Tuesday 27 January 2015

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

.Text Claire Back.

In the early hours of morning, Claire reached over to her night table and pulled Edgar, the stuffed rabbit she'd had since she was nine, to her chest, hugging him tight. She felt like she was maybe nine again.
I could be nine, just once more, before... I think I would like that. She stared up at the dirty white ceiling and thought back. There had been strawberry lollies and long dresses that tripped her up, laughter in the sunshine. She remembered holding hands and playing games that made you scared and excited at the same time. Running. So much running.
When she had been nine, life had been a whirlwind of colour, of silly voices and plastic toys. So many smells, too. The smell of sugar, of coloured pencils, of new shoes, clean hair and that musty, comforting smell of soft carpet.
There is always something new, every day, when you're nine.
Claire stopped thinking because she started to feel sad, so she found her phone, tucked away under her pillow, and sent a text to her friend Maribelle.
Mari!! She texted quickly, remember when we stole Mr Farland's cat and dressed her up with a tiara and necklaces and everything and you didn't want her to go back, even when she started meowing and scratching us? How funny! We were so funny weren't we? And that time we ate so much of that forbidden pudding that I threw up and you told my parents it was because i'd watched a guy eating a sandwich with a baby lizard in it? Mum was so cracked up about me reacting to the lizard that she didn't care about the missing pudding. 'I've never seen anything so funny.' she laughed and laughed.
Claire stopped texting and lowered the phone. Her eyes lazily drifted over the items in her room; the little square table that held her year ten graduation photo, the little wooden chair with a plank missing at the back so bits of you sagged out uncomfortably (no one has to worry about fixing that now, she thought vaguely), the tall narrow bookcase and the rocking horse with it's fluffy rainbow tail. She felt light all of a sudden. And she felt something else.
Something darker and stronger that made her pick up her phone again and squeeze Edgar closer.
I feel like everything is going wrong and it's not just picking subjects for next year, it's everything that was good is now bad, I can't even explain it. It's like I was coasting smoothly in a car, like going down a straight highway, and then suddenly I don't know, but the car just started going faster and bumpy and to the sides, like those dodgem cars but it's not fun, and I feel like it's gong to crash and i can't stop it and i don't know how to tell anyone or what to do, i wish i knew what to do, Mari, i don't know how to make it better. It's never going to get better. I'm not even scared, i mean i was, but now it's like the best feeling, i wish you could feel it, it's floaty and dreamy and it's just peace, i think it's peace so much peace    I just want

~

Claire,
I was going to text you back. I kept thinking about it, going over in my head, 'text Claire back, text Claire back' and I was I just forgot, I mean, people forget things, ok? For fucks sake. 

~

Claire,
I'm really sorry for not texting you back. I thought about it all weekend, but I also thought that I hadn't seen you in a while and I'd see you at school anyway, so it didn't really matter if I waited. I read the first bit and then had to get ready for tennis, and you k

~

Claire,
I am so sorry that I didn't text you back. I should have.
They held an assembly at school, not that principal Mack cared, he just felt he should do something for you, so all the parents and some of the older ex-students came and he went on and on, and it was really overdone but ok. What I don't understand is why you did it. I don't get it. Like, did you even think about me? While you were 'floating' around, because, shit, i mean, shit, i mean, what is the fucking point of being your fucking friend 

~

Claire,
I miss you. I miss you now but I missed you when you were alive, too. You just didn't know. I should have told you, but I didn't think I wouldn't be able to anymore. You didn't turn up at school, and then your mum told me, and I was walking home past that old man's house and he was out mowing his lawn, and he got grass on my skirt so I yelled at him. Then I started to cry and ran off, but he just stared at me the whole time, you know how much of a perv he is. 
The thing is, I was angry at you, I was furious that you never talked to me because I feel that way sometimes, and maybe I could have helped.
I was angry because I thought you blamed me, like I was the reason, like if I had texted you then none of this would have happened. 
Claire, you were this amazing person with the brightest eyes and biggest smile, and now you're just a pretty name, how pretty your name is. I wish I could still say it. You used to make some lame joke and then laugh the loudest at it. I know we weren't best friends or anything, but you used to light up my life, whenever I saw you, you were so peaceful and gentle and adventurous and small, Claire, you were so small, why were you that small? Claire

~

1 comment:

  1. I really liked it. I liked the visual effect of crossing the lines out. And I liked how this story evolves, how there isn't a narrator or anything like that after her death, it really adds to the sense of death. I really like how you can be a writer of both silly, weird and airy stories and yet also be just as capable with telling deep, sad and honest stories too. You've got real talent, you really do.

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