Tiling

By F.C. Zeri

It was the first day of April, and I broke my good streak. This time, the trigger was a voice note. I had clicked my phone screen carelessly, not expecting the ambush of Helen’s sharp timbre. Her voice hasn’t changed in five years. I didn’t give myself the time to listen. I got out of the house, set the GPS despite knowing the road by heart, and boarded the first train I could find. For a while, I just stared at the window. My inner monologue neatly split into a dialogue. One voice, which I call the patient, argued, This is it, are you not done with this world? The other, which I call the therapist, replied, Come on, not this again, we’ve been through it so many times, are you not bored?  

-Don’t tell me you’re falling back into old patterns - one admonished.

-I’m not falling back - the other countered.

-It sounds like denial. You are exhibiting a compulsive tendency to self-harm.

My inner therapist has the unfortunate tendency to sprinkle mental health lexicon in conversations as if it were a spice. Fuck the English and their compulsive tendency to try to salvage bland dishes and speeches with condiments.

-I’m not falling back. I’m going back.

-Same thing.

-No. Falling implies that it’s a bad habit. But this isn’t a bad habit. This is home.

My inner therapist thankfully decided to abandon the professional lingo.

-So, you’re telling me this time you’re going for real.

-This time, I’m going for real.

-You didn’t pack anything.

-I don’t need anything.

I felt my inner therapist sigh.

-Alright. What do you want for dinner? I’m thinking fried tofu, with some spinach on the side.

I felt my inner patient clench their fists.

-I mean it. I’m out of here.

And I did mean it. For the span of a few hours, I wanted nothing more than to erase the last five years. How does Kurt Cobain put it? There’s a comfort in melancholia, one that I’ve always found addictive. I never felt more self-possessed than in those journeys where I sank into train seats to the notes of Francis Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle and dreamt of Transmigrating again. There was a paradoxical pleasure in allowing myself to spiral, the texture of the world turning vivid as the present disappeared, drowned in memories. Finally, finally, finally, my brain chanted, as if it had been ages since last time. Never mind that I went through the same journey at least once per month every year since I moved to the UK – twice or thrice at Christmas or Easter because holidays always made my depression spike. And my response to any inconvenience was always to travel in the direction of the Asymptotes. This time, I gave up at Victoria Station. Three hours later, I was crouched on the floor of my kitchen, nursing a peppermint tea in my anxiety-frozen fingers and hoping none of my flatmates would come in.

-There, there - my inner therapist said - This time you only travelled till London. Better than last.

My inner patient sighed.

-Yeah. I guess.

The tiles of my kitchen bore a dull grey colour and perpetually looked dusty despite all the times I scrubbed them. They were shaped like rectangles, which are not regular polygons.

A lot of my time in England was spent staring at floors, in therapists’ offices, public places, flats that were supposed to be cheap but were actually expensive, plain expensive flats, pavements, Tube carriages, cafes I dragged myself to in the hope of drowning my moods in decaf Espressos and cinnamon rolls. The phone dial was a perfect lullaby for my stream of hyperawareness, waiting for the saviour sound, my call being picked up.

-Hi, mum. How are you?

I was very grateful that the Asymptotes had decided to install a phone line two years before my defection, so I spent my university years calling my mother any time I could. She had access to a phone at her workplace, although using it to contact me would have definitely cost a few hours in the Void. She was still living at home. She had been speaking of moving every day for the past five years. 

-Hi, honey. How are you?

-I almost went back today.

-Alright. Tired. How’s it going there?

-You remember your Professor, right?

Once upon a time, we used to joke that he was the father I never had, which was

funny since I did have a father. These days, his name had been carefully cleansed from our conversations.

-Rumour goes he retired yesterday.

I forced myself not to flinch at the news, nor to consider the implications.

-I thought he didn’t believe in retirement.

-Your Professor always believed in what was useful to believe.

I swallowed the criticism without protesting. As we talked, I was staring at crumpled pieces of stale bread stuck on the bedroom floor. A moth lay on the bread, lazy, undisturbed. Luckily, my room had been infested by moths for the last year. I said luckily because, thanks to the little guys, my very misanthropic landlord agreed to lower the price of my room, provided I told nobody at pest control. I didn’t point out that it was a bad deal for both of us.

-Yeah. Guess he did.

It wasn’t my bread. I never had bread in my flat. We never used to, back in the town. The moth stayed perfectly still. Moths weren’t so bad – provided I kept my clothes in garbage bags and got used to their legs walking on my arms at random times. I didn’t mind either. And before you pity me, let the record show I could have afforded a better, moth-free room. I simply did not have it in me to move houses again. I had spent the last few years adjusting to a new world and a new language. I was fed up with transitions.

-Everything alright there?

-I almost went back today. I still want to go back. I still want to carve the desire out of my chest so that I won't.

I bit my tongue and rehearsed my script of integrity. If you’ve read Helen’s memoir, Escape, my mother was described as a heartless villain until chapter 15, when she decided to take me out of the cult and was gifted the luxury of a vague redemption arc. I never forgave Helen for this cruel portrait, despite knowing that none of the things she described were inaccurate – they were only unfairly partial. If you’ve listened to the various podcasts on the Asymptotes spanned after Escape’s ludicrous success, parents in the Asymptotes are described, depending on who’s telling the story, as clueless victims, crucial enablers, cruel abusers towards their poor children, or more than good enough parents of Winnicottian tradition that were doing their best in a hostile environment.

-Dear, what’s wrong?

-I almost went back today. I could go back today. If my Professor has retired, this means there’s a free spot. I’d love to see you again.

I shook my head and opened my mouth to change the topic.

-I almost went back today.

The words slipped from my mouth without my permission, muscle memory of a melancholic subject. I knew the mistake the moment the syllables reverberated in the air. My mother sighed.

-Again, uh? What is it, the third time this year already?

-I’m sorry.

I could trace by heart the contours of her exhaustion and her anger. I knew how her voice would turn weary and curve towards bitterness.

-This is self-harm, you do know, right?

-I’m sorry.

I knew how her lips would stiffen.

-Stop apologising. There’s nothing to apologise for. There’s nothing to be gained by apologising either.

-I’m sorry.

I knew how she’d turn from annoyed to concerned.

-Why can’t you stop thinking about the past,                      ?

It was almost sweet, how my birthname was stuck on her tongue.

-Don’t you see the irony, mum? You accuse me of clinging to the past, and on the same breath, keep chewing those letters. I won’t stop thinking of the Asymptotes, yes! And you won’t stop thinking of me as a daughter. Potato, potato, as they say here, my dear parent.

-Mum, can you stop using that name?

-It’s just a name.

-If it’s just a name, why can’t you stop using it?

I tried to stop the words from coming out, to no avail. I had the pesky tendency to say things I meant, when talking to mum.

-If it’s just a name, why can’t you stop using it?

-Don’t you try and censor me.

-I’m not trying to censor you. It just hurts.

-Oh, you are trying to censor me. Don’t worry. It’s funny. How you played free speech defender as a teenager. You went on trial for your transmigrations, you risked the Void, you ended up leaving your own home to defend the precious ability to use your words. And I was proud of you, honey. Still am. Yet now, there you are, censoring your own mother.

For a while, we remained both in silence. She had mentioned the trial. She never mentioned the trial. I never mentioned the trial. It was a common mother-child agreement that the trial must never be mentioned. It occurred to me that my Professor retiring must have taken a toll.

-Mum, is everything okay back home?

Before I could muster the courage to ask her, she filled the silence.

-Is this again about gender?

I bit back my concern and focused on not snapping back. 

-Of course, it is about         .  .. Well, it’s not mainly about   t        , but it’s not not about             .

I kept quiet. .             was the only topic I liked to avoid more than the Asymptotes, and the only topic that triggered similar anxious spirals. Thankfully, before I could enter the spiral, my mother cut the conversation off.

-Anyway, how’s the job search going?

After an undergrad in Mathematics from Oxford University passed with First Class Honours, the doors of the future should have been wide open for me. But I didn’t want to do finance, didn’t want to do tech, and, after 18 years of indoctrination mistaken for didactics, I would have rather severed my own hand than become a teacher. What did that leave? Tutoring jobs that I loathed. The threat of unemployment. A carousel of CVs and rejection emails. Me lying to my mother that there was an interview lined up. Sometimes, there was. Mostly, there wasn’t. Ever since graduation, my first and foremost priorities had been a) not to take a train back to the Asymptotes and b) not to take a leap towards the train tracks. I had so far succeeded in both. Knock on wood for me, dear reader.

-Well, the last one wasn’t great, so fingers crossed.

-Don’t bandage your head before breaking it,                      .

I didn’t tell her there was no such expression in English. Instead, I forced myself to ignore the name in her mouth. I had tried to hate her for it, but unfortunately, no amount of                      could cancel out the myriad of times she had cared for me through depressive episodes and dissuaded me from travelling back home.

-Anyway, today I’ve been reading about tessellation problems.

And just like that, I felt her brow smoothing on the other side of the phone.

Tessellation is a classic mathematical problem: how do you cover a floor without leaving gaps? The problem multiplies itself. Sometimes you’re only allowed to use one kind of regular polygon, sometimes you can use multiple regular polygons, sometimes you can use any polygon, regular or not. The problem is all about avoiding empty spaces, and how many configurations can you find before trouble comes up? Tessellation is the kind of mind game I’d play in the hours in the Void. Splitting reality in half till it looked unreal. The floor was tiled with hexagons, the walls with equilateral triangles, and the ceiling with squares – the only three possible tilings with only one regular polygon across all the surface. Tiling problems investigate how to cover a space with geometrical shapes without leaving gaps. In the Void, I’d get lost in the kaleidoscope of lines and colours and ask GCSE philosophy questions to my shadow. Of course, in my mother tongue, the Void isn’t called the Void, it’s called  Aver     . And it’s better if I don’t spend too much time remembering it. In my mind, there’s a big red sign hanging from the image of the Void, with the words “do not trespass.” Over these five years, I’ve gotten good at hanging stop signs on the geography of my past. If I crossed a mental border, I’d be tempted to cross a physical border and if I were tempted to cross a physical border, well, oh well. I’d grab my backpack once more, repeat my charade.

This is an extract from a working novel. When they were eighteen,                     walked out of the closed community that raised them, the Asymptotes, a small wannabe utopia funded on a made-up language. Now, at 23, a half-employed depressed perhaps-not-woman,                       starts wondering: should they go back home?