Fading Light

A hollow silence laid heavy in Fisher’s room as he sat on the end of his bed, feet waving, the only one in the house awake. Mum and Dad in the next room, still and peaceful, Fisher took his vantage in, surveying the surfeit of toys that littered his bedroom floor. Trucks, dolls, cars, trolls; all of his favourite, and all of his unwanted, things. Discarded parts, still and motionless, lay like the parents, surrounding the ones that he still had affection for. Nothing penetrated the stillness and darkness of the early morning like the longing that Fish had for a return to days gone where playing and laughter remained untainted by differences, by doubt, by the smog of something changed. Transition found its way into his young life through a display of brute force that startled and overawed even the adults.

In the moments of still reflection, the sun began to rise. Days’ warmth gripped the room as the first tendrils of light licked into being. Birds outside heeded the call and started their move to being, singing in their usual way, their usual tone, with their usual joy. Fisher moved from his reverie, maintaining a stiffness of movement and body as he dismounted the bed and left night behind to start his day. It was the weekend; a Saturday; once Fisher’s favourite day. He moved mechanically through his room making sure to tread lightly between fallen friends, carefully twisting between toys. The remnants of the previous night’s play lay still, and Fish was reminded of his dad and mums as they pretended to wage war between the toys, one front each, working for domination and blood. The toys knew no better, but mum and dad should have. They went through the motions of play as a troll decapitated a fairy, no magic strong enough to stop that charge from the dead. Fisher remembered that as he played, he thought he saw a spirit rise and shake and howl with anger and vehemence at the life that was promised but not lead, and at those who remained. At this memory, Fisher felt a sudden cold overawe him. What he thought were warm tendrils of suns light changed to a creeping dank; slippery and seductive, sending a chill down his spine. Perhaps war isn’t the domain of the living, and even in a game it should be left to the dead – after all, he could’ve asked to play something different. Cold cloying regret gripped him. Just then, a thud. “Fish! Breakfast!” the call came, clarion, undoing the fixation that took Fisher and threatened to wring him.

Fisher proceeded downstairs, feeling warmed by the prospect of breakfast with his parents, and scarcely paying attention to the events of the moment before, much less to those of years gone by. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the familiar low hum of the frying pan on the old electric element reached his ears. He thought about what would be waiting and felt again warmed, buoyed by the idea of comfort and of sustenance. Moving around the corner from the bottom of the stairs, Fisher entered the kitchen. His dad, sure enough, was standing, back to Fisher, at the stove, semi eclipsed by the counter standing solitary in front of the kitchen proper. The sound of sizzling butter now flooded over Fish, and the land of the living lay clear in his mind, heat radiating. Fisher hauled himself up to the barstool that sat in front of the counter, something that he still had to try at, despite being 8 years old. Fisher felt that his warmth once again slipped away as he was reminded of things small and weak. The sound of the butter cooking seemed to dull in his ears as he felt again taken by the now familiar coldness. All of a sudden the smell of butter cooking caught him; slightly salty, full of fat, gripping and warm, wholly inviting. “Here you go, Fish. Mum’ll be down in a minute – you can start”.

A large pancake slipped from the pan to a plate in front of Fisher, the butter giving it life enough to move and dance onto the plate. Fisher was glad of the distraction and the smell. He looked at the pancake, perfectly cooked, and then up at dad. Dad remained still and ivory. Back to Fisher as before, head bowed over the stove, still on the other side of the counter, still on the other side of life, unreachable to Fisher as ever since the events of last year. Did he ever feel warm anymore? Fisher thought. Dad continued his cooking, mechanically greasing the pan again with more butter. Fisher watched as dad poured more batter into the pan. He thought he saw something in the movement of his wrist that was akin to a shake. Could there be life there yet? A feeling of fear, of acknowledgement? Fisher watched closely for the sign to manifest. He stared as if intent on seeing the first breath of life from a newborn; a symbol of perseverance and change and acceptance of life. Fisher waited as dad poured the pancake into a perfect circle. No hesitation, no shake, no fear. No life. He heard the hot sizzle of the butter as it received the pancake and realised that even the butter was now devoid, spitting and sizzling in futile protestation at that incursion that the batter brought. Dads hand betrayed the ugly truth, that all that was left was a burst of anger. Not of passion or flame or fight, but of dull anger that was all that seemed to occupy the world since last year.

Fisher ate his pancake in silence as dad remained focused on his task. A once lively sound could be heard slowly getting closer. Mum was coming down the stairs. She dismounted and rounded the corner to the kitchen, passing Fish by as she rubbed her eyes in tiredness. She moved into the kitchen, next to dad, where she lay a limp hand on his back. It slid down like rain on a window pane and washed away back to her side. “Morning guys” mum said, “Pancakes look good”, she yawned.

Fisher continued with his eating as dad delivered a pancake to mum. A rigid and precise form of movement employed Mum’s arm, taking the knife and fork provided and moving them through their motions. Contempt coloured the steel as it dragged through the pancake with a listless compliance. Fisher could read “12/10 Stainless Steel” on the side of the knife. He had a mind to ask what it meant, but the feeling of sunny curiosity found no home in his spirit anymore. Instead, he returned to mechanical cutting like his Mum. Dad took up next to them, finished in his task of cooking, and the three of them sat, silos unto themselves, in the business of eating. The warm pancakes slid down their throats, but the sustenance that was on offer was of one kind and one kind only, and no residence was offered in their cooling bodies to make a home for anything other than the fuel to keep moving.

…

Sitting in the main room, Fisher moved his eyes from the television to the window. Outside, the suns’ tendrils were now over everything. Birds could still be heard, now more raucous as they flew about and continued in ignorance to live their lives. Fisher looked lazily over the room as his eyes were drawn to the mantle, where the heart shaped locket sat. How many times had he looked over that locket in the last year? It was a place where his eyes rested, although there was no rest to be found there. No delight in things passed down and the continued passage of time and life could be found in that locket. Fisher held on tight to the memory that arose in him, of this grandfather giving that locket to him. His body remembered the joy of being his own person and his Grandfather seeing him, and giving him something that he could have all on his own; something that he wanted, that he desired. He felt strange at that time to be seen so clearly and to be so accepted. His tight hold of the joys that passed allowed him to take in some heat, however as soon as it came, he felt the inevitable slipping away of the joyous memory, only to be replaced by the creeping feeling, the sodden and dense weight of the events of last year threatening to take all the joy that he held in that memory and sweep it away, leaving it to be found and given some new narrative, and likely a sinister one, just as had happened with the locket. Fisher struggled to move himself from his remembrances, looking at Dad and Mum with a pained expression. His eyes rested on their faces and he hoped that his pain would be seen and be held by them, who could make something of it for him, who could send it away. He longed for the laughter of the previous years to be untainted by anger, by frustrated and futile protest. Instead, he chilled further as he saw his parents starting lifelessly at the television, the same empty stare that had occupied their lives for the last year. Fisher, with no reinforcement from his parents, could do no more to keep the memories at bay. He was lost as he suddenly dissolved into a whirlpool of recollection. He saw his parents crying, his mother defeated and his father angry and helpless. He saw his friends and their parents sitting around the table with his parents, all of them with the same leaden carriage, all of them dull and dense. He saw play with his parents and friends and teachers become stiff and rigid; something to be done, not something to be enjoyed. He saw his locket being placed on the mantle, his mother’s wet eyes explaining to him that it was a fitting tribute to the baby brother he would never get to know, and that the locket would remain to show how much they loved him, even though he would never feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. Fisher felt his insides contort with anger and pain. He felt that he was the only one in whom these things remained as he looked at his parents, who sat in silent submission, staring at the television still. What of his locket, that symbol of his self, from his beloved grandfather? Now it was to become a symbol of a brother he wished for and a brother he hated for never arriving. He felt the rage of loss, and the needling pain of his parents not knowing him enough to realise that that locket was all that was good and warm now that the world had changed… and even that had been taken and turned to ice as a monument to loss.

Fisher’s eyes drifted slowly to the television as the feeling of cold surrender too drifted over him. He felt the encumbrances of the past rise up, but where there might have been passion, even the past failed to hold on as the ghosts of memory and emotion left him once again. Fisher saw the tickertape on the news and read the words “Scientists estimate 900 days left of light from the sun; confirm mass pregnancy losses due to weakening of life sustaining elements generated by sunlight”. Fisher got up and floated towards the front door, and outside onto the lawn. The dying roots of grass could be seen as the birds continued in their ignorance to chirp. He looked up and started directly at the sun, and the weak rays filled him with nothing but cold and damp; his memories refused to muster at his call as the last piece of longing for warmth left his young body.