Fossils - edit 2008
by Phil LongI was looking through some old files and rediscovered a short-story/exercise I did back in 1999/2000. I’ve posted the original on here, with the original June ‘99 date, but I went through and edited it (in some areas quite heavily) this evening.
Full thing is after the jump. It’s no masterpiece, but I found it interesting to read from a nostalgia perspective.
Fossils
I push my key in to the lock. My shaking hand struggles to turn it and my shoulder stings slightly as I try and force the door to yield.
I try again and the door opens with a hollow shake, vibrating on it’s hinges. I close the door behind me and drop the paper on the hall table, I hear something clatter against the radiator next to the table. The house is empty and has been for a long time. It’s former occupant 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 - I’m tired after the walk to the newsagents.
The table is one of a few reminders. A treasure of better times that has followed me over the years. It helps me to remember the past, to piece things together in my fragmented mind. I imagine myself as a paleontologist, the table is my prize fossil - an unchanging thing in a world that has changed so much.
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 for the case, shaking. My fingers struggle to stretch and with a clumsy fumble I grasp the glasses case, eventually catching it in my hand. Then slowly I stand again, bones creaking.
I pick up my paper and walk in to my living room. My chair sits in it’s usual place. Beside my fire, so when I am sit 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 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…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 laugh at myself - nobody is here to criticise me or tell me I’m mad. I know I’m not. 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 one of them. I know it can’t be though, they blame me, they don’t call. They think I killed her.
I answer the phone placed beside my chair.
‘Hello?’ I listen to the voice on the other end.
‘No, this isn’t my house….. I am, but it’s council accommodation…no, that’s OK. Bye.’ I hang up.
Damned canvassers - why would a 78 year old man want a new kitchen?
I wonder how on Earth they expect to sell anything to the likes of me. Things have changed though. 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.
They think I killed her. I didn’t, but she had suffered long enough. 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. When they returned for her funeral I had to tell them.
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 newspaper, 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.
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, this week’s Cathedral being shown 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. My teenage dreams were vibrant and fantastical. 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.
I met her at last, the woman of my dreams. She made me happy, and I her, and gave us two sons.
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 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, wishes, the imaginary and 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.
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