Hi Jane.

Happy birthday.

How was your party? McDonald's was an excellent choice.

I know you're disappointed Christopher Hayward didn't make it, but hey, the rest of your class did, and that's something.
It's a lot actually. I don't think you'll be fortunate enough to get 30 presents in one day ever again. Sorry.

You don't know me, but I just thought I'd give you some sort of a heads-up on how things might be for you over the next 20 or so years, so you're not completely clueless this time around.

There are going to be times, just like today, when you're surrounded by everyone you love, which at this point, is pretty much everyone you know - those will be the best times.

There are also going to be plenty of lunchtimes when you won't have as many people to play with. But you'll still have fun. Imaginary friends are sometimes more fun than real people anyway - somehow they always like the same games as you, and they always go away right when you're tired of them.

There will be plenty of boys after Christopher Hayward (though what you were doing with a guy with a dorky name like that I'll never know). Most of them will be just as lousy as he is, and pay little or no attention to you. When that happens, go to mum. She'll always know what to say, even when you don't want to hear it. Especially then.

There are going to be times when you will be so sure of yourself, and you'll think the world is being neatly placed on a path created just for you.

But there are also going to be times when you will stare at yourself in the mirror at 1am, tear-streaked cheeks, dishevelled hair and all, exhausted from hoping and expecting things will work out in your favour, and bearing the disappointment that that almost always brings with it, and you won't even recognise yourself anymore.

You will wonder if you are doing the right thing, and if you have made the right choices, and what you would do if you had it all to do over again, and what it's all for, anyway. And yes, you will probably regret many things.

Those will be the worst times.

But even though getting the things you want most won't always be easy, they will always be worth it. Even if you can only have them for a little while.

Don't be discouraged.

Because there will also be times when you won't have to try so very hard to prove yourself, to please, or to make people care for you. Even though sometimes it will feel like that's the only way to get them, you should never have to try too hard for any of those things.

I'd better go, it's getting late. I'll share more of my wisdom with you when you're a little older. For now, take care.

Sincerely,

Jane at 22 years old.

P.S. In about three years' time, you're going to learn about the human body. Mr Humphreys will tell you to go home and find a name for a new body part you'd never heard of before, to bring back to class the next day. When your brother tells you to say 'colon' but won't tell you what it is, look it up. Trust me.

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* * *

To most people, shufflers make no sound at all.

But to me, even a shuffle means everything.

Shrouded in darkness, the slightest movement – the way the air changes direction when an arm passes over your head, or the way the morning nurse smells like mustard and the afternoon one’s hands feel like sandpaper when they brush past mine – these are all clues about the scene before me. They are all eagerly embraced as signs that I’m still so very much alive.

Of all my visitors, the Shuffler is the only one that still eludes me.

I can almost see the Shuffler. I’ve become quite fond of him. Or her. I can’t be too sure. But I imagine him, all the same. He comes in every day. Around the time the sunlight tickles my right cheek. The number of shuffles is always the same. A shuffle and a click indicate the opening of the door, another props it against the wall and then there’s a hesitant pause before they slowly make their way across the room to me.

He never speaks. I can barely hear him breathe.

My parents are my second most regular visitors. They always come together, each with their own private routine. Mixed in with my mother’s perfume is always the scent of a new bunch of flowers she proudly announces have arrived upon entering the room, as though they were newborns. “We have daffodils for you today, honey! Aren’t they divine? They were on sale at the gift shop and I just couldn’t resist…” and so on.

My father says nothing, but his silence tells more than my mother’s over-zealousness ever could. She scrambles to meet an imaginary quota of words that visitors get in the hour or so they spend sitting patiently by the bedside of a vegetable, a task no doubt made more difficult by my father’s failure to contribute to the task.

Every now and then he will (no doubt prompted by menacing looks my mother darts at him out the corner of her eye) clear his throat uncomfortably and throw in an awkward sentence about nothing in particular for good measure. “Saw the game tonight, son. 5-0 it was ridiculous. Never had a chance at the finals….”

She pats my hand at regular intervals, chats away and at some point in the middle of their time with me, I can always hear a stifled choke, a clearing of the throat and a deep breath that hangs in the air dramatically like a ballerina on a tightrope in the middle of the big top. Trying, like the doctors had told them, to stay positive in front of me, in case I can hear them.

I can. I can practically see them as I would if all I’d broken was a leg or an arm, only now I can feel them, I can breathe them in. Their grief hangs in the air so thick it threatens to suffocate me.

Their struggle for normalcy in a world totally foreign to them touches me, the way it never could have when I was normal myself. But they don’t know that. How can they?

I wait every day for them to discuss what I want to hear about the most.

The Shuffler leaves me no clues. He provides me with a reprieve from all the pity I get from everyone else. There is a kind of solidarity in that shuffle. A silent acknowledgment that it sucks to be me, and him too. No tears, no sighs. It's more like a single nod of respect. And a shuffle.

And he is gone again.



-------
In a Coma
In a Coma- Prologue
In a Coma- Part 1

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Mia

She replaced the receiver in its cradle slowly.

Her hand remained outstretched, and felt heavy as though it were still holding the phone.

Just minutes before she had seen what damage hands could do.

She stared at it. The pale, long, fingers ended in perfectly manicured nails. Small. Unassuming. Dulled by the beam of the florescent panel directly above her head. She watched it tremble. She observed her own hand as though it belonged to someone else.

The draught sliding down between the crimson silk of her dress and her spine would not quit, though the glass door was folded shut behind her. Her bare shoulder blades lunged toward one another to shake it off. Once. Twice, for good measure. She could hardly breathe. Those same long fingers curled around the edge of the door and shoved it across.

She sharply sucked in the night air like she was taking her first hit, and it shot straight past her tongue to the back of her skull. It stung her cheeks- pink with cold and too much rouge- and dotted her arms with goosebumps. An empty shell, she trudged through the dark on autopilot. Her eyes remained fixed on what was directly in front of her, with no spark of interest in anything in particular. Her legs took her further and further away in long, steady strides. With each one she breathed a little easier. She did not look back once.

Alone, all the hours that followed passed by her in a blur, as scenery would a moving train. The words- 'what have I done?'- chanted to her, as if willing her to think about what they meant. Faster, and faster still, in time with the clack-clack of her heels on the pavement. But her legs wouldn't let her stop walking.

It was something about the constancy of the rhythm of her steps and her breathing, and yes, even the chanting, that gradually dulled her senses after a time. No, not bitterness. Just a numb sensation, a familiar sort of indifference that comforted her as much as the sight of her apartment building in the near distance. The fabric of her dress clung to her thighs uncomfortably and her calves burned, but it was a good kind of pain.

Living no longer held any joy up ahead. Death seemed to her just as empty a prospect.

But just when it seemed as though her mind might be sucked so far into that vacuum of self-indulgence that she would fade away completely, she stepped off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic.

Bam.

A bus narrowly missed her ribcage by inches. And that rush, that chemical reaction that instinctively pulled her back onto the pavement, made all the difference she needed. It physically forced her blood, which usually ebbed and dripped reluctantly through her painfully thin body, to thrust itself into her heart.

She woke up from her deep sleep, and saw the ground beneath her for the first time in days.

But it only lasted a second.

She slowly walked out onto the now near empty street, looking only at what was directly in front of her.

|

The lights go off one by one.

I make no move.

Another light goes off somewhere behind me. I can hear it – it sounds more like a gunshot than a switch being flicked, but that suits me just fine.

Bam. Another light; then another, and another. Only one remains, and that light is directly above me.

“… So what am I supposed to do?” I whisper to no one in particular.

The silence deafens me, much more so than the sounds just moments before. That’s when I realise it.


“I’m all alone.”


The light goes out.


---------
* Prologue by Young Jang

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“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”- Charles Austin Beard


-------
* I started this story in parts about a year ago, and abandoned it soon after. I'll be posting the new version up in parts every Thursday. Stay tuned for part 1!

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Mia

Mia was used to speeding.

She’d never been in an accident before, and had mastered dodging speed cameras and keeping control of the wheel even while speeding down winding narrow roads to an art form.

While he was out at night she would sometimes walk out of the house and drive aimlessly. It started out as an alternative to lying in bed awake, pretending to be asleep, and waiting for him to come home. Later though, she made up a million reasons why she needed to get out of the house- they were running out of milk, she had to pick up some cigarettes, or (her personal favourite) she’d suddenly developed a torturous craving for apple pie.

But no matter what the excuse, the real reason she drove was because she couldn’t stand being there anymore. Staring at the walls, thinking about where he was, and what kind of mood he’d be in when he got back. What fight are we going to pick tonight, she’d think to herself, knowing without a doubt that regardless of the subject, the night would not end well. Her drives allowed herself to pretend, just for a few hours, that she was not keeping another sleepless vigil for him. It made her feel productive instead of miserable, and kept her sane, no matter if she was only driving the short distance to the convenience store, or all the way to the lake and back again.

Mia was driving at double the speed limit now, darting back and forth between lanes, cutting people off without a care. Her foot almost never left the accelerator. She had lost count how many red lights she’d gone through. Mia knew this route off by heart and allowed her worries to run rampant in her head as she automatically took the requisite turns to the hospital, totally oblivious to the danger others must think she was mad to be putting herself in.

After a smooth reverse park Mia slammed the car door shut and ran towards the hospital’s main entrance, her heels clacking on the pavement, and the vein in her temple throbbing as though it were about to burst through her skull. She couldn’t see the bewildered expressions on the faces of the people blocking her path as she pushed past them, nor hear their assorted grunts and muttered asides. Her eyes scanned the long corridor before her frantically, looking for a sign, for something that would point her in the right direction.

Where was he? She was sure some kind of sixth sense would beckon her to him. She needed to know he was all right. Just to know…and then there would be peace. But only if he was all right. If he wasn’t….but she couldn’t even allow herself to think of that right now. She just needed to get to him before anyone else did.

She grabbed the arm of a middle-aged woman in a purple cardigan and a long white skirt. “Sam. Hathaway. Please. Have you seen him?” The woman ‘s eyes were at first confused, and then narrowed. “I don’t work here,” she said brusquely, and pulled her arm, still locked in Mia’s tight grip, firmly away.

Mia’s arm dropped to her side and she appeared off balance for a split second, the rebuke and heavy shove of the woman leaving her reeling, before she remembered seeing ambulances parked next to a side entrance to the emergency ward. She pivoted on the pointed toe of her right heel and ran out the way she had come, her newly cut fringe hanging in her eyes as she made her way across the parking lot.

Her breath was laboured, and she rested her palms on the desk before her, her eyes lighting up upon seeing a familiar face. “Sarah. Nick just called me, I came as fast as I could. Has Sam Hathaway been brought in, in the last hour?”

Sarah’s lips pursed together in a far more sympathetic expression than the cardigan lady had given just moments earlier. But that warmth did not reach her eyes, which stared Mia down with a hard look- not quite a glare, but with all the harried impatience that would normally exude one. “You both know the rules- patient confidentiality prevents me from…”

“Sarah please!” Mia’s voice betrayed her, coming out more shrill and desperate than she had intended. She was so afraid of being turned away. She paused to recompose herself, afraid that she would start crying, which would do nothing to further her cause at this point. She let her eyes do the begging- anything more would piss Sarah off even more, and she couldn’t afford to grate on her in the slightest. “I need this. Just do this one last thing for me, and I’ll never bother you again. Please.”

Sarah’s brow furrowed as she surveyed the sincerity of Mia’s eyes, the trembling of her lips. It was a familiar sight- and she resented her all the more for it. Neither she nor Nick should be on a first-name basis with this woman. Not like this. It just wasn’t professional. Anyone else would have been turned away but Mia, with her slim figure, her long legs and that infuriatingly innocent demeanour slipped past everyone’s radar. Especially Nick’s. And she knew, by the bags under Mia’s eyes and the tousled hair that marked a thousand sleepless nights who Sam must be to her. She hesitated for a moment longer, just to savour the tiny drip of authority Nick had left her in the wake of his discretion, and reluctantly muttered, “Yes. He’s in intensive care. That’s all I’m going to say.”

The start of a new request escaped Mia, but she retrieved it as quickly as possible, holding her right hand over her left arm in an effort to physically restrain herself from going any further. She bit her lower lip for good measure and nodded slightly, which served partly as a thank you, and partly a goodbye. But more than anything, Sarah could see the real dismay that the gesture implied, as Mia forced herself to turn away and walk out the door. She stopped pretending to be busy typing at her post, and let out a sigh, as she watched Mia’s tiny frame and slumped shoulders grow smaller in the distance. She felt a flood of compassion well up inside her for the umpteenth time for the helpless soul before her, and the sheer hopelessness of the situation she had gotten herself into, and called out, against her better judgement. “Mia.”

Sarah’s voice reverberated against the sterile walls. Mia turned slightly, half-facing her, half poised to walk on. “They’re operating now- they doubt he’s going to make it. I’ll let you know when he’s out.” Mia closed her eyes and turned again, her stride slow and careful. A tear trickled down her cheek as she walked in quick short steps back to her car.

[...to be continued]

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I’m scared of the dark.

If you can keep a secret, I’ll tell you something else…I always have been.

So darkness gave me no comfort or peace- just that fear that only comes with the uncertainty of solitude.

And at first, that’s what most overwhelmed me- the understanding that I was being enveloped by this darkness indefinitely, taken into it’s arms, embraced so tightly I felt I was choking, like I was drowning in a nightmare from which there could be no relief.

I couldn’t move. And yes, I did try to. I geared myself up to scream out, to wave out my arms, to open my eyes. But to no avail- it was, as I said, like trying to wake up from a bad dream. I struggled for what must have been days, to reach out to anyone who might be nearby. But the words would not form into sounds, my arms remained chained to the stiff mattress I lay on. My thoughts were clear, and I could hear voices around me. I could smell the sterile tiles and the industrial cleaner on the windows and the fresh paint on the walls. But all I could see in front and around me was pitch black.

When I was little, my parents would take turns sitting with me in my room at night, in an attempt to make me realise that love and familiarity could exist in it’s midst. I lay awake for hours, eyes wide open, fists clenched by my side so tight my fingernails dug into my skin, waiting for daylight to break. Usually I grew exhausted from the sheer effort of being afraid, and dozed off.

After a while they left me to sleep on my own, proud that the ‘child phobia’ chapter of their first DIY parenting manual had proved successful. But it had never really worked.

I was getting too old for night lights and parent sleepovers. So I discovered my own way to conquer the dark. I’d close my eyes and concentrate on conjuring up colourful scenes featuring anyone and anything I wanted. At first they were of me hanging out with my favourite cartoon characters, but as I got older they became me driving around in the cars displayed in the magazines under my bed, with the girls posing on top of them sitting next to me. I focused on the details that brought them to life in my head- the sound of my feet hitting the pavement, the screech as I slammed on the brakes as we rounded a corner.

That way, I was never really in the dark- out at night I had the harsh glow of street lights, in clubs the flash of laser-like beams every few seconds, and in bed- my own internal night light.

I’m resolved to conquer this darkness, too. I will fight it by imagining it away. I will live as though I’m in the light. The only other alternative is to let myself disappear, and I’m not prepared to let that happen. Although I’m 25, the prospect of doing this is no less frightening and all consuming than it had been when I was five years old.

Because this time is different.

Back then, light was just a flick of the switch, or a few hours away.

But this time I could be in the dark forever.

[...to be continued]

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A crossroads, staring straight ahead at what I could be,
and glancing backwards, biting my lip...
at what I was, and wanted to continue to be.

Between who I should be
and who I still am.

At a 'self-doubt' pitt stop,
with my hands in my pockets,
kicking at the dirt at my feet-
too stubborn and cautious to move in either direction.

At the realisation that either way I look
I have come a long way from where I once was,
and that distance has nothing to do with who I was with at the start,
and everything to do with how I've decided to get to this place.

It's a good place.
It's confusing,
and it's frustrating
and it's scary as all hell.
But at least I can say that it is mine
and wherever I go next will be up to me alone.

|

Mia

She forgets she’s alive, sometimes.

She can go for days without remembering.

An empty shell, she trudges through days on autopilot, doing all the things she should and none of the things that would link her listlessness to suicidal tendencies, but dead to the world all the same. She doesn’t try to pretend she enjoys living, because she’s forgotten what it means to be alive.

Her eyes remain fixed on what’s directly in front of her, with no spark of interest in anything in particular. She will participate in conversations with that group of people that persists in surrounding her throughout the day, smile, laugh even. But when she’s alone, the hours can pass by her as scenery past a moving train. Her thoughts remain stationary- no bitterness- just a numb sensation, an indifference. While she has no real motivation to go on living, death seems just as empty a prospect.

But just when it seems as though her mind may be sucked so far into that vacuum of self- indulgence that those around her may never truly see her again, she steps out off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic.

Bam.

Another bus narrowly misses her ribcage by inches. And that rush, that chemical reaction that instinctively pulls her back onto the pavement is what makes all the difference. It physically forces her blood, which usually ebbs and drips slowly through her painfully thin body, to thrust itself into her heart.

She wakes up from her deep sleep, and sees the ground beneath her for the first time in days.

But it only lasts a second.

She slowly walks across the near empty street again, looking only at what’s directly in front of her.

[to be continued...]

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“The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”- Victor Hugo


The lights go off one by one.

I make no move.

Another light goes off somewhere behind me. I can hear it – it sounds more like a gunshot than a switch being flicked, but that suits me just fine.

Bam. Another light; then another, and another. Only one remains, and that light is directly above me.

“… So what am I supposed to do?” I whisper to no one in particular.

The silence deafens me, much more so than the sounds just moments before. That’s when I realise it.


“I’m all alone.”


The light goes out.


[to be continued...]

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When I was in high school, and we were learning about writing techniques or some such, we were told that to write, we must first figure out what we want to say, or how we want the audience to feel at the end of it, so that we can write towards that goal. But sometimes, I find that the best pieces are written without method, or analytical piecing together of rhyme and syllable patterns. Sometimes all you need is a pen and paper and when you're done, you look back at it as though someone else had put it there for you. And you are amazed at what you find there:


...Hollow eyes and screaming from the
inside, banging on the walls of your own rib cage to force someone to stare
bewildered, unable to look away
unable to truly see,
but only able to gawk and
wonder what drove this madness
For of course it is madness, sheer
foolhardiness
No truth, no sound
Just Mr Crazy firing off another round
The shot resounds in the night air
and all you can do is stand.
and stare.
at the destruction.
Remains, the aftermath,
nothing but a memo of --
entailing what has passed.
A gentle reminder: 'passed away'
'passed on', 'gone to the next life'
are never any less painful.
FYI Mr Crazy died las night and nothing you do will make a damn of difference.

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I write this because I am here and you are distant.

You are haunted by a fear you cannot rhyme,
and a feeling you are afraid to understand.
It is uncertainty, and with uncertainty comes dread of all past shortcomings lingering still, coming to knock at your door like an unwanted acquaintance.
The kind you pay only shallow respect
And greet in the street with a slight tip of your hat.
But who you fear will one day want to be let in to your home and fed your food till you have nothing left to call your own.
You don’t trust yourself to be yourself
you trust not the half stranger that beckons in the night.
Shadows loom larger than your own, and threaten to overtake you when you sleep.
But to stay on guard all night would be impossible-
But to sleep would be dangerous and churlish indeed.

Be not afraid of the stranger.

You will be hard pressed to find a place my name is not branded,
Its there to help you recognise your way,
like breadcrumbs along your every path.
It was always there, though unremarkable as it may have become,
Nestled in comfortably as a notice among billboards with equally gaudy fixtures.
You are frightened because you have begun to realise how frequently I appear-
For years you thought you had eluded me.
Please do not fear me.

I can harm you no longer.

I am but a weathered scar seared upon your skin.
An indelible stain smudging the corner of your coat-
Invisible to the naked eye, and too passive to affect you.
Do not be dismayed by the lessons we two continue to re-learn, simply because they are not complete.
They go on where we two do not.
They are yours to keep as my gift to you, for as long as you choose to store them in your heart.
They are yours to pull from out your pocket when you are alone
as a woman would her dead lover’s lock of hair.
I am that quiet moment after sorrow and before a new beginning.
I am that unspoken hesitation only you can know.
Do not be disheartened to discover I never really disappeared,
That you have run so far to find yourself only a few steps away.
The journey continues- your efforts have not been in vein.

You are enough as you are.

Live with me as you would a scar, a stain.
Lie with memories of me as you would any other-
Two partners side by side, who's skin is felt but never touched;
gone but always dear.
You do not betray them by being content,
Nor do you lie in the past by remembering my name.

The blood on your hands has long been washed clean,
and I am near, and you are distant.
Do not contemplate missing misery; to do so would be fruitless agony.
For I am the one fear you cannot make rhyme.
I am the one feeling you can never hope to understand.
I am standing at the crossroads of your Sorrow, Despair and Longing.
And we two exist together as it was at the beginning, now and ever shall be-
There is no ‘last’ lingering farewell.

There is only we two.

Accept this, and the sun will shine as sweet as watermelon sugar melting the tip of your tongue on a hot summer’s day.

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She runs her hand along the inside of the scar, softly tracing the edge, feeling the pain that must have rippled throughout the wound, now just a dried up tear to remind him of what had once lingered for weeks...never truly healing, but in some kind of cruel joke, had stayed to remind him of that pain, and everyone else that saw it of it too.

He winces as though it were a fresh cut and grimaces at the softness of her touch, hating it all the more for being so soft. If she were a man he would have killed her by now but it wouldn't do to kill a woman. So he grits his teeth and endures it as though someone were slicing him open again with a blade as rusty and jagged as the first had been...it hurts just as much now. It tingles the very core of him and makes him feel like she is ripping his insides wide open and neatly hanging them on top of his outsides.

It is a familiar sight...every scar, every mole and the way the light plays to darken the shadow on his face...just as she had left it all before. If she closed her eyes she would know every part of him by heart, she is sure, which was just as well because she would have to, now. The smile leaves her face, crawling off into nothingess as slowly and slyly as it had done when it slid through her lips at the start.

They linger for a moment, no regulatory grunt from him, no choked sob from her, just a momentary glance that connects their very souls though their hands don't even brush slightly. When he turns away he does not look back and her hung head does not once shift upward, for fear that the sight of the dark figure that shrinks so quickly, and even quicker still will be too much to bear.

When she awakens she is not sure if it was all just a dream, a beautiful dream she had tried to dream for years. Whether perhaps they had finally met as they had promised to every night with that one glance. But if it was a dream why hadn't they embraced each other? Because they knew that it would make it harder to let go? Because they were scared it would never feel the same, that it would be their last?

She shakes her head, weary of all the worries that haunt her through the day, rests her head on the pillow and tries hard to picture the smooth edge and soft centre of his scar once again.

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