SLICES OF LIFE

Slices of Life

By Maggie Heilig

Aubrey suddenly became aware of a throbbing pain in her neck. The cold plastic of the cafeteria table was pressed determinedly against her face, doing nothing to absorb a trickle of sweat that crept across her forehead.

Her feeling of mounting discomfort was intensified by the persistent tapping on her shoulder. Aubrey let her eyelids flutter open half way, wiping her dewy face.

“What?”, She groaned sleepily

The perplexed and tennis-ball shaped eyes of her best friend peered back at her, and the tapping stopped abruptly.

“You need to go to professor Hawkings' office” Julia didn’t try to disguise the worry in her tone as she added “They just made an announcement over the intercom”.

Sighing an almost incoherent thank you to her friend, Aubrey rose and staggered off in the direction of favourite teacher’s classroom. Julia’s puzzled expression would be trailing after her if she looked back. Knowing this, Aubrey determinedly kept her gaze straight ahead.

They both knew that it was very unlike her to be falling asleep on a cafeteria table at lunch time. She took pride in being the top student in the school, spending her lunch hours in the Mentor Centre tutoring new students, or in the biology lab tending to her bacteria cultures.

I’ll explain later, Aubrey decided silently. The mental capacity to reassure her friend right now took more than she could give.

The truth was that she was simply feeling lost. The winner of a scholarship that she desperately needed was announced yesterday, and the committee had chosen a student from a different school.

This news was followed by a night of babysitting her triplet sisters, all of whom refused to go to bed until 2am when their grandma got home from her nursing shift at the hospital.

Aubrey usually didn’t mind helping out her family and accepted it as a consequence of her father’s horrific actions. Last night though, listening to the kids screaming all evening only intensified her feelings of hopelessness and injustice.

She would never blame her grandma for needing so much help, nor her mother for the illness that took her away. No, it was her dad who shouldered the blame for leaving her parentless and with more responsibility than anyone else her age.

Usually, she let the anger at her father fuel her to be a better babysitter, better in school, better in every way that her dad could not be. Today though, she was too drained to be angry; too disappointed to want to prove anyone wrong.

“Look alive there, Parker!”

Aubrey was jolted out of her reverie by Mr. Hawkings' voice. She looked up, realizing her brow had been furrowed and her frown plainly obvious. A tall, slender man with caramel coloured locks smiled at her, leaning against the teal blue doorway.

“I hear you needed to see me?” She sincerely hoped her voice sounded conversational.

He nodded, but as her peered at her there was a ghost of the same worried expression Julia had worn.

“Someone sent me this, for you”. He said, holding up a small square parcel wrapped in velvety blue paper. “It arrived with the school mail this morning…”

Aubrey was now right next to him in the hallway, close enough to extend her arm and take the package from his grasp. She looked at it slowly, slightly confused.

“I’m guessing someone wanted to congratulate you on the article, but didn’t have your personal address.” He paused for a moment before saying, “I’m definitely not the only person who is intensely proud of you”

His surveying eyes made her feel exposed. Aubrey found herself wishing he couldn’t read her so well. She managed a timid smile, though it did not extend to her eyes.

“Thank you”, she managed. Her thoughts told a different story.

What does it matter if someone is proud of my research?

What do I care if some stranger wants to write to tell me I’m smart?

She knew she should be appreciative, but empty compliments about the news article just made her mad. What did it matter if she was doing good work for the field, if she couldn’t get to a place where she could actually make a difference in finding a cure for her mother’s illness?

With no formal family savings, the scholarship she lost yesterday was her last chance to scrape the remaining 10,000 she needed to attend the cutting-edge microbiology program of her choice. She had failed, and now she didn’t think she could take any more empty congratulations.

“Talk to you on Monday”, Aubrey stated flatly.

She turned on her heel and sped down the hallway before he could say another word. The blue velvet parcel was still clutched forcefully in her hand.

Aubrey arose the next morning with her neck feeling even more stiff. Her dreams had been consumed by another nightmare, the same one that persisted in haunting her even in the daylight hours.

The scene was like a mirage. She stood on the outskirts of a parking lot, watching 2 men conversing outside a bar. One of the men began to morph, turn red as a fire hydrant. He grew to 3 times his size, horns and spikes protruding from his face as he elongated. He reached out his powerful arm, with a hand that was clenched in a blistering fist. Even in a dream state, at this point Aubrey knew to close her eyes.

She opened them again to see the faded wood of her bedroom ceiling.

Exhaustion lead her to fall asleep still wearing all her clothes from the day before, with the parcel Mr. Hawking had given her thrown haphazardly beside her pillow. She seemed to have rolled onto it during the night, ripping the expensive-looking paper in 2 places.

Rolling over onto her side, Aubrey felt immensely thankful that it was Saturday. Usually, she would spend the whole day studying. It was one of the only days per week her grandma could be home all day to take over caring for her siblings.

To distract herself from this looming thought, she began to pull at the already peeling blue paper.

Aubrey felt the smooth leather before seeing what was inside. A small charcoal black notebook fell into her hands as she threw the wrapping to the side. Turning it over in her hands, she noticed a shiny red clip biding a section of pages together. It’s deep teeth were pressed between the pages, almost like 2 bookends that were attached together, holding a large section of the notebook determinedly shut.

Curious, Aubrey licked her finger and pulled the book open to reveal the first page. She felt an uneasy jolt in her stomach as she traced her own name sketched on the page.

Dear Aubrey,

Let’s play a game. I promise you won’t regret it.

Here are the rules:

Only turn to the next page when you’ve done what is requested on that previous.

Drive safe and know you will be not be led into harm.

Please turn to page 2.

The butterflies in her stomach were flurrying now. She saw that the author has hand-written a small #1 in the bottom right corner of the page. Flipping it over, the next page was revealed - embroidered with a small #2.

2947 Two Pine Drive

Look around

Don’t be in a rush

Then, turn to page 3.

She read these words over 4 times. Aubrey desperately wanted to flip to the next page, to know who wrote this and why they wanted her to go to a random address. An ominous feeling overcame her, making her feel that whoever had gifted this to her knew that she loved to follow rules.

If this was any other day, she would have shaken off this feeling of curiosity and retired to the living room for an day of studying. If this was any other day, she wouldn’t have been willing to abide by a suspicious and potentially dangerous request from a stranger. But after years of spending Friday nights inside studying, she thought it was about time she took a risk. It would after all, be a really great distraction.

Aubrey slammed her car door 5 minutes later, turning out of the driveway without a backwards glance. The location etched in the black book’s pages was about a town away from her own. She drove silently across the countryside, passing fields of wild stock and barrels of hay.

20 minutes later, the chestnut coloured sedan slowed. Aubrey peeked out the window, cautious to see where the book had brought her.

Directly parallel to the window was what looked like a run-down little café. Its bricks were hastily painted white, and a purple canopy was strewn across the entranceway. John’s Place, read a slightly discoloured banner above the door. Feeling slightly thankful that she hadn’t ended up anywhere worse, Aubrey threw her keys in her pocket.

Right away, Aubrey noticed that the walls of the cramped space were littered with expressive paintings. They didn’t seem to be a collection, but complemented each other in a unique way that words didn’t do justice. Closest to the entranceway, there was a large portrait of seven crows flying over top of a looming skyline. Nearby, a picture of two cowboys grinning and posing atop their obedient horses. The room gave off a very welcoming and familiar energy, though she knew she hadn’t been there before.

A stout waitress smiled at her reassuringly as she stood in the doorway, awkwardly waiting to request a table for one. The kind-looking woman clutched a menu and beckoned Aubrey foreword to a circular table beside the window. She was surprisingly comforted by the waitresses’ presence as she sunk into one of the 2 big armchairs, forgetting for a moment that she was dining alone.

Aubrey wasn’t quite sure why she was there, there was nothing else written on the page. Her compulsion to follow the book’s rules loomed, and she put down the cell phone she had just taken out of her pocket to check the time.

Don’t be in a rush, she thought.

Instead, she took in the room at large. The wooden tables were positioned haphazardly across the room, some far too close together. The people sitting at these tables didn’t seem to mind, all greeting each other like old friends. An ancient-looking man in a red hat smiled at the waitress who had seated her, touching her shoulder reassuringly as she passed. A woman in the corner hugged a small blonde child, tears in her eyes. Aubrey felt calm and relaxed, letting her mind drift. She took a minute to imagine the lives of the people who gathered in crowded space.

A strange calm spread across her as Aubrey paid for her coffee and rose from her seat. She bid the kind waitress goodbye, and got back into her car, which was now showered with evening light.

Obediently, she flipped the little black book to page 4, both nervous and excited to see where it would take her next. The scribbled hand writing was hard to make out, but after a moment she realized that it was coordinates. Underneath these letters and numbers there was one sentence:

Sit on the big rock at 5 o’clock.

You will know when it’s over

Take the clip, shake the book.

In a minute, the coordinates were plugged into her phone and she was on her way.

At 4:56, Aubrey slowed along an inconspicuous-looking country road. She got out of the car hastily, looking around for something of substance. The only thing worth noticing was a small hole in the fence directly beside her passenger door.

Ducking her under the top metal bar, she began to walk a small heavily wooded trail. After about a minute, the edge of a beautiful cliff came into view. It lead into a vast valley, with only one small cottages below situated in the grass. She only have a second to wonder why it’s such a beautiful place was so uninhabited, before her thoughts were distracted.

The door of the small cottage below creaked open, revealing a man in a straw hat. Aubrey could hear his footsteps clunk on the wooden deck as he made his way over to an aged rocking chair. As he sat down, Aubrey could make out a very kind face, lined with age. He held a ukulele in his hand, beginning to hum softly.

In a moment, the valley was alive with the soul of this man. His voice was rugged but still somehow densely soothing. His song sounded like a lesson and a love story all in one. The tune was not one she recognized, but quickly decided was one of her very favorite. Aubrey closed her eyes, feeling the music and the evening light wash over her in blissful unison.

The music finally stopped. Aubrey heard the porch door creak open, then shut; before she opened her eyes.

She felt as if she was coming out of a trance. As she came to, excitement slowly boiled within her – knowing that she had done everything the book asked.

Hands shaking, she removed the small red clip, and shook the notebook slowly – other hand outstretched. An envelope fell out of it’s pages, almost floating into her one outstretched hand. Inside, was a letter.

I know what you think I am, but I am not a monster.

Your mother got ill, and I stopped being able to enjoy the small moments. I stopped going to the placed I showed you today. I found myself in the small moments in life, and when they went away I lost myself too.

I snapped, I took out my grief on someone that did not deserve it. I landed myself in this place, and I will forever feel shame for that. If I can teach you one thing from my actions, it is this:

Life is about the seconds. The smiles, the soft melodies, a peaceful silence shared with ones you love. The rest of this book is for you to record your own small moments. The little slices of life that make you feel human. Hold onto them and never let them go.

I saw your article, and I am so proud of you.

I love you.

Dad

Through the tears welling in her eyes, Aubrey finally noticed that a cheque, sitting deep in the folds of this letter. She glanced at it just long enough to make out the amount: $20,000.

Sitting there on the cliff, she felt herself forgive. She felt herself truly enjoy every little slice of life.