standstill, struck through with hushed sleep, disabled, defunct, in arrest. Like on a Sunday. As only on a Sunday.
Kit got up and darted towards the window, repressing the tears in his eyes. This must stop he cried. Get a grip man. Get a hold of yourself. I must do something to take my mind from this. Kit was increasingly distracted by the variety of things vying for his attention. He felt aimless, as if he should focus on one thing in particular, if only to escape momentarily the obfuscation of the present. As stimulus piled upon stimulus, Kit was losing sight of where he’d begun, of the beginning of the day. Ahead, lay only darkness. It was the nervous strain in Kit Downs’ temperament becoming dominant. He had this habit of twitching his nose. Presently, the telephone rang.
The four walls of Kit Downs’ room had become his fortress. To that end, he thought hard about whether to leave. Here, with horizons tightly bound, Kit was in command. Here, Kit was safe. He looked around at the items that made up his home. An old wooden side table with scuffed legs. A dresser of a darker shade of brown with the bottom draw hanging open on its hinge. The little table lamp that flickered even now. And a tall stylised book case that seemed to creak under the weight of accumulated learning. As if there was a point where it all got too much, where things to learn became too much to know.
These items had remained with Kit through many years; they had a history and character one could rely on. Kit’s own history was more complex, he felt. He felt it this way, but also understood he had more control and opportunity, like the future for him was less circumscribed.
The phone rang in Kit’s ears in the same way the name of off-limits, edgy housing estates might upon repeated articulation. It made him think of place names, identities of local towns and precincts. Dettfell, Brockford, New Lewis. The intonations were not displeasing. They floated across Kit’s mind as they’d done before when he happened to walk by or hear announcements on the train. They displaced a certain anxiety, worked to structure Kit’s thoughts, provided a landscape for shelter.
The telephone ceased after a dozen rings. Kit was aware he’d inevitably draw attention to himself for being uncharacteristically remiss. If only it didn’t mean his curmudgeonly boss Horrigan coming over. Horrigan had been known to drop everything at random points in the day to conduct an errand or do something he’d first thought of only moments earlier. To imagine him storming out in the early part of the day to retrieve an employee as one would an item of lost luggage was certainly not out of the question. In fact, the likelihood of such an occurrence became so pronounced in Kit’s mind that he actively listened out for a knocking at the door. The idea was foregrounded like some thread in a plot, destined beyond all conceivable power to happen.
Kit thought it time to shake off this fantasy once and for all and cast another glance out his window. All around it was quiet, all outside people worked. One of the men took a moment in lifting his helmet to scratch his head. He seemed to pause, to gather something in a spark of knowing recognition. The man of moderate size was built up quite estimably across the shoulders and chest. He ran a large hand through a shock of brown, flaxen hair. Kit suddenly felt a pang of disdain for the man, something he found hard to understand. He turned to look up at Kit’s window. Kit rushed back.
From inside, the men's shadows continued to advance across the curtains, swelling out with the folds, descending in with the fissures. Kit wondered if there was a point at which he’d be beckoned by the men outside, be made to enter their world. For the time being, they seemed engaged in an altogether separate function, called to play out and complete their roles without any such intrusion. This sent Kit a conflicting message. It made him feel a little assured at the same time as utterly lonely. It made him think, what do I really want here? The important thing was not to feel stressed. But this was one thing Kit Downs could hardly guarantee.
Kit rubbed his toes across the light brown floor, recalling to mind times he’d run barefoot as a child. That icy chill when passing from lino to carpet, that fleeting coolness so quickly tempered, so relieved to go away.
The telephone had stopped ringing for a time, displaced by a kind of eerie vacancy. For as long as Kit Downs remained in the room, he was hidden. For as long as the curtains were there, Kit was able to allay indefinitely his coming to judgement. Kit felt a sudden sympathy seeing himself then, an eclipse of comfort, as if transported. What he saw amounted to more than a lowly bag of knee-jerk fears and desires. He saw rather, a complicated mix of hopes and dreams, wishes and truths, humility and pride. He saw himself as he was, as he should see others too, incomplete, uncertain, human.
At that instant came a rapping at the door. Kit thought what to do. The challenge came to him more immediately this time. It was in fact the presentness of it that made Kit seize up more violently. He was caused to reflect on the fragility of his situation, now and moments before. The rapping grew louder and Kit could make out faint appeals in voices which sounded familiar to him.
Kit looked back at the window, the little white cill he would position himself on in quiet moments. For a while it seemed like a strange after-thought. Kit knew this was out of bounds now. He looked up at the black and white photograph that adorned his wall of a couple clutching each other close. Beneath an overhanging terraced balcony, they were caught in a moment away from the rain. Kit often thought of clutching someone too. He didn’t know why. There was someone once but she’d gone away.
Everything seemed like a different world but the voices were getting louder. It was as if there was someone in the house. Kit sensed footsteps towards his door. He listened attentively, closer and closer they came. He thought he heard a pause but it must have been a soft spot. Outside his room, Kit heard the plaintive call of his mother, followed by the harsh declamation of his father.
‘Kit, dear. Is everything okay?’
‘Kit! What on earth is the matter?’
Outside voices and music peeled up as if a party had begun. Kit had known his neighbours to indulge in such activities at obscure points of the day, but this seemed especially odd. Kit listened out afraid that someone may say something interesting without his hearing. But they were talking about matters of no interest so Kit didn’t stop to consider.
Kit sized up a response to his parents’ plea but found himself incapable of uttering anything at all. It was like his throat had jammed and he could only splutter and choke across the floor. Instead, Kit heard his father’s voice break out again as if trampling over his words.
‘Kit, will you please come out of the room this instant! We’ve had a call from Horrigan so we know you’re in there.’
Horrigan, Kit thought. He knew. Well, of course he did. They were all in cahoots anyhow weren’t they. This all made Kit very angry and he refused to budge in a mania of unrepentant retribution.
‘Kit, dear, you do know we’re here for you if you have anything you’d like to talk about?’
Kit’s mother seemed ready to feed her inherent appetite for maternal influence and control. She seemed to want to translate Kit’s discomfort into her own terms. Kit would have loved to have talked to his mother more often if it wasn’t for her habit of turning everything into a matter of sentiment.
Kit huffed. His parents had treated him well and they no doubt had one eye set on his returning the favour. This however was not what they had expected and most certainly not what they wanted. Why did he always feel so blindingly inept at the most critical moments Kit thought in a burst of uncharacteristic vitality? These were the moments when he had to look hard for a response, dig deep, pull out all the stops. Everything else was easier, everything foreseen mute.
Kit stood staring vacantly at the door, not feeling quite himself, regretting his failure to muster anything like a response. Outside he heard the door shut again and the sound of more footsteps approaching. Kit felt increasingly under threat from forces beyond his control, as if the drawbridge had been let down and the enemy was pouring in.
Kit went to speak before assuring himself of the words he wished to say. His lack of forethought was of little consequence though as Kit only managed an empty gasp of air. He tried again, and again, his pulse accelerating a little each time. But it was to no avail. He felt he needed someone more than ever, his attempts at speech in vain, cruelly dismissed by the silence all around. Distant voices became more distant still and Kit Downs went to let out a scream the like of which he’d never known.
Kit only turned round once, the air in his room becoming thin. Through the now parted window appeared the legion of construction workers, entering from an outside world Kit Downs had almost forgot. They formed an impressive row, a steady layering of rank reinforced by each new entrant. Approaching Kit, hard hats lifted, faces bare, the space in which to move became slim.
With nowhere left to go, Kit’s mind wrestled at the same time as it confirmed its limits. The light had become dim, lost in a sea of expressionless faces, a distant flicker on the horizon. Finally hearing the door open behind him, Kit Downs’ heart skipped as he was assumed by the mass.