Demons

The demons have been pernicious lately. They slither slowly through the grey nether regions of my consciousness, unseen but felt. Their utterances are soft but compelling, reminding me of the pointlessness of this struggle. My tongue is stopped, a red sore swells on my throat, burning and itching, now scabbing over, nearly healing, then angrily erupting again.

I tell myself to sit, to write, that unstopping my voice may release the poison. That may be pure superstitious bullshit. The one may have nothing to do with the other. It may be my need to make sense of things by seeing patterns in coincidence. I’ve had the eruption on my neck before, frequently, in times of stress, always in the same place. It generally fades with time, but this occurrence is stretching longer than usual.

‘You’re lazy,’ they whisper.

‘You’re right.’ I agree with them, shame, then despondency, drifting like a dull net over me. ‘What’s the point?’

‘You have nothing to say.’

I turn the sentence I have just typed over in my mind, wondering if it should stand. The red spot on my neck burns hotter. 

Here Be Demons

Among the documents the Company sent over with my husband’s letter of understanding and the contract for his new job is one spelling out the flextime rules. It notes the standard work week in Austria (38.5 hours), the range of hours within which one can choose to be in the office each day, the core hours during which one is required to be in work, and many more arcane details regarding overtime, time credits and debts, and the recording of time worked.

Legally required, I imagine, in its specificity it’s a far cry from anything you’d get from an Irish employer. Moreover, it would have been unheard of in my American jobs, where the standard work week at the professional level could be defined by ‘How many hours does God send.’

I pointed this out to Himself. ‘It’s for the good,’ he said. ‘Everything is clear, understood.’

So. Things will be different when we move to Austria.

I’ve been anticipating this, to be sure. I’m told to expect order, the assumption that one adheres precisely to the rules and stated procedures, very different from the slapdash Irish approach to life, where cutting corners or taking one’s own time is routine. I don’t imagine I’ll find hastily scrawled ‘Back in 2 minutes’ signs on many shop doors in Salzburg.

Himself says this adherence to order will suit my temperament. ‘You like to have things spelled out so you know what to expect.’

He’s right, of course. I’m not by nature orderly in my habits, and my housekeeping is inconsistent, but it soothes my anxiety to know how things are done and when something will happen, and in what order, as if the world could be contained by checklist. It’s a fiction, of course, but it serves as notional boundary between the known world and the great white blank beyond the border, where demons dwell.