Continue the Story…

“You are not allowed to park here.”

…………………………………………………..

There are times when it’s propitious to be selectively illiterate, and this was one of those times.  In any case, when I get out of the car, it becomes invisible, so unless someone else tries to park there, it will go unnoticed until I get back in.

Why else would time travel have been invented, if not for people like me to get a job retrieving precious objects from the past? I cannot, of course, divulge what I have brought to the present, from the future, because that would make the item disappear in the here and now, and start a chain reaction that would probably annihilate me.

Picking the lock was easy; the smell of damp made me gag. The garbage that had not been taken out for a month was crawling with ants and cockroaches.

I’d been sent on this mission by an old man on his deathbed.

I recognised the furniture and the layout of the cottage from the hundreds of photos I had studied. There it was, the plushie teddy bear that my employer had played with when he was a child.

I picked it up, put it in my backpack, and came back home.

Continue the Story…

I slipped into the abandoned garden, wary of every sound drifting out of the darkness.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Was that a mouse, or was it a snake? Or, perish the thought, was it someone following me?

In the distance, there was the sound of water – it would probably be a stream, because surely all the fountains would have stopped working by now?

The musky smell of rotted leaves filled my nostrils. Or some reason, I had a flashback to Scripture Class… Pishon… the river that flows around Hav′ilah, where there is gold, and bdellium, and onyx stone. Gihon; the river that flows around the whole land of Cush; Tigris, which flows east of Assyria; and Euphra′tes. And the voice of Sister Wilhelmina droned on and on in my brain.

I shuddered. The vines seemed to be moving in time to a tune that only they heard. There was not the slightest breeze.

The overhead branches interwove to make a canopy, and only rarely did a scintilla of moonlight pierce it, to make minuscule shafts of light swarming with motes. I took these as an omen, and trod carefully from one to the next.

I did not really know what I was doing, or where I was going – all that I wanted was to get away from Life, and the portal that had opened was as good an escape route as any.

I walked on and on, stopping only once, to eat my sandwich and drink my ice coffee. I had a feeling that I was being watched, but I refused to panic… I just glanced around me nonchalantly, as if I were a tourist on a bench at the seaside. My acting classes came in handy, for once.

I resumed my trek, and suddenly, the way ahead was blocked by a high, concave, redbrick wall, on which there was a hand-written notice that said “Turn Left” … I decided that I would not, and walked around the edge of wall to make my way around it, to the right. I hoped I would not regret my decision.

At some point, the atmosphere of the place changed. The air was less heavy, and the noises included the chirping of birds. I must have passed the centre of curvature when I came upon a clearing.

And there, in a pool of light, sitting on an armchair, was my beloved.

“I’ve been waiting for you!” he said, as he stood up and hugged me. “I was wondering when you’d decide to come…”

Continue the Story…

Prompt;

My nerves on edge, I slowly approached the table by the window and waited for him to arrive.

……………………………………………………………………………..

Eternal Rest

We had agreed upon this date, time, and place, exactly a year before, just before I left for Paris. It had been the usual ‘no contact’ in between.

Much water had passed under the bridge since then, but I wanted and willed him to come anyway. Our relationship, I know, was not a conventional one… I always insisted that I was not his wife, not his lover, not his mistress… but his soulmate.

But we both had humdrum lives to return to, in between the trysts.

I was fascinated to see how he could compartmentalise his life; work, family, acting career, publicity tours for his brands… and me.

I gradually learned to do the same thing, myself… with me it was life, modelling, cooking for the soup kitchen, and generally being a goody two-shoes pillar of the community.

It helped that I have no family ties except for a sister who lives in Australia… so I was on call whenever he could escape from his other commitments.

Like all ‘other women’ I hated it that I did not have priority. In the beginning of the relationship, he wanted to make up for this by buying me stuff, but I told him that I was not that kind of person. It was either him or nothing. And, to be honest, I did not want the heartbreak of waiting for him to leave the wife, and then being branded as the person who broke up his marriage.

It suited me fine to be my own person. I know that this sounds weird; only persons who have ever been in a similar position will fully understand what I mean.

And then there was the accident. Rumour had it that it was a mise-en-scène, because the steering wheel could not have stuck on a car that had just been serviced.  It had been a perfectly fine day, in a street with no traffic, and nobody could explain how the car was a write-off, as if it had smashed into a boulder in the middle of the street. But of course, some people will do all they can to tarnish the reputation of someone, especially if they are jealous or suspicious of him.

I’d had enough of pacing the room and looking at the wall-clock.

And, just for the record – yes, he did come. And, this time, he stays – because he can.

DRINK TO ME WITH THINE EYES

It was our song-poem… To Celia, by Ben Jonson.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I’ll not look for wine.

He’d recite it as we drank scalding coffee on the steps in front of the Youth Centre. My dream was to open a coffee shop where people would not hesitate to come in, even if they were alone.

He painted the sign for me as a surprise – “To Celia”. I had the name of the shop, even before I had started saving up for it. We were just eighteen years old, and there was no Crowdfunding, back then.

Eventually, I did open my shop. I practiced the Pay it Forward idea, on the off-chance that someone would want coffee, but not have enough money for it…

As I was saying…

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

Oh, how we used to argue about this. He said the word should be sip, because you don’t eat nectar, and said it thusly. I said you can scoop nectar up with a spoon. Each time he said sip, not sup, I put my hands over my ears so that I wouldn’t hear the rest of the poem. Eventually he relented, and began saying sup.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope that there

It could not withered be.

He sent me a single rose, actually. And then he said he was going to Australia to make his fortune, and then he’d come back a rich man, and marry me. It was a fait accompli – he didn’t even ask for my opinion on the matter. He didn’t even ask if I would go with him. I would have settled for much, much, less than the wealthy lifestyle he envisaged. And I was under shock – so I didn’t not ask if he’d like it if I went with him. And I was too embarrassed to ask him, later, because he might think I was foisting myself upon him.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee!

Ah. How we had laughed when we ‘did’ the poem in English Literature for Advanced Level extra credits. The teacher’s face was a picture, when we stood up and recited it; in all his years of teaching, he had never had a student who could. And here we were – two of us.

That, too, is just a memory, now. One of the many, many memories that I have. I wonder whether he recalls them too…

I grew up – in more ways than one – when I opened my coffee shop. The old school crowd congregated there… and brought their friends. My business grew and grew, and soon I could offer franchises.

He was missing, of course, and there always remained a him-shaped hole in my heart. That is partly why I never wanted to get married… apart from the fact that some men were too obviously wooing me because of my wealth, and not because they hoped we could grow old together.

To the others, he was merely one of those who did not turn up, on and off, because he had emigrated, moved house, or… died? Inexplicably, indeed, I only ever received a few letters from him, so I considered myself a dead part of his past. And it hurt. So, I never asked after him. And it hurt even more. Damned pride.

I made work fill my life. I was constantly coming up with new ideas, new promotions and advertising campaigns, and new offers. I created the concept, now copied by many, of combined coffee shop and diner by day, and cocktail bar and restaurant by night.

Our old classmates often commented about how I had lost my joie de vivre, and a good couple of them told me there were scared that I was turning into a hard, driven, businesswoman. I knew what they were getting at. I pretended I didn’t.

I decided to rope in the old clique; minus him (of course) and Andrew, who, alas, drowned when he was doing missionary work in Somalia, and Janet, who was having a very difficult pregnancy, into my nationwide campaign.

Obviously, it involves haiku, which I can churn out by the dozen:

autumn is my life

not quite spring, not quite summer

but never winter //

autumn leaves wafting

without a care in the world

gilded orange rain //

autumn’s bare branches

will be green again come spring

if spared by winter //

These, and dozens more, are appearing in random magazines and newspapers. Presenting four different ones to the Head Waiter will get the client a coffee, a long drink, a slushie, an ice-cream, or a cocktail of choice – depending upon the time of day. The ensuing publicity more than makes up for the freebies… and anyway, money doesn’t matter to me, any more.

When I overhauled the menus, I concocted recipes for “Limited Edition” beverages and drinks, all with an autumnal theme. The colours of most of the ingredients are pale yellow to dark brown… but I threw in some red, for effect, occasionally… chilli flakes in the persimmon slushie; pink peppercorns in the Ginger Caramel ice-cream; frozen cranberries floating at the top of the Campari spritzer; a speckled swirl of blood orange peel curled inside the hot whiskey toddy glass; strawberries skewered on the straw (actually a celery stalk) of the Frangelico-chinotto bevvy… you get the picture.

I never entered cocktail competitions; I didn’t need, or want, bragging rights, exposure, recognition, or fame. I wanted him. That is why I am sending “them” to do the interviews; in other words, actually, I bribe my partners to be my spokespersons.

Once I could afford it, I diversified. I marketed my own brand, To Celia, of Bar Syrup, Lemon Bitters, Nasturtium Anisette, and others. These are ingredients in the Season’s offerings. They are available for purchase, too, on the premises.

For the same label, in the run-up to the Launch, I designed matching bar paraphernalia; carafes, corkscrews, glasses, jugs, mats, openers, shakers, spoons, strainers, and more, again, in Autumnal colours. These were an instant success, though I say so myself, and personalised items are available on order.

Last year I issued shares in the Stock Market, but only because it’s a fun thing; actually, I had been offered a six-figure sum for the whole kit and caboodle, but I declined. I do not need the money.

Today, I am closing another chapter of my life. I’m glad that last week’s Launch went well, and yet… I still yearn for what could have been.

I have only one regret in life. Now, I know that a resisted temptation is a missed opportunity. I was too proud to risk a ‘no’ for an answer. I will read his letters one last time, and then I will chuck them and the photos into the fireplace.

As I sit here, numb, I watch him through the window of the café. I grip my coffee mug so hard my knuckles go white. He is looking at the To Celia sign. The waitress, the daughter of a neighbour, later told me that that I hadn’t even heard her ask me what the matter was.

She comes closer, and follows my gaze. She sees him. She understands, immediately, and, not caring that I am The Boss, she bends down and hugs me.

I’m getting married tomorrow.

It’s too late.

Rien Ne Va Plus…

“I can’t not go. As C.E.O. I have to oversee the plans for the new buildings; conduct interviews to recruit staff, especially the Foreign Chief of Staff for our Conglomerate, especially now that we’re going worldwide… you don’t need to make a song-and-dance about it.”

“Really? Before we got married you said we’d better save up, and make the honeymoon a staycation, and then go on a round-the-world cruise when the house was fully furnished…”

“Yes.”

“But, look at you – gallivanting off at the first opportunity you get. So much for teleworking.”

“You know some things cannot be done online. I have to be there in the flesh, make my presence felt, as it were. I want to show that I’m a hands-on person; that I do not delegate to others what I can easily do myself…”

“Oh, put a sock on it.”

“After all, the Company is paying all my expenses. But they drew a line at paying yours, and you know we can’t afford it for you to come with me, right now – not if we are going to take the cruise next year.”

“Frankly, I’m having second thoughts about the cruise. I’d much rather come with you this time; this is real, the cruise is still a castle in the air, and if I know you, you’ll find another excuse to put it off… sometimes I think you’re ashamed of me.”

“Oh, of course not…”

“Then why am I not coming with you?”

I told you. There are not enough funds to cover your fare and accommodation, and if we pay them ourselves, we’ll be out of pocket, and anyway, I won’t be able to spend time with you because I have to be present 24/7 for this venture. For the last time – I can’t not go. What part of that do you not understand? Now – will you help me pack?”

“Short answer: no.”

“Oh, all right then.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him decant the contents of two after-shave bottles into four sachets of wet tissues, and hide the empty bottles under the winter sweaters. He selected his best shirts, best trousers, and best underwear, and took three new toothbrushes from the bathroom cabinet.

Her inner detective smiled cynically.

The next morning, she feigned being sleep while he had a shower, dressed, and poured himself a mug of black coffee. When she sensed she was ready, she got out of bed, yawned and stretched, and said, “Have a good one…”

“Thank you,” he said, and pecked her perfunctorily on the cheek before he left.

She had a leisurely breakfast, and called Serena to bring her up-to-date with the happenings. “Hmmm… not good,” her friend said. “I bet he’s got a couple of aces up his sleeve. Let’s go swimming, shall we?”

“Sure. I’ll pick you up in about 30 minutes.”

Janice fixed a packed lunch for both of them, and added two large bottles of carbonated water, and a box of ice-cold, cubed, watermelon.
As she walked toward the car, she saw a sheet of paper under the windscreen wiper. “Pesky advertisers, murdering the environment! She muttered under her breath. But she was in for a surprise.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Need help? We’re here for you! Call 35621225191.

Janet looked around her, but of course whoever had left the note had hight-tailed it out of sight.
Amused, she folded the note carefully, and put it in her bag, to show it to Serena, who smiled and said, “Interesting!”.
The women swam and had their lunch, and Janice drove Serena home. When she got home, she found a paper held in place by her door-knocker.
The flight number for Malta to Berlin is KM376 (14:25 – 17:20); The flight number for Malta to Düsseldorf is KM352 (07:00 – 09:50); The flight number for Malta to Munich is KM306 (08:45 – 11:05) and KM308 (15:40 – 18:00). Faites votre jeux, madame, s’il vous plait, ou sortez.

“Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus ! Que les dés sont jetés: le hasard prend le dessus, et il n’est plus possible d’aller à son encontre.” Janet muttered in her schoolgirl French.

She called Serena again, and brought her up-to-date. “This is weird. I’m sleeping over at your place this evening…”
They ate sushi and drank fizzy water and binge-watched Drop Dead Diva. At 5.00a.m. their sleep was interrupted by a peremptory knocking on the door.

It was a Policewoman, who said, “There’s been an accident…”

Coma

“No!”

He thumped his pudgy finger on Enter, again. Then, for good measure, he jiggled the mouse a bit, and hit the key again.

He frowned, and ran his eyes down the monitor. He hemmed and hawed. He picked up the sheaf of papers, stapled at the corner, and riffled through them. He coughed gently, squinted at the monitor again, and then looked at me.

“I’m sorry, young lady. I will check above, ha ha, and get back to you. You may sit down. Please feel free to help yourself to fizzy water and nuts. Next!”

This can’t be happening. This is another of my weird dreams, when I am in the Arizonan desert and the bus is waiting to take me home to Paris. In a moment, I will wake up and all will be fine… in a manner of speaking.

Mum will be there to hold my hands and message my toes…and scratch my nose, since my full body cast precludes it.

###

We’ve lost her.

No, we haven’t. Look, the line is not completely flat. There’s a kind of quiver every so often, look.

But her heartbeat has stopped.

No. There are no bleeps on the screen, but if you listen closely, you can hear faint beeps.

Hey, you’re right.

###

“Psst! Wake up!”

I must have fallen asleep on the overstuffed settee. I burp the taste of the pistachios.

“It’s time for you to go back.”

“Say what?”

“It’s definite. You name in not on any list. We thought it might have been an input error, a spell-check booboo, or a computer malfunction. But it’s none of the above, ha ha.”

I raised an eyebrow, and the woman in the pink tracksuit laughed. “Yes, we use that word a lot here. Above all (ha! ha!) please know that you will remember nothing when you get back, unless something happens to trigger the memories.”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I thought I was seeing double – or maybe a hundredfold. I was the only person sitting down. The multitude in the room – which seemed to have lost its walls since I entered it – was a pullulating mass of people. Each person in street clothes was accompanied by another in a pink tracksuit. I was reminded of those interminable waits at airport terminals.

Indeed, even the muted background noises were similar to those at airports, and people seemed to be disappearing through invisible exits, only for others to take their place. I gaped.

“…was saying, you must go back. No question about it. Someone goofed by thinking he could go above (ha! ha!) and beyond his call of duty…You will rise above (ha! ha!) all this, my young friend.”

###

You cannot. It’s against the rules.

Well, well…

No. I said no.

As you wish.

###

I feel, rather than hear, a soft whoosh and suddenly I am… where?

“Get your nose out of that book and come and help me get dinner ready. They will be here in an hour.”

I could move?

I keep a rubber band around my wrist to tie my long, hazel hair back into a pony-tail. Wait! My hair feels different. My spaghetti strands have somehow transmogrified into a tangled mass of black ring-curls. I shake my head in disbelief, as if to clear my brain – and the ringlets fall into place neatly.

“Coming!” I yell, in a voice that, to my ears, sounds a tad more high-pitched than, well, mine.

I give a quick look around me. Some of the furniture, and its position in the room (is it my imagination, or is it larger than it used to be) and soft toys and mounds of books, are familiar; other things are not.

I run downstairs to do what, I assume, is habitually expected of ‘me’. A woman is standing at the sink, peeling potatoes and cutting up carrots. Standing right next to her is what looks like a holographic image of a woman in a pink tracksuit, her index finger pressed to her lips. In my mind, I hear the word Shh! I get a nagging feeling I’d seen her before. But where?

“Hurry! Shell the peas. Feed the dog. Put the pot on the stove. Take the rolls out of the freezer. Shred the lettuce. Slice up the tomatoes…” I am totally at ease in this unfamiliar kitchen. Yet, I feel like a fraud. But I don’t turn a hair at the staccato instructions – I just git.

It appears that this hectic way of life is par for the course in this household. My fingers fly to do the biding of this woman who may, or may not, be my mother. I look at the kitchen clock. It’s an analogue one. Good; I never liked the impersonal digital clock we had in our kitchen. It says 11.30 a.m. Am I not supposed to be at school? The calendar says February 24.

I glance surreptitiously at the kitchen clock again. I have finished my tasks; and suddenly I realise I do not know whether ‘they’ are…relatives, friends, business associates of this woman, neighbours…

With the excuse that I need to freshen up, but actually to do some quick sleuthing, I sprint to the bathroom. I splash my face with cold water and use my wet hands to smooth my hair back, as I usually do. I glance at the mirror; and I freeze. The reflection in the mirror shows me with my spaghetti-strands hair, wearing a white polo shirt.

Behind my reflection, slightly to the left, is the woman wearing a pink track-suit; she gives me a cheery wave and fades away.

I put out my tongue, grimace, wink, and bite my upper lip. My reflection follows suit, simultaneously. I feel as if I’m in one of those Beadle’s About skits.

I poke the image, and from where I touch it, the mirror undulates in concentric circles. I place my palm flat on the mirror, which feels warm to the touch – and so does my reflection.

“Are you even ready yet?” yells the woman in the kitchen.

“Coming!” I shout back, running to the bedroom to riffle through the clothes in the wardrobe. Some of the clothes are ‘mine’ – others are in colours and styles I would never wear. I snatch my favourite black embroidered jeans and Discworld Esme Weatherwax t-shirt. Is it my imagination, or at the jeans a mite wider at the waistband, than they used to be?

Moreover, why does the mirror in the bedroom reflect the now-me, hair and all?

…..

Can’t you read? It says nil-by-mouth.

Oh, come on, surely a taste of her favourite lollipop will not do any harm?

What do you know?

Think of it as moistening her lips with flavoured water…

Really?

Besides, it might jog her memory. I read somewhere that familiar sounds and tastes and smells might do that…

……

The smell of food fills my nostrils and makes my mouth water, as if I have not eaten for weeks. My stomach rumbles.

“Ah! I see you’re back in your tomboy clothes,” says the woman.

I pick up the Television Times and run my finger down the table of contents. I pick a pencil from the clay jar that says Parsley. The one that says Celery holds ballpoint pens.

I settle down in front of the Sudoku, muttering numbers; 7,9,3,2, 5 so 1, 4, 6, 7, or 8, no, not 1 and 8…

The woman smiles, so I assume I must do this often. Numbers, apparently, do not scare me any more now.

The doorbell rings. “I’ll get it!” I stand up and push my chair back, eager to see who “they” are, and arrive at my own conclusions. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the hall – it is the now-me. I must have forgotten about my visit to the hairdresser.

About ten people (and three dogs) rush in and make a fuss of me, asking me whether I still had amnesia, telling me how I’d lost my puppy-fat, how my hair suits me like this, how they were pleased I could walk again, and so forth. They ask when I would be going back to school.

I honestly didn’t know the answer to this one… and I say so, only to be met with raucous laughter, as if I had made a hilarious joke. Then, the preliminaries over, they push by me en messe and go toward the kitchen.

Nobody mentions a ‘father’ so I assume that in this existence, he is out of the picture.

……

She stirred. I saw it.

That was just a muscular spasm.

No, I’m sure she moved a little.

If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times – don’t get your hopes up.

……

I play it by ear.

I assume that these people love me; that I am fairly intelligent, here, too; that I am something of a geek and a nerd. I learn a lot more by eavesdropping on conversations between different people.

The holographic Pink Lady appears on and off at the periphery of my line of vision. Each time, she waves at me, and disappears. The rest of the evening is uneventful. I learn that the doctor is coming to see me on the morrow.

A multitude of thoughts roils in my brain. I cannot get my head around the now-me and the then-me. I cannot understand how I ate globe artichoke hearts without burping them, and how I actually drank cherryade and licked my lips, without saying that it tastes like cough medicine.

Some things never change, though. I am expected to help with the dishes.

Then I go back to the (I cannot get my head around to calling it “mine”) laptop, and attempt to log on to my Snapshot page. Wrong Password. Speakeasy. Error. Mirroryou… Nothing.

I try my e-mail accounts. Ditto.

Perhaps I can try calling a couple of friends…. The number you have dialled does not exist…

I run to the bathroom mirror. The then-me is still there, dressed in Adora Belle Dearheart pyjamas. But this time she is washing her teeth – and I’m not. I run back to the room and riffle through the drawer for my own Adora Belle Dearheart pjs. They are not there.

I am getting jittery. I open my school bag and upturn it, tipping the contents onto the bed. Apart from books and files, sundry detritus falls out…

…friendship bracelets, sweet wrappers, pencils with broken points, wizened bits of tangerine peel, three plastic bags with crusts from lunches, two of them mouldy, bus tickets, a slimy apple core…

How could the now-me ever have dreamt of using the school bag as a mobile rubbish bin, when the then-me was so methodical?

I pile the books on top of one another, and riffle through the homeworks. Oh, no! My now-me average marks are now a mere 8.75. Moreover, some of the text books are not exactly the same as those of then-me.

A knock on the door startles me. “Hey! I got you some tangerine and lemon juice… Ah, you’re cleaning out your school-bag. Good. It shows you’re getting back to normal. I hope the doctor gives you the all-clear tomorrow…”

“Oh, so do I!” But the irony is lost on the woman, of course. “Well, it’s been a long day for the both of us. I’m off to bed. Don’t stay up too long…”

……

Did you hear that?

What? Not again! You’re obsessing, I tell you.

No, I’m not. She did say something.

No. That was an involuntary sound from her trachea.

You’re such a wet blanket.

It’s the truth.

……

By morning, I had found out several things about “me”; my name, my school, my class, my address, the names of some classmates and teachers…

There is a diary – but it is locked and obviously, I don’t know where the key is hidden. I do not want to force the lock, since this would cause hard feelings with other-me, should she return, because she would think the-woman-downstairs did it.

The doctor calls. He’s a leaner, taller, younger, handsomer version of the then-me doctor.

He takes my pulse, and grins. “Good to go, young lady!” he says, raises an eyebrow, and continues, “…is there anything you would like to ask me?”

I shudder, and shake my head furiously. As I do, out of the corner of my eye I see Pink Lady crossing the corridor, waving at me and winking. I try and hop off the sofa to go after her – but she vanishes right in front of my eyes.

“…or I’ll renew your certificate and you go next week… give me a call this evening, and tell me what you’d have decided.”

……

Look, her eyes have moved.

Don’t be silly. How can you tell? Her eyes are closed.

Her eyeballs moved, I tell you. That is a common occurrence in coma.

Are you sure?

Positive.

So she’s not dreaming.

She might be.

There you are.

……

I honestly do not know whether I am supposed to wear a uniform to school, like then-me used to. The wardrobe does not seem to hold anything vaguely resembling a uniform, but these days, one can never tell.

I try and take the easy way out. I tell the-woman-downstairs what the doctor has said, and then add, as an afterthought, in a hoity-toity voice that makes her look askance at me “…Oh, I wonder… what shall I wear?” and she says “Silly girl! Go as Falconetta. After all, when you were a toddler, you always wanted to be her when you grew up. Now’s your chance…”

I am flummoxed. This is the first time reference to my now-me’s childhood. I have no idea who Falconetta is.

My obsession with privacy obtains in this existence, too. The computer homepage screen has no shortcuts, and the password for each site has to be keyed in.

I get a brainwave, and look for the school’s website. Under Maintenance. I guess I can bluff my way along, catching the school bus and saying that I am “just re-orienting myself”, to explain the lack of uniform, should there be one.

The next day dawns wet and windy.

I go downstairs wearing a tracksuit, gym shoes, and a hoodie.

The-woman-downstairs gawps at me. “Are you serious? You know she hates that kind of clothing. Go upstairs and change. Now.” I assume ‘she’ is the Head of School.

I change into a sweatshirt and black pants.

The ride to school is uneventful, save for several sniggers and unintelligible comments from the girls on the bus, none of whom speak to me.

I am taken aback. I had assumed I was at least as popular here, as then-me had been in her – my own – world, with this peer group. Only a few of the faces are familiar. Weird.

I am met by one of the teachers, who tells me that ‘because of my amnesia’ she will be showing me the location of the classes where I have lessons. I am thankful for this – more than she could ever know.

I want to get to the bottom of this…I hesitate to call it ‘adventure’. At this point, it seems I am destined to remain here, while the then-me continues with my life.

I keep catching some of my classmates giving me funny looks. The hoary old pun is really true: it’s like déjà vu all over again. I look at them, deadpan – because I really do not know the reason for their glares – and I can tell that this confuses them. They must have wanted to goad me into reacting about something that had happened with the now-me at another time.

How I wish I could guess my now-me Mirroryou, Snapshot and Speakeasy passwords, and gauge the situation, through my posts there.

Why does everyone keep referring to “before”? Before what?

I see them standing there, by the lockers, looking at me as if I had suddenly sprouted antennae or wings. I cannot take a detour – the longer route through the indoor basketball court would make me late for art class. Somehow I know that Mr Johnson has already warned me that if I’m late again, he will not let me in class, because my presence disrupts the others. Why?

Behind them, I can see the fuzziness that usually presages the Pink Lady hologram. She appears, waves, and disappears.

I duck my head and hug my portfolio as close to my chest as possible, hoping that avoiding eye contact with the ringleader of the clique will allow me to pass by them without being harassed.

Shilona – what a stupid name – holds out a scrawny ankle, hoping to trip me, but I skip lithely over it, avoiding the fall. She is unprepared for this, and loses her balance, grabbing Paula by the shoulder. Paula, too, is caught off guard, and slams her face into the locker. “I’ll get you for that, you nasty little… Malteser, you!” I am sure she was going to call me something else… but just then, the History teacher passes by – she must have seen him approach, and changed the insult so as not to get into trouble. The Pink Lady materialises again, for a couple of seconds. She points at Shilona and Paula, and gives me the OK sign, quickly followed by a thumbs-up. A deuce. Why would Pink Lady have seemed to imply that this encounter was something important, of which to take note?

I will have to think about that later – as it is, I push open the classroom door just as Mr Johnson is about to sit down. He glowers at me, taps his watch pointedly, and tells us to turn to page 53… The Multicultural Perspective to Studying Artefacts; The Polyhedron. B-o-o-o-r-i-n-g.

…….

Do you think…?

Look, if we’ve had this conversation once, we’ve had it a million times.

All right then.

Aren’t you going to argue?

No.

……

Just before the school bus turns the corner to the street where now-me lives, Pink Woman crosses the road right in front of it, with millimetres to spare.

The driver slams on the brakes and yells obscenities. His face turns white…rather as if he’s seen a ghost.

The driver of the then-me bus would have laughed, and got on with the trip.

I arrive home, exhausted.

“Hey, Falconetta!” the woman greets me.

“Better than Malteser, anyway!”

“Eh?”

“Oh, you know… someone called me that at school, today.” It occurs to me that I should add “today” to see whether this brings about a reaction.

“I bet they wish they had a set of Maltese grandparents, themselves…”

Bingo! My password must be Malteser. Or maybe, Falconetta. Or variations thereof. Maltese-Falconetta, for all sites, as it turns out…

However, there is nothing that even hints at the personal life and thoughts of the person who used to be now-me.

……

She said something. I heard her. And this time it was not a nondescript mumble. Her tone fluctuated. I just didn’t catch what she said, that’s all.

Oh no. Not again.

She did. I swear. Promise.

You must have fallen asleep on the armchair, and it was a part of your dream. Look, she’s insentient, all right?

Stop using ugly words. I am sure she can hear us.

It’s useless. You will not listen to reason.

…

I sleep fitfully and I dream that I am wearing a paint-stained smock. I am alone in the then-me school studio, which is not quite exactly like the now-me one.

No other students have, as yet turned up for the lesson, and Mr Johnson is not here, either.

I am painting, but the paint on the brushes does not leave a mark on the canvas.

I am worried, because I know that the deadline for the submission of my painting is the next day.

I hear a loud noise and the door crashes open.

Then-me rushes into the studio, yelling “Come! There’s been an accident!”

She looks at me, and she screams.

I wake up, panting, sweating, and trembling. I run to the bathroom and look into the mirror.

Then-me is there, sleeping peacefully under her – my – Discworld quilt.

I make to rap my knuckles on the glass, hoping to jar her awake, but the mirror retracts from my touch.

I run back to the room that belongs to now-me, and cry myself to sleep.

………

Look!

What, now?

When I tickled the palms of her hands, she moves her pinkies.

How many times am I going to tell you that these movements are reflex ones?

How many times are you going to dash my hopes?

……

The-woman-downstairs may, or may not, be my mother. She appears to be moving on automatic pilot, treating me as one would treat a young house-guest, rather than a daughter.

Therefore, I do not call her mum, just in case she is not.

I long for the easy camaraderie I used to have with my then-me mother. I feel uncomfortable, not knowing where I am, literally or figuratively. I wish I had the guts to break open the lock of the diary. I wish I had not deleted the off-list messages of my Mirroryou, Speakeasy and Snapshot pages. I wish now-me had made more friends than I appear to have done. I wish…I wish…

……

I know!

What, now?

I will read her some of her own haiku. That ought to make a difference.

You think?

I think. We will never know unless I try. Tomorrow I will bring the file.

……

It’s World History Time (upper case not mine, for sure).

Mr Phillips saunters into class, thinking he is Ptolemy and Akhenaton rolled into one.

“We will be having an exchange in the summer holidays. If you are interested, pick up an application from the Secretariat.”

Inevitably, my classmates ask for details. “…we will be going to Malta, a tiny
Island Republic in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the place where there are the oldest free-standing monuments in the world…” Some of the girls titter and their heads swivel as one, to look at me.

Mr Phillips does not even notice. He turns to the chalkboard and writes a random list of numbers that turn out to be dates – 1090, 1194, 1266,1283, 1350, 1397, 1485.
He drones on and on about Normans and Carthaginians and Romans and Arabs and Knights of Saint John and… But I have zoned out. The mere mention of Malta has set my brain on hyper-drive. I feel it in my bones that somewhere along the space-time continuum, this trip was meant to be, so later, I drop by the office and take a form from the tray on the desk.
I take it to the house of now-me and show it to the woman. She is enthusiastic – excessively so, rather as if she wants me out of the way for a while, and is glad of the opportunity to make it happen.

……

She moved.

Yes, she did. Isn’t it that what you want me to say?

Oh.

……

Life goes on, as it must. I run checks on families with my grandparents’ surname; but alas, it’s fairly common, so I probably won’t be able to contact them all, even though phone rates are relatively inexpensive in Malta.

I pore over maps and weather charts. No snow, ever. No mountains, or rivers, at all. A language that’s half-Semitic and half-Romance. Deep in the recesses of my mind, I know all this, already. How?

…..

rain again, today;

veil of water hides the sun…

let’s go out and dance!//

rainbows straddling skies

emerging after tempests

colouring my life//

rain pelts down in pails;

thunderstorm makes a racket;

my fav’rite weather!//

rainbow reflections

inverted in a dewdrop

regeneration//

rain quenches parched earth;

but monsoons flood and destroy…

both quirks of nature//

rainbow’s seven hues

follow rain, sleet, hail and snow;

when the sun shines through.

……

My bags are packed. My visa and passport are in order. We meet at the entrance of the school, and we say our goodbyes to the parents (or whoever the responsible adults may be) there, so that there will be no tearful scenes at the airport.

This, after all, is a holiday, and not a deportment.

…..

A bit low, bit low, bit low…

Actually, these conditions don’t look very good at all, do they?

Ah, reverser’s deployed. Good. No. It’s stuck again.

All hydraulics failed.

Can’t keep this thing straight up and down.

Cliffs!

Down, push it down, I said.

Equipment. We need equipment.

Flame out on engine number two.

Freak ball lightning.

Goodnight. Goodbye.

Have you still got the runway OK? Ah … just barely … we’ll pick up the ILS here.

Hit the water…hit the water…hit the water.

I have no radar contact with you.

I have nothing in front of me.

It’s a crash landing. We’re goin’ in. We’re going down.

Lost number two and three.

Push it way up.

Smoke in the cockpit… smoke in the cabin.

Tangoair Three-Eleven 173, Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

Tangoair three-eleven you have flames, you have flames behind you.

The engines are flaming out – we’re going down!

Three Eleven Tangoair got the strobe lights in sight.

Turbulence. No problem, no problem.

Unable to make out your last message, will you please repeat.

Visibilty zero.

We are declaring emergency now, Tangoair three-eleven.

We are ditching.

We are doing an emergency descent!

We have a smoke problem.

We’re going to crash… This can’t be happening!

Why is the ignition light on?

You gave us wrong indications.

I brace myself for the inevitable impact.

……

“No!”

He thumped his pudgy finger on Enter, again. Then, for good measure, he jiggled the mouse a bit and hit the key again.

He frowned, and ran his eyes down the monitor. He hemmed and hawed. He picked up the sheaf of papers, stapled at the corner, and riffled through them. He coughed gently, squinted at the monitor again, and then looked at me.

“I’m sorry, young lady. I will check above and get back to you. You may sit down. Please feel free to help yourself to fizzy water and nuts. Next!”

This can’t be happening. This is another of my weird dreams, when I am at the North Pole and the bus is waiting to take me to my Nan’s home in Żabbar. In a moment, I will wake up and all will be fine… in a manner of speaking.

Mum will be there to hold my hands and message my toes…and scratch my nose, since my full body cast precludes it.

……

We’ve lost her.

No, we haven’t. Look, the line is not completely flat. There’s a kind of quiver every so often, look.

But her heartbeat has stopped.

No. There are no bleeps on the screen, but if you listen closely, you can hear faint beeps.

Hey, you’re right.

Look, she’s opening her eyes.

……

“Mum!”

Seder

I sit here and watch, and listen. I know that angels are supposed to be immortal… but now, I have decided to resign, because I have found my perfect replacement.
I will spend the rest of my days – eternity, actually – swimming and reading and writing and painting.
Before I exit stage left, I want to tell you what really happened, though.
“Stop! You’re going to spoil it!”
“No, I won’t; it’s just that this spot here, it irritates me; someone must have spilled water or something.”
“Scratching at the photo won’t get the stain off. You need to take it to the photo-lab down the street. They’ll do a new one for you. There’s an advert in the paper; let me fetch it for you. They even re-work photos to remove people… or headgear! All you have to do is take a photo of the same person so they can match colour and length…”
“Blah blah blah. Nothing I couldn’t do myself with the Photoshop application on my own p.c. But this is the photo I want – the original one.”
“Oh, all right then. Why don’t you try wetting the tip of a cotton bud in water and being more entle, then?”
Nahal half-heartedly continued setting the items on the Seder plate. She was not looking forward to the ceremony-meal, because she knew that her new sisters-in-law would be taking mental notes to rip her apart later, after they left her house.
Chazeret: check. Karpas: check: to show off, she had made a salad of carrots, celery, parsley, and potato. Beitzah: check (the smell of the hard-boiled egg made her gag). Zero’ah: check. Charoset: check (and of course she scooped up some with her finger and licked it clean). In the centre hollow: marror and dates. How she wished Irit and Mirele would break a tooth on the seed, and require expensive dentistry.
She also had not-so-fleeting thoughts about how she could accidentally-on-purpose spill wine on their clothes while pouring for them, but quickly dismissed it as they might panic and make a mess of her new carpet. And she knew that it wasn’t true that white wine would clean off the red wine.
She toyed with the idea of mentioning expensive wigs that looked much better than some people’s natural hair, as worn by those who were “not really” Orthodox… but she decided to wait and see whether Irit and Mirele would have bought new ones for the occasion.
So much for the pure heart required of her. So much for the Ain ma’avrin al hamitzvot (never pass over a good deed) tenet. She threw up a little in her mouth. Plate of extra matzoth: check.
And then, Nahal giggled. Irit had not yet realised that she emphasised the “r” in her name to make it similar to the first two syllables of “irritating”. They thought they were so clever, didn’t they? But they didn’t realise this.
Bottles of wine: check. Grape juice for the children (and Nahal): check.
From the corner of her eye, she could see Tovia alternately blowing at the photograph, and muttering. She saw her put the photo down and go to the dresser drawer where they kept the photographs they needed to sort out… one day.
Tovia got out a huge manila envelope and upended the contents next to her on the couch. She fanned out the snapshots, and selected a few.
Bowl of salt water: check. Would anyone notice that she had the used Mediterranean Sea salt sent to her by her friend from Malta, and not kosher salt?
Matzoth: check. She placed the folded the starched, white, linen cloth on the Seder plate, and laid a matzah on it. Then, she carefully folded the cloth over the matzah, and folded the cloth again, in the opposite direction. She laid the other matzah on the cloth, and folded the cloth again, so that from the side it looked like a white zigzag.
Her husband had insisted she get the more expensive round, handmade super-duper-rabbinically-supervised shmurah matzah; matzah versus bread…humility versus pride, indeed.
It was obvious that he wanted to show off, because no one really liked matzoth anyway… most people just nibbled at it and crumbled it into oblivion. As for eating the Afikomen for dessert as a reminder of the Passover offering… she could never see the point of that since she was a child, but whenever she questioned it, she was warned not to be irreverent because she would become a bad woman when she grew up.
Her maternal grandmother had been obsessed with the question of pride, although, ironically she was proud to be Jewish, and even prouder, if that could be, of her cooking. She covered this up with false modesty, but could not resist snide remarks about other people’s chopped liver and cholent and p’tcha if the occasion called for it – and she made sure that it usually did.
Bubbe Leah was always reminding Nahal and Tovia of the two slips of paper they should keep in their purse: one that said I am dust and ashes, and the other For my sake the whole world was created. Then, as the cherry on the cake, she always recited the story about the slaves who rode behind Roman triumphators, whispering into their ears that they should remember they were not gods, but mere mortals.
Frankly, Nahal didn’t like the reclining-on-a-pillow-cushion thing, either, because it gave her a crick in her back. The strong wine made her belch. She had suggested they switch to white wine, but her in-laws shot her down, saying that red wine alludes to the blood spilled by Pharaoh, the blood as part of the Ten Plagues, and the blood the Jews put on their doorposts. There was no gainsaying them, so she settled for wine diluted with enough grape-juice to make the taste of alcohol only just noticeable.
In her heart of hearts, Nahal sometimes wished she wasn’t Jewish, but she was not prepared to do anything about it. In any case, she thought that her Catholic and Muslim friends had weird religions, and she knew she would not feel good with a religion that was not monotheistic. Her parents would have kicked her out of the house if she reneged on the Faith and switched; and now that she was married, it was way too late to have second thoughts. Or was it?
It was already something that she got to do the Seder table herself; her husband came from a culture where this was not permitted, but she had finally persuaded him it was more practical. She just knew her snotty mother-in-law would actually ask who laid the table, just so she could find something to disparage… even if it was the hand-blown Mdina Glass bowl for the salt water, a new addition for this year’s Seder.
Tovia gasped, and shot up from the couch, yelling “Look!” effectively bringing Nahal’s train of thought to an emergency stop.
“Now what?”
“This is incredible…”
“Look, will you stop the blather and just tell me what’s with you?”
“I was looking for another photo of Bubbe Leah because I spoiled this one,” she said, pointing to the ruined photograph, “…and look, all these photos seem to have the same blemish, slightly to the right, above her head.”
Nahal wiped her hands on her apron, snatched the photos from Tovia’s hands, and spread them out on the kitchen countertop.
Bubbe Leah as a chubby child; Bubbe Leah growing up and becoming noticeably thinner and taller and the years went by; Bubbe Leah in her wedding finery; Bubbe Leah holding Nahal and Tovia when they were babies…
Bubbe Leah at Nahal’s wedding… in each photograph, there was that unmistakable slight discoloration – blotch – call it what you will – that had led Tovia to try and remove it in the first photograph.
Just to make sure that they were not imagining things, Tovia went to the couch and picked out a few random photographs. Bubbe Leah was in none of them – and there were no blemishes or marks, in any of them.
Nahal shuddered. She wrested the cork from one of the bottles of wine and drank a few gulps straight from the bottle. Tovia blanched, because she knew the adverse effect it would have on her twin. Ironically, she realised that Nahal had leant to the left and back, although she usually inconspicuously defied the instruction during the Seders proper, ever since they were kids.
“Nahal. Tovia. Chag Sameach!” The voice was unmistakably that of Bubbe Leah. But… she had been dead for the last five years. The twins looked around them, eyes wide with fear.
“There is no need to be afraid. Listen to me. I am here, with you. It is permitted to me to speak to you because, albeit inadvertently, you have discovered the Angel Sephora, my Guardian Angel. She has decided to retire, and pass the baton on to me, so that I can look after you both. Your angels have been re-assigned to new babies who will be born tomorrow.
She would not allow me to come and visit you until you had discovered her presence in the photographs. I had to find a way to put the idea of looking at my photographs in your head, but I had to find a roundabout way of doing it. That is why I waited until you were preparing the Seder plate, and Tovia would want to find something to do to keep out of your hair.”
“Bubba, Bubba Leah, is that really you?”
“Of course it is! Whom do you think it was, Zipporah, the wife of Moses, or who?”
This was the type of fey humour that the twins remembered so well. But still, it was not enough. They wanted proof. Real proof. After all, it could be a demon who was speaking to them pretending to be Bubba, waiting to lead them to eternal perdition.
The voice came from nowhere, and everywhere. The heard it in their minds – or, more properly, in their hearts.
“Oh come on, girlies!” Yes, she had always called them that when she was alive, because she used to say it was not fair that one twin would be called before the other. “You do remember what I had told you about food that might have become tainted with honey, water, wine, blood, dew, milk, or olive oil, don’t you? You know what it means, spiritual uncleanliness, don’t you?”
“Yes, Bubba”, said Tovia. “Sure, Bubba” said Nahal.
“I have noticed that since you are grown up, you are not the sweet, innocent Jewish girlies you used to be. You have allowed your psyches to become contaminated with mundane things – money, unsuitable friendships, vanity, conceit, pride, anger, spite, sloth, arrogance, jealousy, possessiveness, avarice… all the traits that make me ashamed to be your Bubba. You Tovia, not so much, perhaps because you are not yet married, and so you do not feel the need to compete with a husband’s family.
However, you, Nahal, you have become almost insufferable. I know what you were thinking, about date stones and spilled wine and wigs…You’ve managed to absorb and make thrive in you what your Catholic friends all the Seven Cardinal Sins, with bells on, you lady…”
Nahal’s knees gave way, and she would have collapsed onto the kitchen floor had not Tovia quickly pulled out a chair and seated her on it.
“You remember when you were kids, and you were in cahoots to try and steal the Afikomen, before you knew it was a ruse to keep you from nodding off? One of you would pretend to throw a tantrum or choke on the matzah…and we always let you get away it with…”
“But what has that got to do with your presence here today, Bubba Leah?” asked Tovia.
“I hereby am about to fulfil the mitzvah of caring for your immortal souls, so that the blessings of the Motzi Matzah-Marror will remain with you until you die, really and truly, emotionally and spiritually, and not just halachically.”
Nahal was hyperventilating, and Tovia was getting worried. “Get her a drink of water, quickly…” Bubba’s voice ordered.
“Just as chametz and matza are different, so you can be a Jew, or a good Jew. Chametz is full of itself, inflated with self-importance, as it were. Matzah is humble. Write down the words, and you will see what I mean.”
Tovia ran to get a pencil and paper.
“See? The chet in chametz is closed at the top. The hei in matza has a small opening at the top. The Rabbis tell us to take the letters as an example that sin that has entered the first letter cannot escape; but the second one has a small opening that makes this possible.”
Nahal was listening intently, silent tears pouring down her face. Tovia leaned over her and hugged her.
“I see, girlies, that you have learned the lesson I was sent here to give you. Please share your goodness with others… Remember that your Guardian Angel is your Bubba.”
A fragrant warmth surrounded the twins, just for a moment, Aqua Manda, bubba’s trademark scent. And when Tovia gathered the photographs off the countertop, they noticed that they no longer had marks…
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it! Quick, splash some water on your face…” Tovia said, all flustered.
Ushering the guests into the kitchen, Tovia told them that Nahal was feeling a tad peaky. “Yes, my dear sisters-in-law, I was hoping you’d turn up early to help me with the preparations before the men arrive. My, but you are both looking fantastic, Irit and Mirele!”
The two women looked at one another, shrugged, and smiled at the twins. They heaved an inward sigh of relief, and rolled up their sleeves.
Tovia doesn’t know it yet, but she’s pregnant with a girl they will call Sephora.

HOUSE HUNTING

“This is the year I will get out of here.”

You call it the Psychiatric Hospital. I call it the Funny Farm – funny as in weird, not funny as in hilarious.

The day I checked myself voluntarily for hospitalisation into a psychiatric ward, I didn’t quite know what I had let myself in for. But my state of mind – or rather the voice reverberating in my brain – told me it would be the best thing to do.

I was the only remaining sibling from a family of seven. Our parents were dead, too, and I was all alone… no one on either side of the family had wanted anything to do with us, and I had no friends to speak of. My job as a maid did not leave me much time for socialising… and employers are never friends… not even the ones who pour out their woes to you as you cook or iron mountains of laundry for them.

Although I was not a minor, I was still young enough to qualify for admittance into the Young People’s Unit, they told me. They asked whether I understood what I was doing, and why I had not tried to get a referral from a doctor. How eccentric. Somehow, my replies made sense to them, and I was asked to sign on the dotted line.

I didn’t know what to expect, so I expected nothing. Nothing would be better than the less than nothing I had going on in my life, anyway.

They asked me a gazillion confusing questions, ticking off the replies in a list. Did I ever want to ‘end it all’? Did I iron my pillowcases? Did I hate washing my hair? Did I hear voices in my head? Did I assume people were talking about me? Did sugar taste sour or bitter or salty or sweet to me? Did I think photographs steal the soul? Was I colour-blind? Did I like swimming in winter? Did I have feelings of angst? Could I say the alphabet backward? Had I ever spoken to a psychiatrist / psychologist / therapist? Did I frequently lose things? Did I think demons manifest themselves in animals? This barrage of words left me breathless.

I was told I had both, quote, “dementia praecox, and maniac depression, which these days are called schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder” unquote… a rare case, since it’s usually either one or the other.

I was lucky to have admitted myself at a time when medication, and weird stuff like lobotomies, were not the only effective treatment considered, for mental ill-health. There was a lot of mumbo-jumbo about balancing corticotrophin hormone, progesterone, oestrogen, cortisol, and thyroid hormones…but at the time I didn’t understand anything about this at all.

They said I would need around-the-clock monitoring, so I had to wait until they found me a cubicle in a division where this was possible. Later, the man in the white coat said that when I change the way I see the world, myself, my situation, my relationships, and my life, would change. He didn’t use the words Cognitive Behavioural Therapy because he thought I couldn’t handle them. Little did he know.

In my mind, I am staying at Hotel California – the song, not the location. But it’s time to leave after check-out, now. I have killed the owners of the voices that hijacked my mind, so I am free. The aides love me, so I must be doing something right. The song was actually about addiction, I know… but I am clean.

When I came here, it was the right place at the right time, but now, I want to – I have to – leave. My brain no longer malfunctions. I have perfect mental health. No more issues. No more night terrors.

I read voraciously, and that is how I know I can earn my way out. It’s a good sign that these days I am allowed stuff that was taken away from me when they placed me on suicide watch – scissors, Swiss knife, belts, nail clippers, shoestrings, belts, hoodies, razors… I have gained their trust. I am an exemplary worker. I encourage the others, even though the work they give us (assembling tiny toys) is repetitive and boring. I am frugal, so I have quite the nest-egg – and that, apparently, has impressed them, too.

Some of the patients are apt to turn violent… I keep away from them, because I do not want to trigger them and hamper my case for being discharged.

This place is ugly. I told them I could paint murals that would make it more aesthetically pleasing, and they gave me free rein in the television suite. I knew that the Four Horses of the Apocalypse, which is what I really wanted to paint (one on each wall) would raise some eyebrows, so I painted a continuous herd of horses galloping around the room, manes and tails flying, free as the wind. I bet you didn’t know that many horses together are also called a stable, a team, a harass, or a stud, depending upon the situation.

I hated the television room when I first came here – I still do. All the audio-visual stimulation and sensory overload are bad for the mind, heart, and soul. So is the stench of stale sweat. Not everyone is as fastidious as I am about personal cleanliness.

I hate smells – in fact, my sheets (I am told) are the only ones not washed with bleach.

Books are my best friend – or have I already said that? Also – I write. I write only when I am lucid. I write what I want them to read; pretty stories about friends and talking animals and people who live on faraway planets. They encourage me, telling me it is therapy. I know it is one of the keys to my freedom, especially since I know they read what I write, when I am asleep (I place hair markers in the pages, and they are never where I leave them).

Family Therapy is out of the question, since – have I said this already? – I have no family, or as good as that. As bad as that, I mean. The irony is that although I checked myself in, I cannot just up and leave – I have to be discharged.

They tried Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy, as part of the psychosocial treatment that has coming to the fore of late. It is supposed to be an adjunctive therapy for people like me, with mood disorders, partly to improve medication adherence. Ha! Whenever I can, I secret my pills under my tongue, and spit them out when I go to the toilet. They trust me too much to suspect me of doing this – I am their model client, they tell me, and, they add, that is why I should find not problem with being released.

I appreciate the fact that IPSRT teaches me skills that help me cope, and how to protect myself from the occurrence of future episodes, though.

There was a time when even waking up five minutes after my usual 3.00a.m. time used to have me in a tizzy. But now I know that it is what it is; worry will not change anything.

I know that insomnia can be a trigger for a manic episode – so I always find something to do, even if it’s going down to the kitchen to peel spuds for dinner, now that I can move about the place. Like this, I function better. I like it here. No rent to pay; good food; nice company; no cares. But all good things must come to an end. I would have loved to remain here until I die.

I never had visitors, not until the day a Drama Group came to do “research”, like Jack Nicholson did for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Robin Williams did for Awakenings.

There is a true cute story about the latter. Robin Williams had put on a doctor’s coat for Patch Adams, but before that, he was Doctor Malcolm Sayer. The character was based on the neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose distress about a group of catatonic patients leads him to revive Leonard Lowe – played by Robert de Niro – in a medical trial.

During one of his visits to a psychiatric ward, one of the patients somehow recognised him and yelled “Mork!” with reference to his role in the silly late 70s / early 80s sitcom Mork and Mindy. This affected Williams profoundly, perhaps because, as we now know, he had mental ill-health issues himself.

I know that one of the rules is having personal boundaries, but it’s not my fault that mine was one of the Case Studies presented to the troupe of actors. I know that they say familiarity breeds contempt; but in my (our!) case, it was exactly the opposite. Therefore, this is the year I will get out of here. Or have I already said that?

Now that I am no longer monitored 24/7, I have spare time and personal space. They allow me to help in the kitchen – or have I already said that? – and I write about that, too. I invent recipes… it’s a tad surreal, when on the morrow I tell the Cooks about them, and they act as if it’s all new to them. But I know they know what I would have written; their knowing smile gives them away.

I could, and did, petition my case for review with the Administration, since I voluntarily admitted myself; but they told me there was a period of grace which had nothing to do with for how long my symptoms had disappeared. Nice. But I had the opportunity to hone my act, and show how far my coping skills have brought me. I ken they were watching me, for signs of a relapse.

Everyone must be made aware that it’s not an Easy Come, Easy Go, to borrow a phrase, situation. I was comfortable enough here, to not want to leave… safe, fed, and cared for. But there is more to life than basic needs… and I am getting older, so the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory came into play.

I have impressed them – or have I said this already? – because fellow clients come to me with their problems… some of them labour under the idea that I am a member of the Staff, not one of their peers.

Playing it by ear, I have learned how to de-escalate uncomfortable situations; crazy people are ready to take offence at ill-conceived statements. My approach has been praised by the Administration; I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and it worked.

I never bicker about religion, football, politics, or current events. I say I don’t watch television, which is true. I don’t say I read the papers, because I like to be au courant of things in preparation for when I get out of here. Nobody has cottoned on yet to my method of discouraging conversation. I simply qualify the vowels (Ah! Eh? Yiyi! Oh? Um?), and the person I do not want to engage with, thinks I have nothing worthwhile to say. I know how to do poker-face and deadpan and play dumb just as much as I can hold an interesting conversation about flowers and herbs, insects and sea-life… or reel off the relative merits and downsides of amisulpride, aripiprazole, clozapine, olanzapine, paliperidone, quetiapine, risperidone, etc – because I read voraciously – or did I already say that?

They asked me what I wanted for my birthday, which is as close enough to Christmas as does not matter. I said that since I wanted for nothing, I wanted nothing – and they laughed heartily. Only, I wasn’t making a pun-joke… it was the truth. So, they got me a sheaf of paper and a score of pencils, since I go through them like the proverbial knife through hot butter.

As it happened, my Release Documents came through on Saint Stephen’s Day, when we were having the Christmas Party. The Drama Troupe was there, too.

I cried. They thought it was because I was equally sad and happy to be leaving… but actually, it was just relief – I was elated at having fooled them.

“This is the year I will get out of here.” That had been my promise to myself. And I’d made it come true.

My beloved soulmate from the Drama Troupe winked at me. He will be waiting for me round the corner, as agreed, when I leave here at 6.00p.m. sharp.

Wise Guise

Only money given to a deity (albeit via third parties) is ever clean. That’s what I assumed – until life got in the way.

I realised that if I wanted to get really rich – rich beyond dreams of avarice, I would have to invent a religion one that would be The One True Religion for my followers.

People are disillusioned with paternalistic, male-god religions, yet at the same time desperate to hold on to the traditional monotheistic waffle; but the I saw God and She Was Black mantra is so hackneyed…

Earth Mother let her Tears of Loneliness drip into the Great Meniscus of Nothing. Physics laws state that when droplets fall on a stretch of water, they engender back-jets. These columns of the liquid shoot up and then fall back into the water, creating concentric ripples.

But according to my Time of Before, each back-jet became a Land Place.

I stole ideas from religions and cults, and patchworked them into plausible verbiage.

Mum speaks to me; not in trance, not in vision; she swings on my garden hummock, wearing an aquamarine kimono and matching bandana and flip-flops. She is a benign immortal, and not actually a deity.

However, please note that I did not make the mistake of others who thought they knew it all – for I really do. I am as genuine and unpretentious as they come, despite the fact that I am a genius.

I forbore to give Mum a consort. For had I done so, it would have meant that I had to give her a whole hagiography, philosophy and mythology (and history!) of rivals and offspring – including the equivalent of Nephilim…and, obviously, a couple of bastards to boot.

To recruit my first batch of Faithful, I took out innocuous advertisements in the press, peppering them with words like peace and kindness and happiness and every other positive word I could think of, but never mentioning the word ‘religion’. For good measure, I threw in buzzwords: spiritual enlightenment, incidental infinity, higher consciousness, mystic wisdom…

I never asked for membership fees; but I accepted donations. My people appreciate my humility and my razor-sharp wit.

Midway along my mission, however, I discovered that money (by this time I was rolling in it) was not really important.

So, now, I can once again insist that only money given to a deity (albeit via third parties) is ever clean.

Miss(ing) Manners

My children are quadruplets.
The fact that I am still only 21 years old makes people assume that I am the baby-sitter, and that I cannot possibly be capable of earning my wage – especially with my waif-thinness and waist-length hair.
When I state that they are mine, it’s as if I’ve handed them carte blanche to inundate me with stale jokes and unwarranted advice.
They point to one of the boys and ask whether his name is James Last. They ask whether I do the “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe” when I have to wash, dress, and feed them. They even ask if I have a man around, to help me with them.
I had to grow up quickly – which is another way of saying that I am wise beyond my years.
Unlike many other parents, I have not resorted to Tik Tok or other platforms to document each waking (and sleeping and eating and playing) moment of my children. I don’t have the time or inclination for that – and I don’t need the money, anyway.
My favourite thing to do is to be out and about with My Four. I have my bespoke 2×2 buggy, and my roller skates mean that I don’t tire myself out easily when pushing it.
Have you got jackets in case it gets cold? Oh, definitely. This is a Maltese summer, after all, when there is snow on the ground and frost on the leaves, and the sweat freezes on your eyebrows.
Don’t get them used to the buggy, because they will want to ride in it until they are four years old. Tomorrow, I will make them walk… as far as the garden gate, and then we will go back inside.
I bet you spend a fortune on baby foods, because you can’t possibly find the time to cook fresh vegetables. I don’t cook. I just give them raw peas, and carrots, and broccoli. That’s my version of fast food.
Let them tell you themselves when they are hungry, so that they learn how to listen to their bodies. That is exactly what I’ve done since they were born – that is why they learned to talk by the time they were three months old.
Why don’t you differentiate between the girls and the boys by dressing them in pink and blue? Are you into this gender thing? Oh, yellow and peach and turquoise means that everything is mix-and-match, and I just pick the first outfit that comes to hand.
Sleep when they sleep, or you’ll be tired. You forgot to tell me how to get all four children to sleep at the same time. Perhaps you are insinuating I sleep while I am driving, which is the only time they all fall asleep together?
Look at that poor child – he’s wet, or hungry, or ill, or the sun is in his eyes. I must be very lucky to have three rich children and only one poor one, don’t you think?
Four children! I bet you named them after the grandparents! Actually, we didn’t.
Why has that one got different colouring from the others? I don’t know. But I bet you have an opinion about it, because otherwise you wouldn’t be asking.
You must be very busy. No. I have an army of maids, and the children wash and iron their own clothes, and fix their own lunches.
You’re rude, aren’t you? Sure. I learned from the best.