Free The Man Who Walked Away A Novel by Maud Casey

day,” Nurse Anne says again in her gentle, persuasive tone, and who could argue with that?

Chapter 5
    What was the question?
    The only problem with oblivion is it doesn’t last. Over and over, Albert has woken not knowing where he is—here, then there—not knowing how he got there. The sky filling with those charcoal clouds darkening the whole world and him too, and then he’s fading again with that terrible thirst, sweating and trembling, his body ringing with the ache of it until finally the ringing becomes a song. Oh, Albert. He is beautiful in the song, walking, astonished, but the song keeps ending and the sky keeps filling with those charcoal clouds and he is so tired.
    He walks through time as if it were as transparent as the bright spring air. But it is not. Tomorrow he will appear in the courtyard of the asylum across from the small stone church, but first there is Albert walking through time as if it had nothing to do with him.
    Fascinating? Magnificent? Yet another escapade?
    He discovers himself lying naked in the dark, not knowing where he is, not knowing how he got there. A fleeting illumination along the pitch-dark trail of his mind: there had been a shimmer on the verge of taking shape, and something unfolded deep inside of him, a pocket of space that opened and opened and opened until it was a hole through which he was falling. He fell through himself, and now he is here. “But you told me to wake you. Last night you told me,” a woman is saying, her heart-shaped face losing its heart in her anger. “You said wake me. You said I need to get the train in the direction of Lectoure. It is not my fault you are angry.” She slams the door behind her, and Albert lights the gas lamp to study the situation, first throwing back the covers to see what is left of him. All of it; it’s all there. He touches his velvety cock, rising to meet his hand, ready for a crescendo that will lift him out of himself, save him from this terror of not knowing, of never knowing. The woman with the heart-shaped face was pretty even as her face lost its heart. A fleeting illumination: a woman lay down beside him once in a field where he slept, sent over by people standing around a fire. “They’ll pay me if they can watch,” the woman said, putting her hand on his beautiful instrument, but she wanted money, and besides, it is safer and easier for him to take care of his own pleasure, which he does while thinking of that woman and her quick hand, its smoky smell, and the swing of her large hips, her supple ass as she walked back to join the fire people. When he is done, when he is not fortunate enough to be lifted into the oblivion that obliterates the problem of now, what can he do but wash and dress in this hotel room he doesn’t remember checking himself into? Reaching into his jacket pocket, he discovers a train ticket he doesn’t remember purchasing. He wishes he could leave himself behind in the tangled sheets he doesn’t remember sleeping in. Stay here . Don’t follow me. But there he is, still himself, insisting.
    “Do you know when is the train in the direction of Arcachon?” a man in the lobby asks the clerk. Hearing the word, Albert is suddenly very thirsty. Arcachon Arcachon Arcachon. The tremor moves through his toes into the arch of his right foot and when he tries to jiggle it loose, the urge leaps into the other foot. Arcachon Arcachon Arcachon . The ringing in his ears has become a song and off he goes until he is falling through the pocket of space that opens without warning inside of him into another unfamiliar place.
    There are moments when he thinks he might be dreaming, that it has all been a dream from which he might awake. This is what he wishes when he discovers himself behind the horse and its rider on a muddy road with a rut six feet deep. Without warning they begin to sink. Albert’s heart lifts at first. Surely this must be a dream. The rider kicks the horse, beats it with a stick, but the