My first ever short story Part II
October 20th 2007 23:46
CLICK HERE FOR THE BEGINNING
That day 2 years ago, 728 days ago, he remembered waking; instinctively he had known it was early despite the deceptive light streaming through the windows. Morning sounds touched him; still , slow, no urgency. It was hard for Ritchie to believe she was dead, especially that day. He always thought they would be friends forever. Her always there bailing him out at all life’s corners, yelling at him but always forgiving him, the only one never to judge him.
He always loved getting up early, being the first to start the day, do all the mundane chores while there are no people around, not for any other reason than he hated people more than anything. By choice he had lived his life on an alternate time clock to everyone else. It is easy to avoid people if you don’t mind doing things differently, he didn’t.
Today especially. Goodbyes were the worst.
That morning the swallows had been playing in the park flying around and it reminded him of her and the time she told him that swallows never touch the ground; they were standing in Bacalar on the lake of the seven colours; that amazing deck watching the sun go down, watching blue become blue, turquoise, aqua, green. The lake was called seven colours but at that moment in his life he honestly thought he could see a hundred colours, light refracting detracting dancing with the swallows. He always felt like that around her, their friendship a Kaleidoscope of infinite possibility.
He remembered asking her once why she loved the swallows so much, she said it was because they always seemed so happy and they didn’t need little blue pills to be that way. It made him feel guilty but he didn’t stop. She hated drugs. Mostly because of what they did to him.
It never ceased to amaze him how time dragged on when he was doing something he hated like living without a friend, he wondered if that meant his life would seem longer living without her. He hoped not. Its not like he didn’t try to be normal. He was married now and for love and for the sake of Sarah he always tried to fit in. March to the beat of their drum. Breath into his space. B was the thread that held all that together. Sarah knew it, she knew the man she loved.
The noise of the child’s party brought his mind back into the room. He looked around and saw the Elephant. He couldn’t believe it was there in the corner, somehow it had survived, misunderstood in this world that went on without her; jeez how long ago had he bought that for her? Maybe it was the joint he smoked but he could swear it was looking at him with those funny stone eyes. Tiny piercing dots. Like a sun’s ray through a punctured piece of paper. Sharp focussed light illuminating his memories, uncovering shadows in his heart. Looking over walls he had built deliberately.
A tear fell.
He hated when men cried.
He would be the only one to know the story of when they met in Mexico. The first time he ever felt that strange sensation of realising he would know someone forever. They talked all night on the beach; talked and talked and suddenly she had felt better and she learnt she must accept herself to move forward, so she did, his words helped so much. He didn’t know where that wisdom came from, she would love him forever for it. It was just hard to imagine that she thought people would hate her for a thing like being gay so he found all the right words. She couldn’t believe he didn’t judge her for it, he couldn’t understand why she would care. On a simple misunderstanding a forever was begun.
She was never perfect and it was her imperfections he loved the most. She was his swallow, scattered yet definite, she talked her poor head into circles, so passionate about right or wrong but right and wrong changed with every breath she took.
He could never believe that there was someone on this planet that thought the Eiffel tower in Vegas was better than the real thing in Paris. That she preferred Bees to butterflies. More gallant she said, always willing to give up their life for Queen and hive, always working, the unsung heroes of the world. She loved to quote Einstein who said the world could only survive four years without Bees, that is how important they were. What has a butterfly got she would say, one day of exquisite beauty, one day to do what? No contest. He disagreed. Butterflies tasted with their feet.
One time she had almost got them killed by a little Mayan man with seeds in his beard, he still remembered the look on her face when he pulled the gun. It still made him laugh when he thought of the moment they realised it wasn’t loaded and he flipped the guy the bird and they both bolted, laughing till they cried. The kind of laughter that can only come from the relief at still being alive. He had never laughed like that again. Her and her big fucking mouth, jesus. He didn’t mind, she could have gotten him nearly killed a million times over and he wouldn’t have cared. She had given him something to live for, more than hope, a connection to the world. She was the only one he ever marked his card to. Of course there were other important people like his now pregnant wife, Sarah; but B was it. Things started and finished with her, a lot of people never got it. He didn’t really get it. But it was what it was. Friendship in the purest form he supposed. Well it was nothing now. Nothing but a memory.
All he wanted was a secret garden of his own to hide and be alone, today of all days. But he had learnt you cant hide from your memories and they came into his head like a flood of colour, all the colours of the lake coming back at him he could feel them rising like a tide and see them spinning like a colour wheel, it kept spinning and spinning until it was so fast it became one colour and that colour was black. Fear rose in the tide and he started screaming not out loud like they used to on their screaming bridge, but inside; he stopped, pushed the thoughts down and jumped and grabbed the wheel. He held onto it for grim death and finally it slowed. The memories became colours again swirling calmly smiling down on him; not because they were happy but because his dreams knew if they started again they would send him into a dark place, and the victory of knowing they could was enough for now. They loved the dark awful place they sent him sometimes, loved it not because it made them happy but because it made him sad. His memories you see were at war with him. Who could blame him for not being able to get off the gear.
He had sometimes wondered if Swallows ever did touch the ground. He had never bothered to find out if was true, he just believed it because she told him, now he never wanted to find out. He just tried to hold on as best he could.
He left the party, Sarah wouldn’t notice for an hour or two.
Lately he had realised the pokies were a great place to be alone, a haven. It seemed harmless enough, its not like he was a gambler, in fact he deplored gambling. They were more like an island to him. He could hang in there with all the misfits, go un-noticed. These people were different, no ambition. He liked that. Ambition around him scared him intimidated him. He loved the dark room the sound of the machines like an old fashioned amusement park, an amusement park of hope. Hope that you will win, hope that you will change your life. Then the money runs out so you sit defeated because nothing ever happens. That is what he wanted, he hated it when stuff happened because he always wanted more. The safest thing to do was to want nothing then he wouldn’t want more. He hated the greed he felt inside. He felt justified in life. His laziness was borne of ambition. As boring as it made life it was a necessary evil. Greed got him to drugs, always wanting more high, more everything. Once he realised it was greed that got him into trouble things had become a lot easier, well that and the prospect of jail had helped to dry him out and after that he met Sarah that had to be good, love, a normal relationship and now a child. He had stopped the drugs, mostly.
Despite his efforts to forget his mind went back to the funeral.
Like most funerals the air was filled with sadness regret. This was worse. This Funeral full of ghosts and widows to be. Nothing sadder than a young person dying at the beginning of it all.
They all sat bobbing in a sea of bitter grief, side by side, old friends, new friends, the famous the anonymous, she was special amazing. We tried; all of us to put our differences aside for B, after all she managed to maintain this menagerie of people in her life. All the old unresolved problems stuck to our faces like a kid who ate too much cotton candy and forgot to wash his face; sticky, forgotten until you see a mirror; flavoured with the bitter salt from our tears. Our common ground the question, WHY? An aneurism they had said, how does this happen, to the one who had so much to live for, seven months pregnant and all. Ritchie felt like it should be him in that box. He who had pushed life to all its boundaries and had found no joy. He who was holding on by a thread for Sarah and his unborn boy.
Sarah looked at him , she was sad and afraid. Afraid to love this dangerous man, especially now his friend was gone, the friend that had been his life line. Sarah had a baby on the way and this man to deal with. He reminded her of butterfly big, beautiful, gentle, then when he turned over you saw the teeth and realised he was a moth, and you realised those teeth could eat through just about anything. Especially their love. She remembered once they were driving, two furry red and white moths were mating on their car window, fused together, two identical ends of a whole, unable to escape as the car sped up. They would have been blown off if it wasn’t for the strong one holding on, feet firmly planted, aerodynamic; its mate flapping, flailing, clinging. That is what she felt like now. But he had to want to hold on too. She touched her belly with their unborn son, the first son of the seventh son. Lets hope they both wanted to hold on.
She knew how superstitious he was and she knew he was angry for only last week he had refused to pick a four leaf clover, he said it was better to leave the luck for someone else to find, he said finding a four leaf clover brought expectations and you only felt disappointed when your luck didn’t change. The only way to get something good out of it was to leave it there.
He looked at his wife and his unborn son. He had to be strong for them. For them he endured living in the world. Being normal. Because that was what you do. For them he would be strong. It was six months since he had last od’d, the moment they got pregnant he had stopped, mostly. A mistake welled inside him, he knew he didn’t have any mistakes left.
He walked out to have a ciggie. Scottie was standing there. He supposed he had to forgive him sometime, funerals were always a good time to bury the hatchet. Regrets hung creating a web. They breathed their smoke into it, hoping it was enough untangle it; so they could try to start fresh, do the right thing; bury these pains and trivial grievances that damage friendships. They smoked till their faces went grey, neither said what he was thinking.
Scottie looked at Ritchie and remembered the day it happened, he was the one to tell him. They called and told him to come home from work. He had to cycle and it took forever, somehow he had known, he felt her leave his world. By the time he got there it was too late. Scottie hated holding him down, telling him the baby was alive, there was a legacy to worry about. Scottie remembered the colour of his face, all red and grey, like the last fabric B had designed for the Sofitel hotel. This pattern not of her own deliberate design but hers none the less. Ritchie went to the child immediately, he would make sure it wasn’t an orphan.
Scottie did what he did best to avoid the real issues and made small talk, he probably wouldn’t have if he knew how Ritchie despised his small talk but he didn’t know what else to do.
Ritchie stood thinking Scottie was his usual asshole self, but he could play the pretend game too, the game Scottie seemed to love so much. He hated the man Scottie had become hated the his pretentious ways. They used to laugh at people who played the name dropping game, once. Now they played.
Scottie looked at Ritchie he knew he was hiding his pain he could see it in his eyes. Ever since the days when they learnt magic tricks together and the bird died in the cage he had been able to see pain in Ritchie’s eyes. They hadn’t of course understood the trick, they believed. Two went into the “Magical” cage; one flew out, the other flattened into a feathered pancake.
They had always gotten Ritchie into lots of trouble those eyes. Ritchie used to say his own eyes betrayed his body. Telling people things he didn’t want anyone to know. They have their own free will; pupils dilating, retracting, refracting, deep black pools of endless possibility. He used to think they should act under his command. Scottie wondered if any of us truly have command of ourselves, our desire, primal instinct, can we really control at the most basic level what our body does?
He knew Ritchie had become so numb that the only way to feel was extreme pain , he was feeling today. He just hoped he was going to stay off the coke today for Sarah’s sake. Mind you he was stinging for a line himself.
It was hard for Sarah, pregnant and dealing with grief, they were going to have the babies only months apart, now B was dead, the baby Jazz was hanging on for dear life with no mother in a hospital.
Scottie had learnt, people like you better when you lie, he had certainly liked Ritchie a lot more when he was a lying larrikin druggo but a best mate, with a rich daddy footing the bill for their misguided uni days. Not this walking truth of how imperfect all their lives are. Yes he preferred the lies. Preferred when they thought life was going to be one big endless party, when they hadn’t worked out you always got the bill at the end of the line, it was a matter of when not if. He knew Ritchie had so many regrets, man anyone who’s blown that much cash should.
He thought again about the little girl, it was hard to believe she had survived, what a will to live. Popped out of her mothers stomach like an olive pip Jamie Oliver style, no regard for the mother flesh. They had wanted to save one soul that day. A miracle little Jazz.
They say an aneurism is like a power switch that explodes. That’s it. Connection broken. Game over.
It would be hard for the little girl to grow up not thinking it was somehow her fault.
The angel who had been due on her mothers birthday. Now it was a different kind of anniversary.
****
Ritchie’s mind came back to the party. It was two years later now and he was a dad, a husband, he had stayed away from all temptation and
he wanted to be in these moments, enjoy what he had. He wished the ache would go away but he had learnt to ignore the calling.
Sarah watched him standing in the corner of the yard, standing in a patch of mud. Everywhere else was dry it was the only patch of mud, she wondered what he was thinking.
He stood in the shade and wondered if he was standing on a place that never saw the sun, somehow he knew what would be like to never see the sun, he wondered if the wind alone was enough to dry those places. What happens if the mud never dries did it just became like quicksand? maybe he would sink. The thought of that scared him because it made him happy. He wondered if there were places in his heart that never saw the sun anymore, if the great pains had created scars that hid his heart from the sun. He wondered if there was a wind inside him that could dry the mud or if he was quicksand.
Then he heard the church Bells, Sarah came and took his hand they left the party, the bells were still ringing and it made everything seem beautiful for a moment. Even though they had decided to go the other way he walked towards the bells and he lost his thoughts in their music. For once. Made him wonder why he couldn’t appreciate life more but that it is the way of things isn’t it, give an inch, take a mile.
Sarah and the baby would have to be enough.
****
They weren’t, nothing was.
He did not see the cage.
Driving, he was thinking of the little bird that used to live on his Veranda in London. In four years it was the only bird he ever saw that wasn’t a pigeon. He often thought of that lonely, lucky the little bird.
Ritchie used to watch him every morning sitting on the windscreen wipers of his car, he could never work out why it sat there day in day out; one day he heard the little bird twittering and tattering and he laughed to himself. He realised this little black friend was looking at his own reflection and had conjured a mate. The next day Ritchie covered the windscreen.
One morning after it snowed Ritchie woke to see little foot prints on his veranda, etched into the shape of shamrocks, his very own white clover patch. It looked like more than one set. Maybe his friend had found his mate.
It was snowing again now, somehow it always seemed so quiet after snow, like the volume had been turned down.
He enjoyed the silence wanted it to smother the pain. His memories could not forget their war, they wanted a victory. He decided it would be ok; he had a plan.
The plan was simple, he would just buy a small amount, have bits late at night after the house had settled, no-one would know. He could shoot it in his foot so Sarah wouldn’t see. He would be a better person, father, husband for it. Deep down he knew he wasn’t that bird looking for a mate, he was more like a Magicians Bird waiting. He had flown into the cage enough times to know.
*
Years away from this place and he still knew how to score. The moment he got the drugs in his hands he felt relief, all those battles he had fought, for what? This was what he was truly aching for. As he drove, the drugs made him feel like he was flying, escaping the cage. Again.
He thought he saw a swallow touch the ground, tasting with his feet for the very first time.
As the car slid off the road, he knew what he had done.
He hoped Sarah could forgive him. Hoped they would never tell Sean what his father had been. He hoped someone would tell Jazz. Everything.
The death was ruled as an accident.
What is an accident?
That day 2 years ago, 728 days ago, he remembered waking; instinctively he had known it was early despite the deceptive light streaming through the windows. Morning sounds touched him; still , slow, no urgency. It was hard for Ritchie to believe she was dead, especially that day. He always thought they would be friends forever. Her always there bailing him out at all life’s corners, yelling at him but always forgiving him, the only one never to judge him.
He always loved getting up early, being the first to start the day, do all the mundane chores while there are no people around, not for any other reason than he hated people more than anything. By choice he had lived his life on an alternate time clock to everyone else. It is easy to avoid people if you don’t mind doing things differently, he didn’t.
That morning the swallows had been playing in the park flying around and it reminded him of her and the time she told him that swallows never touch the ground; they were standing in Bacalar on the lake of the seven colours; that amazing deck watching the sun go down, watching blue become blue, turquoise, aqua, green. The lake was called seven colours but at that moment in his life he honestly thought he could see a hundred colours, light refracting detracting dancing with the swallows. He always felt like that around her, their friendship a Kaleidoscope of infinite possibility.
He remembered asking her once why she loved the swallows so much, she said it was because they always seemed so happy and they didn’t need little blue pills to be that way. It made him feel guilty but he didn’t stop. She hated drugs. Mostly because of what they did to him.
It never ceased to amaze him how time dragged on when he was doing something he hated like living without a friend, he wondered if that meant his life would seem longer living without her. He hoped not. Its not like he didn’t try to be normal. He was married now and for love and for the sake of Sarah he always tried to fit in. March to the beat of their drum. Breath into his space. B was the thread that held all that together. Sarah knew it, she knew the man she loved.
The noise of the child’s party brought his mind back into the room. He looked around and saw the Elephant. He couldn’t believe it was there in the corner, somehow it had survived, misunderstood in this world that went on without her; jeez how long ago had he bought that for her? Maybe it was the joint he smoked but he could swear it was looking at him with those funny stone eyes. Tiny piercing dots. Like a sun’s ray through a punctured piece of paper. Sharp focussed light illuminating his memories, uncovering shadows in his heart. Looking over walls he had built deliberately.
A tear fell.
He hated when men cried.
He would be the only one to know the story of when they met in Mexico. The first time he ever felt that strange sensation of realising he would know someone forever. They talked all night on the beach; talked and talked and suddenly she had felt better and she learnt she must accept herself to move forward, so she did, his words helped so much. He didn’t know where that wisdom came from, she would love him forever for it. It was just hard to imagine that she thought people would hate her for a thing like being gay so he found all the right words. She couldn’t believe he didn’t judge her for it, he couldn’t understand why she would care. On a simple misunderstanding a forever was begun.
She was never perfect and it was her imperfections he loved the most. She was his swallow, scattered yet definite, she talked her poor head into circles, so passionate about right or wrong but right and wrong changed with every breath she took.
He could never believe that there was someone on this planet that thought the Eiffel tower in Vegas was better than the real thing in Paris. That she preferred Bees to butterflies. More gallant she said, always willing to give up their life for Queen and hive, always working, the unsung heroes of the world. She loved to quote Einstein who said the world could only survive four years without Bees, that is how important they were. What has a butterfly got she would say, one day of exquisite beauty, one day to do what? No contest. He disagreed. Butterflies tasted with their feet.
One time she had almost got them killed by a little Mayan man with seeds in his beard, he still remembered the look on her face when he pulled the gun. It still made him laugh when he thought of the moment they realised it wasn’t loaded and he flipped the guy the bird and they both bolted, laughing till they cried. The kind of laughter that can only come from the relief at still being alive. He had never laughed like that again. Her and her big fucking mouth, jesus. He didn’t mind, she could have gotten him nearly killed a million times over and he wouldn’t have cared. She had given him something to live for, more than hope, a connection to the world. She was the only one he ever marked his card to. Of course there were other important people like his now pregnant wife, Sarah; but B was it. Things started and finished with her, a lot of people never got it. He didn’t really get it. But it was what it was. Friendship in the purest form he supposed. Well it was nothing now. Nothing but a memory.
All he wanted was a secret garden of his own to hide and be alone, today of all days. But he had learnt you cant hide from your memories and they came into his head like a flood of colour, all the colours of the lake coming back at him he could feel them rising like a tide and see them spinning like a colour wheel, it kept spinning and spinning until it was so fast it became one colour and that colour was black. Fear rose in the tide and he started screaming not out loud like they used to on their screaming bridge, but inside; he stopped, pushed the thoughts down and jumped and grabbed the wheel. He held onto it for grim death and finally it slowed. The memories became colours again swirling calmly smiling down on him; not because they were happy but because his dreams knew if they started again they would send him into a dark place, and the victory of knowing they could was enough for now. They loved the dark awful place they sent him sometimes, loved it not because it made them happy but because it made him sad. His memories you see were at war with him. Who could blame him for not being able to get off the gear.
He had sometimes wondered if Swallows ever did touch the ground. He had never bothered to find out if was true, he just believed it because she told him, now he never wanted to find out. He just tried to hold on as best he could.
He left the party, Sarah wouldn’t notice for an hour or two.
Lately he had realised the pokies were a great place to be alone, a haven. It seemed harmless enough, its not like he was a gambler, in fact he deplored gambling. They were more like an island to him. He could hang in there with all the misfits, go un-noticed. These people were different, no ambition. He liked that. Ambition around him scared him intimidated him. He loved the dark room the sound of the machines like an old fashioned amusement park, an amusement park of hope. Hope that you will win, hope that you will change your life. Then the money runs out so you sit defeated because nothing ever happens. That is what he wanted, he hated it when stuff happened because he always wanted more. The safest thing to do was to want nothing then he wouldn’t want more. He hated the greed he felt inside. He felt justified in life. His laziness was borne of ambition. As boring as it made life it was a necessary evil. Greed got him to drugs, always wanting more high, more everything. Once he realised it was greed that got him into trouble things had become a lot easier, well that and the prospect of jail had helped to dry him out and after that he met Sarah that had to be good, love, a normal relationship and now a child. He had stopped the drugs, mostly.
Despite his efforts to forget his mind went back to the funeral.
Like most funerals the air was filled with sadness regret. This was worse. This Funeral full of ghosts and widows to be. Nothing sadder than a young person dying at the beginning of it all.
They all sat bobbing in a sea of bitter grief, side by side, old friends, new friends, the famous the anonymous, she was special amazing. We tried; all of us to put our differences aside for B, after all she managed to maintain this menagerie of people in her life. All the old unresolved problems stuck to our faces like a kid who ate too much cotton candy and forgot to wash his face; sticky, forgotten until you see a mirror; flavoured with the bitter salt from our tears. Our common ground the question, WHY? An aneurism they had said, how does this happen, to the one who had so much to live for, seven months pregnant and all. Ritchie felt like it should be him in that box. He who had pushed life to all its boundaries and had found no joy. He who was holding on by a thread for Sarah and his unborn boy.
Sarah looked at him , she was sad and afraid. Afraid to love this dangerous man, especially now his friend was gone, the friend that had been his life line. Sarah had a baby on the way and this man to deal with. He reminded her of butterfly big, beautiful, gentle, then when he turned over you saw the teeth and realised he was a moth, and you realised those teeth could eat through just about anything. Especially their love. She remembered once they were driving, two furry red and white moths were mating on their car window, fused together, two identical ends of a whole, unable to escape as the car sped up. They would have been blown off if it wasn’t for the strong one holding on, feet firmly planted, aerodynamic; its mate flapping, flailing, clinging. That is what she felt like now. But he had to want to hold on too. She touched her belly with their unborn son, the first son of the seventh son. Lets hope they both wanted to hold on.
She knew how superstitious he was and she knew he was angry for only last week he had refused to pick a four leaf clover, he said it was better to leave the luck for someone else to find, he said finding a four leaf clover brought expectations and you only felt disappointed when your luck didn’t change. The only way to get something good out of it was to leave it there.
He looked at his wife and his unborn son. He had to be strong for them. For them he endured living in the world. Being normal. Because that was what you do. For them he would be strong. It was six months since he had last od’d, the moment they got pregnant he had stopped, mostly. A mistake welled inside him, he knew he didn’t have any mistakes left.
He walked out to have a ciggie. Scottie was standing there. He supposed he had to forgive him sometime, funerals were always a good time to bury the hatchet. Regrets hung creating a web. They breathed their smoke into it, hoping it was enough untangle it; so they could try to start fresh, do the right thing; bury these pains and trivial grievances that damage friendships. They smoked till their faces went grey, neither said what he was thinking.
Scottie looked at Ritchie and remembered the day it happened, he was the one to tell him. They called and told him to come home from work. He had to cycle and it took forever, somehow he had known, he felt her leave his world. By the time he got there it was too late. Scottie hated holding him down, telling him the baby was alive, there was a legacy to worry about. Scottie remembered the colour of his face, all red and grey, like the last fabric B had designed for the Sofitel hotel. This pattern not of her own deliberate design but hers none the less. Ritchie went to the child immediately, he would make sure it wasn’t an orphan.
Scottie did what he did best to avoid the real issues and made small talk, he probably wouldn’t have if he knew how Ritchie despised his small talk but he didn’t know what else to do.
Ritchie stood thinking Scottie was his usual asshole self, but he could play the pretend game too, the game Scottie seemed to love so much. He hated the man Scottie had become hated the his pretentious ways. They used to laugh at people who played the name dropping game, once. Now they played.
Scottie looked at Ritchie he knew he was hiding his pain he could see it in his eyes. Ever since the days when they learnt magic tricks together and the bird died in the cage he had been able to see pain in Ritchie’s eyes. They hadn’t of course understood the trick, they believed. Two went into the “Magical” cage; one flew out, the other flattened into a feathered pancake.
They had always gotten Ritchie into lots of trouble those eyes. Ritchie used to say his own eyes betrayed his body. Telling people things he didn’t want anyone to know. They have their own free will; pupils dilating, retracting, refracting, deep black pools of endless possibility. He used to think they should act under his command. Scottie wondered if any of us truly have command of ourselves, our desire, primal instinct, can we really control at the most basic level what our body does?
He knew Ritchie had become so numb that the only way to feel was extreme pain , he was feeling today. He just hoped he was going to stay off the coke today for Sarah’s sake. Mind you he was stinging for a line himself.
It was hard for Sarah, pregnant and dealing with grief, they were going to have the babies only months apart, now B was dead, the baby Jazz was hanging on for dear life with no mother in a hospital.
Scottie had learnt, people like you better when you lie, he had certainly liked Ritchie a lot more when he was a lying larrikin druggo but a best mate, with a rich daddy footing the bill for their misguided uni days. Not this walking truth of how imperfect all their lives are. Yes he preferred the lies. Preferred when they thought life was going to be one big endless party, when they hadn’t worked out you always got the bill at the end of the line, it was a matter of when not if. He knew Ritchie had so many regrets, man anyone who’s blown that much cash should.
He thought again about the little girl, it was hard to believe she had survived, what a will to live. Popped out of her mothers stomach like an olive pip Jamie Oliver style, no regard for the mother flesh. They had wanted to save one soul that day. A miracle little Jazz.
They say an aneurism is like a power switch that explodes. That’s it. Connection broken. Game over.
It would be hard for the little girl to grow up not thinking it was somehow her fault.
The angel who had been due on her mothers birthday. Now it was a different kind of anniversary.
****
Ritchie’s mind came back to the party. It was two years later now and he was a dad, a husband, he had stayed away from all temptation and
he wanted to be in these moments, enjoy what he had. He wished the ache would go away but he had learnt to ignore the calling.
Sarah watched him standing in the corner of the yard, standing in a patch of mud. Everywhere else was dry it was the only patch of mud, she wondered what he was thinking.
He stood in the shade and wondered if he was standing on a place that never saw the sun, somehow he knew what would be like to never see the sun, he wondered if the wind alone was enough to dry those places. What happens if the mud never dries did it just became like quicksand? maybe he would sink. The thought of that scared him because it made him happy. He wondered if there were places in his heart that never saw the sun anymore, if the great pains had created scars that hid his heart from the sun. He wondered if there was a wind inside him that could dry the mud or if he was quicksand.
Then he heard the church Bells, Sarah came and took his hand they left the party, the bells were still ringing and it made everything seem beautiful for a moment. Even though they had decided to go the other way he walked towards the bells and he lost his thoughts in their music. For once. Made him wonder why he couldn’t appreciate life more but that it is the way of things isn’t it, give an inch, take a mile.
Sarah and the baby would have to be enough.
****
They weren’t, nothing was.
He did not see the cage.
Driving, he was thinking of the little bird that used to live on his Veranda in London. In four years it was the only bird he ever saw that wasn’t a pigeon. He often thought of that lonely, lucky the little bird.
Ritchie used to watch him every morning sitting on the windscreen wipers of his car, he could never work out why it sat there day in day out; one day he heard the little bird twittering and tattering and he laughed to himself. He realised this little black friend was looking at his own reflection and had conjured a mate. The next day Ritchie covered the windscreen.
One morning after it snowed Ritchie woke to see little foot prints on his veranda, etched into the shape of shamrocks, his very own white clover patch. It looked like more than one set. Maybe his friend had found his mate.
It was snowing again now, somehow it always seemed so quiet after snow, like the volume had been turned down.
He enjoyed the silence wanted it to smother the pain. His memories could not forget their war, they wanted a victory. He decided it would be ok; he had a plan.
The plan was simple, he would just buy a small amount, have bits late at night after the house had settled, no-one would know. He could shoot it in his foot so Sarah wouldn’t see. He would be a better person, father, husband for it. Deep down he knew he wasn’t that bird looking for a mate, he was more like a Magicians Bird waiting. He had flown into the cage enough times to know.
*
Years away from this place and he still knew how to score. The moment he got the drugs in his hands he felt relief, all those battles he had fought, for what? This was what he was truly aching for. As he drove, the drugs made him feel like he was flying, escaping the cage. Again.
He thought he saw a swallow touch the ground, tasting with his feet for the very first time.
As the car slid off the road, he knew what he had done.
He hoped Sarah could forgive him. Hoped they would never tell Sean what his father had been. He hoped someone would tell Jazz. Everything.
The death was ruled as an accident.
What is an accident?
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