A Series of Microfiction

By Arianne James

Invisible

Her mother sits in the wicker chair by the bay windows, watching the snow flurries swirl in gentle tendrils, like dancers in white tulle floating around a ballroom. Baby can hear her knitting needles clickety clacking their way towards a scarf. The tiny girl lies on the sheepskin rug by the open fire—but don’t worry, there is a grate.

The firelight illuminates her little features. The plump, flushed cheeks, still rough and recovering from an episode of eczema. The sleepy, blue eyes drinking up the room. Her white blonde hair floats in a sea of soft waves above her head, so like her mother’s in the wicker chair.

Mother puts her knitting down and picks up Baby. She wraps her in the sheepskin, lifts the record player’s hook and turns the oil lamps down. The cottage is dark now, except for the glow of the open fire, shrouding the woman’s weathered hands as they cradle her child. Through the shuttered window, Baby can see her father returning from the quarry. His shoes whine  with the effort of dragging his heavy, reluctant body up the slope. They leave behind thick furrows in the snow, which would be easy to track if the blizzard weren’t descending. Fear not, for he is close now.

Baby watches Father through tight folds of sheepskin. She follows his journey from speck to silhouette. The old door rasps its greeting as he arrives. Baby feels Mother’s arms squeeze tight, and she is soon trapped between the customary embrace; the prickly stubble; the tired kisses.

Baby lies between Mother and Father, eyes closed but not sleeping. Father’s breath reverberates in fitful bursts, like the lawnmower that broke last summer. Baby lies feeling warm and shielded. Outside the cabin redwoods bend to the wind’s pining lullaby.

Baby wakes. Her right side is cold; Mother is gone. Her left side is now sweltering and she wriggles, uncomfortable. Father is still thick with slumber. Mother has gone out to the snow.

She is dancing through the snowstorm; each falling dancer soaking up another inch of her warmth, like a painter adding white to dilute his canvas. She doesn’t mind. Her dress clings to her like Baby does, and her woolen shawl is heavy. She casts it adrift; doing away with all things heavy. She wants to dance forever.

 

Up Close

The old man behind her coughs the whole thirty-minute bus ride from North Forest into town. It is infuriating. She is way past trying to convince herself that she felt bad for him. Seriously, the sound is pathetic.

***

Remi flings open the doors of Poppy’s Retro Café, keen to drown her blues in a slice of their famous Death by Chocolate cake. The regulars are accustomed to her eccentricity and smile as she joins the queue. Flushed and a little flustered from her brisk walk, she doesn’t immediately notice a new guy standing in front of her. It’s only when the woman behind the counter takes his order and she hears his animated voice that Remi’s head is raised. She stares at his lanky frame, watching him take a table number and walk toward the back of the café.

He stands out among the regulars. There’s something different about the way he holds himself. European? It’s not like he’s a work of art or anything, but he does have the kind of attractiveness of an impressionist painting. He doesn’t make sense up close. It’s odd. She thinks back to when he stood next to her in the queue, how his outfit looked all wrong. Colours that clashed, weird patterns and a beanie that covered his magnetic auburn hair. But from a distance, it works a treat. He’s transformed into one of those understated, nerdy, sexy types, and his clothes look stylish instead of misguided.

It was a pity these details did nothing to lighten her mood. In fact, if it were at all possible, she actually felt slightly more pissed off. Slouched at a window table waiting for her chocolate cake to arrive, she thought of Grace. Perfect, stupid Grace. No one would ever look at poor, plain Remi who “craves attention and must have, like, suppressed feelings about her mother leaving or something,” or so Grace said. Grace said that was why Remi kept dying her hair Easter bunny pink and eating chocolate. Grace. Remi couldn’t even stand to say the name. Sogoody two shoes. And now Remi’s friends—her own friends—were starting to like Grace. Just the other day she’d caught Angela laughing at something Grace’d said. Remit thought Grace was so dumb that she just blurted whatever she thought would please people; the ultimate chameleon. Adjusting her putty-like charm to suit everyone but Remi.

The luscious Cake and Shake deal arrives and somehow Remi manages to smile at the waitress. The café door chimes. She wouldn’t have looked up if she hadn’t heard that pathetic, throaty cough. Fuck. Watching that old man almost choking on his phlegm again was the last thing she needed right now. She had to get out of there. Fortunately, this place served their shakes in takeaway cups, regardless of whether you wanted a takeaway or not.

As Remi left the café, she wished that change wasn’t a thing. That people were good. That miracles existed.

She pushes eclectic crystal door handles, not realising that the odd boy is on the other side. He is distracted by the disappearing head of shimmering blonde sashaying down the street and Remi  she grasps the handle just as the boy yanks it open and her hand, the same hand holding the milkshake that was about to push collides with a smack against his turtleneck jumper. Chocolate milk sprays everywhere. It’s like a movie scene where the director can’t come up with an imaginative way to get the guy and the girl to meet.

He looks as stunned as she is. They stare at each other through a chocolatey haze. He grins at her and, despite herself, she grins back.

Designer Babies

You watch those Country Road mothers twitter and fuss over the sequined singlets, faux fur jackets, stuffed rabbits and teddy bears with the brand names sliced across their middles. You watch them as they jostle politely for possession. You notice how they take care to ensure the woman at the counter knows that this isn’t the first clothes shop they’ve visited today, not so subtly commenting on the fact that Witchery is having a 25% off baby clothes sale, only until four o’clock today. That Ralph Lauren, “You know the one on Delia Street?” has just launched their gorgeous new winter baby catalogue.

See how the saleswoman smiles in a tolerant sort of way? You wonder if she has children. Where does she buy their clothes? Does she get an employee’s discount?

The women saunter out through the double doors, which don’t tinkle like you expect. Following them down the street, you realise that they are not one party, but each separately going about their days in a seemingly identical fashion. You continue your pursuit, even though your mother always said it was wrong to be nosy. You can’t help it. The tallest woman with the neck like a drainpipe is talking on the phone; doing her best impression of a busy, working mother.

‘No I told you last night. I have a meeting. Lily will just have to catch the bus to netball today! No, I can’t pick the baby up from daycare; I thought you were going to?’

Then, she doesn’t speak for a while, just mmhmms through pursed lips.

The lady to your left is beginning to cut away from the others. Do you see how her coiffed blonde hair shines in the late morning sun? You think she must be approaching forty, judging by the laugh lines around her eyes and forehead. You imagine any encroaching thickness of her middle is keptnarrowlyat bay through early morning-in-home treadmill sessions, perhaps rewarded with a cup of tea and a biscuit or two before work.

She has broken free from the pack now and is entering a café. You stop and watch her swing through the glass doors with the gold art deco handles and along the rows of tables until she comes to one by the window. Her back is to you, but somehow you think she is smiling. A man who looks much younger than her is holding a small boy on his lap. Maybe two years old? He passes the child over the table to the woman, who plucks him from his arms and sinks her full lips to his baby cheeks. Watching through the glass, you can’t help but think of her as both an old and a young mother, merged together seamlessly.

You see the figures of the other women, tiny, down the end of the street.

This time you do not follow. You wait, and watch as the woman wearing the beige trench coat that looks suspiciously like a Burberry you saw in an issue of Vogue last time you were at the dentist, glides into a taxi. The woman on the phone turns the corner with her impossible neck bent towards the pavement at an angle. The last woman of the not-together group pauses at the lights. You hadn’t really noticed her before now. She reminds you of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, seeming to own the street with a determined poise.

She disappears from view and you are left alone, wondering about each woman’s baby. At daycare. At home with a nanny. Waiting in a café with a much younger brother or secret lover. Deposited in hopeless anticipation. Dressed to the teeth, having no one to impress but the babysitter, the cleaner, the housekeeper; who save their pennies in the hope they might find a pretty hand-me-down for their own child at a market or garage sale.

Where is your baby? You cannot answer.

Time’s Secrets

The harsh smell of lawnmower fuel and cut grass assaults Louis’s nostrils as he ambles through suburbia.

The sounds of Saturday filter through his ears. Pancakes are flipping, cartoons are blaring, and four-wheel drives bearing kids in bright jerseys and sliced-at-the-last-minute oranges, race off to their morning games. Louis heads down the hill to the big park, through the gate and past the imposing iron statue of someone important, but long forgotten. It is late summer, and the trees are just beginning to turn. Fleeting flashes of red and auburn; autumn preparing its arrival. Testing its palette before committing to the masterpiece.

Entering the park Louis sees three things:

  1. A slim young woman in a fluro pink lycra top and slinky black leggings jogging along the asphalt. Her flushed fuchsia cheeks and parted lips release little puffs of cloud in breathless whispers.
  2. In the pond, the regular crowd of ducks swimming hopefully in elliptical patterns. Eyes darting about, vigilantly waiting for a kind smattering of crumbs.
  3. A man pushing a little girl on the swings; not an unusual sight in a park on a Saturday.

The man’s face cannot be clearly seen from this distance. It is blurry, like when Louis was a kid and tried on another boy’s pair of glasses. He’s wearing a long olive green overcoat and a worn red beanie with a pompom on top. The little girl is laughing, her face turned to the sky, blonde curls trailing out behind her like the wake from a boat.

Without meaning to, Louis takes a step forward, then another, until he is just metres away from where the pine bark of the playground begins. He is conscious of appearing odd, however, the man hasn’t noticed him yet. He seems distracted, neither totally focused on pushing the child nor on his surroundings. The girl sees Louis though. She smiles and he can see the gaps where her two front teeth should be. In a flourish of startling grace she leaps off the swing set, flying midair, arms outstretched, and lands, abruptly, in front of him.

‘Hi!’ she chirps, craning her neck to look up at him.

‘That boy wants a turn,’ she explains to Louis, waving to a dark-skinned kid hovering around the swings. Louis still hasn’t replied. He’s never been very good at conversation, especially with children.

The man has finally noticed them. He treads over, cautious. Up close, Louis thinks he looks much too old to be her father, but he knows it could be possible. The greying hair that fights its way for possession through the expensive hair dye, the wrinkles slowly colonising the expanse of formerly youthful smoothness, the eyes, blue and watery.

A summer’s day at home; toy soldiers strewn all over the polished verandah. His father—bare chested, blue eyes to the sky— is teaching Louis the names of the clouds.

The eyes, blue and watery, look into his and crinkle. For a long time it seems as though he isn’t going to say anything, then his voice, nervous and stilted.

‘Hello Louis.’

‘…Hello.’

The man’s head flops downwards and he clears his throat. ‘Do you, ah, come here often then?’ He raises his head on the last word and those pale blue eyes meld to Louis’s green.

‘Used to,’ comes Louis’s curt reply.

‘Every Saturday morning, no doubt?’ The man tries to smile but his halfhearted attempt at humour falls flat.

Louis’s heart doesn’t know what to feel. A confused jumble of sadness and wanting fills his heart; it beats to an unfamiliar rhythm.

‘So…’

‘We live in the country now,’ the man interjects.

‘We?’ says Louis.

The man nods and tries to smile at the little girl, who is eyeing them with slight suspicion. ‘How’s your mother?’

‘Fine.’

The delighted shrieks of children and parent’s laughter grows louder. The little girl, growing bored, leaves them and makes a beeline for the slippery slide.

‘You stopped writing,’ Louis says.

‘I thought it’d be easier that way.’

‘For you, you mean.’ Louis glares. They are alone in their own park.

‘Is she…?’ Louis shrugs towards the girl, now chatting amiably with the boy on the swings.

‘Yes.’

Louis looks up at the cirrostratus wisps. He is beginning to feel lightheaded. ‘Even then, you never thought to phone?’

A hollow gust intrudes the tangible silence that follows, and a sycamore leaf lands softly between the tufts of the man’s red pompom. An unexpected gift.

Plucking it from the wool, the man toys with the fragile thing.

“If… if you’d like you could come up to the farm. Visit for the weekend?” he says, smoothing the leaf between his thumb and forefinger.

Louis wants to say no. That he’d had his chance and missed it, twenty years ago. But the truth is, he’s curious. Peeking in at this life from which he has been excluded is tempting. Playing with this little girl and learning to hope again somehow seems right.

‘Ok,’ he says, in a guarded tone.

Leaving the park is difficult. The little girl asks if he comes here every Saturday, like they do. He tells her no, only sometimes. Up in the oak above them a squirrel is startled by a truck’s horn on the road above. They both laugh at its expression, like a cat’s face when you turn on the vacuum cleaner; ears back, eyes widened in a perfect expression of surprised disdain.

Reflection

Moonlight sweeps the length of the child’s bed. Her face has taken on an ephemeral glow, so that to the man watching, she looks like a fairy’s child.

He wants to keep her here in this moonlight. Keep her where it is safe and where she will always be loved. He knows what trials lie in the sunlight. What perils await. The knowledge that he cannot protect her forever is a weight all parents bear.

So he will cherish the moonlit moments. Savour the softness of her sleep. The time when life is kept at bay, just a little longer, and he can watch his child slumber.

With cheeks ensconced in soft toys and eyelashes fluttering to the rhythm of a dream, he watches, before life winds the clock.

 

Image by Matt Howard


Posted

in

,

by