Sipsworth

by Simon Van Booy

Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle⁠—as though even for death there is a queue.

The front garden had been paved over, but cracks in the cement sometimes bled flowers she could name, as though just below the surface of this world are the ones we remember, still going on.

Like all houses, this place had its own smell that would disappear once she was used to it.

Three years pass with nothing to fill their pockets.

The shape and feeling of the toy make Helen wonder if she is, in fact, upstairs in her bed sleeping soundly⁠—and that moments later will open both eyes to the milky stillness of her room.

It wasn’t easy coming back after so long. Everything had been going on without her as if she’d never existed.

I reckon you could have a life here if you wanted it. Go to college. Do something you enjoy. Maybe even settle down eventually with a nice fella called Len.”

After all these years. Everything that has happened. To think there is a place where your child’s birthday cake still waits to be eaten.

Even if there was no one in the studio or watching at home, it kept on, seeking to fill the emptiness but only intensifying it.

The idea of it being a ghost was impossible. She had given up on them long ago.

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.

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

And taking a taxi would mean talking. Being asked questions that rattle the doors she keeps locked.

Helen wakes with a feeling of lightness, as though her dreams have carted away things long stored up.

“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.”

Dominic shrugs. His belly has enlarged the planet Pluto to many times its actual size.

also.” Reading this reminds Helen of the life she had in Australia. The one that seemed always beyond the reaches of change but is now a single person away from extinction.

people. There’s so much I wish I could say to them, not as my parents . . . but as people who shared their lives with me.”

“Bags okay? I don’t bother with the pot since it’s just me, though it certainly makes for a better cup.” While the tea is brewed, the shopkeeper slips bourbons, custard creams, and a few digestives onto a chipped plate. “This’ll perk us both up, I fancy.”

“If we can’t take care of our own when the time comes, then what’s the point of it all, eh?”

cardiologist. “There should be a golden mouse statue outside every hospital . . . every time we take a pill or get a vaccination it’s all because of mice. Billions must have died over the years in labs, billions! If only people realised,” Helen goes on, “that their loved ones are most likely alive or not in pain because of mice.”

Would she have listened to his story?

There were times, Helen realises then, that she could probably have been kinder to people.

All she wants now is to enjoy her Sunday in peace. Still, without the people in this room her mouse might not be alive. The realisation of this forces a reluctant smile.

“Did you have mice there?”

Helen smiles. “Since you ask, I had two. One big and one little.”