After a couple hours of working up diagrams and hating them after thinking they were okay because they sort of worked and finding nothing online that could even begin to fit into the story, I began storyboarding it.
That helped me work my way back through and make up a new diagram that worked. Here it is...though I see I forgot to allow for the chimney on the right side. But I know it's there.
This picks up immediately after Brendan's annihilation of the ants --
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Then I heard...
"I'm telling you, he's not all there. The accident hurt him bad, and considering what he saw..." with eyes cold and hard under a policeman's cap glaring straight into mine as words growled, "I think he's just drugged up" in a Dublin accent that made no sense even as it did...it did...it did.
I spun in the chair to catch up with my spinning mind. Then I chuckled and stopped it, for I didn't know if I was spinning in the right direction to do it. I wound up facing away from the window. Silence wrapped around me and the steadiness of it all was driving me mad. I looked about the room, seeking an anchor, my breath fast and hard. It was larger than Ma’s, with a massive bed and frame against the wall, diagonal to my left. Bigger than the bed I'd shared with Eamonn.
Eamonn.
His face almost as white as his eyes, shaking and fighting with Ma to pull her away from me, and me fighting over nothing for nothing could be done and I wept howled and screamed and cursed and...and...
I wrapped my arms around me and jammed my eyes closed.
Tight.
Gasping.
Gasp...
Breathe in.
Soft out.
Slow.
Steady.
Over and over and over until I finally...finally could open my eyes, again, and slowly let more of the room become visible.
The space was dark and light, both. Tables beside the bed held lamps and one had a digital clock that read 1:42. A unit of shelves to the other side of it was filled with books that looked like they'd never been read. To this side of the bed were a door and a comfortable chair next to a pair of sliding doors that I think opened to a closet. I turned back to the books and finally noticed a writing desk was jammed the other side of the window, across from the foot of the bed.
No...windows. Two windows. Me seated by one; the other over the desk. Letting soft beams of light dance in with little flickers of dust to make it seem happy and carefree and late in the day.
But it wasn't late; the clock said early afternoon.
I looked at the walls. Paper with soft lines of golds and browns and oranges and greens covered them while plain tan paper swept across the ceiling. Picture-prints in black frames hung here and there, with areas around some of them faded, as if there had been larger items in their place. Most of them were of skies filled with clouds and...
Clouds passed below me as I hummed and could not believe the beauty of it all, even as I sang "The Banks of Claudy" and walked in the night, Joanna beside me...but no. No, I'd not met her yet, and...
I grimaced.
Did not move.
Did not breathe till my lungs were bursting for air.
This room...it made no sense. It tore at my mind in little ways that I didn't understand. Over and over and...and...
I ran my hands through my hair and rubbed the back of my neck.
Just look. Don't think. Just look. Just look.
I opened my eyes and took a view of the desk. On it was a typewriter under its own cover. A cup of pens beside it. A lamp behind it. A light layer of dust on them, showing they'd not been touched in a while.
I turned back to the bed. Its covers were mussed. Slippers and a robe lay on the floor. That is when I noticed I was in pajamas. Bottoms only, and it was good they were. The air was warm and thick, not at all like early winter...
But like milk fresh from a cow pouring into our tea, in Malcom's tender farmhouse, and Joanna sipping it so much like a lady as children laughed in the distance and a boy and girl chased each other from a shop, dancing about in full happiness until the boy fell against the car and...
I bolted from the chair to pace, my breath harsh and sudden, my arms wrapped around me. Panic filed my entire body and I put my hands to my ears but the laughter haunted me. Mocked me as I walked the length of that room, back and forth...
And back and forth...
And back and forth and shaking and coughing until the sound faded and I could slow my pacing and let my arms curl down so my hands could cup my face.
I noticed a smell that came from my skin. A scented soap so clean and fresh and...
My shirt was removed by two men, one my age and one twice as old, and I was sat on the toilet to remove my boots and socks then guided to my feet for one set of hands to tug at my pants as the other held me up and...
I turned to look at a door beside the closet. I knew it was the loo before I crossed to open it.
Which I did.
Slowly.
Carefully.
The door creaked, and I thought, Could use a touch of oil, then I looked inside.
It was a room far too bright and long and narrow and happy to be real, with a massive tub and shower curtain to the left side. A pair of wash basins below a tall mirror were opposite. Two small windows in the wall flanking above the mirror let in light and there was a door at the far end that I knew...somehow I knew...would be locked.
I slipped in and saw the toilet was behind a partition on the far right corner. Everything was in perfect condition, save for towels that hung haphazardly from neat little bars affixed to the wall by the sinks. I smelled one and it held the same lingering aroma of that soap and...
The older man rubbed me down with one, wiping away warm trails of water and talking in a voice that made no sense, as the younger one brought in the pajamas and robe and my hair was toweled off then combed, as if he’d done it a hundred times before and...
I drifted down to sit on the edge of the tub, not so much from confusion as from dizziness. I was still breathing quick and unsteady, and that bastard cough would pop in every now and then...but the panic and fear were less.
I was not in Derry, anymore, I was sure of that. But I had no sense of the time. Was it the day after? Two days? A week? Was I in the Republic? Down to the south? Did it grow warmer, down there? No...no, the weather was warm to the point of hot and the stillness of it oppressed almost to where you couldn’t breathe. This could never be winter in Ireland. Nor even summer. Was I in the tropics?
I made myself rise and lean against the sink to look in the mirror. Looking back was a hollow-eyed fellow with scruff as a beard. Well, scruff in the places it would grow. My hair was long to my shoulders and ratty with curls. My skin was grey and my bones showed on my sides. Like twenty years had passed. I began to shake and my knees gave out and I dropped to the floor and...
I flew through clouds of the finest mist molded into perfect playthings, with the sky above them as blue as blue could be as seen through a small window with rounded corners that distorted everything but I didn’t care because the clouds were my prayers and wishes filled them to bursting and hopes danced in the shadows of their billowing tufts as they soared past like dreams and a hand touched me and I looked around and...
Someone entered my room, without knocking.
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