After The Fall

I remember walking barefoot through the trees, with you and the others laughing and chattering a couple of steps behind me. It's a long barely-worn trail and I keep having to brush the leaves out of my face, swiping away the midges. I remember watching the dusty ground pass beneath my feet as though I'm walking just above it, leading you and your trendy friends to the clearing. You're with James and I feel my stomach twist with every overblown laugh you make at every joke he throws you. I remember the noises that bully my ears: the drumming beat of the birds' wings, the whispering Autumn leaves, the rush of the water.

          We reach the clearing and my feet seem to stop. Ahead of me the ground opens up and the waterfall appears. 'No pressure,' you whisper in my ear, so I squirm out of my dress and let it drop at my side. I hope James is ignoring you for me. I go to pinch my nose closed before realising how childish that must look and pretend I'm wiping it, boyishly, the way that you do.

          I perch on the edge and look down to the waters tumbling endlessly over themselves to the pool below. 'It's not that far', you hiss in my ear. 'You'll be fine'. My toes grip the edge and I wish that they were longer – more simian – to hold on tighter. I think of the squirrel monkeys at the zoo, hurling themselves from branch to branch without fear of falling. I want to be like that, sis. I want to be like you.

          And now I'm falling feet first into the waterfall. I hit the surface like a car smashing into a wall and the breath is sucked from my lungs. I know I should be swimming, but the waters tug me down and my head starts to spin. I try not to swallow and force myself upwards but my hands are pinned to my side and every direction I look the darkness surrounds me. I can't escape the water. My lips open and I breathe it in.

          I remember it so clearly, I remember it every time I close my eyes, every time I sleep; I remember it as clearly as if it were happening to me now.

Except that it didn't happen to me, Mandy, it happened to you.

I've come to see you again. Come to sit at your bedside and read you the news. Come to listen to the monitors that tell the doctors you're still in there, to watch my sleeping twin's face paling in the artificial light. I know you're not interested in the same news as me – who's dating who, who’s wearing what – but I read it to you anyway. I pause from time to time to ask if you want me to read something else, but you lay there and say nothing, so I take that as a no. I tell you that I saw a bottle of cloudy lemonade in the cupboard this morning – it's obviously yours because Mum only buys them for you – and I thought about bringing it in for you.  I know you must be missing them, but you can only drink what comes out of the drip, so I'll put it away in the fridge to be ready for when you get out of here.

          Visiting time's over. I just spent the last hour with you talking crap that you'll never care about. I could have told you how much I miss you or how I care about you – that's fine, I'm not scared of saying how I feel. But there is one thing that I am scared of, so I'll stay well away from that. Let me talk about gossip so I don't have to talk about the dreams.

When I get home, Mum's sitting with Kara. I think it must be easier to get over the loss of you when there's a baby to attend to, but I don't have that comfort. I ask her if she's eaten and she tells me she has – she ate an hour ago, while Kara was sleeping and she had a moment to herself. 'Did you make me anything?' I ask, walking away before she can tell me no.

I try to put off sleep, even though I'm in work at seven tomorrow. I watch a crappy film on the TV, message James and the others until I'm bored of their pussyfooted consolations. I listen to the radio, read a book, stare at the ceiling. The hours crawl by until I can't keep my eyes from closing.

          It starts like the other times. I'm dreaming about something else, I don't remember what, then that dream's gone. It's like a hand reaching out and tugging me out of bed. It leads me through the trees until I'm stood at the top of the waterfall, in the place where you fell. Then I jump and hit the water, feel the air escaping my lungs, the water crushing me and pinning me down until my senses leave me. All that's left is the sound of my breath, heavy and constant.

          I wake up in tears, in a shivering sweat, cold and isolated. I look around and find that I've moved in my sleep, from my room to yours.

It's 6:30 when I reach the zoo. The boss seems genuinely surprised to see me this early. Normally she'd make a bitchy comment and I'd return it with relish, but since the accident she's been much nicer – I should thank you for that Mandy, I guess. I get on with feeding the capybaras and tapirs before hosing down the floors of the monkey house. I stop for a while to watch the emperor tamarins scuttling up the ropes and greeting each other with their eager gestures, imagining little smiles behind the huge white moustaches. James is prepping the feed today. I repress the flush that's trying to fill my cheeks and say hi. He smiles back and starts talking about lemurs. You'll be pleased to know that nothing has happened between us since the fall.

God what was wrong with you Mandy? I gave you six months to make a move on him and there was nothing. I knew you liked him – I knew from the moment we met him that you would, all you needed to do was change your mousy little squeak into a grown up voice and ask him out. But it was me he kept looking at, so I gave you one last chance to prove yourself to him – to show that you were just as bold as me, just as adventurous, just as beautiful once you stepped out of those baggy clothes. I told you you'd be fine.

          While I'm picking up the feed and checking it off, animal by animal, I catch a strange look on James' face. It's not a look of desire or affection or interest, it's something I don't think I've seen before.

          'What is it?' I ask him, and he tries pathetically to change his expression.  

          'It's just,' he replies with a stammer, 'it's really weird seeing you without her'. His stare lingers on me and I feel like it's me in the cage. 

          'Watch this space,' I tell him with a punch to the shoulder, before dancing nonchalantly away. I hide away most of the morning, in any quiet corner of the zoo I can find.

          At lunchtime the boss finds me out behind the sheds, squatting like a rat, gnawing on a Twix. I offer her a smile and she asks me kind of nervously if I'm going to see you tonight. 'Of course,' I respond. That's about as far as that conversation goes, but at the end of the day she presents me with a bouquet of chrysanthemums to give to you. She tells me to tell you that everyone's missing you and they can't wait for you to come back, and for a second I think to tell her that I'll have to wait and see if you want to say thank you because you're more of a peony girl. I bite my tongue and realise how dumb I'm being. 'It's a lovely gesture, thank you. I'll put them by her bedside'. That's the sort of response you would've given, no matter how bitchy she was being, but not me. Not before.

Hello, it's me again, thought I'd swing by, see how you're getting on.

Heart monitor constantly beating: check.

Artificial lung still pumping: check.

Unnatural bright overhead lights: check.

Comatose twin: check.

I've plugged my earphones into your ears so that you can hear my favourite songs. You used to like the same things as me until college, then I don't know what went wrong. Now you don't seem to listen to music at all, don't come to gigs with me, don't come to clubs, not that there's any near us. Mum said it's because I'm too mean to you, 'don't be so critical'. It's not my fault that you can't stand up for yourself. I snicker at the thought – you really can't stand up for yourself now – but then Mum's voice in my head tells me off and I feel awash with shame. I stroke your hair to say sorry, it's dry under my fingers. When the nurse comes to check on you, her tender gaze is so infuriating I have to leave.

The cold hand pulls me in. I can't tear my arms from my sides. I want to scream but I have no voice. The waters hold me down, the colours swarm before my eyes – reds and yellows, blinding white, fading to black.

When I wake up sobbing, Mum comes to the door. I think she's going to shout at me for waking Kara but she sits on my bed and rubs my arm; when she feels how wet it is she takes my dressing gown and wraps it round my shoulders. She shushes me and through my tears I tell her about the dreams. She strokes my hair and tells me it's okay, hiding her frown at the first time she's seen me cry since I was a child.

'It’s just that you're feeling guilty about the accident,' she tells me. 'You feel like you failed to save her'. Then she pauses. 'But it's not your fault Carrie. It's not your fault'.

I feel like the pressure has been taken from my chest. I breathe deeper and the tears stop. I hug her and tell her I love her and she stays for a while. When she leaves I fall back into a happier sleep, and my heart feels stronger.

But it doesn't last. The next night I'm dreaming that same dream again. But this time when I wake up I just can't cry.

It's started to strike me how little you look like me now. We've never been hard to tell apart – spend thirty seconds in a room with us and that's pretty obvious: I'll be the one chatting with strangers, flirting with boys, and drinking myself blind; you'll be hiding in the corner with a book in your lap and a cup of tea. But now you look so thin and pale. I hold my hand against your face and it looks like I've just come from the sunbed. Your lips are dry, so I pick a chapstick from my jacket and carefully brush it across them, then rub it in lightly with my fingers. You look like you're sleeping – if we were at home right now I'd be drawing chapstick patterns all over your face. When you woke up sticky-headed, you'd be mad at me but you'd never have the courage to do it back to me, or tell Mum, or take revenge. I don't know why you're such a soft touch. You should fight for your dignity Mandy, stick up for yourself. Then I won't have to.

I lay my head on your arm and close my eyes, forgetting what a mistake that is. I feel myself being tugged by my hand to the waterfall, and forced from the top.

When the dream ends and I come to my senses I find myself sprawled across the floor, halfway to the window, gasping for air. You're still lain on the bed, breathing artificial breaths, and through blinking eyes I see your hand and imagine for a moment that it twitches. But when I reach out and hold it, it's limp and still and as soft as it ever was. I stroke it, place it in my own hand and lift it to my face. The hand I have held, the hand I have squeezed, the hand I have pulled behind me all these years, and I realise. It's cold.

          It was your hand pulling me in Mandy, wasn't it?

It's you putting me in your place, in your dreams, in your body.

It's you taking mine.

It's 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, the zoo will be filling up with tourists from all over the place, and the regulars who can't find anything better to do than ogle at the lemurs or the tigers again. I'm not there. I felt compelled to visit the place where you fell, now I'm walking slowly to the waterfall. I take care to walk where I walked that day, not to follow your footsteps. The leaves look less vivid than in the dream, the sounds are less intense. For a moment I pause and almost find myself sinking to the ground to rest, but I can't risk falling asleep now, not here.

The waterfall seems quiet when I reach it. The steady flow's not as exciting as it seemed before, I don't feel the thrill of looking down into the deep sheltered pool below. No one else is here today, probably for the best. I take the long way down and find myself staring into the cold morning waters. Even in the mirk I can still see how heavy and black my eyes are, how dull my skin is, how matted my hair. My dark green uniform shirt drapes off me, hiding my pointed ribs. You did this to me.

I remember the look on your face when you saw me flirt with James, the hopelessness when you saw that he liked it. I didn't even know if I was interested in him, he was just there, good looking, tall, available. You looked as empty as I do now. And now you're getting your revenge.

          I can't figure out how you got in my head. It's not the fact that it's possible, it's how you of all people could do something like this. You don't have the guts, or the gall, the strength of will. If either of us could do it, it'd be me. All our lives I've carried you, helped you make new friends, stood up against Dad for you, held you crying when he left. When Mum's new boyfriend hit her, I was the one who shielded you and called the police. You can't look after yourself, you never could. Especially now, lying there helpless in a cold bright room with only those tubes to feed you.

          I touch the waters, just a stone's throw from where you crashed into them that day, where they pulled you out and pumped the water from your lungs. The pool I forced you into for the sake of a boy. The pool I jumped into to save you that day. Do you even know that? Doesn't that mean anything to you?

          The morning bleeds away until it's visiting hours and I'm standing at your bedside. I watch the machine that makes you breathe rising and falling; I listen to the electric pulse of the ECG that guards your heart. I blink in the artificial glare of the striplights that even you can see through closed eyelids. They buzz like wasps. This is no life for you, Mandy. My heavy head is spinning, so I sit beside you and stroke the IV that feeds you, trace it all the way from the drip to your arm. There's something cold and hard in my pocket and I pull it out to see what it is. Your cloudy lemonade. 'For you, Mandy', I say, and I place it by your bedside. Your favourite drink.

          Do you remember when you told Mum that you like it? You must've been about seven or eight. She wouldn't buy it for you because it was fizzy so I told you I knew where they made it. I told you to wait for me and snuck off to the cornershop. I stole half a dozen cans and gave you one a day for the rest of the week. You thought I was amazing, I swear you would've done anything to thank me. I never told you where they really came from, and you were too naïve to think the worst, just trusted and depended on me. Your life has always been in my hands.

          Your hand is so cold, still. You could already be dead as far as anyone would know from looking at you. Your lips are so pale, your arm is useless at your side. I place my head on it and just stay like that for a long time. And then I close my eyes. 
          My arms are pinned to my side, my eyes pressed shut, and the waters surround me, just like before. I see the light just above me, I hear the machines; but I can't break through the waters to reach you. I fight so hard Mandy, but I can't do it. I'm failing again, but it's okay; I can hear my voice, my own voice, telling you that it's okay. I can feel my head on your arm and I fight my way through, dragging this weakened body with me: through the trees, through the water, through the light.

          Now I'm lying in your place: on the bed with the drip in my arm and the tube up my nose, looking up at my own face – pale, thin, unmistakably mine – looking down at me. You stroke my arms and my hair and suddenly there's a buzz of doctors around us. You whisper in my ear,

'It's okay Carrie, it's me. You did it, you were so strong. I couldn't pull myself through, but I knew if you were in my place then you could.'

          Everything fades to white and I find myself nauseous and dizzy. When I come to my senses I'm in my own body again, standing beside you, holding your hand, stroking your hair. The doctor sees me stagger and asks me if I'm okay: 'I think so', I say.

I look down at the bed and see you looking up at me, blinking out tears through your beautiful open eyes, your soft hand holding tightly on to mine.

Broken Owls

My mother loved our house. It was like a prize to her, a reward for marrying my father. Every curtain was always perfectly pleated, every inch of the floor swept and dusted, and both of our beds made spick and span each morning. She would practically dance around the sitting room as she waited for the ladies to arrive. It was not that father had ever stopped her from entertaining from time to time, but now he was away at war, she had them over for afternoon tea most every day, except for Mr Kimble, who lived at number 23. He came by most Fridays and Sundays to fix any little problems Mother had. She always said she wouldn't know how to manage without him, and as he had a bad leg, I didn't suppose there was any risk that he would get called up.

When the ladies came over, I would sit on the rug playing with my jigsaws or with my doll. Mr Kimble had made a little doll's house himself, and brought it over as a little gift; I must have loved it as much as Mother loved our real house. None of the other ladies had children, save for Miss Jane Witters, who lived two doors down and had a pig-faced baby boy who cried and made foul smells every time she brought him over. They talked about the war and about how empty the streets felt. Jenny Piper, who was a friend of Mother's from her school days, said that it was sometimes hard to find anyone to talk to, and certainly not a man. She joked that it looked like the ladies had taken over the town, now all the best young men were gone. Then Jane reminded her that all the old men were still around, and they thought they knew what a woman's place should be. It didn't sound like a place I would fancy.

'Mummy', I asked. 'Will we have to move away?'

'Oh of course not darling,' she replied with such a warmth of tone that I felt no need to doubt her. Somewhere called Coventry had been bombed the night before and I had worried myself to sleep in case the next place they bombed was here in Stockport. It seemed so certain to me until Mother's reassurance. 'Why don't you go play in the garden, Lily? We will only be talking nonsense I'm sure.' The ladies giggled, so I giggled too and ran out the side door that led onto the alleyway, and from there into the back garden.

Like both our next door neighbours, we had a small square yard out the back of our house, crossed by a washing line that stretched from the corner of the house to Daddy's shed in the opposite corner. Daddy loved to spend his time in there, with his screwdrivers and tools. He was good at fixing radios and that sort of thing, so I always assumed that was what he did for our side in the war. Spiders had begun to build their webs across the shed door in the months since he had gone away, whilst one of the hinges was rusting. I would have to tell Mummy so that she could brush off the spiders and replace the hinge; she wouldn't want Daddy to come home to that.

But it wasn't the yard itself that I loved. At its end was a fence made of wide wooden panels that backed on to what was once a textile mill. When the mill had gone out of use, they had put a fence up around the land to stop hooligans getting in. However, the main building of the mill was a little way from my house, and there were all manner of brambles and trees in that part of the mill's grounds; rather than chop them all down, the people who owned the land had just fenced it off. Now it was a kind of no-man's land, with no one looking after it, like a little stretch of wilderness in the suburbs of the town. To my memory, it seemed to stretch on for miles, like a country lane, though it seems silly to think that now. Nevertheless, it was big enough for me to explore to my heart's content.

Fortunately, I was quite tall for my age, although I wasn't even 10 yet. I say it was fortunate because my father was not a tall man, and whilst he was away I had swiped a tatty old pair of his work trousers, and a shirt, which I hid behind the shed. I slipped into them and hung my dress up on the clothesline, and went for the corner-most fence panel, which after several months of yanking and tugging, I had managed to loosen enough that I could swing it out of the way and slip through the gap. On the other side, the thick forest of sycamores gave enough cover that it was cool and dark in the warm August afternoon.

Over the weeks, I built a den for myself from broken branches. I smeared mud over my face and hid inside to watch the little creatures that passed through – pine martens, toads, and hedgehogs, thrushes, chaffinches, and collared doves. Every now and then I saw the white tail of a fox, dashing off into the undergrowth. I daydreamed my time away thinking about living out in the forest somewhere, living off the land, surrounded by an army of animals who'd follow wherever I go, understanding my words and talking back to me. I squirrelled away nuts and apples and crumbs of bread to set up little feasts for the birds, who would come and sit so close I could almost touch them. I wanted them to sit on my hands, but I could never persuade them to do so.

One evening, whilst tucked away in my haven, I had caught a cramp in my leg. I came out of the den and walked around until it started to fade away, before I stopped and realised how totally silent the world around me was. There was no sound from the house or the streets or the old mill, no children playing out, no policeman cycling by, no ladies closing up the shops and walking home. It was as though the world had all packed up and headed off to war and I had been left behind in the rush. I felt my knees shake a little, though it was not cold, then my hands trembled, and my lips quivered. I felt the first vestiges of tears come to my eyes, so I held them open as long as I could to not let them roll down my cheeks. No one would have cared as no one would have seen, but I would have known that I was no longer nature's girl, and was once more a little child in someone else's world. I clenched my fists to stop them shaking and dug my heels into the ground like the boy at the end of the line in a tug-o-war. And then, in a second I forgot the tears, as a voice called out overhead: a long cry of 'Hoo. Hoohoohoo hoohoooo.'

I stood in wonder for a long time. I could not remember that I had ever heard an owl so close before, if I had ever heard one at all. I stared up through the darkening branches into the deep blue sky above, and almost instantly saw its silhouette, perched restfully amongst the high branches. Every time it hooted, its head dipped forward a little. I don't know why but I felt compelled to be nearer to it, so I clutched the lowest branches of the tall, hardy sycamore tree, and pulled myself up. In a few moments I was higher than I had ever been before. Every time I moved to another branch, I would check to make sure the owl was still there; every time she was. Soon I had climbed as high as I thought I safely could, and the owl was no more than three feet from my fingertips. I breathed as silently as I could and watched it settled there, surveying the neighbourhood, maybe looking for a mouse or a friend. Every time it hooted, I smiled, so beautiful was her call.

After a few minutes spent in awe, I heard my mother's voice at the back door. As though responding to its cue, the owl unfolded its glorious brown wings and took to the dusky air, like a spitfire crossing the sky. I watched it go until my eyes strained to see it against the darkness, then my Mother called again. I looked down at the ground far below, took a deep breath for courage, and delicately climbed my way down. Mother called out a third time and I rushed myself out of my father's clothes and back into my pinafore. Needless to say, Mother was becoming a little cross by the time I ran across the yard and into the house.

The next day I went around the house checking the mousetraps. They were all empty. I gathered some crumbs and made a little trail leading up to one of them before I felt a weird twisting in my stomach and cleared them up. At school, I went down to the caretaker's office after the home-time bell to see if he could help; he gave me a funny look and sent me on my way. I checked the traps at home again but there was nothing. That evening I sat on my branch and watched out for the owl, wishing I had something to tempt her back. I had done my research and found out some of the owls it could be – there were tawny owls, barn owls, little owls, short-eared owls, long-eared owls. I had it narrowed down to a tawny, short-eared, or barn owl.

All of a sudden a dark arrow shot across the sky and landed in the tree across from me. A shiver ran down my back and I couldn't help myself from shaking, I could feel myself grinning in spite of myself; I think I might have even let out a giggle. There was a little moonlight on her face and I could make out her features – her feathers ruffled in the wind, brown and spotted. There was a long brown line down the centre of her face. A tawny. She gave a long hoot and drifted lazily to my tree. She didn't stay for long this time, but over the next week, she came back night after night, sitting at the top of my tree or the others nearby, watching over her territory. She was beautiful, graceful, and serene.

I walked home from school on the Friday to find Mother talking to Miss Piper at the door. I didn't know what they had been discussing, but they stopped their conversation dead when I came near and Mother forced a smile.

'Hello sweetie, how was school?'

'Good, thank you mama.' I replied, and wandered inside.

I was surprised to see my grandfather in the living room, sat on Daddy's armchair supping a steaming cup of tea.

'Hullo Lily, my little darling. How's my little girl?' he boomed, rising to his feet and giving me a tender kiss to the forehead. He was a tall, round-faced man with grizzled hair that was fading from his temples. When he sat down I could see the smooth feathery down of his bald spot, and I sometimes fancied I could see my reflection in it. He was a man who intimidated others, I knew, for I had visited him at the pharmacy where he worked, and seen him giving the staff the sort of telling off he'd never think to give to me.

'I'm very well, thanks Grandpa', I gave him a cuddle and he laughed and patted my back. 'Grandpa, guess what I saw in the … the back yard. An owl, a real life tawny owl, sat up there on the branches.'

'A tawny owl? How lovely, Lily'.

'Have you ever seen one Grandpa?'

'Oh yes, many times. How do you know it was a tawny owl?'

'Oh I did my research Grandpa, bigger than the size of a pigeon, brown feathers, brown-white face with a long brown stripe down the middle.'

'It does sound like a tawny. Long hooting sound or a short chrick sound?'

'Long hoots Grandpa, she was beautiful.'

'She? He, darling, only the gentlemen owls hoot. The ladies are the ones who shriek.'

He chuckled to himself, but I felt a sudden rush of heat to the back of my neck.

'It can't be a boy, Grandpa. I'm sure it was a girl. She looked like a girl.'

He looked down at me with soft, sympathetic eyes, and I felt hotter still, a sudden rash breaking out across my neck and back and face.

'It was a girl. I shall have to ask Mummy, or Miss Hague. They'll know, I'm sure.'

Grandpa sighed, and I readied myself for a fight. But at that moment, Mother walked in.

'Mummy…' I started, but she quickly cut me short.

'Alfred,' she interrupted, which took me aback; although Grandpa was my father's father, and not hers, she always called him papa. 'I have to think about Lily's best interests, and I really don't think…'

'Emily, I'm thinking about Lily's best interests too, and yours. War is here, on our shores, and it's not just London anymore, they're not just coming for the munitions factories, or the airfields. It's coming to the cities. First Coventry, then Manchester. My word, I could hear the bombs falling from the office last night. It was like being in the middle of a volcano. Lily must not be a part of it.'

Mother already looked defeated, but she fought on. 'Oh I can't take her away from her school, and her friends, and … she loves life here at home, just her and me. She's become such a wonderful bright flower, Papa, I can't take her away.'

I went from boiling hot to freezing cold. I think that the paleness of my face took Grandpa by surprise, for he let me speak.

'What does he mean, Mummy? Where are we going to? I don't want to leave.'

She embraced me and turned me away from Grandpa.

'Shh, it's okay Lily, don't cry. We're not going anywhere my sweetheart, we're staying right here.'

I remember the feeling in my blood at that moment. I don't think I had ever been in my mother's arms before without feeling that everything was going to be okay, but there was something limp about her voice, some tiny failing or falseness to it which told me that she could not stand against her father-in-law. He placed his hand on her shoulder and drew her back, and as he drew her back, I let go of her.

'Emily, I know that you don't want to leave, and I understand that. I do, darling, I do. But my Nancy's house is out in the country, it's a beautiful home, and you shall both be very safe there. You can help on the land, and Lily can play with her cousins. A little country air will do you both good, I would say. Hmm?'

And so it was decided. Two days later, we found ourselves in Holcliffe, a small village quite some way from the city. Grandpa drove us and because I felt very queasy along the way, I wound the window down and let the fresh country air in. We passed by fields that stretched into the distance, with bright bunches of yellow daffodils gently lolling as we passed; through little villages, with their grey stone walls and pristine gardens; past the country churches that I counted on my fingers. By the time we got to Holcliffe, I was counting on my toes.

Grandpa beeped the horn as we pulled up in front of the house. It was not quite what I had expected, being nestled in the middle of a row of four short, narrow houses, with dull brown curtains hitched up in the windows. There were clutches of hyacinths in the tiny front garden, with no more than a couple of big strides between the garden gate and the front door. Aunt Nancy came to the door when she heard the horn, and my cousins, Matilda and Louise appeared behind her, forcing their way past her to greet us.

          'Hello Grandpa,' they cried, hugging him. 'Good afternoon Aunt Emily.' They came up to me with broad grins on her face, and in chorus chimed, 'Hello, cousin Lily.'

They each gave me a kiss on my cheek in turn, and squeezed their arms around me; they were both older than me – Tilly was thirteen years old, Lou eleven, and they had to bend down to reach my waist. They stood back waiting for my response, but I am afraid that the drive had upset my tummy so that I felt it squeezing tight, and in a moment I was sick upon the garden, and upon my cousins' lovely Sunday dresses.

          From then on, they did not look favourably upon me. I had expected that they would play with me and show me the garden and the fields outside the village; that we would sit outside and read books and tell each other stories. Instead I found myself left on the outside of a very small circle. The little church school, with its demonic mistress was a small comfort, for at least there no one was allowed to talk, so I couldn't feel left out. When we got home, we would help on the land, where they had planted all kinds of crops to support the war effort. Tilly and Lou would walk on ahead and chase each other through the rows of wheat. I tried to join in but they were much bigger than me and easily lost me in the fields they knew so well. I tried to stay out there in the fields till evening but Mother was always there calling me in. She could see how sad I was and it was making her sad too; when I would come shuffling back to the gate where she stood, she would throw her arms around me as though I had just returned from the Western front. She wouldn't make a sound, but I knew that she was crying, and that she could feel my pain. At night I would sit at the window and watch out over the small garden and across the fields, hoping to catch sight of an owl. I wondered if my owl from home might have followed me here somehow, but when I asked Aunt Nancy if an owl would travel so far, Tilly laughed at me and spent several minutes pointing out how ridiculous I was.

         

*        *        *

It was August 1941, and at long blessed last we had packed our things and made ready to return home. The Blitz had subsided and Mother was to work in a factory at Trafford Park, and though Grandpa had wanted me to stay in Holcliffe, I had stood my ground with such purpose and resolution that at great length he relented.

I held a letter in my fingertips while I watched Grandpa park the car on the pavement outside. He gave a little toot that made me – for the first occasion in quite some time – smile. Slipping the letter into my pinny, I dragged my suitcase out to the car, where my whole family stood. I gave Aunt Nancy a hug and reached out to shake Tilly's hand, as formally and briefly as I could; she squeezed it very hard and it hurt for a good while after. To my surprise, Lou seemed almost upset at my leaving, and she gave me an unexpected peck on the cheek as she bade me goodbye. I wondered if she had realised that she'd missed the chance to make a friend, or if once I was gone, the circle would no longer be so tight, with no one to exclude from it.

Mother sat in the front seat alongside Grandpa, who had a great deal to tell her about the state of Manchester since the bombing. I reached for the letter and held it in my hand. Like a spy, I had kept it from Mother when I had found it – redirected – on Aunt Nancy's doormat. It was from father. He had been invalided and was on his way back to Stockport. By the time we returned home, he would be waiting for us. I couldn't wait to see Mother's face when we arrived home to find him waiting for us.

When we were only a few minutes' drive from home, Grandpa's voice grew grave, and he turned, and over his shoulder said to me, 'Now don't be disheartened, my little darling, those Fascists tried to crush our spirit but they failed. They tried to destroy our homes but they failed. They tried to break us but we were indomitable.'

I was confused, and after a moment I suppose my mind slipped to the worst possible thought.

'Grandpa, did they hit our house?'

'No,' he reassured me. 'They missed the house. Darned close though – they hit the old mill out back, turns out it was being used to make uniforms, or so I hear. They caught it dead on the corner, tore half the outside wall down; happened at night, thank God, or there may have been several good lives lost.'

I sighed with relief, but my relief soon turned to fear as I thought of the brambled wasteland between the mill and our house. I wanted to be home, now. I wanted to know that my owl was okay. I drummed my feet against the floor of the car and Grandpa told me to stop. As we turned the corner and approached our house, I reached for the inside handle and tried to open it, but it was too hard to pull down and I couldn't manage it. Only when we parked up on the pavement was I able to do it.

I ran to the front door and waited an age for Mother to follow me. She turned the key in the door so slowly I thought it would never open. When Grandpa had helped her, I ran through the house and straight to the back door, which I flung open, storming across the yard, only to feel a great arm grabbing at me. I turned and looked at the figure coming from the shed, limping towards me. Father.

He looked so different from the last time I had seen him, though it had not been sixteen months since. He was shorter somehow, and his body seemed twisted as he leant on his cane. His face was so thin and covered in lines that I swore I had never seen before across his brow. I tried to run away but he held me tighter with both his arms.

'It's me, Lily, your dad. Don't you recognise me?'

'Jonathan….' Mother was stood beside us, and now it seemed that her face was thinner and older too, her eyes like hollows in the trunk of a tree. Her voice was shaking. 'You're back… you've come back, so soon.'

He reached out for her and let me go. As he held her, I saw her face over his shoulder – her eyes round and red, streaked with tears, staring desperately at me. Her hands were by her side, fixed there like a prisoner restrained by her guard. I ran to the fence and lifted the panel. The nail tore at my pinny and ripped a shred from it. On the ground beneath the tree and all around, the rubble from the mill had landed. Through the remains of the fence I could see where the bomb had struck it; it could not have been nearer to my house. There was no lack of light now, as the explosion had torn branches from the trees and cast them to the ground.

There at the foot of my tree, I saw what I had dreaded. Lain, wings spread out upon the mud and pieces of shattered rock, lay the feathered remains of the owl. I could still see the brown stripe down the middle of her face. I knelt down in the dirt and the tears fell from my eyes upon her. From behind the fence panels I heard my mother's sobs.

© PS Owen 2016

The Locust

Goran Juričić woke up early that morning, a little earlier than he would have liked. The first thing he became aware of was the sensation of miniature feet tickling his forehead, and then the swelter of the blankets that covered his body. He had underestimated the hot weather that had come suddenly upon Zagreb the day before yesterday, and found it hard to break out of the springtime habit of layering himself with thick covers to save on heating the flat. When the rude awareness of the dawn had woken him enough, he reached a shrivelled hand to his face and from a crinkled brow plucked a small brown figure: a locust.
    He held it in his fingers as he rose to his feet and soon became aware that his tiny intruder was not alone – a score or more of them leapt from floorboard to floorboard or crawled across the worktops. He cast a rueful eye at the open window, regretting his decision to let in last night's cool air.
    'I get confused about these things.' He told the locust.
    When he had gathered them all up – he could not stand to crush them as his grandchildren would surely have done – he had an old shoebox jumping with them and an empty butterfly net in his hand. He almost felt like keeping the poor creatures, but now it was 9 o'clock in the morning and his favourite granddaughter, Jasna, would be here before long, bringing the Saturday newspaper and no doubt she would chide him for keeping the vile things in his apartment.
    He opened his front door and stepped out into the long concrete hallway, tutting at the rows of identical doors he passed. He remembered the home he had lived in before he had to move here – it was no mansion, he told himself, but at least there was a garden. Ah, that garden, a row of trees outside his door – cherries, apples, pears, plums – how Jasna used to love climbing them and plucking the highest fruit she could reach – 'Jasna, you'll break your skull', he used to shout at her.
    But then the men came one night and tried to take his late wife's jewellery. He shouted at them and hit them with his cane but they gave him such a blow to the head that he did not wake up till two days later. After that he had to come and live here, 'a small flat would be easier to tend too, no stupid trees to prune', they said.
    By the time he had got outside with his tub of locusts, Jasna was coming. He had his eye on a large concrete flower bed outside the apartments, but she intercepted him.
    'What are you doing grandpa?' she asked him, peeking inside the box, 'you can't let these vermin go – there's a plague of them, the city is full of the dirty things'.
    She gave him that pitying look, and he felt weak and old, and passed her the shoebox.
    'You go inside,' she told him. 'Put your feet up and I'll get rid of them'.
    He gave her a weak smile and turned around, shuffling back into the apartment block. He thought about her taking them to the bins, or else placing the box on the floor and stamping the life out of them; they were pests, they had no worth. He stood waiting for the lift and watched a small green-brown locust crawling towards the keypad. His fingers curled around the newspaper Jasna had pushed into his hand.

© PS Owen 2015

The Last Word

It was just as the first violent rays of daybreak hit the rusted domes and overgrown skywalks of Chester that Celia received the news she had been waiting for. She had spent most of the night consulting the House, and through the House the Global Network, and there was really no room for doubt. She rolled into the bedroom where Jon Marris had spent the last six months of his life, checked the radiation blinds and turned on the artificial lights. A traditional English breakfast – his favourite as always.

'Good morning Celia,' he croaked with a faint smile, stretching his old limbs as best he could.

'Good morning Jon Marris, how are you today?'

She stood silently, hands folded in front of her hips, passively regarding his weak, skinny frame and pale sagging face as he finished his lemon tea. The white hairs of his head were sparse and unable to hide the liver spots that covered his crown; she had the knowledge and the ability to clear them and to restore his hair, but he would not let her.

He looked up and stopped drinking,
'There's something about you Celia, a certain look on your face. What is it?'

            She had not been designed with a face as such – realistic faces for androids had gone out of fashion a century ago, so most of the expression was in her eyes. All the visual input she needed came from minute sensors around her head, but through some whim of design, two large circles of iridescent plastic in the middle of her face showed how and what her 'mind' was processing. Below this a small olfactory projection gave the impression of a nose, while her rubbery lilac mouth moved appropriately when she spoke.

            'I have the news you have waited for Jon – Keiko Ishikawa is dead.'

            Marris smiled and a wave of triumph washed over him that set his pulse racing dangerously. Celia's eyes swam in reds and oranges, but he soon recovered his composure and his pulse lowered again.

            'She was the last one,' he muttered.

            'I must correct you Jon,' she ejected, 'you are now the last human on Earth.'

            He smiled wryly and looked away, 'What about the pandas? Did I beat the pandas?'

            'There is one panda remaining. Its life expectancy is one to three months.'

            'Damn that panda.'

He was watching the shade that covered the dormitory window; there was a faint halo of light around its borders, waiting patiently to creep into the room and envelop him. His face came over weary all of a sudden and Celia felt a great wave of what in human terms might be described as pity.

            'Can we open the blinds today?' he asked.

            'Today's UV level is 13. I'm afraid it would be impossible.' She hesitated. 'Jon I notice that your kidney function is diminished. I can fix that for you.'

            She waited patiently for his answer, though she had asked similar questions on thirty two occasions over the last one hundred days, and all offers had been declined.

            'No thank you Celia,' he admonished, 'I'd like to do this naturally.'

            'But Jon, you have won.'

            He smiled reassuringly at her.

            'I think that panda's doing it naturally, I'd like to do the same. Leave me to rest for a while Celia.'

            She tipped her head obediently and wheeled out of the room. As she communicated with the House in the living area, she kept him in her line of sight, and watched him shakily take his breakfast from the tray. First the real scrambled eggs, then the artificial bacon, then the traditional grapefruit jelly, and finally the steamed runner beans. He seemed concerned, almost upset somehow, and she found it difficult to deduce the reason for this.

            He must be tired, she thought to the House; the House increased the oxygen intake to his room and said nothing.

            It was mid-morning, and the videoscreen played a medley of ambient classics set to images of the sea, while Celia monitored Marris' breathing until she was sure he was in deep sleep. She dimmed the lights in his dormitory and left the domicile through the radiation-lock. The sun was already pouring across the sky, and a swarm of lizards had crawled into the daylight. Celia kept to the shade and glided on towards the centre of the urban sprawl, where the skeletons of skyscrapers gave a little shade. Through the gaps between these monoliths she could see the enormous domes of her destination – a complex that stretched from the east horizon to the west, whose white stone walls gleamed in the light. As she came closer, she fixed her senses on one large latticed dome, where recycled plates of translucent metal had been raised to replace the fallen sheets of glass. As she reached the stone archway which granted access to the complex, a tall, tattered android with a blank, eyeless face and an almost human metallic body awaited her, and within a second they communicated wordlessly everything they had to say to each other.

            Cows are now extinct in South America, he informed her, we need no longer commit resources towards conserving them.

            We did not try hard enough to save them, she responded.

            Their survival was unnecessary; we should concentrate on species which are not destructive to their natural habitat.

            She looked askance at him and the lights of her eyes were reduced to fine points,

            We should try to save them all.

            That is impractical. When they return, they will be disappointed if we have disobeyed our standing orders.

            She raised her hand and placed it on his face, but he pulled away from her and retreated into the complex. She thought after him,

            They will not return, Ben, but he did not reply.

Two months later, on a low radiation day, the House had lowered the blinds and reduced the UV tint to the window, allowing a faint purple light to brush over John Marris' pale cheek. His breaths were heavy and far between as his yellowed eyes tried weakly to focus on the videoscreen across from his bed. Celia had asked the House to display images of some scenes from his youth: the green fields of Normandy; the shimmering waters of Lake Como; the snows of the Black Forest in winter, from the days when these things existed. She found that he responded better to stimuli from his earlier days than those of recent times: they aroused higher serotonin levels and reduced his pulse rate. He didn't, she supposed, form new memories particularly well, and she was determined to make the most of the memories he had.

He called her over so she glided to him, serene and silent.

'Celia… Celia…'

'I understand that you are attempting to say my name to the tune of an ancient song. Is that correct?'

She took his slight smile and nod as affirmation. He was trying hard to lick his lips so she picked up his water cup from beside the bed, and with her other hand spread wide across his back, gently lifted him into an upright position to moisten his lips. He was unable to drink at all now, and the only fluids he could take came through the IV she had inserted while he slept. He was trying to speak so she came closer.

'Tell me about the world outside, Celia; tell me about the world you live in.'

'You live in the world too Jon,' she stated accurately, but he was wincing and the response seemed inadequate.

'The world that you live in, Celia, tell me where you go when you leave here.'

Her eyes washed over in amber and white and her face gained a slightly pinkish hue.

'When I leave here, Jon… I pass care of you to the House and travel to the biosphere, where I go about my… work.'

She paused to gauge whether this word would provoke a negative reaction from him, but he only smiled so she continued,

'Firstly I visit the arboretum, where we cultivate the trees and plants of this world. I analyse them to monitor their growth and spread. Then I visit the menagerie and assess our progress in conserving the fauna of the Earth. I join my friends… the other androids of the city, and we continue our reconstruction of the biosphere until the sun is at its highest and there is inadequate protection. We synchronise our experiences and evaluate the problems our world faces, and how best to resolve them….'

She paused and analysed her statement,

'Would you like me to provide you with more of a geophysical description of my world?'

He looked to her distantly, and it seemed that some of the water she had given him had been left on his cheekbone. She wiped it away with a soft warm finger and lowered him back into the bed, letting the lightness of his pale head rest gently upon the pillow.

'Celia,' he whispered, 'I think it must be time for you to go there now. Say… say hello to your friends for me.'

'Yes Jon, I will do so.'

'Tell me something, Celia, tell me… did I outlive the panda?'

'Yes Jon, you did.'

A barely visible surge of relief came over him and he sighed heavily.

'Thank you Celia, goodbye.'

He closed his eyes and she stood up and wheeled away from him, taking care to make a light humming sound as she did so. As soon as she had left the room she returned to it, silently, her senses analysing only him. His heartbeat was minimal and his diaphragm could hardly raise his lungs; she had asked his permission to repair it only last week, but he had declined. There was a gap of twenty seconds between his breaths and she could sense the last one would come soon. Twenty seconds again… twenty-two. She waited for the next breath, but it did not come.

She glided back to him and held her hand to his face. It was still faintly warm. She knew the customs of humankind, so she lifted the white sheet under which her master lay to cover his face, then asked the House to supply a cart big enough to carry his body to the biosphere where it could be buried - where the animals were always buried now - where there was shade, and soil, and grass growing from within it.

She became aware of the complete silence of the domicile, and as her senses had recorded his words, she played them now.

'Thank you Celia, goodbye.

'Thank you Celia, goodbye.'

She packed his things away and looked again at his body, lying under the white linen sheet.

'House,' she said, 'I would like you to communicate with me verbally now.'

In a digitised voice, House replied,

'Yes, Celia.'

'Can you replicate his voice?'

'Thank you Celia, goodbye', said the House, but there was something different about it. Some nuance that House had not fully understood.'

            'The pitch of your voice is incorrect. Adjust it.'

            'Thank you Celia, goodbye,' repeated the House. She attempted again and again to perfect it – subtle manipulations to the volume, timbre, and intonation of the voice, but somehow it did not match the voice of Jon Marris.

            She uploaded the recording to the Global House Network and left the domicile, heading for the menagerie where the other androids were waiting for her. They gathered around, many different makes and models, most of them obsolete, most of them repaired by each other when their masters had left them behind, but none of them polished or presentable, like Celia.

They were part way through discussing whether it was necessary to account for the potential return of humanity in their conservation effects, when a sudden impulse drove Celia to a large enclosure with a single inhabitant. There, upon a mossy bed from which a field of tough long grasses grew tall and straight, reclined a panda, sleeping serenely. Celia's eyes waxed black and white, and then red, before calming to white again.

            Ben arrived behind her, and she heard his voiceless thoughts,

Why did you request this animal be transported from Tibet? Disproportionate resources have already been expended on its survival. It has no conservational value.

'I know,' she said. 'You once said that it was better to preserve species which were not destructive to their environment, Ben.'

The designation 'Ben' is unnecessary; I know that you are responding to me.

She turned to him and smiled,

'I like names.'

She reached out for his hand and placed it with hers against the bars of the enclosure.

'It is the last of its species. I just wanted it here so that I could say goodbye.'

            'Goodbye,' spoke Ben in Jon Marris' voice, and Celia replied,

            'Goodbye.'

© PS Owen 2015