Enough already!
I can’t get to sleep. Too much coffee, too late perhaps. But I can usually get away with that for some reason. Maybe I metabolize coffee differently from normal humans. Whatever.
A swirl of ideas and images seem to clamor for release from the prison that is my head. Triggered perhaps by the clemency shown in finally freeing the prologue earlier. They too are crying out to be committed down to electrons for others to read and will give me no peace.
After much tossing and turning, I have finally yielded. Maybe once they’re out, they’ll let me alone. Don’t they know I have work in the morning? Writing is supposed to be a relaxing (hah!) night time hobby, not a torment in the wee hours, damnit!
After all, I still have to keep my day job.
Chapter 1: Not Waving, but Drowning
And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in
- Elton John
Cassandra wakes up, startled and disoriented. She is four years old. It’s dark. Rain rattles against the window. The bed feels different and the door from her bedroom is in the wrong place. We must have moved again for Daddy. Different job, different city, different house. But the rising and falling rhythm of the raised voices from below is all too familiar.
Her mother and father are yelling at each other. She can’t make out the words through closed doors but anxiously, she feels sure that they’re arguing about her. Did she do something wrong, today? She groggily tries to remember, but can’t.
Curling up, knees tucked in to her chest, she starts to cry softly, wetting the thin pillow she clutches against the side of her face. Despite her attempts to hold it in, it builds into a loud wail of distress and despair.
Suddenly, the shouting downstairs stops.
She hears a door opening below and then soft steps coming up the stairs. Her bedroom door opens slightly and light spills in from the hallway across the carpeted floor.
“Are you all right, darling?” her mother asks, voice gentle now. “Did we wake you?”
“Uhh.. uhh..” is all she can utter, trying to still the heaving sobs.
“Shh…. it’s all right.” Her mother sits on the edge of the bed and pulls Cassandra up into her lap.
“Mummy and daddy were just talking” she lies, stroking Cassandra’s hair.
The familiar scent of her mother’s fading perfume fills Cassandra’s nose as she nestles into her mother’s shoulder. The towelling bathrobe starts wicking away the tears from her cheek. Her mother begins rocking her gently and starts to hum.
Heavier footsteps ascend the stairs and a taller figure looms silhouetted in the doorway.
“Wassmmatterrr babeee girrrl.” her father slurs, lurching awkwardly into the bedroom.
He leans over Cassandra and she can smell a familiar but less comforting aroma on his breath.
“Look, just go to bed, John.” her mother says, tightly.
“Awrrright thennn.” he mutters as he shambles out, waving his hand in the air absently.
Blink
Cassandra is swimming at the beach. She is six years old. The surging tide is pulling her out into deeper waters as she struggles to get in to shore. She is tiring and beginning to panic, obviously caught in the riptide. As she comes up for a breath, she can see the wide expanse of her father’s sunburned shoulders a ways ahead of her, rising out of the surf like a human lighthouse. He has his back to her.
Why won’t he turn around?
Why can’t he see me?
She goes under again, struggling frantically, against the urgent pull at her ankles. Nearing exhaustion, she comes up and takes in another mouthful of seawater. Gasping, choking, her vision is starting to shrink inwards, narrowing until even her father disappears. As everything starts to fade, stilling the ache in her lungs, she has the vague sense of something tugging at her upper arm.
Darkness.
She comes to lying rolled onto her side, her father’s large hands on her shoulder and hip. She is spluttering and coughing up water into the sand. Her lips and cheeks feel a little sore where they have rubbed against the stubble on her father’s chin and upper lip. He hasn’t shaven for a couple of days. It must be the school holidays then. Daddy always shaves for work. Work is important.
She looks up, a little dazed and sees her mother standing there silent, hands near her chin, clasped together as if in prayer. Her face is pale, worried, and her eyes glisten with tears.
“You gave us a bit of scare there, baby girl” her father says. Woozily, Cassandra rolls to face him.
“See, I told you, you’ve gotta look out for that rip.” he continues, smiling weakly.
Blink
Cassandra wakes up in her bed. She is seven years old. Someone is talking loudly downstairs. Pauses mixed with sobbing intervene between each exclamation. Are her parents back already? No. It must be Rita, her mother’s older sister talking to someone on the phone. The phone is in the hallway so the words are less muffled and she can make some of them out.
She’s sure Rita and the caller are talking about her. Rita is a stern, hunkered down sort of woman, fiercely loyal to her mother, but with no love lost for her father. Cassandra feels sure Rita doesn’t like her much either. She always sends her to bed early when she babysits and will only ever read her one story. She usually reads very quickly, not letting Cassandra linger and look at the comfortingly familiar pages. And she skips pages sometimes too, on purpose. Cassandra says nothing and pretends she doesn’t notice. It’s easier that way.
“… No … No …. Bastard! … your fault!”
sobbing
“… asleep … wake her.”
pause
“… for Anne! … You!”
sobbing
“… Alright! … my car … hospital.”
click
There is a moment of pregnant silence and then footsteps come up the stairs. Another pause and then the door is opened and Rita stands in the hallway light, breathing deeply, trying to compose herself. Sitting up and blinking in the sudden light, Cassandra anxiously waits for her to speak.
Deep down, Cassandra knows something is terribly wrong.
Blink