Too easy to finalise, (or companion piece to “Turbulence”)

Everyone wants a pretty eulogy.  They want a happy-ever-after that does not involve a misspelt tattoo or a death due to a selfie stick.  The people who designed and built the Duomo wanted to be remembered well.  But the rest of us don’t want to be overlooked either.

“That’s all very interesting,” said Alice “but what are you going to do about Harris?”

“Harris?”

“Harris Blakely, who is sitting in seat 7G, on flight FR1977 from Riga to Dublin?  You’ve forgotten all about him haven’t you?”

“No, I just…”

“You just what?  You left him there on that plane with only a glass of white wine and his thoughts for company.  Are you going to leave him there, indefinitely, flying around in the turbulent sky, with no hope of denouement?”

“No, I just…”

“So what are you going to do with him?  Maybe it was all a dream or the wink of an eye of a rabbit in a well-kept garden in Connecticut?  Something has to happen to the man.  A plane crash perhaps, although that’s very melodramatic and expected, perhaps then a sense of unease or a realisation of sorts, a moment of unexpected joy even?”

I didn’t reply.

I thought about Harris.

He was being seduced by a memory of his early years with Rachel, when they first fell in love.  The memory came into his mind with the radiance of a new emotion, as if it were the first time the event was happening to him.  He remembered a short holiday in Florence, when they were first together, and yes, that’s right, there was a thunderstorm.  He and Rachel had been out all day and were exhausted, so they stayed in their room to enjoy the storm’s spectacle.  They were drinking Peroni from the bottles and they couldn’t believe the view they had.  This was just a cheap little hostel, but it came with that view.

Some view.

They kept the green, wooden, bedroom shutters open, and marvelled at the light show nature was putting on for them.  Occasionally, they would tip toe outside to the balcony for cigarettes, but they mostly just lay on the bed, talking until the sun came up.  Retaining that memory for Harris, was as comforting as melted butter on toast, from an open fire.

If the truth were known Harris was enjoying this peaceful time on the plane.  He rarely spent any time alone so he was quietly delighted that Rachel was sitting a few rows behind him.  It was relaxing.

He knew that his marriage was ending, and that they were both simply too polite to end it.  They were tentatively walking around the corpse of the relationship, but it was starting to smell, and someone was going to have to mention it.  He should do it, and as soon as they got home to Dublin, he would do it.  Yes.  If he took control of this, it might be easy to finalise.  With the decision made, he felt much better and even the turbulence now didn’t disturb him.

Rachel remembered the same night of the thunderstorm in Florence too.  But it was with sadness that she thought of the end of their marriage.  Perhaps it wouldn’t end quite yet, perhaps they would have another holiday, or another Christmas, surely it wouldn’t end in the nearest of futures.  She had loved their lives together.  She had loved the time.

When the most attractive of the cabin crew offered Rachel a drink, she shook her head.  She had stopped drinking six years ago so it was hardly a temptation anymore. Rachel was also enjoying sitting alone without Harris.  She tried to read her magazine, but it was futile with the turbulence, so she drifted away from thoughts of dead relationships, and onto living stories instead.

Rachel liked to make up stories for her young students.  One particular group, who were having a hard time with the literature on the curricula, loved to hear the stories she created, and so the deal was this:  Rachel would tell them a story at the end of class, but they had to summarise it “in their own words” for homework.  Before the short mini-break to Riga, the girls had been enjoying one called “Floatation”.

Three people lived on Floatation, and they all had very different jobs.

Sujilth was the swimmer, and it was her job to swim out from Floatation every morning to collect debris or living fish.  Debris included old bits of wooden furniture that hadn’t eroded yet; a photograph, pieces of plastic and the occasional piece of jewelry.  While Sujilth’s main job was to collect living fish, she enjoyed the debris more, so she left Floatation early every morning and she swam back home before the sun went down.

Sujilth always gave the debris to Grandfather to catalogue.  He named the things, told her what they had been used for Before the Final Flood, and kept them for safekeeping.

“People will want a record of what happened before” he would say, but she wasn’t sure.

Why would people would want a record?

Which people?

They used to see other people, and other Flotations quite often, but they hadn’t seen anyone for four full moons now.  She knew also that there were less and less living fish, and that Xeros was nervous.

Xeros was a boy, perhaps the same age as Sujilth, but taller and more beautiful.  He had a long neck and long toes, and she admired him.  He had much nicer skin than hers, because he didn’t go swimming so it wasn’t all crispy, but she was better at counting.

Every day she took the living fish back to him and he would decide to either cook them or else keep them in the clean water tank.  Breeding and barbequing fish were his obsessions.  She didn’t like it when he was angry about the lack of fish she caught, she preferred it when he kissed her and told her that she was beautiful too.

Yesterday, Sujilth brought back a plastic bag, some diamonds and another telephone.  Grandfather laughed and tried to explain that Before the Final Flood, the telephone and the diamonds would have been the most valuable of the three finds.

Now he just needed the plastic bag, to collect the rain, should it come again.  Or to burn it for a fire.

“Tell me more about the telephones and the diamonds” Sujilth asked, as she loved his stories at the end of the day.  But Grandfather was tired.  Xeros didn’t want to be distracted either as he was cutting the fish and removing the skin.

“Please tell me more…” she said, “tell me more”.

Grandfather said “I would love to, my sweet thing, but do you know that my memory is less reliable than melted butter on toast, on an open fire”.

“I long to tell you more about butter and ice-cream and chocolate sauce and pineapples.  I would give my soul to hear a dog bark in the night time or the sound of  a door closing.  I’d like to hear a church bell or even the sound of an ambulance would be nice.  I would like to feel something instead of floating.  Something solid and still instead.  But we need other people, we need other fish”.