Jonah and the Whale

Jonah’s older brother was mean. Mean like when they were kids, Jonah eight, Mark ten, they had baths together still and even though Jonah would cry and cry and yell ‘no’ their would put them in the bath and close the door to the bathroom. Now, as we know bathrooms echo a lot. They are probably the only room in the house that shouldn’t echo, really, but there we have it, we’ve made the most embarrassing, bodily function-centric, gross room the most cacophonous vestibule for us poor we-don’t-want-to-be-animals-animals[1]. So locked in that chamber Mark would begin at first pushing the bathwater back and forth in a tidal wave, just for fun at first but greater and greater until the water caused Jonah to move about and for great amounts of water to be displaced. Jonah hated both aspects, the mess and the fact he was not in control of his small body rocking back and forth in the bathwater[2]. Tossed about with Mark laughing, he felt sick and alone and his crying out was over-shouted by Marks fun yells, as if the two brothers were having fun together, playing, having bath-time fun with games and splashing and all of that. After some of this, and not every night but often enough, mark would stand up and start pissing on Jonah, in his face as much as possible and Jonah would try to avoid it under the little water left in the bathtub. Coming up for air like a whale he would just get the rest of the piss stream in his mouth, tasting his brothers piss and trying to breathe, not really drowning properly but no really able to breathe properly either. When Mark had finished pissing on his bother, and had nothing left like that, he’d soap himself all over, throw Jonah the soap and fill the tub up with more water. Just hot water. Jonah would try and turn it off but Mark would hold his hand under the hot water coming out and Jonah would cry out and Mark would yell “Muuum…..Muuuuum” and she’d come in and see the mess, the water, the hot water pouring out and set it all right, as in, get Mark out and hand him his towel so he’d leave and close the door and the mother would wash Jonah properly in the small amount of three inch hot as hell water and Jonah would give up, his legs as he knelt there burning in the hot hot water and his mouth full of salty tasting piss his brother pissed into his mouth almost three or more times a week, more and more as time went on.

Sitting in his room drawing a lot, Jonah, 11 years old, drew scenes from the bible, Exodus, Job, New Testament Mathew Mark Luke and John stuff (it’s all the same). Drawing Moses with his staff commanding the Israelites, commanding God’s punishment upon the Egyptians. Drawing the boils on the skin, drawing the fire coming down on them, drawing really drawing with a red pen a lot the fires and the burning dead of those who opposed God’s chosen. In Jonah’s class he heard the story of Jonah and the Whale, imagining himself getting stuck in the belly of a whale, praying in there, waiting in there.  His teacher put on an animated video of Jonah in the whale; making a little room for himself and staying in there, talking to the whale and the whale answering back apologetically and eventually releasing him. Mark is like the pestilence, coming in, pushing all his work to the floor, pulling him over onto his back and hurting him really bad by twisting his arms and legs together and saying things like “you love god now?” and “mum doesn’t love you because you are so weak” and as Jonah calls to his mum and nothing happens Jonah starts praying like he has been told and actually says the words of the lord’s prayer out of his mouth which makes Mark hurt him more trying to get him to stop saying that stuff.

In the family home there now lived Jonah, his Mother and Father. Mark was gone, living by himself in some house with a few friends. No one had heard or seen Mark in over a year. Jonah was happy and free and not scared for the first time in his whole life. He heard his mother worry about Mark and his Father console her but he was happy that this person was gone.

The local church was, not really a church thing per se that he had been brought in, more like a hall thing with a whole bunch of people that seemed normal and cool and happy and god-loving. Jonah liked these people, their openness, their honesty, their acceptance of the words he said and the other words they had that added to what he said. He said “yes!,…,yes!” a lot at the end of their sentences, sat listening to the preachers talking about a god they believed in and he cross-referenced what they were saying with all the stuff he had read. It didn’t make sense a lot of the time, sometimes they were talking about things that did not match with what he read written in the bible. A few times he said to them things like “but really do you believe that?” and they always pretty much said ‘yes’ and he quoted other bits; “passages” they corrected him and “um yes” he said and went on and told them the other ‘passages’ and they were solemn faced and said things like “that was the old testament” and “that is not really god” but Jonah knew it was, that was god, that was really god, in the bible and they were talking about the things that sounded good, just good and that was when he didn’t go back anymore[3].

Working was, of course, unreal at all times. No one knew of the soul inside, they were all smiling and busy and talking in words like “fiscal year” and “debt recovery” and “final transaction”. Jonah, surrounded n these concepts and words was sick, at lunch he rode his bike far away from the office where he was working in customer service at age 22 to a lake, on the edge of the lake he would cry, for himself mainly and he felt bad about that and then praying, started crying then for the human faces he saw every day. The sales reps, the older lady desperate to keep her job, the sexual young women smiling and flirting for money, the male managers gross, tucked into their business suits and moving about with papers in their hands, half smiling, going in rooms, small rooms, talking and laughing and not doing anything, just talking and laughing and staying late doing it. Jonah’s life was empty in purpose but he prayed every night for his brother Mark; that he would come back and be redeemed[4].

Uncomfortable place, but of course, they had expected that, Jonah and his girlfriend. Jonah had wanted to impress her by going to what he thought was a fancy restaurant. She said “wow, this is amazing” and they had only sat down and had napkins placed on their laps. Jonah looked at the prices on the menu and felt  a lump in his throat because it was really expensive and it seemed sacrilegious and he didn’t want her to think he was shallow like this, like he bought food so expensively. “You now, this is….this is..”
“I know” she says “this is too much. Let’s just hare an entre and a main, really, it’s ok”
“No, no it’s not the money it’s the…waste…oh, sorry…not a good date thing to say” and he is blushing and shy and trying to laugh and express how he really feels, who his is.
“I agree Jonah, its to much.”
“It’s ….oh god, it’s…”
“Shhhh. It’s ok Jonah, really” and they sit and order one entre and one dish and she orders a glass of wine and he smiles at this and orders a coke.

“What the fuck you been up to?” Mark says, Christmas lunch, getting there late, bringing his wife and three kids in the door while the rest of the extended family are already on the lounges and around the place, on the floor. Mark’s father stands up and says “Mark, don’t you talk like that today” and Mark says “Calm down old man, we’re all adults here and these kids, Christ, they wouldn’t know what the hell is going on anyway, would you, you little cockheads?”. The kids don’t even look at him, everyone else looks at everyone else in some way or another. Jonah gets up and walk over to his brother. “Mark, how are you?”. “Good as shit mate. Fuck look at you, you been working out?” ‘Yeah I have been a bit Mark. Good to see you”. “Shit yeah man you look fucking good. Hey, you met my latest bird? Hey, Stacey, check this shit out, my little bother is cut as fuck…hey Mum, get me a beer, huh”. “Mark, hey, come on now, this is Christmas, you can’t keep going on like that?”. “Huh. Jonah come on, what the fuck are you talking about?” “Mark, come on…there’s kids here, man:”. ‘Kids? Whose kids? Oh shit look at them. Dumb little cunts haha. Fucking cunts haha right?” “Mark!” his mother says, shuts him up. There’re all sort of sit downs in various spaces and getting drinks in their hands, sip them. Jonah looks at Mark like he’s waiting. “You want to say something Jon-ah? Huh?”. “No Mark”.

In ward E4, bed 103 Jonah lies watching TV, has three channels to pick because two stations haven’t signed the proper copyright agreements that allow patients in hospitals to watch TV shows. The ultimate copyright law that comes down to affect people that have absolutely no intention of breaking mere copyright laws. But here in an establishment it applies en masse. Been there two weeks, had his blood cleaned four times, had his head scanned by fMri three times, had his pancreas and a kidney removed, the fucking thing cancer it is, moving around being a prick and taking bits and pieces here and there. Jonah has told his wife to keep the kids way until he is looking better. Jonah’s Dad came by out of nowhere and was crying too much about losing a son before he was dead himself. Jonah couldn’t say anything because that was right. You shouldn’t die before your father. What could he say. Another week, he spoke to his wife on his iPhone she bought him. He mainly payed games on his iPhone really, a good thing to have when you are dying of a cancer doctors can’t find. In the pieces they cutting away, Jonah imagines himself a half human which is living with almost half his organs and big chunks of flesh missing. He imagines a leg or arm or both missing. One morning when he wakes up Mark is there, sitting there reading a newspaper. Jonah closes his eyes and Mark doesn’t see him wake up. He holds his eyes closed for a few minutes, starts counting up from one, gets to two hundred, keeps counting, trying hard to count higher and higher and, even though this is the last days of his life, would rather count up and up the numerical scale rather than talk to Mark. Seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty seven he gets to.

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