Ataxia Part 3: Death of Many Kinds
The heat sat heavy in the valley, shimmering in the haze. Alfie and Ameerah stood above it all atop the moor. The heather around them blown by a gentle but cooling wind that whipped across the tops of the valley. Alfie walked ahead to the bench that provided respite on a long walk across the moors. The bench’s wood bleached by the sunlight, a small metallic plaque roughly screwed into the back of the bench read ‘Dedicated to Verity Holmes a beloved mother and a lover of long walks.’
“Maybe when I die, I’d like to be a bench.” Alfie attempted to inject whimsy into an icy situation. The two had chosen to walk together after Alfie had caused a scene upon his exit from the Crown and Anchor the night before.
“It’s a dedication not a reincarnation.” Ameerah said bluntly. Alfie sighed, realising he couldn’t play off his actions with jokes. “You don’t have to come to the wedding. No one is making you. I just always thought you’d be there in some capacity.”
“I’d love to come. I’m just not sure I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?” Ameerah pressed. Alfie paused unable to find the words. “Alfie you can’t say something like that.”
“Look I just didn’t think you’d be moving on with your life. I admit it came as a bit of a shock.”
“What was I meant to do? Wait around till you felt ready to talk to me again. After you’ve avoided me for the past three years.”
“That wasn’t what I was trying to do.” Alfie pleaded.
“You did a good job. I heard you were dating someone?”
“Yeah, it didn’t work out.” Alfie shrugged.
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she not say?” Ameerah inquired.
“She just gave me back my dungarees and said something about ‘too young, too fast’ or whatever.”
“That’s rough Alf.” Ameerah relented. Stepping a yard closer to Alfie. Alfie shrugged and looked out into the valley.
“I was gonna find a reason to message you.”
“You never needed a reason to message me.”
“I wanted one.” Alfie said earnestly.
“Why?”
“I’m sorry.”
“its ok. It would have been nice to hear from you is all. After all that stuff. After your mum. I was worried.” Ameerah extended an olive branch.
“Why didn’t you message me?” Alfie asked. Ameerah sighed. She faltered half realising what was meant by the term ‘growing apart’
“I didn’t want to rush you.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t ready sooner.”
“You don’t need to be sorry about that. I’m sorry for freaking you out with getting married. I thought your dad had told you.”
“No. He never mentioned it. He never really talks to me about things anymore.”
“That’s a shame, you two were close.”
Alfie shrugged - attempting to play indifference, yet to Ameerah’s eye the shrug was weighty. It carried the tension poorly. Alfie looked out and into the valley. The entirety of his childhood held in the palm of heathered hands.
“I’ve always loved that view.” Alfie said mostly to himself.
“Yeah. You’ve taken me here before.”
“When?”
“Prom. Just after y’know.”
“Oh yeah. I leant you my jacket because it was cold.”
“Mhm. You dragged me up here like it was the most important thing in the world at that time.”
“It must have been.”
“And now?”
Alfie shrugged. “It’ll always be.”
Alfie looked back at Ameerah who was stood half a yard from him. He could reach out and take her hand right there. Slide the ring off. Ask her to marry him. They would run off happily. Ameerah looked expectantly at him. “Do you remember that night fondly.” Alfie asked.
“Always.”
Mike sighed and he spoke only to the art deco dresser adorned with a women’s jewellery tree.
“I feel like I’ve become a vessel for stories of you. I find myself talking about you whether invited to or not. I wonder if the people around me still want to hear about my dead wife.” He laughed wryly.
“I don’t tell the stories where you are dead mind you. You are still shining alive in them, every time. The kids don’t remember you like I do. All those years before, I guess it’s my job to carry those stories till I die. I struggle to come in here sometimes.” He looked down at the bottle in his hand as if it offered some answer.
“I wake up and feel you lying there. Breathing. I know you aren’t. But for a second I can believe, forgive me for that.”
He sighed a long-protracted sigh like a great gale blowing ships out to sea. “It’s a hot summer this one. Just like your last one. They were redoing the road then. I remember you could barely leave the bed and yet you managed to tell me to close the window cause of the smell. Often when It’s hot like this I’m taken back to you. The same heat that contained you is the same in which I sorted what to keep and what to throw away. I threw out all of your underwear. I didn’t think I could really pass that on.”
He paused, collecting himself. “And in this same heat, I opened the window next to you on your last morning. So, you could breathe” His stoicism had melted away his eyes streaming with tears.
“So, you could then ghost away.” He took a long swig of his beer. “You remember that councillor? The one we had to go see. We walked to her every Wednesday holding hands. Slower and slower every week like your breathing… Anyway, I went to see her again about a week after you died, she died too. In a car accident mind, you. I went to see her office with no light on, as if her work was done.”
He wiped away his tears and took a swig of beer. “She said one day you will just become the ashes I sprinkled and a pleasant memory. It’s been three years. Some days you are just those ashes. Some days you are the sunset.”
Written by George Trueman
I am a 20-year-old poet & writer from Bradford. Originally wanting to join politics, I pivoted to create art as it was the quickest way for me to express my thoughts and feelings about complex matters in a succinct and confident way.