Fossils
by Phil LongI push my key in to the lock and turn it clockwise. My shaking hand struggles to finish the turn and my shoulder stings slightly as I slam in to the door.
I try again, second time lucky. The door opens with a hollow shake, vibrating on it’s hinges and spreading the previous morning’s post over my threadbare carpet.
‘Hello.’ I call out, I receive no reply. I wasn’t expecting one. I close the door behind me and drop the Sunday paper on the hall table.
The house is empty. House. That is what I call it, because that is all it is to me. Home implies warmth, a sense of belonging - I have no such feelings for this decaying council house. This house has been empty for a long time. It’s former occupant, a grey haired lady, died alone here too. The musky, damp, smell reminds me; this house was built for decaying.
I look down at the table, my glasses case has fallen to the floor, knocked off when I dropped my paper. I sigh. I feel like leaving the case where it is, to bend down and pick it up would be too much, especially after my walk to the newsagents. I look at the table again, and the ‘The Mail on Sunday’ that sits upon it. I know it’s ’The Mail on Sunday’ because of it’s shape, the layout of the name, but I can’t read the words. My eyesight is too far gone. Once I managed to pick up a free adverts paper by mistake.
The table. One of a few reminders. A treasure of better times. It helps me to remember the past, to piece things together in my fragmented mid. I imagine myself as a paleontologist, the table is my prize fossil. Like a fossil it reminds me of death. I should throw it away, but that would be denial.
My glasses case. I bend down, stepping backwards and groaning with effort. One hand rests on my knee to stop me loosing my balance. The other hand reaches, shaking, for the case. My fingers attempt to stretch, that just means they aren’t as bent as usual. With a clumsy fumble I grasp the glasses case, eventually catching it in my arthritic hand. Then slowly I stand again, bones creaking. The sound frightens me.
I turn and look at Saturday’s mail, spread out on the floor. Council notification. Electricity bill. ‘Once in a life time offer…’ and ‘You have been selected from millions…’. I saw them yesterday.
Once again I decide - nothing important. Not worth bending over for.
I pick up my paper and walk in to my dying room. That might have been a joke I made when I was younger, but the truth doesn’t make me smile.
My chair sits in it’s usual place. Beside my fire, so when I am sat down my legs rest on the thick rug that is in front of it. The rug is another of my fossils. The television is opposite my chair, the remote points to it from the arm of the well-worn seat - a blanket is draped over my chair. My poor attempt to disguise poverty.
I switch the fire on, gas, the controls are on the top; the council aren’t that inconsiderate. Then I lower myself carefully in to my chair, I fumble with my glasses case and remove my NHS prescription spectacles.
They are expensive looking, even on the NHS. I slowly swing the arms of the spectacles out and put them on, almost catching my eyes with the loose plastic nose-rests. My eyes sting slightly, and water more. I blink away the water and my eyes adjust. Words become words like they used to be.
I place the glasses case on one arm of the chair, opposite the television’s remote control as always - I like to know where things are. I fold open the paper and begin to read.
War, murder, political scandal. Such things cheer me up. They serve as a reminder that things could be a lot worse.
Political scandal, sex, sleaze; okay - perhaps some things could be better. I catch myself in this betrayal and my memory chastises me. I tarnish her memory, piss on her grave, whatever you call it…I feel guilty. I’m too old for that sort of thing anyway. I’m shrivelled up. I have heart disease and arthritis and the memory isn’t what it was - I probably couldn’t remember what to do anymore. I chuckle to myself at the thought. I do sometimes - nobody is here to criticise me or tell me I’m mad. I know I’m ot. Alone, nobody can make me feel I am.
My reading is disturbed by the high-pitched purring of the phone. I detest the thing. It invades my space without consideration, but I need it. I may have grown used to living alone, but a part of me strives to hear another’s voice. I pray for the impossible, that it is her. I know it can’t be though, I killed her myself. That’s what they say, anyway.
I answer the phone, so conveniently placed beside my chair.
‘Hello, 655161?’ I listen to the voice on the other end.
‘No, this isn’t my house….. I am, but it’s council accommodation…no, that OK. Bye.’ I hang up.
Damned canvassers - why would a 78 year old man want a new kitchen; and on a Sunday?
I wonder how on Earth they expect to sell anything on the day of rest. Things have changed though. Sunday shopping, all day, all night mail order. The world isn’t what it was - I avoid the cliché ‘when I was young’ - my morals are outdated, but I do try to keep up. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
I killed her myself. I had to. She had suffered long enough until she was nothing but an empty, immobile, body. As far as she was concerned she was dead already.
Nothing of who she had been remained. The children. Children? They were 26 and 24 at the time. I decided to keep what I was going to do from them. Their circumstances made it easy. They were successful and had each emigrated not long before I took the decision. The oldest went to Canada, the youngest to Kenya. I admired their achievements greatly. I still do, even though they are not so proud of their father. Eventually I had to tell them, when I was able. They both said the same, so alike the two of them, ’You signed our mother’s life away like a bad debt.’ The words are branded in to my mind, they are the one thing I will never forget.
I return to ‘The Mail on Sunday’, but my heart isn’t in it. My heart is in the past. I fold the paper up and place it on one arm of my chair - on top of my glasses case. I check the time. Nearly half-past-ten. I stand and lean forward, one arm outstretched towards the television, my index finger pushes hard on the power button. The red LED flashes before it’s light becomes constant. The television buzzes and crackles as it warms up, static building on the black curved screen. I sit back down as a loud, female voice, erupts from the speaker, accompanied by a wooden mail voice with a fake laugh. Roland Rat perhaps. I don’t wait for the picture to prove me right or wrong. I hit the ‘1′ on the remote control and the familiar spinning globe appears as my television ceases it’s impression of a radio.
I don’t feel as threatened by the television as I do with the phone. I know it is an intrusion, but I do feel as though I control it. The television never interrupts my reading unless I want it to. Such power is rare to somebody of my years.
I listen to the voice of the well spoken BBC announcer. Young, happy, what I was once. He finishes and my weekly dose of hymns and sermons begins, the perpendicular gothic architecture of this week’s Cathedral being show off behind the archaic scripture titles.
When I was younger, a lot younger, I wouldn’t have even considered the possibility of becoming who I am now. Religious programs, the morning service, were for the elderly. I was young, 50-odd years ago I would have been in bed, lying in after drinking myself in to oblivion for reasons that now escape my memory.
Of course I often thought of where I’d be when I was older. I even wrote stories about it, but they never reached this far ahead; I was convinced I’d die at forty.
The stories were optimistic. They told of a better, brighter, future. A future of dreams. My dreams of the future gave me a career, a beautiful and intelligent wife, and a perfect family. I drove a hover car and flew space ships for a living. Before every flight my wife would kiss me, and wish me luck. I’d smile a cocky smile and arrogantly pronounce, ’I don’t need luck.’
I reached forty in my stories. I was the greatest pilot in the Galaxy and was asked to test-pilot the latest development in space-flight technology. Laughing, I would accept the challenge, and jump in to the cockpit of the sleek new ship.
I died a here. The ship malfunctioned, it’s course locked on to a school full of children. I pushed the self-destruct button, sacrificing the ship, and my life, to save a thousand lives. I was missed by the world, and I died loved.
That was just a story though. A naive teenagers tall tales of a world far from reality.
In the real world I struggled to find justification. I was a writer unable to hold down a real job. I had two degrees and a doctorate, but they did nothing for me.
I had a drinking problem and a failed marriage by the time I hit thirty- two.
My naive dream of a perfect woman had all been very well, but I neglected to consider that which I was incapable of achieving. To me the materialistic requirements of a ‘normal’, stable, relationship were pointless.
I stubbornly refused to dedicate myself to anything but my first love. My love of writing.
She wanted to be wined and dined, given roses and surprised by the usual materialistic clichés of ‘love’. She became fed up of supporting me. She could afford to, she worked for a successful corporation, but somehow - when it came to money - she forgot the feminist ideals she held so dearly.
She wielded my refusal to join normal society like a sword. Every conversation, every argument- and the two were very similar - she would attack me with this sword. She thought she was reasoning with me, but failed to see the ‘reality’ I chose to cling to. At twenty-nine I was alone. She walked out and moved in with a colleague. A normal, successful, corporate suit.
It was in the following two years I wrote and published to best sellers, one of which was nominated for the Bookers prize. The three years that followed were a blur.
I made guest appearances on late night talk shows. I presented a series of literature documentaries, and I earned enough to look at life through a golden, transparent, liquid.
As the media moved to their next fad, I met my second wife. The true woman of my dreams. She helped me cut down on my drinking. She made me happy and gave us two sons.
I did everything I could to keep my family. I got a stable job with a literature magazine, and I continued to write successful novels. At forty I was living a comfortable life. I continued to do so until our youngest child reached fifteen. I had past the end of my teenage stories and was still alive, but I died at 51. We both did.
There are certain memories that remain as vivid in my mind today, as the day they happened.
My first kiss. My first time. Receiving my degree. The day I was married. The day my father died. The day I was divorced. The day my novel reached best seller. The day my mother died. The day I met my second wife. The day I was married once more. The day our children were born. The day my wife received the doctor’s diagnosis.
In my teenage stories this could never have happened. Disease and illness were things of the past.
Stories, fiction fantasy, wishes, the imaginary, the unreal. Stories. Wishes. I wish they could have been real.
I held her tightly as she dropped the letter to the table. A solitary tear ran down my cheek. It was all I allowed myself as she sobbed, her salt-tears stinging my face. I so wanted to be selfish and allow myself to cry, but I couldn’t, not even when I was alone. Our lives became shallow that day. I watched as she deteriorated rapidly, I was unable to do anything. After four years nothing remained of her.
We slept in separate beds, she was scared of me touching her, she had forgotten who I was. A nurse came every day, our sons visited as often as possible.
A doctor suggested something to me during a check up. At the time I was incensed. The truth was I was being selfish.. The legal termination of her life. She was dead already, I knew this, but I couldn’t imagine waking up and not being able to see her. I kept what the doctor had said to myself. I was scared our sons would agree with the doctor. Slowly, over the next five years, the doctor’s words began to make sense to me. The realisation was so slow that when another doctor made the suggestion to me, shortly after our youngest son had followed his brother’s lead and moved abroad, I didn’t bat an eyelid. I had nodded gravely, looking at her blank face, eyes cold, a trickle of saliva at the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t keep her as a three-dimensional photograph anymore. She had faded too much by this time.
The doctor gave me a week to think about it some more. My mind was made up though - it had been for a year. I signed the forms when we got home, returning them the next week.
The process was painless for her, like falling asleep. I watched as her eyes closed and she drifted away from me for ever. I felt blank. Emptier than I had ever felt before.
The organ kicks in as the end titles begin. I turn the television off. I feel tired, it is a strange tiredness. It dominates my entire body. I lean back in my chair. My eyes begin to close and my head drops slowly. I remember the promise I made to myself, what I had to do before sleeping. I say her name, and my eyes close.
Related posts:
