Availability
Jane Nash: Chronicle ‘Availability’
I rise at 4am as I have for the past 16 years but there’s no-one to call at this ungodly hour. I have ungodly needs. I’m tempted by Ouiji boards but in truth, I need to find me a necromancer. I fantasise about ayahuasca ceremonies that will let me speak to spirits of the dead, will let me see the dead not as they are but as they were at their best. Sadly this probably includes the darker souls who attach themselves to my memories. I only want to stand behind her and put my arms around her waist.
I am awake at 4.15am and I stare at the link we would use to chat about nothing. I regret my words carried so little of me. I am grateful to have been part of her jigsaw. I consider a mug of mugwort to help me escape this anchored state in these dark hours. But I am paralysed each morning when I wake. She is no longer available.
Write a letter. Remember the good times. Talk out loud. Look at old photographs. None of this helps. None of them. These suggestions can’t soothe the knife in my stomach, splitting me open, spilling internal organs over the floor. I bleed tears; pints and pints of tears. There is no end to the concrete, the inanimate nor the silence in the house. The birds sleep and the insects of the night have taken their respite before dawn.
I wait at 4.30am when I would have got an injection of laughter, of gossip, of love. No amount of life in the present fills the gap. I loved her unconditionally I was loved by her unconditionally. Where will I find that again? I don’t bother yearning for a replacement. There can be none.
I lie down at 4.45am. My pillow soaks up the lifeblood of grief. I can’t seem to get rid of the knot in my throat. I wonder whether, after all this time, I am being indulgent after all, it’s been more than the cycle of seasons. Wet, my mouth allows rivers flow over my face to enter the darkness of my insides. Perhaps I don’t want these feelings to go away but I would like to sleep through the night instead of being exhausted on waking from the lack of interaction.
I often dream of her. She looks younger, the grandmother of my childhood. We roam the sand dunes with her dog and my uncle who is four years older than me. I want to reach out to him but I am sure his grief takes a different form than mine. As much as I might want to exchange experiences, I know this is sacred, this silence, this pain through me. It’s mine, not for sharing, as is his.