I KILLED A ZEBRA

: This story is also known as, NUTTY WOMEN COMING UP TO ME and I’M JUST TRYING TO MAKE MY MISERY FUNNY

At least they’re getting more interesting. At first it was only strange women that were drawn to me. I would see them staggering down the street. I would see them smiling at me with their dumb love. Their love stuck on their faces like headlights. I’m friendly so would entertain them. Most of them were nutters. They were the first I noticed staring and smiling at me. Some would approach and stand in front of me to block my way. One day a blonde European woman walked up and stood in front of my wheelchair. She asked my name and what had happened to me? I asked her what she meant? She said, you know, the chair, how did you end up in a wheelchair? Her t-shirt was three sizes too small and the left hem of her miniskirt was tucked into her knickers. She wore pink knickers. She had a hot body but a face like a jaffle-iron. I smiled at her and told her my name was Nil and I was a cannonball artist with a circus. I couldn’t stop smiling as I told her that they put too much powder in the cannon and I overshot the net. I told her that I killed a zebra and injured an elephant as I landed. She knew that I knew she was mad. I knew she knew I was making it up to fuck with her but it felt better than telling the truth. She looked put out. She turned around and walked off. I watched her pink bum walk away from me. At least you can lie to a mad person

I almost died. Time and medicine kept me alive. I spent over a year in two hospitals staring at the TV at five-something dollars a day. I spent over a year staring at the faces of strangers remembering nothing. My girl left me to the hospital and the system. At first I blamed her but at first I was a child. A child in the infancy of understanding. I woke in a hospital not knowing how I got there. I couldn’t tell you when I understood how I got there but the way I see it that’s a good thing. Over a year with other people’s fingers in my body is nothing I want to remember. It took a long time for me to realise that it was my girl’s mother coming in to see me lying in that bed and not her. It took me giving her the option of leaving me for some of my pain to go away. I do remember the day (but not the year, day or date) I understood why she left me. My mobile conversations with her were getting briefer and I was getting less love. She was in her final year of studying something and said ok when I told her she could end our relationship if that was what she wanted

And then I got out of hospital. It seemed all the doctors involved in my rehabilitation were concerned about my being released into the community. They were concerned because of my brain and spinal injuries and the fact that I had no one in Sydney. They had also been told about my disposition to reckless behaviour. Before the accident I’d moved out of North Bondi where I lived with a friend into my girl’s apartment in Darlinghurst. She’d asked me to move in. She only asked me to move in with her because of the sex I gave her. She no longer loved me because I had an accident. We did not have a healthy relationship apart from sex. I woke up in two different hospitals. I saw a nurse the other day. He had worked on the spinal ward in the second hospital I was in. He told me I looked good and strong. He said it was like I was on another planet during my year there. I woke up. I woke in pain not knowing the cause of my pain. I didn’t remember anything. I woke up broken with no one to love. There was no one to love. She broke my heart so I went back to where I remembered

I’ve lived in Bondi ever since I was discharged from the hospital. I am still not discharged from the pain. Everything has seemed hard and futile in life since I woke up alone and was given this wheelchair. The few pleasures I have are all based on solo efforts while before the accident my few pleasures were in how I made others feel. Not much has changed. It’s only that the pleasure I now give is not sexual but emotional, or something. The women who used to love me loved me for my body. Now the love is something else

As I said they’re getting better. I saw the most beautiful woman walking on one leg and a pair of crutches at the Icebergs. She gave me a smile inviting me to talk to her. I gathered the courage to approach her on the second day of seeing her. She was eager to tell me of her injury and ask of mine. I asked her if she was with Chic or Vivien’s? She told me she was with Chic. She asked how I knew she was a model? I told her because she was so beautiful. She surprised me by blushing and thanking me. I wanted to fuck her. I talked and listened for twenty minutes until we could both feel the anxiety of our anticipation. I could tell she was waiting for me to ask her out. I was waiting to ask her out. I am a man so can only imagine the anticipation she felt. Our conversation meandered. I felt it. She didn’t like me like I liked her. I lost my nerve. I didn’t ask her out so the mentioning her boyfriend finally quashed my anticipation. I smiled and kept asking questions and seeming interested in her answers until it was comfortable enough for me to tell her I had to be somewhere else. I pushed my wheelchair away from the water and away from her. She had not seen me in a sexual light. She had seen me as something else

I pushed my wheelchair back home. I went out on to the balcony lit a cigarette and smoked it. The cigarette relaxed me. I stubbed it out and pushed my wheelchair up over the ledge back into the lounge. I put the brakes on and transferred onto the couch. I switched the television remote on. I flicked around the channels looking for something. There was nothing on. I found an infomercial for a women’s bra. It was showing how it could transform a woman’s ordinary bust into something extraordinary. It was showing before and after photos. Both busts looked good to me. My eyes narrowed on her cleavage. It looked ample. The woman on the ad looked so pleased with her new figure. Her eyes gleamed. Her eyes were full of self-love. I pulled my pants down and start stroking it. She kept changing from her front to her profile and stroking down the side of her breast. I kept getting bigger looking at her cleavage and the smile stuck to her face. She looked so pleased with herself that my erection eventually started to shrink. It reminded me of a woman I once had. She was so delirious with lust that I could never fuck her. She wanted me so bad. Her hands were all over me so fast that it always killed my desire. I changed the channels until I found another ad for an item of clothing (they were big knickers) that sucked in and hid the fat around the mid-section of another woman. I started to harden until the camera focused on her face. She loved herself more than she normally would now that she was sucked in and hidden. Her body looked big in all the right places. She was looking at herself in front of a tall mirror. Her smile stole it from her big bum and big boobs. Her smile reminded me of fakery and I went down. I went down because I thought about it. I was just looking

I look for love in the eyes of every woman I see. Every woman I meet wants to find things out about me. They talk and flirt while peeling the skin from my flesh. They all want to know the person inside. They see through my exterior and talk. They all seem to like the person inside. I don’t like the person inside. Everybody’s looking for a friend. Everybody wants a friend but me

Andrew Stuart Buchanan