The Ticking Bomb

1975

That Other Me is a series that explores the immediacy and intimacy of various mental health episodes I’ve experienced throughout my life.

There’s a bomb in the house.

I lie in bed, trying to sleep, but I can’t because of the bomb. I know it’s on a countdown. I’m not sure how long that countdown is. I can’t even tell time yet. But I’ve seen enough movies already to know that bombs have timers that tick down until they explode.

Nobody else is awake in the house – at least I don’t think so. I can hear the washing machine going, can hear the rhythm of its cycle, but Mum often puts clothes in to wash at night, then hangs them in the morning.

It must be late, or later than I’m used to, because the brother I share my bedroom with is asleep. He’s older than me, so he can stay up later.

I want to shout out to him or to Mum and Dad or to whoever else might listen about the bomb. I have to warn them – have to warn the whole family! Every moment I wait is a moment closer to the bomb exploding.

The fear that’s going to happen almost paralyses me. My heart thumps, sending tremors of panic that my body can’t contain. I don’t know who’s put the bomb in our house. I don’t know why anybody would want to blow us up.

I just know it’s here.

I keep listening to the washing machine. This has usually been comforting. This has usually been the sound that tells me I can settle down for the night, sleep, and when I wake up, everything starts over fresh and new.

This bomb’s still ticking, though.

That’s still here.

I think about it and think about it, until I grow scareder and scareder, but that only gets inside my head until it separates me from the act of lying in bed, and now I’m standing outside myself. I see the room, I see myself in bed, I see my brother in his bed, and I see the faint light coming through our open doorway.

But I do it with some detached maturity that isn’t part of me – at least not part of me physically or who I am as a kid. This is something smarter, something older and patient and unconnected to me and my everyday fears.

There can’t be a bomb in the house. We’re not bombable. Nobody has those sorts of enemies – at least not here. I guess things can happen randomly, but you don’t hear about them  happening in the suburb of North Fitzroy, or in the state of Victoria. This is some disconnected fear that’s poked in.

I slip back inside my own mind, back in my own body lying in my bed, and while I’m still scared, something has dimmed it enough that I can sleep.

For now.