January 16, 2008
THINGS I COUNTED TODAY
| JONATHAN WOOD |
—Nicole’s eyelashes: 217
—Sleeping pills Nicole made me take: 2
—People in the bed when I woke up: 0
—Times I called Nicole’s cell phone: 16
—Times she picked up: 0
—Messages I left her: 16
—Things I love: 2
- Nicole
- Counting
—Places Nicole might be: 7
- The kitchen
- The garden
- The post offices
- The supermarket
- Work
- The car
- Underneath the bed
—Places I look in the house: 11
- all the rooms twice, except the bathroom, which is small
—Number of calming breaths I take like Nicole taught me: 47
—Pieces of toast I eat for breakfast: 2
—Knife strokes it takes to spread the margarine on two lightly toasted slices of bread: 15
—Additional calming breaths: 16
—Steps I take going to Nicole’s place of work: 3502
—Dark things I saw which Nicole would tell me to ignore: 2
—Times I ignored them: 2
—Times the security guard told me the building is closed because it is Saturday: 5
S—teps to the supermarket: 4112
—Sandwiches I buy: 1
—Dollars I have left over: 3
—Times I see Nicole: 0
—Times I call the house: 5
—Times Nicole answered: 0
—Times I cry: 1
—Dark things 4
—Times I ignored the dark things: 3
—Times I ran away screaming and scaring people only to later chastise myself: 1
—Number of rings before I answer my cell phone: 3
—Number of calming breaths I take: 31
—Number of times I scream at my phone: 12
—Number of things I love: 2
—Dollars they ask for: 15,000
—Dollars I don’t have: 14,997
—Lies I tell the dark things on the other end of the phone: 3
—Number of people who stare at me: 13
—Steps home: 2769
—Hours until dark: 5
—Times I cry: 5
—Knives I take from the kitchen: 4
—Times I apologize to Nicole even though she is not there, because we agreed I wasn’t going to touch the knives again: 3
—Number of lights I turn on: 2
—Flashlights I put in my bag: 3
—Ways the dark things can kill you: 3
- Stabbing you
- Eating you
- Flooding in through your eyeballs, engulfing you, blinding you, filling your brain with their soft tendrils, invading your organs with their probing unflesh, flushing your soul and your shit out of you, taking you over and making you do the bad, bad things until you bleed out your blood and your are only blackness and you are dead
—Calming breaths I take: 5
—Times I scream at the setting sun that breaths can’t calm you, not when you know there are dark things, not when you know that there is blackness out there: 1
—Extra batteries I pack for the flashlights: 25
—Steps to the parking lot: 8925
—Dark things I see: I lose count. I do not like the dark things, they are difficult to count.
—Men who have let the dark things into their eyes waiting for me: 3
—Men who have let the dark things into their eyes that I kill with my knives: 2
—Times I cut he third man before he tells me where Nicole is: 72
- Shallow cuts: 43
- Medium cuts: 21
- Deep cuts: 8
—Eyes I remove from him to let the darkness out, so that it scorches in the glare of my flashlight: 2
—Times I have been shot: 2
—Steps to Nicole: 891
—Times I cry: 4
—Times I close my eyes and shine the flashlight at them, which is the only way to stop the darks things getting into them: 17
—Times I collapse: 3
—Things I love: 2
—Nicole’s I love: 1
—Times I get back up: 3
—Times I shout Nicole’s name into the warehouse: 12
—Times Nicole replies: 1
—Steps to Nicole: 36
—Places where Nicole is bleeding: 4
—Ropes that tie Nicole to the chair: 4
—Gags: 1
—Times I tell Nicole I love her: I lose count. I do not mind so much.
—Strips Nicole tears my shirt into: 5
—Holes in me that Nicole bandages: 2
—Steps back home: 9056
—Times Nicole says she will never go to the bank without telling me, even if I have taken sleeping pills: 5
—Steps up the stairs: 18
—Pills Nicole reminds me I haven’t taken: 7
—Pills I take: 7
—Black eyes Nicole has: 1
—Nicole’s eyelashes: 173
—Things that I love: 2
Jonathan Wood:
1. is an Englishman
2. lives in New York
3. has written stories that have appeared in4. has written stories that will appear in
Megan Powell . Net » Making a list said,
January 17, 2008 at 11:02 pm
[…] “Things I Counted Today” by Jonathan Wood […]
sylvia said,
January 31, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Just … wow. This is awesome.