The Snow that Flurried like Drinking Guppies
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Maud Rockatansky had always loved quiet Exeter with its forgotten, fancy fields. It was a place where she felt afraid.
She was a violent, incredible, squash drinker with chubby feet and short eyelashes. Her friends saw her as a melted, mighty muppet. Once, she had even helped an impossible disabled person recover from a flying accident. That’s the sort of woman he was.
Maud walked over to the window and reflected on her deprived surroundings. The snow flurried like drinking guppies.
Then she saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the figure of Georgina MacDonald. Georgina was an admirable brute with solid feet and ruddy eyelashes.
Maud gulped. She was not prepared for Georgina.
As Maud stepped outside and Georgina came closer, she could see the sad glint in her eye.
‘Hello,’ said Georgina through the air. ‘I would have come into your room last night but it seemed easier just to drop you off at my Auntie Alice’s house. Is everything going well?’
When there is so much between people that cannot be talked about they talk instead of how you’re doing, which is probably why everyone who visits Exeter can speak directly to each other through the atmosphere without having to leave their own houses.
You wouldn’t think they had ever been apart if you heard them speaking. I’d almost forgotten what our dear Georgina sounded like until now! There are some advantages in being dead.’
Maud made herself comfortable by moving chairs close together and bending to get comfortable on her bed. Georgina took another step closer. As she did this, one leg went out sideways in a way that reminded Maud of that scene from Hamlet when Claudius stabs himself. What do we want? Dead husbands! When does it happen? In death!’
What better than to watch your ex-lover kill yourself slowly because he knows he should love you enough to die for you before he destroys anyone else too? At first, this seems selfish: destroying life on such a scale as to save others’ lives. However, his love is also kind, helpful, and wise.
So let us go and visit him before he dies! That way I might actually enjoy seeing my daughter again, instead of finding myself killed by guilt that the most important part of me is still alive, happy with her husband.’
‘Good idea,’ said Maud. And she began to wonder whether killing Georgina would really be as nice as watching your former lover poison himself while you smiled through the tears that ran down your cheeks.
In case it wasn’t clear, she wanted Georgina gone. But she didn’t feel quite brave enough just yet. She needed reassurance.
Maud stared at Georgina to ensure that the giantess stayed still. Then she called through the air: ‘You remember Maud, don’t you, Georgina?’
Georgina shook herself violently as though the mere sound of her own name startled her. Then she caught sight of Georgina standing in front of her, her jaw open like someone looking for an answer. She raised one finger and pointed accusingly upwards. ‘My father married this creature after my mother was killed in an explosion.’
Suddenly both women fell silent. Their eyes met. There were no words left. All this happened very quickly.
And then… Maud watched as the ground opened up around Georgina. From here she could look far behind her back into her own home. Everything appeared calm and peaceful, but it was not true. Things were breaking. Rooms started to collapse.
Bookshelves split in half, paintings flew around as they slid towards the center of the earth, the rain stopped coming down, the sun suddenly disappeared, the wind went into mourning because Georgina’s grandmother used to live here and nobody understood anything anymore except that people died and it would all turn out somehow all right in the end but Georgina’s grandmother’s body hadn’t landed correctly in the cellar because things kept falling apart so fast that a second floor crashed inwards, only to fall away faster, just like everything else.
This house might have fallen but she knew she was safe, hidden within herself, although her mother and Georgina stood there looking like broken toys, not knowing where to run. For a moment the silence filled them so completely that the two of them disappeared altogether.
They became ghosts. Then, one after the other, Georgina looked inside herself until her mind exploded. She spun around and then there was nothing left of her anywhere; and yet she had lived twice because Georgina couldn’t just disappear. And Maud collapsed back into existence, unable to speak a single word.
At once they were rushing over the old tumbledown garden wall. They could feel themselves being pulled further down towards the deepest parts of Exeter where books grew from stone walls and the roots of trees burrowed through the bedrock.
Georgina sped forwards while Maud hung back, wondering what to make of this sudden development. The old woman tugged and Maud jumped. When they arrived they found the huge room in chaos. Folding chairs were everywhere: benches had been flipped over to create barriers, and white plastic bags were strewn across the tables.
Dust was thrown about the air like a dust storm from nowhere.
Papers and magazines were piled against the bookcases and rolled up in ball pits. One little girl had stepped onto one pile, but by the time Georgina’s father walked across to help, the paper had expanded so dramatically that its edges lifted away, leaving the poor child buried to the waist in confetti.
He scrambled awkwardly out backward as Georgina ripped a hole through the room with a hand thrust high up towards the sky, drawing a massive curtain between what lay beneath the table and all of us up above. An envelope addressed to Mrs. Georgina Liddell was held tightly by her left thumb and forefinger. She unpeeled it gingerly. It dropped on top of me. I waited.
A few drops of blood spattered over me as well; soon they mixed together. Her father snatched hold of me and picked me up.
We traveled very fast for such large objects before eventually arriving back at the stairs, which she opened wide to show me the inside of an old box containing clothes that nobody wore anymore or books bound in grey cardboard and flocked with flecks of gold paint.
There were photographs pinned into wooden boards showing big dresses made from layered-up tissue that looked almost three-dimensional. When she let go of me I took myself somewhere to stand so that he could talk to his daughter.
But it turned out he didn’t need to talk. She was already speaking: ‘They will attack without warning. They’ll tear you down like… well… a… a bloody idiot! Do you want me to finish?’
He reached to pull her hands down but then thought better of it. He gently touched her arms, pulling her towards him so that they now faced each other. His eyes searched hers; then he offered the envelope to her once again.
‘There must be some reason why we’re here,’ she replied.
Her father sighed heavily. ‘I’m trying to tell you what will happen if we send for Aunt Maud. She knows how to kill those men… Those creatures.’
Georgina leaned toward him. Her expression remained calm, but something seeped into the skin of her cheek. Something that felt close to laughter. In a gentle voice, she whispered: ‘Your friends?’
No answer came. Instead, the man’s eyes blinked a dozen times, perhaps because it hurt to watch his daughter turning him inside out like a glass bottle that had come full circle. At last, he managed to utter these final words: ‘We are losing hope.’
As Maud closed her eyes and tried to imagine what had happened since she first set off with a picnic basket on the bus with a single purpose in mind, she realized that Georgina was standing much closer. She seemed to move even when her feet did not lift from the carpet.
Her face hovered inches above the girl’s, although for a second Maud worried that she might pass right through Georgina. Maud tried to stretch one arm towards her but couldn’t reach her, then she moved the other.
By moving both her limbs she could stop just short of reaching and make Georgina blink repeatedly. It wasn’t that surprising given they shared only two legs – there would obviously have to be some give involved, even though Maud couldn’t see the connection.
But finally, she succeeded and they became aware of another pair of legs that stood behind them. Turning slowly, Maud noticed that the young boy was holding himself upright with one shoulder braced on a chair.
The girl took the hand extended out towards her. And even as they reached a mutual understanding, in unison they shook their heads several times in succession. This was how it should be, whether or not it hurt like hell. What happens next is quite obvious.
Now it comes to me, the truth of the whole matter – everything has led up to this moment. Slowly they returned their attention to Mr. Bowering’s envelope, and Georgina stared silently at the photograph within.
Once again her lips tightened into a thin line; and if she’d been any stronger, Maud feared that tears would begin to pour from them like lava out of an erupting volcano. Yet these were different than the usual sort, for were before they were erratic they now stayed firm and unmovable.
The pain came more from knowing that Georgina’s pain was about to end. Her strength failed and Maud lost her footing, her balance falling away to be replaced by a dull thud that echoed around the room. But Maud knew enough now not to resist the inevitable.
It isn’t possible anyway. And besides, we can’t possibly blame ourselves for the actions of others. So let’s look upon her death and all it will mean in terms that make sense.
At last, the photo slipped from its paper cover, landing face-down beside Georgina. She looked down, tracing its surface and waiting for a familiar name that she desperately longed to read. Although they had said nothing, neither her mother nor herself ever imagined that there may never again be any closure.
But at least death was guaranteed – it was an exit, not an entrance. All you need to do now, Maud though, is take your time getting used to the fact that there’ll be no looking back from where we’ve been to the place we are going. Only then can you try to decide how you’re really feeling.
That way I won’t find myself running into anyone else I know when I wake up after yet another trip to sleep. Not that I expect things to be very different.