SARAH
“So why exactly is it that when I press the calorie counter and it says I’ve burnt off the equivalent of say, an apple, the last thing I fancy eating is a piece of fruit?”
“So have the chocolate, Sarah. I don’t care; I love you just the way you are,” comes the reply she would have predicted but doesn’t want to hear.
Nonetheless, Sarah’s attempt at a smile is an effort to appreciate Tim’s compliment, albeit clichéd. But from what I’ve seen, it’s not helping much. She lies, stretched along the entire length of the brown, leather sofa and rolls, with a groan, to reach the remote control on the floor. Clutching it tightly, a ‘V’ shape slowly descends on Sarah’s brow as her eyes focus on the television screen.
The One Show
provides temporary absorption from the real worries of the day. An article on which seeds to sow in your greenhouse at this time of year is almost interesting.
“Do you want the usual Sarah?” Tim checks as he grabs his wallet from its usual spot on the coffee table.
“U-huh,” she dismisses before pausing the TV and watching Tim saunter down the driveway. When he is absolutely out of sight, Sarah dashes up the stairs, quicker than I’ve seen her move all day, goes into the bedroom and grabs a white paper bag, which she unwraps during the journey across the landing. The bathroom door is firmly shut and locked as Sarah sits on the closed toilet seat.
Shaking fingers fumble with a cellophane cover, then a cardboard box. Sarah unfolds an instruction sheet and makes a photocopy in her head; instant recognition and familiarity mean that there’s no need to read properly but she scans it just the same. In this private game of pass-the-parcel, a foil envelope gives way to the Holy Grail. The truth teller. The life changer.
Sarah lifts the toilet lid and squats over the bowl. Her face grimaces as her Gluteus Maximus aches from its earlier exertion. As the torrents descend, Sarah’s hand follows, waving her magic wand at the yellow liquid. She shifts her weight to the left. She shifts her weight to the right. When she has co-ordinated the little white stick with the flow, or what’s left of it, there is finally a moment of still.
“Shit!” she proclaims as the stick is brought out of the toilet bowl. Sarah’s right hand is dripping and yet she waves it around in an indecisive attempt to put the stick down somewhere. Finally she settles for the top of the cistern and waddles to the basin, baggy trousers still enveloping her ankles. She quickly washes and dries her hands before rectifying her rather undignified lower half. Unable to wait any longer, she darts straight back to the cistern to see what is happening. Colours change on the screen and a line appears. Sarah checks her watch. It’s less than a minute since she first looked but for her it obviously seems like an eternity. Then she looks back at the stick. Nothing changes. The watch. Two minutes. The stick. Nothing. The watch. Three minutes. The stick. Still nothing. She consults the instruction sheet again and confirms that she needs the crucial second line to appear. Another minute. Just in case. Nothing.
Sarah slowly wraps up the whole ordeal in the original white paper bag and breathes right to the bottom of her lungs. She wipes the top of the cistern with a piece of toilet paper and slowly heads back downstairs.
In the kitchen, Sarah opens the fridge door wide and peers inside. She takes out a bottle of Chardonnay, the bottle she clearly had hoped to be able to decline tonight. Instead she pours a large glass and gulps half, quenching her emotional thirst. After refilling, she puts the rest of the bottle back in the fridge and scans the rest of its contents. A slice of last night’s pizza sits, calling to her. She demolishes it and quickly hides the evidence in the bin.
“Honey, I’m home!” rings Tim’s less than original catchphrase. He kisses the top of Sarah’s head and opens a cupboard to get two plates. A pile of rice that would feed a family in some countries for a week, is heaped onto each, before a vermilion volcanic eruption gushes from a silvery tray. In silence, they take their load into the lounge, focusing on the culinary challenge ahead.
When every last scrap of food on their plates is demolished, the pair put the crockery on a coffee table in front of them and sink back into the sofa. “I’m so full,” Tim shares.
“I did a pregnancy test today,” Sarah blurts out.
“Oh, really? I didn’t realise it was that time of the month again already. I’m sorry I didn’t ask before now. I just, you, assume you’ll keep me posted and ..” Tim’s hands wave around, searching desperately to find an excuse for his ignorance.
“Stop twittering, Tim. I’ve told you before I don’t have a ‘time of the month’; I’m really irregular. I just felt different, you know. Anyway, it was negative. We’re not pregnant. Again. Must’ve all been in my head,” she awaits his response.
“Are you sure? Could the test be wrong?” Tim is hopeful.
“Nah, doubt it. I just don’t think I’m ovulating. It’s classic of my polycystic ovary syndrome; I see it at work all the time,” she dismisses.
“But you’ve been doing the exercise and losing weight; and we’ve been eating more healthily,” he laughs and nods at their empty plates, “Well mostly!”
“It’s not funny, Tim. I’ve been rubbish. The doctor said the best way of increasing our fertility and our chances of having a baby is to lose weight and what do I do? Carry on having Chinese takeaway every Friday night,” a disgusted finger points to the plates, “It’s all my own fault. I don’t deserve a child.”
“Oh, don’t say that, babe. Self loathing won’t get you anywhere; you’re doing your best. Neither of us have ever been a friend of salad!” Tim taps his rotund abdomen.
“Well you certainly don’t help, Tim. Anybody else would stop me from eating such crap and support me a bit more,” Sarah snaps.
Tim pauses his verbal attempts to comfort his wife and reaches out an arm around her shoulder, “Getting yourself all stressed out isn’t going to help.”
Sarah is almost propelled from the sofa and stands looking down at Tim, “Stop being so bloody nice, would you? I’m off to bed; I’m on earlies in the morning.”
A stunned Tim puts his feet in the hollow Sarah has made in the sofa and reaches for the remote control to change the channel on the television.
Half a can of lager later, it seems to occur to Tim that this is not where he ought to be and heads slowly up the stairs. The bedroom light is off so he fumbles around, getting undressed in the dark. "Brrr.. it's freezing tonight," he tests to see if Sarah is still awake. There is no response. Fully undressed, he climbs under the duvet and shifts towards the body mass lying in the middle of the bed. Realising Sarah is facing the opposite direction, he curls his body around his wife's and softly kisses her neck. There is still no response. With a futile sigh, Tim also turns over. The two are still. I can feel nothing but sadness from my vantage point as I see two pairs of staring eyes looking into the abyss of the dark, cold night.
A few short hours later, Sarah gets on to the tube and sits down next to a man in a black suit. He opens his newspaper beyond the imaginary line which separates their personal space. So Sarah is forced to edge further towards an elderly woman on the other side. I cannot understand how she can be so close as to smell the stale breath of these strangers and yet distance herself from the one she loves. After only a few pages of a novel, she arrives at her stop and walks a short distance to an imposing building with a sign reading
St Mary’s Hospital.
As if by magic, two glass doors part to welcome her entrance into the warmth inside. Sarah presses the button to call for the lift but just as it arrives, she turns and walks away, ascending the three flights of stairs to her final destination.
Ward 11 is alive. Even at this early hour of the morning, there is no quiet: telephones ring, babies cry and women chatter, celebrating of the miracle they have all now shared. Here, the world has stopped for a moment. It has abandoned all other aspects of life and these females are united in what they now see as the sole purpose for their existence. Sarah pauses as a new mother heads unsteadily for the bathroom, holding a wall rail as she goes, “Let one of us know if you need a hand with anything,” she offers. A nod and a smile are returned. Across the ward a middle aged lady cautiously changes the nappy of a small infant as her exhausted, teenage daughter sleeps in the bed. A tiny baby in a transparent plastic box is wheeled in front of Sarah, “Morning meeting in five! I’m just getting this one back down to SCBU,” the driver informs her.
“Thanks Nana,” replies Sarah as she looks at the white board and the computer to assess her day ahead.
Nana returns and calls her staff around the desk. As she updates them on the tribulations of the previous evening, they listen attentively, memorising the names and medical conditions that have changed since their last shift. “God bless you all!” Nana commands and they all return to work.
“Sounds like it’s been fun in here last night,” says the midwife standing next to Sarah, “Kids eh? Who’d have ’em?”
ME
I watch. I wait. I hear. I listen. I try to make sense.
I am a silent audience, watching four plays unfold. I am in awe of these actors in their moments of glory, when the spotlight shines and they deliver an award-winning performance. But I am also there in the lines they forget, when I yearn to whisper the words they need to carry on. When they triumph, I want to applaud and yet sometimes I am so repulsed that I can barely look. If only I could pull down the curtain and pause for an interval, to make them see, to make them re-audition. But Life’s not like that. There is no rehearsal; no second chance. For each one of them, this is it. The Big Show. The One Shot. And I, more than anyone, should know about that.
Working out why I am observing these seemingly ordinary lives has been my sole quest recently. At first, I couldn’t quite remember if I knew these people or if they knew me. When I realised they were complete strangers, I wondered if I was some sort of detective, ensuring they abide by the laws of the land. Then I thought maybe I was a spy, who had to feed back my findings to some sort of authority. My whole existence and purpose seemed hazy and unclear, with these questions swimming around and around. When I realised that no-one could even see me, no matter how close I got and that no-one asked me what I had seen, it came to me, that I was simply watching. Through my observations, I have guessed where these lives are heading and with that, I have predicted the possibilities of my own future. Whether I will be the one to make the choice or it will be made for me, I am aware that there are major decisions ahead.
And so I watch them, for no-one else, only for me, and perhaps, if they are fortunate enough, in time to come, they will reap the rewards of my silent endeavours.
In truth, I was never really sure my state was possible until now. I mean, I’d thought about it. I’d even talked about it with others but I’d never truly believed. I am neither animal nor mineral; I am not dead or alive; I am something extraordinary. In the literal sense of the word, I am ‘extra’, additional, further to anything that I previously would have regarded as ‘ordinary’, common or normal. Indeed, I am suspended between one life and the next. My past has ended but my future has not yet begun. I am hovering, awaiting a conclusion about where I should land.
In all my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined what this would be like. I don’t float on a cloud, or run with the whisper of the breeze. No, I’m just here. Without shape or weight, age or gender, I am liberated, free from all of society’s labels and shackles. And yet I know I have purpose. There are no rules or instructions that I am aware of but I am catapulted, magnetically between my subjects, with an inherent knowledge that one of them will be chosen. I have an opportunity to try again, in the rarest of circumstances, to return in human form and be alive once more.
When I first came here, into this No Man’s Land of life, I had no memory of my arrival or the journey which surely must have preceded. But gradually I have recalled parts of my untimely deaths and scenes play over in my head which can only come from lives which have gone before. Why they remain with me, I do not know. Maybe they are simply fading. After all, light is not quickly extinguished at the close of day. Rather the sun sets and casts a beautiful glow with the promise that tomorrow it will return. Or maybe I must take instruction from my memories: how to be born, how to live, how to die. Perhaps there are lessons I can learn and like my subjects, maybe I could improve my performance in life’s next play.
The lives I observe are very different to anything that I remember in my dreamy recollections. There is nothing familiar in the clothes they wear or the houses they live in. They communicate in a language that would have felt alien to my tongue. And yet I understand their speech. As I hear each word, it becomes untangled from sound and simply retains a meaning, a meaning that can be shared and understood by any human on Earth. With this universal skill, I could be drawn to any subjects on the planet. But the chosen ones are not spread so far. I am the foreigner; they share a language and a heritage. They are different but have so much in common. I do not know the chosen one but I know the culture in which my future lies. Is it this which is my purpose? Am I a pupil of their lives or can they learn from mine?
I have an urge to live their lives, just for a day. I need to feel what they feel, see what they see. Maybe then I will know my destiny. A sudden force is pulling me into a body; my wandering mind is now locked up within a physical shell once more. It is an unfamiliar but comforting sensation, like looking at photographs of an old, childhood home. New eyes and ears make sense of this strange world and new thoughts are imposed on my own. I have become someone else. I am her. Then, like switching channels on television, I am another. My movement between my subjects is fluid but swift, absorbing snapshots of their lives.