“Old People Mobiles”

Today, while sat on the bus, I saw an incredibly amusing sight.

There was an elderly woman travelling along on one of those golf cart-like old person transportation things. You know, the ones that go up the pavement incredibly slowly except every-so-often when you’ll see a daredevil old person who’ll be zooming along and you’ll think, “Whoa. That is who I want to be when I’m seventy”?

Anyway, what amused me was the size of this thing compared to her. She was a small old lady, barely three foot and pretty darn thin. The frailty of age wasn’t doing anything to help the image either. What she was travelling in though, was huge! An absolute beast of a thing, covered from top-to-tip with a large, see-through tarpaulin to keep out the sun, I’d assume…?

So, there she was, blocking up the whole pavement and half of the road with her monstrosity of a vehicle – I regret to say, she wasn’t being very much of a daredevil -  and I was just sat there, staring, and thinking, “Whoa. That is who I want to beat up when I’m seventy.”

A Little Rebellion and a Rabbit Metaphor.

Yo, yo…sup homies!

Yes, because I’m that cool.

Anyway, this is a quick little blog in which I’m going to share with you a story from the past week which I found rather amusing.

Due to a geography trip on Wednesday, many people were missing from my drama class. This, for which the blame lies with her attendance of a course, included my drama teacher. We, as a collective, decided that rather than try to hunt down the then non-present cover teacher, we would play some games, recite Shakespeare badly and tell ghost stories. Half-way through our rebellious antics, someone put forward the suggestion of a rather childish game of hide-and-seek. Completely impossible to refuse, I know. So, off we went, frantically searching for hiding places amongst the props, sets and curtains of the large drama studio. Well into the countdown, I established that the box I was attempting to fit myself into was all to small for any human (Don’t question this…I said ‘human’ not ‘contortionist’) and so. in a sense of anguish, took a risk and sprinted across the empty void that was the hall. Mid-way though, my journey was thrown off course by the door suddenly opening. I instinctively froze, the very picture of a rabbit caught in the headlights and stared – thoroughly worried we may have been discovered in our foul play – at the three figures standing in the doorway.

The woman I recognised as a member of staff smiled and said to me, “Don’t worry, we’re just on an interview. Carry on with what you were doing.”

With her permission granted, I – true to the rabbit metaphor - turned tail and darted back behind the curtains to find refuge inside a round platform that had been turned on its side to crate a wheel with a gap inside just large enough for me, a human. From my hiding place I could just about hear the rest of the conversation.

“I think they’re playing hide and seek”

“Why not?”

The sound of the door closing followed, and after a few long moments, the silence was broken by a small voice from behind a white staircase set across the other side of the hall;

“I don’t think they noticed us.”

 

From the time I was four until just after my sixteenth birthday, every day my mother would send me to bed at seven o'clock. Exactly twenty one minutes later, my door would open and she would walk silently in, gently lowering herself to sit at the bottom of my bed. She would stare blankly at the peeling wallpaper, and I would watch her profile in the dim moonlight shining in through my bare window. I would watch her lips as a faint smile ghosted over them and listened as she sighed almost inaudibly to herself, repeating the words I heard from her every day at this time; "One day, my darling. One day." She would then look down at her hands and sit quietly for a moment before rising and moving towards the door. She would stop, turn around and look at me. Our eyes would meet and she would smile. Then, she would turn around, rap her knuckles on the doorframe twice and leave the room,
closing the door behind her.

I never fully understood this ritual, I still don't. But I miss it, I miss that I can't see her how she was, how she should have been. Now, she doesn't come, though I wait for her, all through the night. I loved the times I could still see her in her eyes, not someone else just using her body. I know she can't help it, but I blame her sometimes. I try to tell myself it is not her fault and that I have to love her, no matter what happens. But the monster in me resents her for who she's not. I try to remember the times she was my mother, when she knocked on the door to exit my room and when she promised me, "one day". I know that if I let myself connect my mother with the woman I came home from school to find lying, confused and screaming, on the floor with the room in silent chaos around her, blood dried into tears on her face and crusted under her fingernails where she tore at her own skin, I wouldn't be able to hold myself together. I feel as though I am being held in one piece by a thin, old string that is bound to give out upon the slightest strain. The memory of her wild eyes, surrounded by dark, purple bruises as she stared up through me from the floor, unaware of my presence, still flash before me whenever I close my eyes.

But the warmth in her eyes as she looked at me for a single moment each night is what I hold on to, it is all I have to remember what she, and I, once were. She was my mother, the woman who always loved me and would do anything for me. Now, that woman is dead. And for this, I blame her.

Every night at twenty one minutes past seven, I stand up and I knock twice on the door. She comes me and smiles a sad smile, full of loss and hurt. I look through the small window in the steel door into her warm eyes.

"One day, my darling. One day" she murmurs softly before turning to a man dressed in white.

Why hello good people of the interenet.
See, I have a dilemma. I have created this rather dashing little spot for myself amongst a great number of fantastically written blogs about this and that, and am undyingly excited about it.
My problem is this; I have nothing to write (and yes, I see the irony in blogging about having nothing to blog).
My life is mundane, but I guess the most strange concepts come from the mundane. For example hoovers (vacuum cleaners to those of us not commercialised enough to call an invention by a brand name). Hoovers came about by someone somewhere deciding that it would be a good idea to suck dust into a large and intrusive plastic contraption. So if dust can be what brought about the hoover, why can't a mundane existance be the beginning of a vaguely interesting blog?
At this point I would like to believe that my waffling quota for the day is used up, but alas, I am so full of pointless strings of words that it is not. But, though this is the case, I do have empathy for those unable to stand any more of my useless ponderings to take refuge in their minds - most likely hiding from mine.
So, out of the goodness of my heart, this is where I leave you.
For now.