by Joe Peach

1

I know that, in the end, there was nothing else I could have done. What happened, happened, and I shouldn’t blame myself. Somehow, though, I am always wishing, always wondering how things might have been.

It was New Year’s Day, 2012. Outside, the sky was wan, like a thin watercolour wash. I saw the world through half-closed blinds, thick panes of glass. I looked over to the ancient clock on the mantelpiece, ticking, losing time in eccentric decay. It was three in the afternoon, fading light creeping over the debris lying about. The floor was stained with beer bottles, plates, the remains of the party. It was supposed to have been a celebration, but it ended in disaster. Mary had been drinking – against my wishes – and had another of her episodes. We thought we had seen the last of her angry, paranoid turns but, well, we hadn’t. The guests all left sooner or later, in varying shades of distress. In the end, it was just me, comforting her, feeling nothing. Status quo, only expected. She took all the emotion and projected it over the world in iridescent shades of bitterness, leaving me with grey facts, the inevitability of disappointment.

I wanted to comfort her. It would stop the noise, the crying. Then perhaps we could watch TV, and I could live vicariously, through the mediocre and predictable joys and distresses of somebody else’s fantasies. Depression is not a pleasant illness. I guess there could be none- health is what we call the state we enjoy. Even so, it may be the only disease which spreads without contagion, which insidiously infects the minds of those around, without germs, entirely by stealth. The tendrils of this monster lie further into the past the harder you look.

I remember, two years ago, walking in the snow, hand in hand. We were young and happy, cold and wet. We threw snowballs at each other and laughed. One caught her face, and her soft cheeks seemed so cute, frosted with splashes of snow. One moment I laughed, the next she was crying. Was there ice in her eye? We argued that day, I was accused of malice, of taking it far too far. Maybe it was ice, or a grumpy mood, or maybe it was the depression, sinking in its milk-tooth fangs even then. Like a watercolour wash, depression taints the past indiscriminately. The harder you look, the more you see. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Doing what I did, there was nothing else I could have done.

Still weeping. It would stop sooner or later, in varying shades of misery. The fading light crept like a monster, tendrils of darkness from the blinds maliciously fondling my love. She saw the world through half-closed eyes, lying limp in the chair, arm beneath her head, as if unable to raise it by her strength alone. She looked at me then through half closed eyes, a gaze coming from great depths, as though through thick panes of glass. I felt pierced, strangely guilty. My cocoon of indifference unwrapped, like the bandages falling from a mummy, revealing the well-preserved remains of a living, feeling man.

It was then that I went to the shelves, stumbling over the wreckage of the party, the memory of friends, happiness and health. My bare feet felt cold against spilled beer. Coldness is not a pleasant feeling. I guess it couldn’t be- cold is what we call the sensations outside of our mediocre comfort zone. On the highest shelf, surmounted by a brief flicker of light illuminating a storm cloud of dust motes, lay our happiest and best pictures. They were all old pictures; almost none were taken this past year. I took them to her. It would stop the noise, the crying. Then perhaps we could live vicariously, through the mediocre and predictable joys of our past.

We flicked through our memories with scant discussion. It was an old story, learned by rote, a catechism, a fable. Had we done those things, or had we been always imprisoned in this room, repeating to ourselves a lie? I was trapped by a room I could leave at any time, trapped by my own thoughts repeating endlessly in on themselves. I had caught her disease, her lethargy, her depression. We cycled through our past, disjointed images of smiles and celebrations, faces without captions. In the numbness of boredom, the cocoon of nonchalant despair, I reflected on what I had become. We spoke, using the same phrases over and over again, we cycled through shoddy metaphor and endless, meaningless repetition. Our thoughts, our words, they fitted together like a jigsaw, a picture of pain. The tendrils of depression fondled our past malevolently, leaving a thin wash of grimy nihilism over my memories.

Seeing in the half shut out light, I noticed that we had remained on one image longer than the rest. There was Mary, or a smiling being very much like her. The parasite beside me, the hag that took my life and propelled shards of bitterness and scorn across my thoughts, had no qualities in common with the laughing girl I sometimes weep for. I guess she must be the same- Mary is the name for both.

In the bottom left corner of the image a stranger, some tramp, stood, his wool hat firm on his head, rough coat torn by brambles, an image of eccentric decay. She reflected upon him for a while, mummified remains of memory merging, paranoia emerging as though from a great depth. She muttered that he had been watching her from the bushes, that he had always been watching her. Was he there with her now? Watching her now? And there, amidst the wreckage of her previous episode, she had another. I had hoped that last night’s really had been the last but, well, it hadn’t.

As she raged around me, quivering, shouting, a tired and meaningless melodrama which would fade, or maybe not, I had a curious thought. Was her illness a monster, perverting her at different times in varying degrees, freeing her from blame, or was she the sum of her actions, crazy or otherwise, her illness, being devoid of germs, simply a description of her character? Who cares? In the end, the blame will be at my feet for showing her the image, or for speaking unkindly, for whatever makes me the cause. I will be guilty because that will be the inevitable conclusion of the inevitable argument, and what is truth but the agreement when the debate ends?

Do I really think that? Not when I’m sane. But it seems a farce to check truth against the world, when in this mode of life there is no world, only infinite regress and self-reference, two people alone and isolated, fearing to view the world except through half closed blinds, half closed eyes, half closed minds and thick panes of glass.

So she raged, and I got dressed. I felt nothing. I left, and she was screaming in my ear. I heard nothing. It was as though we were separated by a thick wall of glass. I left her wordlessly. She could keep the words. I went out into the pale sky, went to the station and took a train. I would be in York again, at university long before the start of term, long before I was allowed. I arrived, went home. I removed my clothes, allowing them to drop unceremoniously to the floor, like bandages falling from the mummy. I lay and slept, welcoming the nothingness. I did not dream.

2

I woke. Light streamed in through the open window, corpuscles of electromagnetic beauty bouncing extravagantly against my cheeks. Photons had shot, orders of magnitude faster than any bullet ever, racing together like shoals of fish over the 93 million miles, only to shine upon my face. The frying-egg Sun burned the blue sky peach, and for a blissful moment I could not tell if I saw the Sun in an ocean-like sky, or its reflection in a sky-like ocean. Bandages, veils, barriers, all had been burned away in the months I had lived here, and I stood with nothing between me and the vast sky, between me and vast oceans of thought and being. I breathed easily in the morning light.

I washed, eagerly scraping the sharp razor against my face, feeling clean and fresh. I dressed quickly and set out for a walk over Walmgate Stray. Quickly passing through urban vistas, my active mind considering the multitudes of people in each street, each person alive, living his own life, with his dreams, I felt suddenly a golden joy, an inexplicable, directionless gratitude and love. Every man and woman was a star, a star in his or her own private show, and the sheer multitudinousness, the brute is-ness of it all almost overcame me.

I laughed, trudging the wet path under the full Summer Sun. The cows were far away, always munching. They amused me. The air was a little chill against my face. I loved cold, much as I loved heat- they were varieties of experience, each a break and a change. If I were to have neither, well then I would be perfectly comfortable. I was invincible in my joy.

I approached the biology building, razor-finned slats protruding from the hilarious lego-land which constitutes the architecture hereabouts. My mind idly wandered, until I was thinking about the boldness of modernity, how in all other styles one follows a national or ethnic stream of design, but in modernity one deliberately opposes such streams. It amused me to

think that, however bold, Promethean and starkly beautiful such architecture may be, if one does not follow the designs and ideas of one’s location and culture, one’s buildings will not be suited to that place. This of course explains why most of the original campus had fallen or been demolished by 2010, before I had arrived.

From thoughts of bold futures, my mind wandered to contemplation of my past. I could view it now with equanimity; I was not to blame for the disease which had engulfed us, and I was heartily glad to be free from the rottenness and perpetual half-slumber. I had heard not a peep from the wretched being I had once blamed as my enemy, and now saw as one who had been a fellow sufferer.

It seemed appropriate that I should call her, or write a letter. Bearing her no ill will, and only the mild love and benevolence one instinctively feels towards other people, I was curious to know how well she had recovered, outside the pressures of a relationship. It would please me to know that she was doing well, attached or otherwise, and the call would serve a further purpose. My life was like a jigsaw, each piece neatly interlocking, giving significance and joy to each complimentary part. However, it seemed that there was a piece missing. What happened to Mary after my departure and recovery?

It would be only a small piece, its image representing only a fragment of a smile, yet it would be good to know. Thus decided, I headed back, recalling the number as I rang.

For the sake of cheapness, and a degree of separation and formality, I chose to call the home ‘phone. I took the tiny gadget from its socket, dialled the number and waited. As the device chirped in my ear, I considered. Was I unwise in calling her? Perhaps she would take it as a desire to regain frequent contact, or would she respond bitterly. We had not spoken since I left her. Still, the ‘phone was ringing, and living so far apart nothing I would do could have much of an effect.

A male voice answered. “Hello?”

“Hello, this is…This is Will, actually. I would like to speak to Mary, if she’s in.”

There was silence for a while, then slow, sad speech. I realised that the man, Mary’s father, was slurring his words, and was hard to understand. What come through clearly and repeatedly was easy to understand, but not to accept. Mary was dead.

I asked tentatively what had happened, and tried to understand as best I could. He spoke vaguely about some homeless person she thought was following her, someone she had once caught in a photograph, but hadn’t seen since. He said that she thought a tramp had been following her, that she had seen him here and there, that she had caught him in a photograph, that he had been guiding her to self-destruction. She killed herself. It wasn’t my fault- she was ill. There was nothing, he said, that I could have done. I had missed the funeral (why had nobody thought to inform me?) and that was that.

I don’t really remember how that conversation ended. Having found out that my once-love had died, all over that stupid photograph, I didn’t feel sorrow, nor was I numb. I felt odd, aware of the facts, leaving them as yet unprocessed. I went to flick through a magazine, then ceased and sat, thinking.

That afternoon, and into the evening, my mind was buzzing with thought. What if I hadn’t shown her the image, what if I had skipped past it, what if the photograph had never been taken? Her miserable life had balanced on whether or not my camera had charge and storage space. What if? Misery for me, and prolonged life, so called, for her. Nevertheless, I slept uneasily that night and I dreamed. Oh, I dreamed.

3

I looked about I saw I was alone,
Among strange stars I could not see from home,
Odd shapes and as yet nameless things they raced,
About the heavens where I had been placed.
As though through insect eyes I saw this world,
A crazy course I took where I was hurled,
Across height breadth and depth I danced my way,
And also directions not known today.

I heard at once the music of the spheres,
Destroyed my ego, banished all my fears,
With clarity I came then to despise,
The beast I was seen by impartial eyes,
I saw much slower what I came to be,
Out here a Godlike being fully free,
Unlike a man all bounded up by fate,
What I conceived I could by will create.
With awesome pow’r responsibility,
And yet none could force moral law on me,
I chose to feel my shame out here alone,
And to return for sins I must atone.

I fell through time and also fell through space,
Sinking to Paradise, back to the place
It all went wrong, my Eden and my curse,
I fall but my girl that I loved fell worse.
Standing in the mud I felt my feet
Wet encased in shoddy boots my face
Reminded me of those who sleep on streets
Camouflaged I was, devoid of grace.

Rose-beds flowers rockeries and lawns,
Near to the place where I was born,
This park often saw my girl and me,
Holding hands and loving just to be.
I was hidden in thick bushes there,
Woollen hat pulled firmly over hair,
I hid myself in a thick coat so I,
Would not be by myself recognised.

4

I had a plan you see. Somehow, I had been given a chance to make good what I had done wrong, to look after Mary properly, to save her. It was August, 2010. There was a chill in the air that made the warmth of love seem all the warmer, and we had the delightful prospect of a snowy winter to come. Today was the day the tramp entered our lives.

Why bother? I hated Mary. I was disgusted by Mary. But Mary was just a name. The Mary I loathed by was a result of the tramp and that awful picture. The Mary I loved could only exist if that picture never existed. I had to rush the tramp, seize him and push him away. Either we would land out of sight and the picture not contain him, or else our altercation would be visible and the picture not taken.

I felt a burst of Promethean defiance. I would change history. I would hide in the bushes, waiting until nearly the moment at which the picture would be taken, then leap out, forcing the tramp out of the trajectory of our cheap little camera. Was I a Promethean being, rising from Man to challenge Fate? Or was I like Yahweh, come down in human form to atone? Who cares? I would sneak and scarper and crawl and leap and be free and forgiven.

I pushed my way through the high, thick brambles, my clothes and coat becoming torn, the skin of my hands and face pricked by thorns. The time approached. The sun was high above me, the mud was wet beneath my feet. I reached the edge of the bushes and waited.

From my hiding place I could see the light shining on my love’s young face. Another me held her hand, stood about and talked to her about everything. For a ridiculous moment I was jealous. I was jealous of their joy, and that this young me should have that young her. I shrugged of that ludicrous thought; here, I was nothing, and besides, a man cannot be jealous of himself. I would win. I would make their relationship work. I would save her life.

Looking over at my love, I thought for a moment that she saw me, that she peered suspiciously at me. It was a gaze coming back through thick layers of time. I turned my face and hid silently. I was strongly repulsed by the thought of their seeing me, some previously unknown instinct to preserve the illusion of linear time welling up from within me.

Where was the tramp, the guilty one, the cause of my pain and her death? I could not see the criminal, the vagabond, the scum that hurt us. I grew nervous, becoming frighteningly aware of the finitude of time before the flash-and-click of her obsolescent film camera. If I could not charge at him in time, I would fail in changing history. I would fail my Mary.
I decided to wait by the edge of the bushes, to leap out where by the camera angle I knew he would arrive, at the precise moment before the picture was taken. How did I know so accurately the time of the photograph, the precise angle of the shot?

The information was burned into my mind like the sun burned into my punctured flesh, like light burns into photographic film. I just knew it.

There were seconds to go. Bright beams of sunlight pierced the verdant gloom, dizzying and dazzling me. I readied myself, hands pushing into the ground, ready to spring. I could not see from where my foe would approach, but I would strike him and knock him down, with hope I would do so in time.

Time stood still. I leapt out into the light! And into another light I leapt, a light simultaneous with a click. I knew then that, in the end, there was nothing else I could have done. What happened, happened, and I shouldn’t blame myself. All that wishing and wondering had led to nothing. Time was like a jigsaw, I was always going to appear in that picture, always going to be the guilty one. My memories of the picture could only be explained by its existence in my past. It was inevitable.

The brightness increased as the world disintegrated around me. I saw myself through the camera lens as the glowing world fell apart-

-and I opened my eyes onto a new day. The Sun shone through my open windows, curtains flapping in the breeze. The golden light of that Sun, the inexorable illumination of reason, shone back over my life as surely as it shone over my face. Like a mummy returning to life, veils of illusion burning away, I sat up, waking fully at last. I realised that I had achieved time travel, after a kind. I had gone back in my mind to the root of the evils, the cause and the crime, and found there nothing but myself. I was guilty, not of causing my love’s illness, but of believing that I had.

Each event in my life was caused by another, and so on back to before I existed. I could leave it at that, and hold Mary blameless, and me also, pawns to Fate, to indifferent cosmic law. I do not do so, because I hold those that harm me responsible, and those that help me praiseworthy. We are therefore totally responsible for what we do and what we are, and, if we are responsible then we are utterly, totally free. Languor was not my affliction, nor my punishment, but my sin itself.

My love was dead, but my life went on. The jigsaw was complete- it was an image of a blank canvas, its whiteness resplendent with all the colours I could shine over it, all the meaning I could find. I stood, dressed and faced the new day.