Sipsworth

by Simon Van Booy

Everyone she has ever loved or wanted to love is gone, and behind a veil of fear she wishes to be where they are.

But then after so many consecutive months alone, she came to the realisation that such feelings were simply the conditions of old age and largely the same for everybody. Truly, there was no escape.

Those who in life had held back in matters of love would end in bitterness. While the people like her, who had filled the corners of each day, found themselves marooned on a scatter of memories.

And herein lies the cruel paradox of human existence⁠—not that you die, but that all happiness eventually turns against you.

None of this has any effect on her. It is no longer Helen’s world to worry about. And in her mind it is the same news over and over again, with the only difference being that people think they’re hearing it for the first time.

Everything old is new again

The moon is out and anything in its path already drenched.

Love this!

The only real proof of her advanced age are a chronic, persistent feeling of defeat, aching limbs, and the power of invisibility to anyone between the ages of ten and fifty.

Helen will hear the voices of Len or David or Mum or Dad, just beyond the reach of her eyes. But this time Helen feels quite alone, as though anything new in life comes at the expense of something past.

“The only consolation of being the last to go,” she admits, “is knowing the people you loved the most won’t suffer the way you do in their absence.”

Helen imagines herself standing in the supermarket aisle with a sign, red-faced and glaring at anyone who dares pick up a meat product. The police would come and escort her to the exit. Down at the station they would bring her tea and reassure her that eating meat is natural for humans. We’re built for it. But Helen would argue. Are not anger, jealousy, and lust natural by the very same logic? Is every action we’re built for morally justifiable?

The truth does not fear authority! she remembers reading in a French novel.

“You know what your gift to the world is, Sipsworth?” Helen asks him. “It’s that you bring out the best in people.”

From the corner of her bedroom, Helen lifts a chair she has never sat in and places it next to her bed. Sets the slipper down. Sipsworth is dead asleep, but whatever takes place in the coming darkness, he will not go through it alone.

“And if it comes time for the long journey, Sipsworth, don’t be afraid. Any mice you knew before, you will see again when they were at their best. Resist any fear,” she goes on, her own eyes closing. “I won’t be there when you arrive . . . but if you happen to see someone who looks like me, that’ll be David.

😥