The inside was cool and clean. Polished floor tiles reflected wall lights like glass. Each bulb shone like new along the hallway. Voices of memories hailed from the dining room and kitchen ahead of her. A one-sided conversation about lateness made all the less meaningful by how many times Grace had heard it. Stepping into the well-lit dining room Grace stared at the empty seats. The places that would no longer be filled, would no longer feel the presence of being.
The dark wooden table was clear of all trappings. A solid surface that had supported many a meal prepared and cooked in the adjoining kitchen. Despite the newness of some of the towns designs this particular house was a throwback to when her mother and father had first gotten together. Brick by brick, joist by joist, memory by memory.
Grace held onto the back of one of the six wooden chairs, her hands covering more than she remembered. Pulling it back, she smiled as the chair made small familiar subdued noises in protest. Sitting, she looked toward the head of the table to her right before resting her gaze on the chair opposite. Sucking the air through her nostrils she searched to identify today’s meal. The only fragrances now were of wood polish and floor cleaner.
She tried to remember the last meal she had eaten here. Not the last with her father but the last where all three of them had sat as a family. Where three places had been set and used. Where life had been unknowingly perfect in that small thing. The gathering taken for granted, rushed and then forgotten. Her mother had always made it a noisy and busy affair. Music played in the background, track after track from a record player in another room. Something of a one-sided routine for her and her father. Her mother would talk between mouthfuls, watching for acknowledgement and answers, unaware of the noise.
Grace struggled to remember three place settings, struggled to see a third face past when she had set only two places. With her and her father’s last meals silence had descended and only the sound of utensils cutting against hard surface chimed, each steady mouthful its own symphony.
The feelings of emptiness, feelings of loss, not a realisation but an acceptance never to know or experience the simple thing that had been there before. Tears began to streak down her face, a recent promise to herself broken. Each drop marked the table between her splayed hands, her fingers stretched, her forearms rested on the large surface. Her lungs filled, the noise of air rushing into her open mouth in waves replaced the silence.
Minutes passed as glimpses of meals and non-conversations merged and muted into one. Hundreds of times sat in the same place. Different meals, different clothes, the same three people. Ghosts in the form of her own memories, in the same place, occupying the same steps, breathing. Unable to wrestle the last memory, Grace eventually pushed the chair back from underneath her and walked around the table allowing her fingers to touch and trace the other two used chairs.
Entering the kitchen, she stepped instinctively toward a cupboard near the window and brought out a tray holding a flower-patterned tea set. Three delicate cups spooned into one another. The same number of saucers stacked to one side. The large teapot, with the same decoration, held pride of place.
Placing them neatly on the counter top which had long faded its pallor, with each cup sprouting from the concave patterned surface of its own grounds, Grace reached over and filled the kettle from the faucet, counting the seconds in her head to match the number of cups. While waiting for the water to boil she instinctively turned each decorative handle to face the same way.
Her mother had given her the set as a birthday present and Grace had used it many times for traditional English high tea. Sandwiches and scones, jams and creams. Just her and her mother sitting opposite sides at the oversized dining table. A phase of different ceremonies, Chado, Samovars, Masala Chai, lasted for a brief spell on afternoons when the tea was too hot for the day, or they had returned from filling their heads in the library. Different teas, coloured or fragrant had flowed at one time or another through the spout. Patience had been learnt from the simple task. Not of itself a lesson, structured and thought out, more profound and benign.
Each task undertaken by itself had no meaning, no matter what it entailed, the interaction with others is what made it meaningful. If the interaction was negative then the task would feel negative and in retrospect something to avoid. A task that makes you unhappy by its very nature is something that is set aside and skirted around.
The kettle whistled in an almost cartoon like way. Seconds ticked as the noise filled the room and seeped beyond the borders of where she could see. Lifting it from the heat she gripped the warm handle tightly as the thick pipe of boiling water transferred to the waiting pot. She placed the pot gently in the space left by the surrounding cups and saucers and turned the handle to face the same way as the handles on the cups. Carrying the tray back to the dining room table she placed it carefully between the three worn chairs at one side. Steam puffed with a constant message, funnelled above the tray, it fingers caressing the air, becoming the air.
Grace now sat impassive, staring at the familiar but feeling the distance left around it. The silence was with her again. Time had gone and returned with no meaning. No calendar to see, moments like blank playing cards stacked on top of one another containing nothing other than the surrounding air.
She felt angry at losing time. The ticking of our bodies which comes to realise that what we could be doing with our moments could be more. Nature and nurture. The question or the answer.
So much lost time.
So much time fighting against things of little or no substance. The thoughts in life that have not yet been asked but play upon our imagination as if nothing would ever be the same again if this nothing is not cast aside.
Demons don’t always take on the vision of a dark coat, grey dull faces with scars picking down worn skin like medals from past battles. They take the form of self-doubt, currencies of a mirrored person staring back. Insecurities, voices behind your shoulder. Unseen, imagined future. These are the true demons and to sleigh, seconds count, minutes smile and hours become the meaning of existence. A short life lived or a long life wasted.
Grace had promised to make the most of her moments. To allow her mind to dance as well as her body. Life, as they say, got in the way for a time. The letter she received on her last birthday had reminded herself of what had gone before. The written address on the envelope was in a familiar handwriting. Black ink curled upon a faded green envelope. When it was delivered to her city apartment, she recognised it immediately. After all she had written it herself on her last birthday. Posted it to herself. The words ‘Do not deliver until…’ were scrawled on top of the envelope by the man who ran the small USPS office in the town she had visited. His moustache twitched. He smiled. He had stuck to his word. He had explained, in some detail, it was something that they usually don’t do anymore because of the way the system was automated. She was a stranger in town, had gone out of the city for this one purpose knowing that a city office worker would probably have rolled their eyes and explained why it could not be done.
She had still felt trepidation in opening the letter. Had held it in her hand like a foreign object. Stared at the writing, viewed the postmark, non-of which she really read. Known to her from a different time, hopes for the future now in the past. The reminder of twelve months gone by had the feeling of life changing results, a fracture in the linear of being.
The memory of it was as real as the moment she currently occupied.
She opened it with little regard for the paper or her freshly painted nails. Tore through the edge catching the thick sheet of cream paper inside, unfolded it and took a deep breath.
Dear Grace,
Happy birthday. Congratulations on another year.
The company is doing well, but the challenges are different. They don’t hold my focus or my interest. It seems like there is something else taking my attention, something else missing that I’m trying to fill. The time is taken up with work that is becoming less rewarding. Less meaningful. Less inviting. I feel that I should be making a difference, however, I feel weighed down, maybe thick heavy chains pull behind me and my Marley forgot to visit.
Enough of my feelings now, I look forward to a different year. A year of friendships and change, of new lessons, of inspirations beyond that of my past.
Hopefully you have more memories and less dreams to fulfil or new dreams to replace the ones that you have happily done.
The space where your soul is most happy calls for you again. Ignore the want. Ignore the excuses. It’s being taken care of so no need to worry or check up on. The secret is safe.
Remember, we said this year we were going to welcome others into our life. How many friends have you made this year? How many have hurt you?
Okay. Talk. Say it out loud. Think about what you’re going to say before you push that breath out of your lungs. What have you achieved and learnt over the past twelve months? Ready. Say it.
Grace looked up from the letter. Inhaled one long deep breath. “I stayed alive another year. I learnt that nothing worth having is easy. I learnt that once you lose something meaningful you should replace it with something else.” Closing her eyes, she continued. “I feel more alone than ever.”
Opening her eyes, she continued to read.
Did you say out loud that you were alone? A Year can make a life. Have you made real friends, flesh and blood? Joined with others?
Be nice, be considerate, be thoughtful.
This year it would be nice to learn to say hello and thank you in ten languages. Remember setting a small task could lead to a big revelation.
Don’t forget to write.
Love and deeper meaning.
Grace
Seconds ticked, her own name curled in black, the flicks and slants and darker pools of ink where the pressure of the pen nib had bled. YOU. She still held the paper in front of her as though understanding had lost. Her gaze dropped to the left as she forced herself to recall words.
“Bonjour, merci. Konnichiwa, arigatou. Hola, gracias. Shalom.” She recalled what she could of the list with little emotion in her voice as if citing a short shopping list. An immaterial group of words that was meant to start something more. She stopped trying to recall the rest of the words she had learnt. Phrases to ask for coffee or food, directions to a hotel or train station. Language for places unvisited, without intention to visit.
Since writing the letter she had sold the company. Life had lost meaning because she had lost what had made life worth living, the enjoyment of the challenge of each day and the feeling of accomplishment as the reward. A struggle defeated.
The letter had arrived in time for her journey back to Alonetown. Her apartment now empty, now belonging to another.
Lifting the teapot carefully with both hands she poured a stream of hot tea into each of the three cups. Each cup had different measures. The cup with the most was placed in front of her father’s chair. Grace placed the cup with the least in front of herself. Stretching over the table she placed the remaining cup in front of where her mother had sat.
Silence spanned the moments as all three cups remained untouched. Resting there impassive. Eventually, the small clouds of steam, rising into the air, dissipated and became no more. The three untouched cups cooled. Their cooling liquid quelling their own reaction.
Grace had long known this moment would arrive. In its simplest form it was what life meant. Every beginning had an end. During the time after her mother’s funeral, she had kept the flame from a candle lit for the time she was back in Alonetown. Transposing the flame from one candle to another, the fluid motion of life and warmth passed from one dying light to the next.
When the last candle had relinquished it flame Grace had left the town. This time there would be no passing of flame to guide in the dark. A darkness would be all that remained.
The lifeforce her mother and father had given her had given rise to a reason for them to live. To expel air when the mundane, the sad, the difficult times would have otherwise overwhelmed them. A life beyond their own, dependant, with an unspoken bond beyond the words and beyond the measure of the physical.
Each day brought a shared belief in a continued life, a continued learning. A natural occurrence of breathing the same occupied air. Each in the metaphysical boundaries of their form but existing as a greater being, guided in their reactions by the actions of another. Each invite into their lives of another body turning thought and experience in a new direction brought to bear by the strongest of the bonds around her.
Now free of her bindings Grace had come to realise the fragility of wanting life. Her only dependant, the town she loved, would continue on its own path in its own history. She smiled at the thought. Alonetown would easily outlast her. It would care for whomever settled into its embrace. A place had been born, created a harbour in which a family had sheltered. The buildings would provide shelter for others wandering through life. Her time here would be easily measured.
Standing, Grace looked at the tea set divided across the table. Emotion filled the void across the room as she turned toward the door. Her steps retraced a well-worn path across the darkened floor toward the never locked entrance.
Stepping past the mirror in the long hallway, Grace glimpsed a brief reflection of herself before it was gone. A stunted, corner of her eye look that would cause anyone else to stutter their passage and ask themselves if they had really seen it. To Grace it meant nothing. Picture or reflection. The beauty lay in a feeling, something undefined by image. There or not there. She had seen plenty of movies within the small cinema that defined beauty, screen gods and goddesses that the audience were told should be something to strive for, to aspire to be like. Non had conveyed an individual’s presence, the true beauty of how one person interacts with another as if gliding through warm air.
Closing the large door behind her she stood passive at the top of the stone staircase. The single unmoving light above her illuminated the near detail and threw her shadow picking down each step. This moment was the embrace she had longed for. The town laid bare before her. Each store front, each surface of stone and asphalt, each sliver of living wood, each dim light reflecting from glass. All waited for her touch, her guidance and care. A mutual protection.
Grace, her hands by her side and her head tilted back, ignored the heaving of her chest, the less than smooth breaths that stuttered as the town exhaled and filled her lungs. Pace subdued she made her way down the middle of the road. Her gaze falling left and right on each of the buildings in turn.
Once she reached the crossroads her steps drew still. Her gaze rested at first on the small cinema, its lights dimmed, its doors closed. She slowly turned to take in each street from the middle of the road in the heart of the town. Emotion got the better of her for a few moments abated by her lungs filling with the breath of the town. The smell of warm sand, the dust that flowed fine and unseen between the buildings, teased her nostrils. A faint smell that caressed her senses and made Alonetown all that more familiar.
Savouring the moments of life, of being. Each second made restored by the former. Grace pointed herself towards the darkened church. New steps played with each window, each brazen front door and sign. Footsteps accompanied by the sound of the proceeding step coming back at her. Unmocking. Without judgement. To walk with equal distance to either left or right showed no favour. As she neared the church other sounds took over. Grace, her heart gaining momentum, found she could hear her own blood pushing, her own heartbeat taking over from any external sound.
The buildings ended and with it the integration of her. The asphalt of the road surface thinned out and with it the light from the town. Grace stopped. Each step passed here would mean no return. No ponderous visit to what lay behind her. Her story within a story. She removed her hands from her pockets and allowed her arms to relax by her side as if waiting inspection. Her left hand curled while her right stayed flat.
No sound was uttered by the buildings. No street sound levitated from the paths and roads giving direction and purpose.
Even the thoughts in her head were silent, waiting. Waiting for action or inaction. Without a destination there is no journey. Without sacrifice there is no rebirth.
Placing her hand back in her pocket she gripped the bottle tightly and took her first step onto the rough surface. Each step, silent to the world around her, resonated loudly in her head, like the picking at the string of an oversized instrument. Each moment drawn out. Each blade of parched grass that brushed her feet had its own meaning, its own purpose.
Glancing at the graves of her mother and father, Grace continued at the same pace toward the wooden door of the church. Each life lived gave to the next. Created in absolution for the greater meaning.
I still control inside my head, or is that an illusion. My thoughts take me places and my imagination plays with new experiences.
At first the door refused to give way. Hinges creaked with a deafening scream which echoed like unforgiving voices of a long-forgotten congregation. No light invaded the interior, save that of the moon and stars. Each slice carried through the thin windows covered by years of dust and dirt.
Grace, statuesque, stared into the darkness. Each moment, each decision, her own and others had been brought forward to move her physically and mentally on to the spot she now stood.