Calling Darlene

I run down the street, clutching my bag to my chest, semi-wet hair slapping my face, sweat gathering, armpits darkening. The blue bus pulls in over the road. I know that driver; grumpy, rude, impatient. I’m sure he’s seen me but he looks right through me. Most everyone does. Only three people are waiting at the bus stop today instead of the usual morning queue snaking its way to the corner. Three will take no time to board. I start to panic. Jason at the diner, world-weary for one so young, snapped yesterday, ‘late one more time Darlene and you’re on a warning.’ He doesn’t know how tired I am, how I toss and turn at night, how images of Sarah haunt my brain until my head explodes and I get up and walk the streets. I pat my breast pocket. Yes, the letter is still there; she is still there. I pick up my pace, holler and wave and attempt to leap across the puddle from a leaking silver hydrant but miss the kerb and… I’m floating, suspended in the air.

It’s true what they say, then, about time slowing down. The sidewalk stutters towards me, contacting my head with a dull smack. Oh, that doesn’t sound good. I hear myself grunt, see the spinning stars and everything fades out.

***

“Oh boy, oh boy, are you okay?”

“She’ll be fine. You fuss so much, Marcel.”

“She took a knock, Florence. Out of the way, Topsy. A bad landing, if ever I’ve seen one. That leg, look at the angle. Could be broken. Look at that bump on the head. It’s a good thing time slowed down or she’d be much worse. Make room, make room, let me at her.”

“Oh, stop fussing, Marcel! Give her some space.”

***

Such a weird sensation. The spinning has slowed to a crawl. I can’t hear voices so much as sense them. Something wet against my face. Something… furry? I fall into blackness once more.

***

Three moist noses pressing into me, dripping drool over me. The largest – somehow I know that one’s Marcel – has the kindest big brown eyes. He smiles a row of pearly rottweiler teeth then the dogs sit back on their haunches, three heads tilted to the right looking at me; a giant rottweiler, a genteel black spaniel and a short-legged, shaggy terrier with an Elvis curl.

***

When I come to again, I’m still here, on the street, but the world has blurred. The blue of the bus is still there and vague people shapes move in jerky slow motion but I can’t focus anyone into sharp definition. The only defined shapes I can see are these dogs. They can’t be real, but somewhere, tugging in the deep recesses of my mind, is an itching familiarity.

Florence, the spaniel, looks into my eyes.

I say: “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

At least, that’s me asking, but to my amazement I’m not speaking. I’m transmitting.

Florence: “Of course you do, dear.”

Topsy, the short-legged terrier, spins toe to tail in wild excitement.

“Me too, me too,” she transmits.

I narrow my eyes in disbelief. I’d shake my head if it wasn’t hurting so much. When I look at the dogs shimmering bands of electricity dance from one head to another, and across to me. It’s quiet, too, in this strange, slow world, except… it isn’t. The chaos of traffic and humans has faded to a faraway hum, overridden by a buzzing, like a live wire in the rain. And the smells – how to explain these smells? It’s as if they’re alive. Each has separated into disparate components. A tangle of garbage up one nostril, petrol fumes on gassy clouds up the other, puffs of black asphalt, and vast pathways of incandescent urine with tendrils that peel off the corners of the bus shelter, climb the dumpsters and glow along the sides of buildings. New York is lit up like a Christmas tree with the pee of the millions of inhabitants which come out at night.

***

“Your name’s Darlene, isn’t it, isn’t it, isn’t it?”

Topsy jumps and swivels the words.

“We know, because we see you,” she pants, her Elvis curl bouncing in time with her mania.”

Marcel emits a rumbling growl. Not angry but a warning shot, like a train emerging from a dark tunnel into the light. Topsy flops by my bare feet. My sandals must have flown off in the fall. She starts licking a foot, her tongue exploring between my toes, little contented murmurings sparking from tongue to skin.

Florence targets my face, slobbering a spongy pinkness around the bump on my head, tsking now and then, while Marcel winks at me through the electric fog.

“Won’t hurt a bit here in the Ether. We’re always here, you know; you just need to look.” He drags my askew leg back into its rightful position, his huge gentle teeth not penetrating my flesh.

I am lulled into dreamland by their attentions and when I awaken next the dogs are nestled into my nooks and crannies, soft and warm, fast asleep, breathing and twitching in unison. Their hearts fill mine. I smile and reach for the nearest head but the wail of a siren shrieks through our energy field.

The dogs jump to their feet. “Wait,” I transmit, my nose wrinkling, desperate for them to stay. For the first time, I pick up their flavours - Florence smells like macaroni cheese, Marcel is burger and fries, and the top of Topsy’s head looks like she has submerged herself in apple pie.

That’s strange. Those are the exact leftovers I took into the night from the diner after yesterday’s double shift.

***

The dogs run off as the world speeds up. Two burly medics appear on the sidewalk beside me from an idling ambulance.

“Lucky we were caught up in the traffic, ma’am. We saw it all. Bad landing - looked like you were knocked out cold there for a second.”

The men poke and prod but I am uninjured. My leg is fine; there is no bump on my head. They shrug in surprise then hurry away when their radio crackles to life.

The bus is pulling out but the driver sees me this time, gestures me to hurry up.

***

“How are you doing, hon?”

At the diner, Grace is pulling her long hair into a band. She straightens her apron and stuffs her spiral notebook into a pocket. She’s my only friend in this tall city crammed full of strangers. She was all I had after the letter arrived three months ago. She held me through tears, stroked my hair, and yesterday told Jason to ease up after he yelled at me for being late. She knows I don’t sleep.

But I don’t see Grace outside of work and every night I go home to my boxy, no-pets-allowed apartment and cry. The death of a kid will do that, even if that kid really left long ago and hadn’t been in touch for over seven years.

I opened the letter from Phuket with excitement, then collapsed, writhing on the cheap lino in the kitchenette.

“We are sorry to inform you of the death of Sarah Waynard.”

Sarah died over a year ago; the letter was forwarded to me all the way from Kentucky, three addresses ago.

“We found your contact in her belongings, on the back of a photo. Sarah was a passenger on a tuk tuk which collided with a car. She was thrown out the back of the vehicle. We’re so sorry. Sarah’s death was instantaneous.”

I hug the letter to me, can’t let it go, but every time it rustles in my pocket I’m transported to that last, heated fight with my child, once the light of my life. How did we fall so far from each other?

I overfill Mr Murphy’s coffee, ignore the old man’s whining, turn away.

“I think I hate you, Mom,” Sarah had said, stamping her foot. Almost 17 and on the brink of womanhood, she could not stop herself reverting to toddler-speak.

“No, get away from me. I’m sick of moving and running. I don’t even blame him for leaving any more.”

Well, I’m over all the moving and running, too. My girl’s death has finished me off; hollowed out my eyes, numbed my limbs. I’m done. Something in me has shifted; I have seen beyond the light.

***

Grace stops still and eyes me. “You look different today. Lighter, somehow. You get some proper sleep or something?”

I nod, smile, squeeze her hand in thanks. Nothing bothers me today, not Jason’s scowls, nor old Mr Murphy’s complaints about the coffee, the food, the spills. Even the ketchup’s wrong, according to Mr Murphy, who frequents his corner booth every day despite it all.

***

This time in bed I toss and turn in anticipation. I literally have my fingers crossed. When 2am rolls around I pull on my Levis and collect the leftovers; more burgers but some mash, too, and tofu sausages discarded in disgust by Joe the chef. I hop down the 12 flights of stairs and step out into the night. The relief brings tears. A shimmering glow rises out of the ground and blends luminous into the tendrils, the shards of scent and an orange wafting hum. Footsteps scuttle and three shadows approach. “Come”, they transmit. I cross into the Ether.