Joint runner up – Senior section
Launceston Christian School
Today the sun is shining, and I can hear life around me. But there was a time when my world was dark and silent. It was in this time that I fought and struggled until I gave up and fell back into myself so far that I lost who I was. I wasn’t a person, a human with an identity or a story. I was just a shivering clump of cells that had bonded together for company and what little warmth they had to offer each other. Everyday I worked and ate. To this day I don’t know why I didn’t just lay down and die. Some sort of automatic survival function took me over. My body did what it had to do to live. I slept, disturbed with brief flashes of disjointed life flashing before my eyes, only for me to be dragged back into the dark silence I was trapped in. It held me in and stuck to my soul like tar, refusing to let me surface for the fresh air of life. It held my struggling soul captive, and there was no one to pull me out.
It had tried to take me before, this dark silence, but there had always been something to draw me back out of myself; a colleague’s good morning, children squealing in the park outside my office window, a good morning from the barista in the cafe across the street. But now the cafe blinds are closed, and the park occupied only by drifts of leaves piling up aimlessly. Any good mornings I receive are through the pinned down letters trapped inside my computer screen. Life has left me. And in its wake, it left something that could barely be classified as functioning.
Everyday I woke up, ate whatever my eyes landed upon first and sat down to my computer. I worked, building financial plans and sending them off to the invisible clients behind my screen. At five o’clock I shut my computer and sat; on the couch, sometimes on the floor, it didn’t matter, my duties done for the day, the dark silence held me in its grasp. When they first told us to stay in our homes, I thought I’d be happier. I wouldn’t have to deal with the stress of everyday social interactions. And for the first day, I was happy. I walked, worked, and cooked up a small dinner. But with the night came the old demons, mocking and taunting me, pushing me back into myself; when the sun rose, there was no one there to pull me back out. And so, I was lost. By the time isolation was lifted, the tar that held my soul was so thick and deep that I had drowned in it.
I barely remember going back to work. I know I did, every now and then a memory of walking down the corridor to my office flashes before my eyes, the smell of disinfectant accompanying it. I existed, barely. Others must have noticed my condition, and at some point, one of my colleagues must have called my family because my brother showed up on my doorstep unannounced. He was worried, wanted to see me get back into life and enjoy the world. I think I agreed to something, I’m not sure what it was. But the next day he showed up again, this time ready to take me out to coffee. I didn’t feel like coffee. I didn’t feel like anything, but I didn’t care enough to say no either, so somehow, we ended up in a small park with takeaway coffees. He talked a lot. About the weather and isolation and all the restrictions that were in place at his work. I think I nodded occasionally, the warmth of the thin paper and plastic cup creeping through my hands. Everyday, for several weeks he took me to the park. After work, I would go home and sit until he knocked on my door. I don’t know how he managed to do it; deal with the clump of cells that was his once-connected sibling, but he did, everyday, day in, day out he stood by me.
The first time I felt something other than the dark silence, was the first time I was really conscious of the world around me. We were sitting in the park for what felt like the thousandth time when the sun suddenly peeked out from behind a cloud. I felt the world come softly back into focus as the warmth lingered on my face. I heard sparrows squabbling in the trees and cars fighting their way through late afternoon traffic. My brother’s voice came into focus and I really heard him. What he was talking about was insignificant, a story about a colleague from work, but his voice was so real and present that the reality of how far I’d sunk finally hit me.
I didn’t come all the way back to myself immediately. I’d like to think that my brother saw something different in my face that day that gave him hope; but a moment where everything is suddenly crystal clear? They’re only in fairytales, real-life has grey areas. After my brother had dropped me back to my apartment and I’d finished my day I didn’t sit as I had for so long, instead, I went outside and listened to the dozens of sounds that surrounded me; children fighting down the street, car horns blaring, and the screeching of a recorder being badly played. I ran my hands over the rough and graffitied concrete of a wall and scuffed my feet along an uneven sidewalk. I felt. It was beautiful, freeing, terrifying and overwhelming all at once.
That night, when the demons came for me, I got out of my bed and sat outside in the cool air, bathing in the light of a half-moon. I felt the dark silence reaching for me, already it had a tenuous grip. The temptation to beat my head against a wall just to feel, something, anything was so strong that it almost claimed me. But somehow, I knew that would only allow the dark to get a better grip on me. I didn’t know what else to do, I couldn’t go back to the emptiness, if I did, I wouldn’t be able to come back again. I was at a loss, I felt so completely alone. Then I remembered the warmth of a coffee in my hands and the sun on my face. I wasn’t alone. My brother had been there constantly trying to reach me. Shaking, half walking, half falling I worked my way towards the phone. My hands were trembling, my body protesting at the turmoil within me, but I managed to get the phone to ring. I was gulping for air when he answered, still groggy from sleep. I started to gasp for air, tears streaming down my face while I rocked back and forth, the pain deafening. He didn’t waste time in trying to extract explanations, just told me to hold on and drove over as fast as he could while he listened to me sob.
I don’t remember how long I rocked back and forth, clutching the phone to my chest, I only remember finally feeling his arms around me. Still in our pyjamas, we sat on the floor until I cried myself out. Afterwards, he didn’t ask for reasons or explanations, just made me a hot drink and sat with me in the cool night air. It was a long night. I don ‘t know how many times the despair rose up and claimed me, but he was there to hold me through it each time. When the sun rose, it brought with it a kind of acceptance. I wasn’t healed, I was far from perfect, but I could feel, and I wasn’t going to stop feeling ever again.
Being alone, trapped in my apartment, away from the wild tumbling creature that is life, caused me to fall into the dark silence. My brother’s unwavering resolve in trying to connect with me is what brought me back.
It’s been a year since the night I cradled the phone to my chest and sobbed. Everyday I make an effort to connect. It’s not easy, there are a thousand different codes that people use when they talk and I haven’t cracked all of them, but I wave to the children in the park and talk to the barista every morning. When my colleagues say good morning, I smile and ask them how they are. I thought I would be happier if I didn’t have to complicate my life with other people. I was wrong. Connecting with people everyday is what keeps us sane and helps us to feel. I can feel the sun on my face because I struggled through a conversation. Keep on talking. Our need for connection is what makes us human.
. . .
Solum – Latin translation of Alone
Forty South Publishing and the Tasmanian Association for the Teaching of English (TATE) congratulate everyone who entered our short story competition in this challenging coronavirus-affected year. We would also like to recognise the extra work put in by teachers and parents to support these young writers and to maintain the general education of young Tasmanian school students.
The themes this year echoed the world-wide pandemic. For the Juniors (Years 7-9) the themes were ‘Connection’ or ‘Community’ and for the Seniors (Years 10-12) they were ‘Isolation’ or ‘Island’. Students were free to interpret their chosen theme in any way they wanted.
Chris Gallagher judged both sections and was impressed with the overall standard of entries. She could not split her two top stories in the Senior Section and so the senior prize has been shared by Tabitha Glanville (Scotch Oakburn College) and Tara Sharman (Hobart College). In a first for Clarence High School, Oenone Schofield took out the Junior Section with her story, ‘Home’.
