“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” — L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between – Wonderful metaphor, and so many questions arise from this simple sentence. You just have to know what he means and why the past is important to him.
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His room was very different today. Yesterday’s room had brimmed with hope, today’s room was quite comfortable and had everything in it he needed now. He could leave yesterday’s room any time he liked but today he was incarcerated for everybody’s good. In his head, the events of the last three months just had not happened. He wondered how his previous room looked now he had permanently vacated it. He knew the answer to this question, as it was him that had sealed the rooms fate for once and for all. Oh, he had meant the room no harm at all and it was a great shame that some other person would not be able to enjoy its peaceful window outlook. Thinking of peace, he listened intently to see if there was any other sign of life nearby. Utter silence. Nothing anywhere stirred. It was utterly dark, extremely peaceful but, he had to say, not much room, still in his present circumstances that didn’t really matter very much.
Three months ago, he remembered the visitor that had come to his house to give him a very personal private message. The message had been very short and delivered without even the merest hint of hesitation. Once the messenger had started speaking he just sort of kept going until he had reached the dramatic end. It had taken a full five minutes for Richard to absorb the detail of what he had just heard. In his hesitation to grasp the meaning, he thought briefly ‘I will ask him to go over all of that again.” But quickly a small voice in his head had said: “no don’t ask that, it should never be repeated, what he just said to you.” The message had been delivered in such a ‘matter of fact’ way. Even volume, even pitch, constant with no breaks or stop at all. The words had flowed, just like honey does from a jar.
He had asked his brother to bring him some candles and a box of matches, so he could light them in memory of his newly departed father. He had also requested some magazines to read, not because he was bored but as distractions, because he also kept recalling June, April and May.
Strange how your life changes. One day you’re starting your first day at school and before you can think about where you are, everything changes. How he hated changes. He had fought against changes in his life every day. Change worried him, change frightened him, change was the enemy as far as he was concerned. Then one day he had opened his mind, his eyes, his ears his nose, his taste and felt absolutely nothing. It was a great revelation. What had he been fighting all those years? What was worth enduring all that anxiety, mood swing and depression for? He had switched from constantly asking questions to just observing what went on and accepting that it was how things were. Oh, why could he not of thought like this all those years ago? His mind was at peace, no windmills turned, no images flashed through, he made no judgements or predictions, he just observed what was happening now. What was happening did not disturb him, He wished ‘NOW ‘had been this important before but of course it could not have been, because life insists you look back and forth and always be on your guard against everything and anything that causes personal harm.
He missed June, April and May. These had been the best things that had ever happened to him in his life. The memory of them was the thing that he knew had kept him striving for a better life.
And in the end, all he could possibly do was be destructive and knock all he knew, and once cared about, down. The sadness was all behind him now. June April and May were going to arrive any minute now and then they would lead him to the place that they now lived. All reunited again.
The nurse came into the room with a cheery ‘Good morning.’ She was not alone, with her were two important looking men wearing the standard issue hospital white coats. “Well, Richard today is the day that these bandages come off and you get a chance to see just how ugly we all are.” There was some general laughter. When the bandages were slipped off I saw nothing for a little while and then… Nurse was extremely pretty, but the guys were right they were ugly. I tried not to laugh but could not, this laughter turned into an exclamation of pure joy. “You can see us gargoyles okay then?”. More laughter.
Yes, I can see you, and you, and you!”
Great! we will go get your family now and then and you can see them as well.
I will never forget my lovely wife June coming into that sideward, beside her were our children April and May. They never blamed me for the fire. They said that I had not been myself. I had got us into a large amount of debt, not a great place for a worry guts like me. I had been so stupid. The four months in the hospital had been a great opportunity, through counselling, to mull life over and decide to think about how to do everything differently so that our little family could all be happy and enjoy life. We had a new house to go live in and best still as long as we were all back together again nothing would alter the delight we all had in that. July, August and September would see lots of change but a new spirit within me shouted ‘Bring it on!’
957 words
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This was an exercise of getting the reader to try to work out what the scenario was. There are lot s of guesses and false assumptions that could be made. As the author, I helped the reader make wrong choices by using certain words and phrases. Well, that’s according to me!!
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