Nothing...

The pendulum motion of thought and action converged on her at that very moment. The moment of truth: Her moment of truth. Sitting on the bus it had occurred to her: who were these people she sat in close proximity to? She didn’t know who they were, or more importantly what they are? Housewives, mothers, fathers, workers, children, babies. The babies were fairly safe territory for now, but what of the future? What of the now? What if her thoughts had not lead her to the one? The one thought. The thought of now. If it had happened at that moment and had not been a thought. If that unknown person in the seat behind her had leant forward grabbed her hair and had slit her throat from ear to ear what would she have been thinking? What would have been her final thought? The notion of this scared her, not her death, no! Of course, the action of the perpetrator in itself would undeniably have provoked much thought. It had been what her thought in that moment would have been, should the action have occurred. This is what frightened her most. She didn’t know what it was. She had no recollection of how the defining thought had occurred nor could she locate any traceable route as to why she was now thinking about her death on a bus. A bus she caught every day on the same route with mainly the same people. Maybe the reason she had, had the thought was her internal desire to annihilate mediocrity, her mediocrity, the annihilation of herself. The thought to her was ludicrous, the only thing that she deemed to make any sense, was if her death was to occur she would not like to die thinking about nothing.

The Yesterday Bridge

I went for a walk one day, only to find all paths lead to the same bridge.

The Yesterday Bridge.

Yesterday, the day the seconds became NOW, and I had no other thoughts than to cross the bridge.

So I did… I think!

To the best of my recollection I have no memory of the crossing.

But every time I walk, I end up HERE.

Image by Angel O'Leary
Part of a collaborative text & image project

The Mother (short story)

The old house echoed with the sound of her familiar footsteps, the day she died. Standing next to her deathbed were her six sons, graduating down in height from their father who stood stoically at the foot of the bed. Candles flickering in all corners of the room highlighted the waxy texture of her wrinkled face. She was a day dead, a day gone from their lives, a day away from her life, always a day, always a day, always a day.

She used to breathe this thought out of her skin; today was always someone else’s day. The morning of her death had started out that way, rising at six to stoke all the fires in the house she encountered her husband fitted rigidly into his favourite chair, sleeping. It was not unusual for her to find him in this position; frankly he rarely ever visited their bed. Preferring to distance himself from his wife. He had followed his path in life and she; well she had just done what was left to do. Running a household of men was not an easy task. Without support she struggled. Occasionally the youngest Sebastian tried to help but this was not approved of. A man to a man’s duties his father maintained and a woman, it was her job to support, continue the line and his wife had been well chosen. Six sons she had given him; what more could he have asked for?

The morning of her death he had sat in his chair eyes closed listening to her movements as she attended to her duties. This sound enhanced his sense of well-being, justified his life. They knew their places and stuck to them. She was the ticking clock in their life, how he measured time and achievements. The fires were being stoked and it was dawn just as it should be, he had one hour of thought left before beginning his day. His man day. Today was to be busy, people in the village had been dying and as it was the nature of his business it was either a famine or a feast. The village, being intimate and body clocks as they were, death could always be predicted, he had built his business on this knowledge and with a little access to the church register. The weekly finances were always adjusted to meet with the register details and it was never wrong, either side of a week to be precise.

What really puzzled him the most as he stood looking at his dead wife was why it was a surprise? Her death!

Sebastian was struggling hard to hold back his tears. He had seen many dead bodies in his short life but this in itself, did not ready him for the sight of his lifeless mother. He too had arisen early that morning, as normal, his father demanded that the funeral parlour be sparkling before his arrival. It’s all part of the discipline his father maintained, you will do it just like your brothers before you...

To be continued...