A Version Of Fairness

It was happening again. As Claude regained consciousness, he could see the lights on the ceiling, swimming into focus. His mind woke up before his vision cleared. He had survived the operation. Doctor Karl, you are a truly brilliant surgeon. He was not dead. He had been. He had seen the other side and it terrified him.

There had been no bright lights, no warmth, no welcoming benevolence and smiling angels. Nothing like he had heard or thought or, dare say, believed. It was a cruel joke, this life of blessed ignorance.

Before the operation, a few hours maybe, Claude had been watching a daytime talk show. He was not sure which – Oprah, Ricki Lake maybe? He was not even sure that they were still on television. Perhaps it had been a rerun – one of those type things.

The subject of the show was the afterlife. There were various guests, people who had, they believed, “died” and live to tell the tale. All the people he had seen, seemed to be saying the same thing; don't worry, it's okay if you die. Death is beautiful.

Claude felt like it was a sign. If he died it would be okay. Not that he wanted to die. He may not have had much going on in his life, but that did not mean he wanted it to end.

The year had not been going particularly well. He was divorcing his wife and she was not taking it well, challenging him for every item that was not nailed down.

He had been informed, by his employers - by his ‘manager’, a callow youth whose ability to deal with people face to face was only slightly better than that of his mobile device hypnotised peers, that his services would no longer be required.

That had been three months earlier and he had found since, that employment opportunities for a fifty-three-year-old, however, experienced, were not exactly plentiful.

Things could not get much worse, he thought one day as he made his daily trip to the jobcentre. It was a cold day but bright and clear.

Claude actually felt quite positive as he walked to the bus stop. Maybe things were looking up, he thought as he looked over his shoulder to see the bus approaching just as he was getting to the bus stop. Perfect. The last thing Claude remembered was raising his hand to stop the bus. Then his body stopped working.

He woke up briefly in the ambulance, the sound of sirens screaming, a face close to his, talking, asking questions. He passed out again.

His heart was worn out apparently and he needed an urgent bypass. He had also had a stroke. He was lucky they had caught it. His 'luck' in having a stroke was what had happened to alert them to his heart condition. The thought occurred to him that he did not feel especially lucky.

Lucky, lucky Claude. If there was a god, he was a gifted comedian. Had he not been led to believe that an impending death was nothing to worry about? There would be light and warmth, angels welcoming, beckoning him to a glorious, there was no other word for it, heaven. That was not the hand dealt to Claude.

He had done something in his life to offend the supreme being – though, for the life of him, he could not think what that could be – and his reward? A darkness and hell previously beyond imagination, but all too real to him now. A cruel and gifted comedian indeed.

“Mr. Hampton? You're awake.” He turned his head slowly, his eyes seeking the source of the voice. He glimpsed the nurse briefly. In the next moment, he was looking at himself, pallid and prostrate on the bed. He was walking towards himself. He looked down and saw breast.

He looked at his hands, the hands of the body attached to the breast he had just looked down to see. They were a woman's hands. There was a mirror on the wall, he quickly made his way over to it.

In the reflection was a young nurse, in her twenties, plain-ish, hair pulled back from a makeup-free face. He was the nurse. Or, more correctly, he was in the nurse. He looked at himself, as the nurse, in the mirror and at his body lying corpse-like in the bed.

His body looked like a man in a trance. He stared at himself, laying there. A moment later he was focusing on the ceiling again. He was back in his own body.

“How..?” The nurse stood in front of the mirror, a look of confusion on her face. How had she got there? She did not remember crossing the room. She really had to stop doing double shifts, it was beginning to affect her mind.

TEACHERS PET

Her uncle had left her to her thoughts, not wanting to get into an argument on that day of all days. Mia took several deep breaths. She knew that she needed to make this right.

Her feud with her father and inadvertently, her sister, was more wounding to her emotionally than she showed. Why should she apologise? She was the younger sister. They were supposed to look out for her!

She was angry. Angry at the situation and her inability to affect it for a positive outcome. An omission or to ignore a situation that you know to be wrong is weak and cowardly.

He had taught them that. Never lie and never hide, that had been their father's advice to them growing up. A lie will always come back to bite you. He had not realised how right he would be.

*******************************************

“MRS SCOTT, Mia shows great promise and ability in…pretty much every subject. This last term, however, she seems…distracted.” Mr. Henderson’s eyes directed Lana Scott’s attention to her daughter, whose own attention seemed to be elsewhere.

“Mia! Are you listening to Mr. Henderson?” Mia’s head snapped around at her mother’s voice.

“What’s so interesting over there?” Lana looked over to where Mia had been looking. Her husband was talking to Mia’s maths teacher, Miss Anders.

“You should be worried! Don’t think I won’t tell your father when he comes over!”

Mia was not really listening. She was feeling a little nauseous, her head was filled with images and voices and dreadful music. The voices seemed to be coming from all around the room. Some she recognised others she did not. This had been happening for a few weeks and it scared her.

It had been a sudden experience. She had wanted to go to a concert. Stevie Wonder was playing at the Wembley Arena. Her mother had told her that she would have to ask her sister if she would go with her. Mia knew asking Raine would be awkward. Lately, Raine had been acting funny, being more obnoxious than usual.

There were only three years between them, with Raine halfway through her eighteenth year and Mia fifteen just that past month. Raine was always saying how she was a woman, whereas Mia was just a little girl.

Mia would argue that she wasn’t a little girl, she wore a bra and all her friends were grown up and – Raine would just laugh. Can you vote little girl? Can you buy a drink – and I don’t mean lemonade – at the bar? Can you drive? Except driving me mad, I don’t think so.

Her big sister was not nice, especially to her. So her mother’s suggestion – insistence – that she asked her older sister to take her to the concert, was not a good one. She had to go. Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder! He was – is – a musical genius! She was going to have to ask her sister.

Mia knocked on the door of her sister’s bedroom.

“What do you want?” Raine was her usual obtuse self on seeing her younger sibling. Mia took a deep breath and blurted out her request.

“Stevie Wonder’s in town and I really want to see him, like really, really want to see him! And mum says that I can’t go unless you take me, so I’m asking you – begging you, to be nice to me please, just this once and I’ll do anything you want! I’ll clean your room for a week! I’ll iron your clothes for work, I’ll do all your chores around the house! Anything you want if you take me to the concert! Please!” Mia was breathless from her monologue. Raine looked at her, a little smile on her face.

“If I do this for you, take you to this concert,” Mia was watching and listening to her older sister. For the first time, as she listened to Raine, she could hear music wrapping around her words.

“If I take you to this Stevie, what did you say his name was?” The music fell flat at her question, stuttering and humming horribly.

“Stevie Wonder,” Mia said quietly. Raine knew the name. Mia knew she knew the name. Raine knew Mia knew she knew the name.

“You’ll do whatever I want?” Raine grinned. Mia nodded.

“When is it?” Raine asked casually, Mia did not like what she was hearing, the music was screeching, dud notes attacking her ears.

“It’s in three weeks. Twenty-sixth to the twenty-eighth.” Mia mumbled. A face flashed in Mia’s mind, Raine’s boyfriend, Paul. She got an image of the two of them kissing and slavering over each other the way teenagers with raging hormones do. Mia shut her eyes, trying to rid her mind of the image.

“Okay, I’ll take you. You’re going to owe me girly!” Raine chirped. Mia mumbled a thank you and retreated from her sister’s bedroom. Raine had no intention of taking her to the concert. Mia would go to the concert and her older sister would see her Neanderthal boyfriend.

Mia did not care. As long as she got to go to the concert she was happy. She was not so happy about occupying her older sibling's headspace. That was weird.

It was happening again. As she sat opposite Mr. Henderson, her mother beside her, surrounded by her peers and their parents, Mia was experiencing a crowd in her head. She needed to focus. She found that if she concentrated on one person, she could filter out all but the most intense emotional static.

“Mia! Are you paying attention? Honestly! I’m sorry about this Mr. Henderson, she’s been so daydreamy lately.” Lana Scott gave her daughter a glare, Mia looked down at her hands. Her mother was really disappointed with her and angry.

Though the anger was not all for Mia. Mia did not want to hear what she was hearing in her head. She did not want to see what she was seeing in her mind. She wanted it to stop. Her mother’s emotional resonance was so strong. Mia’s psyche was under assault. She felt claustrophobic.

Sometime later they all sat in the car, mother, father and daughter, travelling in silence, the parents’ evening over, each lost in their own thoughts.

“I’m going to meet Ken later, he’s having a little trouble at home.” David Scott spoke casually, almost as if he did not want to go and see his friend. Mia grimaced in the back seat. Something was not right. Every word her father uttered was wrapped in musical bedlam. He was lying.

Lana was not really paying attention. Mia was not sure if it was because she did not hear or if she was being deliberately oblivious. Her mother spoke.

“Okay. Will you be back late?” music, a low humming, stuttering and fading also warped her mother’s words.

“I shouldn’t be back too late. It’s not like it will be a fun night!” The image was so clear in Mia’s mind that she groaned out loud. She could see her father with Miss Anders. They were both naked and enjoying one another in a way that no daughter should ever see. She clasped her head, trying to rid her mind of the image. Her mother looked backed.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Lying…liar!” Mia snapped. David Scott glanced at his daughter in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes met his as she spat out the word ‘liar’. He quickly averted his eyes.

“He’s a liar! He’s lying! Tell her where you’re going! Tell her!” Mia was becoming hysterical, staring at her father, wild-eyed. David Scott ignored his daughter.

“What are you talking about Mia? David? Do you know what’s going on?” Lana was confused and a little frightened. She had never seen Mia so agitated or adamant.

Of late, Mia had become a stranger to her. Lana had noticed that she had become withdrawn and sullen. She would seem to have difficulty concentrating, especially when there was a group of people or a crowd.

She had become abrupt with people and suddenly severed contact with long-standing friends. Most notably, Lana noticed that Mia would always be sure. It was positively creepy. When Mia spoke these days, she seemed to speak with a certainty that could not be challenged.

She was speaking with the same conviction in the car and Lana was anxious.

David slowed the car as he came to the driveway of the house. He brought the car to a halt, put the gear stick into neutral and turned off the car engine.

“David, what is going on?” Lana’s anxiety was becoming tangible. David shook his head faintly and shot a sharp look at Mia. Mia eyeballed him defiantly. David glanced at his watch.

“I’m going to be late…said to Ken we’d meet seven-ish…” he mumbled.

“Liar!” Mia got out of the car, slamming the door.

In the house, a startled Raine sat bolt upright on the sofa as her sister stormed into the house. Beside her, a grinning Paul slouched.

“What’s the matter?” A flushed Raine asked, she punched her boyfriend in the thigh, a less than subtle prompt for him to sit up properly. Behind a fuming Mia, Raine could see her parents bickering.

“Are you going to let her talk to you like that? Why are you letting her talk to you like that?” A perplexed Lana demanded. David did not, could not, answer his wife.