My whole life feels like the plot of The Exterminating Angel in that I can’t seem to bring myself to leave a room. More specifically, the living room in my apartment. I don’t know when it started, exactly, but I do know why. It’s because I’m morbidly afraid of people. Not just of their judgmental nature—appraising me as I walk past them because it’s ingrained within all humans to do so—but of their violent one. I don’t know if this fear of violence is something that arises as a result of getting older, or if I’ve simply been exposed to one too many terrifying news items about random acts of violence. All of which are centered on the theme that the only thing it takes to be brutally murdered is merely being at the wrong place at the wrong time. In short, making the bold (a.k.a. foolish) decision to leave your abode at all. It made me think about the oft-touted mantra during the pandemic: stay home, stay safe. Why can’t we all just go back to that “rule”?

Of course, I’ve seen enough home invasion movies (including Home Alone) to know that even one’s theoretical “safe space” can turn nightmarish when penetrated by depraved forces. And yes, the phenomenon of doxxing has only added to such potential horrors. But they still seemed nominal compared to what could happen once you dared to step outside. To expose yourself to anything and anyone. I don’t know, I guess I was starting to feel more fragile. Did it start in 2004, with the Madrid train bombings? I was living in Barcelona at the time, studying abroad during my final year in college. Going to any European country seemed essential to legitimately earning a degree in art history (with a minor in business and marketing, “just in case”), so I chose Spain, figuring everyone else would be up Italy’s ass. (I figured right.)

Now that I think about it, it was probably in 2004 that I saw El ángel exterminador for the first time. The sort-of boyfriend I had finagled because we both always went to the same cafe in the San Antoni neighborhood (I thought it was less predictable than hanging out in the Gothic Quarter) introduced me to it. He usually played a movie after we had sex; it was a ritual of his. One that I couldn’t help but assume he performed on every other girl he banged. But I guess I couldn’t complain—I saw a lot of movies I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Americans might ask: what about 2001? Isn’t that when you would have started being afraid? Not really. New York felt (and still does feel) as remote to me as another planet. But with the train bombings in Madrid, I was only about three hundred and fifteen miles away. In a parallel universe, the suspected Islamic terrorist group could have chosen Barcelona as the target. Still, I was young enough then to not be so easily spooked. And yes, if 9/11 had done anything, it was prove that terrorist attacks were the new black, and nowhere was safe. So I ended up staying in Europe. Well, sort of. By 2005, I had skipped on over to London and, as we all know, the UK doesn’t consider itself as part of “the continent.” Nor does “the continent” consider the UK as part of it after all the cunty behavior they’ve displayed about an “official separation.” But anyway, I had moved to London at the end of June, what would turn out to be a week away from the July 7th bombings.

This time around, the terrorist attack was much closer to me than three hundredish miles. It was right next door really. The third bomb went off on a train leaving King’s Cross St. Pancras station. I had just moved into a dingy flat on Wicklow Street right nearby. And yes, I was going to take that very train—the Piccadilly line—to my first day on the job at an ad agency that had seen enough of something in my crude samples to hire me as one of their junior copywriters (this is what art history paired with business/marketing translated to). My start date was going to be Friday, July 8th. They had chosen Friday so as to “soft launch” me into the job. When the 7th happened, they decided to close their office the following day. I was doomed for a “hard launch” on Monday instead.

But I found my footing more quickly than I thought. And by the time the bomb scare of June 29, 2007 happened, I was totally desensitized, immune to anything like fear. Just as most Londoners, I had resigned myself to the idea that I could effectively “go kabluey” at any moment so long as I dared step foot outside. And oh how I dared. I wanted to ascend the corporate ladder as rapidly as I could, to collect as much money as possible and get the fuck out. And, despite the large budget required for my drinking habit in that town, I did manage to save, finally leaving in 2015 to move to Portugal. Lisbon, of course. I didn’t want to go too far off the beaten path. Still wanted the option to be part of civilization if the rare mood struck me. Though it never does. Which brings me to my agoraphobic present. One in which I do try to go out. Truly. But now that I’m unencumbered by the obligation of work to pull me up from my proverbial hole, I have a much easier time of rationalizing all the reasons why I should just stay in. 

This aspect of myself is at war with the one that tells me going out is essential to my emotional and physical well-being. That if I keep just staying and staying in, not only will I lose my already tenuous ability to socialize, but I’ll also become grossly unfit and flabby. One of my biggest fears is turning into the mom from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Does anyone else share that “irrational” fear, or is it limited only to shut-ins like me? I also feel that most movie portrayals of shut-ins (including wheelchair-bound ones) tend to make them unrealistically thin (just look at films like Rear Window, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Copycat, Thomas in Love, Kimi and The Woman in the Window). It doesn’t address the, er, larger problem at hand: becoming, let’s say, “soft.”

So I do what I can to try to leave the apartment. I go through all the motions of what leaving would entail: applying sunscreen, putting on makeup, dressing in attire appropriate for “being seen in public.” But still, none of it works. I don’t want to go out. I’ve lost all will to. All desire. I feel there’s nothing out there that I can’t get in here. Oh sure, I manage to force myself to leave the womb of my apartment when the groceries disappear, but that’s about it.

I’m starting to realize that, beyond this unavoidable necessity, I’m never going to leave. Even if/when the money runs out, I don’t see myself being “fit” (which has a double meaning now) to work. They’ll have to pry me out of here with a forklift…or set the place on fire like they did with Mrs. Grape. Who was dead anyway. I suppose I am too, in my own fashion.