Itch on the Inside of the bone

image of inside of the bone from Astrid & Hanns-frieder Michler

A set of voice messages from 11:50 PM, 5 April 2024. 

[ message 1: sounds of car horns ] Hey, hello, hello, helloooooooooo. How are you? I haven’t said much to you in a while, and it’s not like I didn’t have anything to say but I just didn’t, and that’s just how life ends up sometimes, and– 

[ THUD of phone dropping, very quiet, “Nooooo…”] 

[ phone almost gets picked back up, falls again from a height of 38.7 cm ] 

Fuck you, I’m just going to sit down with you if you just– if it just– it loves the ground! It loves the ground, the stupid phone loves the ground, but don’t we all? The ground is great, the ground is– what am I saying, at least there’s no cracks. No cracks in the phone. Okay, okay, that’s nice. 

[ quick, heavy breathing which gradually gets slower; clearing of the throat. ]

Sorry, my– [ message reaches 60 seconds & ends ]

[ message 2: sounds of car horns & wind gust travelling at a speed of 34 km/h ] Sorry, sorry! My hands are shaking. A lot. And I know it’s really late to be out here taking a walk, and you’re already asleep, but I haven’t said anything to you in a while. So I thought I might as well. [ cough, cough ] I’m not drunk or high or anything, I just needed to say something! But– but I don’t know what exactly, since there’s a lot I can say, and, but, you specifically, I had something to say specifically, and– I can’t do this sitting down, I can hear the ground. I can hear all those little motes of dust hitting the ground and, and I guess even if I got up I’d still hear the sound of the wind particles, and– oh, there are so many different particles in the wind and they’re all small, but the particles hitting ground, hitting the ground, that noise bothers me so much more, so much louder. So no ground.

Now, I have something to say to you, but let the wind shut up before I go on. Shut up so I can collect my thoughts.

[ message 3: sounds of faraway barking & wind at 12 km/h ] Better, better, better. So look, I just couldn’t sleep again and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep at all tonight, and so that’s why I’m out here, and there’s no one to really talk to here, but I really, really need to talk. 

See, I don’t believe in ghosts but if I did, I'd tell you one lives here and that it hates me. Lives where I live. And it got in through my nose, and it– okay, so it’s not exactly a ghost, right? I’ve just heard so many people call them that; whatever these things are, called them ghosts. But they’re not the same, it’s not a dead person haunting my flat, but it’s a something. A SOMETHING which can SNEAK inside of you and– see, listen, I’ve heard people say it’s a god too, it could be anything, it could be G– listen to me. The POINT. The point is it makes your brain itch from the inside, makes your bones itch. 

[ message 4: sounds of heavy breathing ] When the ghost first got me, I started thinking I had hollow bones. Like a bird. Just out of nowhere I started thinking that, because the ghost wanted me to or something. Maybe because sometimes I see an eagle from the window, and the sunlight burns it gold. And when I saw it, I’d always, always wish to understand every single aspect of its life, all its senses, but then I’d feel how old and wrapped up in “normal” living I am. So how could I understand the eagle? A child could understand it more easily, children are closer to other animals than anyone else, because they're less wrapped up in life. No, no, not less wrapped up, but they're wrapped up in something different. More basic instincts. More raw senses. 

But see, now, NOW I think I can understand the eagles. I feel every particle of wind, and even every particle of still air feels so LOUD on my skin. It’s so LOUD, I can’t sleep! I can’t sleep, maybe I’ll never sleep ever again!

I know there’s no one who– [ message reaches 60 seconds ]

[ message 5: sounds of breathing & wind, indistinguishable ] I hate how the maximum length of these messages is 60 seconds, how the fuck do you have a conversation like this? I guess you don’t, you just don’t, because this isn’t a conversation. Maybe instead of starting this… conversation, or I’m yelling at you and also no one, I don’t know what this is. But instead of starting it, I should’ve just gone down on my knees and started digging! Dig in the dirt and go down and– and, and I wouldn’t bury myself, but I’d just stand around down there. I’d need something to block out the wind, yes, but it’s not burial if I just stand in a little cave, right? It would be so quiet. So quiet in there. 

I know there’s no one who can stay awake forever. But at this rate, I don’t know. I’ll be the ‘no one’ if something doesn’t… if something doesn't… I don’t know. I just don’t know.

[ message 6: sounds of crickets and a few car horns here & there ] I wanted to stop myself from telling you about the so-called ghost, because maybe it would go away if no one knew. People who call it a ghost, people who call it a god, people who call it a, a shapeless monster… all of them agree that, if you don’t think about it, and if you don’t believe in its existence, it will go away.

They were wrong. Sure, I thought about it sometimes, but I never believed. I never believed it was a ghost. Is it some type of chemical or did someone poison me specifically or what? What if it has nothing to do with the flat? I’ve had moments in other places too, moments & states which… is a ghost’s embrace cold or warm? I used to like how chill the breeze felt, but it’s all a bunch of stings of air particles so I can’t even feel the temperature much, the temperature seems meaningless. What would your embrace be, cold or warm? Cold or warm? 

[ message 7: sounds of quiet breathing, close to your face (too close) ] You must be warm right now, sound asleep. I know you used to have a ghost, but then you got rid of it. Or at least, it disappeared. And you never called it a ghost. You never called it anything, never talked about it. Maybe it’s still there? I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with you, you slept so soundly even when there was definitely a ghost. Were you calm or were you just exhausted?

I wish I could talk about these things face-to-face and calmly but I can't, how do you speak calmly? There's nothing to be calm about but you’re still calm, and I wonder if it’s in the bone structure. If I got to look inside your bones, I could tell if you’re TRULY calm or if you’re just– look, look, see, I never see you around anymore and now I’m suspicious: did the ghost actually leave? Or did it just… 

[ message 8: ] The only reason I can think of such things — about anything besides the static — it’s because the wind has calmed down. 

But if it picks back up, it’ll be noisy again and my bones will itch and itch and I’ll be taken entirely by the ghost, and I’ll just be the ghost and a mass of bone, I’ll be a mass of itchy bone.

I hope that’s not what happened to you. That’s what my crazy suspicions were about. I know, right? I’m overthinking, because you really just are naturally that calm. And it’s just a coincidence that you’re gone. That’s EXACTLY the situation, and you’re laughing at my stupid theory and thinking how the- how, “oh, your walls just had toxic gases, you’ll be alright in a few hours”, and you’re laughing.

And you’re right. I like to imagine you listening. You’re listening now and you’re absorbing some of the noise for me. You do so much without even being here. You make my staticky nerves calm down.

But it only lasts for a few moments. 

I need a better solution. 

[ message 9: sounds of the ground, every tiny dirt particle’s movement. ] Okay, alright, we’ll be okay and I’ll just be telling you a few last things before I stop for the night. Then I'll turn my phone off. You shouldn’t use screens before going to sleep, right? Right. 

I think a week of being down there should help me. I hope you hear these by that time. Maybe you’re too busy to bother, but… well, I’m busy too, and I’m possessed, and that’s not a good excuse for me not to keep in touch so I don't see why YOU– but no, that is a good excuse to ignore people, and I have been ignoring people and ‘possession’, is it even possession if it’s not technically ‘dead people’ ghosts and– no, no, that’s all besides the point. 

I just want you to know I'm fine. I will be fine. You know that. God, my hands shake. God could be the ghost instead, the ghost could be a god, but it’s alright, I’ll be alright no matter what it is because I'll just fall asleep for a bit down there. I feel like removing my bones and cleansing them from the inside out, fixing them and making them a little more like yours. But maybe I don’t need to do that at all. Rest will help! I haven’t been able to rest at all but now I’ve found a way to do it, and so I will do it, and even if it DOESN’T help with anything, it’s- well, I've still EARNED the rest, haven’t I? Even if I stay like this forever, even if I die like this, I've– 

[ a gust of wind & a scream & thud of the phone & the scream cut short by a slap to the face,
then another, 
then a punch to the jaw,
then nothing. ]

[ the air is still. ]

[ a voice from far, far away. ]

I have earned some stillness.

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