Broken Wings

Softly stroking with subtle strides. Swish Swish.

Soft strokes, swish strides; Serenity. Entranced, mesmerised.

I’m a collector, some say hoarder. Tomato right?! I appreciate the sentiments in life, excited by all possibilities, rebellious of limitations- I want it all. My ultimate ‘weakness’ is notebooks.

Such joy in writing, cataloguing, detailing, planning, creating… not this digital age malarkey. Traditional, unchangeable, Timeless; Infinite.

Pen to paper allows your thoughts to flow, like water and current. Capturing intimate thoughts hushed by the harsh loud frequency of the now.

Crafted dreams transcended into reality at the tip of pen. Pure and true in form; the transparency of human touch; Truthful conviction in angles, buoyant distinguished curls, looped curiosity.

I love options, who doesn’t… A4 sketch books unleash imagination. B5 clarity and concise, or intimate and delicate A6.. A3 for it all to come alive. Deep set red declaring Business, purple dreams, conscious green, grey sorrow, yellow to shine in creativity. And my favourite black; for every and anything.

In my right hand I hold my pen, in my left I rhythmically stroke my new prize possession.

My little black notebook.

I’ve never touched a book, so empty, yet full of life. Delicate leather, bounds its pages together like unseen universal strings, wrapping structured, un-ruled white crisp sheets, closely yet freely, paper a colourful white; like a spinning 8th grade rainbow wheel; true white, beckoning.

Each swish like loves caress.

Mesmerised, opening my new possession again I sigh; unusually a purpose escaped me, I felt the feather-light book held too much weight for frivolity.

I sat pen to paper, letting ink spool and stain the page; with disgust I threw the pen to the floor. Pencil! Pencil or certainty. Mum would scold when work was too messy with scribbled out words. ‘Do it in pencil, or do it with certainty!’ I’d always detested the phrase, feeling life’s errors had a place in transformation, there was much beauty to be seen in the process.

Strangely the sentiment finally resonated. This book, was special; you cannot soil its innocence with hesitancy, rush …I must take time. I must think. I must be certain.

I must know what I want, I must choose.

I closed the book. Contemplating. Swish I stroked.

Ten minutes later, three hours had passed, the lit sky had turned to dusk, street lights already on.

Sigh.

____________

I must have tossed and turned all night, for my skin was clammy, stains soiled my soft cream sheets. Yet I felt like sleeping beauty; I’d slept a long, hard deep cleansing sleep. One full of dreams, journeys and possibilities, however I couldn’t recall a thing. Sometimes life’s like that; missing the beautiful things too engrossed in the why, lose greatest memories; clenched so tightly or too loosely they dissipate into fragmented pieces of feelings.

The moment I saw my clock my focus changed from dream to reality; WORK! Nothing else mattered.

I’m aware I’ve not told you my name. I am not absent minded, nor rude, I feel identity cannot be detailed in a line or a name.

What is in a name, as our fair Juliet says? Assumptions, judgement preconceived notions…

Today I am everybody, I am nobody.

Amidst heavy rain, I dredge into work, an electric charge apparent. Within seconds I’m summoned to my manager’s office, a heavy set, burly, gruff voiced beast of a man with personality to match.

Today he looked a contusion of emotions, I couldn’t settle on one and this unsettled me; Frantic? Misplaced? Proud? Expectant?

“WE have a problem,” he sighs.

Well no kidding. But I don’t say this.

“Well”, he backtracks, “There’s a problem. With every problem, there is-”

“-Opportunity! ….No, Solution,” I cut in, eager to show commitment to our work ethos.

“Yes.. Opportunity.” Finally, a smile, an impressed look prevails. “This is why I chose you.”

I blush; though I’ve no idea what I’m chosen for I know I want it.

An hour later as I close the door, I see the look of pride has taken precedence on his face. I too am very pleased, and shall not squander this opportunity.

By home time I am exhausted, who knew being happy could be so draining?!

I’m on the motorway; in the fast lane, singing ‘I’ll be home again’. A song about a bird; a sweet dear bird, who’d migrated for Spring, had gotten itself lost and with broken wing, cannot get to where it’s to be or home again. A specific line catches in my throat, with no rhyme or reason I sob. “And I don’t know what could have been, but I’ll be home again.’

I’ve always loved this song, always envisioning the bird making it home.

I recall learning Ants remove the dead from their colony, placing some distance to avoid disease, infection; preserving the living. How impressively sad that was.

I brood on trees; their symbiotic relationship with fungi, communication with each other trees on disease, ‘mother trees’ protecting seedlings, sending needed nutrients; water, carbon- via this system, sometimes even changing root structure to make room.

I ponder on the fragility of life, the beauty in nature, the extraordinary in the simplicity. And I’m perplexed why this song has conjured such thoughts.

I’ve spent so much time musing, I’ve navigated myself to my destination.

Still none the wiser on what I’m to collect I make the call and receive my instructions,

I walk up the steps and knock.

Patiently I knock again, louder, harder for good measure I holler out loud. No answer.

This is the part, the naïve individual walks in and gets their head cut off right!?!

Not me, I turn back to my car. Schrödinger cat stays alive!

3 steps. I turn back. I have a simple task, my boss is counting on me, and truth be told a great promotion is in it for me. Opportunity. Grab it. Seize it.

I’m at the door, silence beckons.

The creak is audible, echoing.

There is one item in the vast space and that’s all that concerns me.

---------------

Unsure of where time went I’m on my way back driving.

I cannot stop the sobbing, as though in mourning; I cry deep and with urgent need. Something has been lost, something has been gained. I do not know how or what; but I know why. Balance.

3 deep breaths, I say a soft prayer looking at the package beside me. Small and delicate.

3 more breaths, another soft prayer.

A wave of deep fatigue passes me again, and without warning a flash of white strikes my vision.

-----------------------------

I wake to complete disorientation, numbness blankets me, immediately enveloped in bright white light and strong smell of disinfectant.

Hospital. I know this for the tag around my wrists tells me so.

Before I move, a doctor is in sight; 'usual checks, right on time', she smiles.

After substantial checks, I’m told I’ve been in a coma for two weeks. I am still pretty terrified, yet feels precise; a flow of dormant awakened energy courses through me.

I listen with surreal fascination; as if it’s not my life they’re detailing. Words float out their mouths in empathised boldness, I catch these like fireflies in a bottle, ‘Fainted… tree… crash… lucky’.

No-one else is hurt apparently; just a bird I’d knocked from perch.

Though my body indicates no internal injury, my mind remained comatose, refusing to re-enter reality after the trauma. Little monitoring and I’ll be home in few weeks.

Fragments came back to me. Driving miles from home.

A lost bird. Tiny footprints on steps. Realisation.

My journey through a door, where the young child lay on the floor. Spent from her travels and loss, she slept in a heap, tear stained, pitiful. How she’d got this far, no one will know. It was easy to see my bosses face, just as I knew this poor soul had just lost her mum. His assistant.

I’d scoped her up, walked swiftly to car tucking her into the blanketed seat. Still asleep. Whispers into phone, heard relief rush into gruff shouts we’ve found her.

I recall how my heart dropped, praying this chid didn’t have to suffer such pain, if there was ever a way to let it be so that she would not know the pain of such loss. I would give my life for it. I’d said.

And I know with certainty it was real. I’m more confused on my name, but I had a child in my car.

I ask nurses and doctors in frantic panic; they look at me with pity, worry and fear. I am certain. I am scared. With it all too much, I settle in bed. Perhaps I have damaged my head?

A gentle paramedic enters shortly having finished duty; although this is the first time I lay eyes on her she has looked upon me with deep doting eyes for weeks. She hands me a large black bag, “I hear you’re looking for your personals.”

Confused I state it isn’t mine, she must be confused but she is resolute; ‘This is all you wanted’

I open the bag to an astonishing amount of notes, bundles, pressed, crisp smooth notes.

£20,000 in beautiful sweet cash with a fragrance of cinnamon slightly lingering. On top a familiar little black book.

“No more dreaming, Time to wake up.” She coos, walking away.

I check my phone and see no calls that fateful day. My manager has no idea what I’m ‘babbling’, or ‘why I haven’t been work?’.

Alone I giggle, turning to manic laughter… For I have surely gone mad. Imagining a child’s one thing, having £20,000 cash is harder to accept. Am I even the person I think I am?

Once upon a dream I said all I need is £20,000 to make my dreams come true; that was two weeks ago. Also two weeks ago I realised my dream was living. Now I had both.

Confused, unnerved, giddy… The notebook.

Excited at the recognition, I know amnesia isn’t at play. I remember you. It’s the last certain memory I have; deciding what to write, softly stroking.

Leather tightly gripping pages, deep foreboding black cover, like black could get deeper &darker. As my hands encase the bounds, sparks of soft recognition play a tantalising beat in my heart. Like Déjà vu, a memory I’ve never lived, clear enough to be completely blurry.

Surprisingly its filled with strong sturdy confident penmanship, the left corner a splodge of ink distinct from the writing. I was certain it was empty. Well almost certain, and I can’t remember where I’d acquired it. The more I think, the more it becomes a long lost memory.

I settled down to read between the lines. Engrossed from the offset it journeyed a woman’s life.

Although by now I knew neither had anything to do with me I’m captivated, filled with intrigue for this person’s contentment and joy... perhaps hoping somewhere would be the secret of obtainment.

As I turn to the last page, my anxious excitement crystallises into icicle chills, harsh goose-bumps run down my spine. The feeling of someone ‘walking over your grave’ had never been more true. Nor had words been so few, Centre page were just two, with attached photo.

For hours I sit gawking between photograph, bag and book…. Peculiarly blank again on re-opening. Specifically, the photo; picturing a life I once dreamed of in such vivacity, I was sure I had lived it. Longed for with every fibre being, to never remember again on conscious plane. I think how tightly I hold on, how negligent my expectations.

How radiant I look, in my old age. LET GO

Weeks later I enter the grand building, slipping the luxurious little black book among shelves; may it find whom it requires. Balance. The bag is two streets down, I’ve no need for wants. For once I knew.

Now it’s your turn.

What will you do?