Tag: children

Day #13

thetomwatts1 Comment

Pandoura: An ancient Greek string instrument from the Mediterranean basin, similar to a lute.

Gastroelytrotomy: The operation of cutting into the upper part of the vagina through the abdomen without opening the peritoneum for the purpose of removing a foetus.

Frothily: In a frothy manner.

—–

I sink into my concrete bed, sticky with sweat; it’s as though Moses parts the red sea beneath me. Dry mouth. Heavy eyes.

‘Are you ok?’

Her voice taut, succinct. Very dry, like a wine rather than a desert. There is a siren somewhere nearby.

‘No….’ I briefly pause, then ‘I had the dream again…’

‘Go on…’ her encouragement, wearing me down, words as abrasive as stone.

A caesura hangs like a neon spider web; we are caught in a momentary tableau, flashing as I contemplate what words to let bubble forth. An explosion of thoughts, crashing, swelling frothily, thick as foam but bursting before they reach the clarity of reason. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that the rumble of thunder is to lightning, what an idea is to inspiration. I’m not sure how to begin. But I try.

‘I’m lying on a hospital gurney, there are sounds all around me and the lights are bright; it’s hard to make out what exactly is going on. There are four shadows above me, wearing masks and goggles. They look like insects, the sort that bury into another insects abdomen and lay their eggs there.’

‘Yes…?’

The recording machine’s siren is still blaring, metronomic, polyphonic, the two tone pluck of a pandoura. A strange reference. I push the insects from my mind.

‘The shadows merge into one and they put my legs in stirrups, I beg them not to put their eggs in me, but they ignore me. I’m sure they do. The pain, it hurts so bad…’

‘I know, but there’s someone coming, so hold on.’

‘The pain of the contractions, they hurt so much. I can’t do it, there’s just no way. The shadow he cuts into me with his words ” “Gastro…roelyt….ro…tomy,” he strings it out, just like that. Hangs it over me like a veil as he pulls the baby from my body, says I can’t have it, that it belongs to someone else. He takes the baby and makes me sign papers. They paid me money and took my baby…it wasn’t a choice…the shadows…’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand?’

My veneer cracking, the darkening within is blooming. This is my rumbling thunder, after all these years, to think it happens now, at a time like this. The only time left.

‘The shadows, they took him away and I never told. The papers said I couldn’t, but I have to tell someone. It has to be you. My son, I tracked him down, you have to warn him about them. His name…his name is…’

‘Is what? His name is what? Hello, can you hear me? There’s been an accident; I’ve hit you with my car. There’s an ambulance on its way, just stay with me, ok?’

She says this with no real conviction in her voice; she says it dry as a desert.

Day #10

thetomwattsLeave a comment

Dotard: One whose mind is impaired by age

Overprize: To prize excessively to overvalue

Dugway: A way or road dug through a hill or sunk below the surface of the land

—

Let me tell you about my strangest memory.

I keep it hidden away under lock and key somewhere in the back of my mind. Sometimes I close my eyes and watch it play on the curtain of my eyelids, hazy and noir, flickering like an old fashioned movie. I’ve only ever shared it with a handful of people…and now you.

***

The playground of my childhood school was a tarmac savannah, wrinkly like skin that’s been in the bath for too long and scribbled with the sun-bleached Nazca lines that denoted symbolic football pitches. Down the far end, under a large tree whose awning provided respite from the sun, were the badlands – a small scrubby patch of grass and dirt bordered by a wooden fence. Etched into this boundary was a permanently locked gate that led to our sports fields, but as we were a small, poor school, these fields were just public parks that we invaded once a year for sports day, tiny legs pumping whilst carrying eggs on spoons. A humpty-dumpy dystopia.

Anyway, somewhere between the ages of seven and ten my friends and I became fascinated with digging. Not just digging for the sake of slinging dirt, but real open cast excavations – our hands carving out deep holes and dugways amongst the tiny patch of dirt tacked onto our playground. Myself, Will, Tom and probably others who I can’t quite remember now, presided over our feats of engineering like Pharaohs watching the assembly of pyramids.

Looking back, perhaps we overprized our accomplishments. One time the council came and filled in a crater we had carved under some public stairs, as though it were a crème egg with a concrete center. We wore this like a badge of honor. But I digress…

Eventually, we decided to move on and excavate a new area, somewhere different in the myriad of playgrounds we had at our disposal. To test ourselves we chose a hedgerow in the middle playground. The thick, tangled roots seemed a suitable challenge for experienced diggers such as ourselves, finger nails crusty with dirt, rocks scraping as though we had discovered the very first tools.

One afternoon however something strange happened. Among the roots we unearthed a small black box. Then another. And another. And so on, until we had a stack of these small black boxes, each the shape and size of something a necklace may be displayed in. We couldn’t open them. Then our teacher appeared and she was angry with us. Then the men dressed in black came and took all our boxes away.

***

The memory fades toward the end, tapering off like a stuttering candle. I’ve managed to cling to the key points, to treasure them, as I know what happened to us was very significant, but I don’t know why. All I know is, we never dug another hole again.

Like I said, I’ve only ever told this to a handful of people…and I’m too scared to ask whether those involved remember or not, for fear of what it means for me if they don’t. I’m scared that I will begin to question my memories, fearing that I’m just another adult dotard, imagining things just to seem more interesting.

So, I think I’ll just keep it under lock and key for now.