With Brian’s death, it was the grief in Ruddie’s eyes that you could not bear and you know this is the biggest reason why you abandoned your beloved cat. And now Ruddie is gone, and you might be responsible. Did he die of grief? The grief of abandonment? You can understand that; you feel like both the abandoned and the abandoner and wonder why you wake every day, why you haven’t just died from a fractured heart.
Ruddie is gone. Another piece of your connection to Brian has disappeared. The world you three shared has vanished. And you are left here, alone.
Sunday night you lay out clothes for Monday, pop a frozen meal into the microwave – some sort of pesto- pasta thing – eat it, wash up, and think about TV or the Internet but decide not to bother. You are especially tired, for some reason, the weight of Ruddie’s death on your already heavy shoulders, and bed looks inviting. You know you sleep too much, but it is hard to fill waking hours outside of work, and very easy to curl into a ball beneath the covers.
Even before you change into your nightgown, you hear the strange, high-pitched shriek and race to the window. There! The oversized shadow of the cat again, moving along the alley wall.
Spontaneously, you slip on your shoes, coat, gloves, grab your door key and hurry out, determined to find this forlorn waif and bring him in.
No one is on the street, either on foot or in a car. The night has turned bitterly cold and windy. Yet, as you near the mouth of the alleyway, the gale-force wind suddenly dies. The stillness and silence feel unnatural and frighten you. You glance around; it is as if you have stepped into another reality, a surreal snow globe where everything has settled. But you feel very unsettled.
Cautiously, you move down the lane calling for the cat. Every step seems more difficult than the last, as if the air has thickened, and you do not understand why. An eerie feeling creeps over you, leaving you sweating. Then, suddenly, you see him. Ruddie! Turning in circles and crying, waiting for you under the alley’s dim yellow streetlight. You cannot believe it is Ruddie, and yet you do – you would know your cat anywhere! Joy surges through you, an emotion you never expected to feel again. It occurs to you that you have died. You have found Ruddie and, any second, you will be with Brian again. The three of you will be reunited!
You rush down the snow-packed laneway. “Ruddie! Baby!” He stops and his tail shoots straight up into the air and you hear a familiar meow. You reach him and scoop your beloved cat into your arms. His silky furry face brushes against your cheek – so familiar! – and his loud purring grows louder, a sound you recognize, one that is embedded in your soul, one you have lived without for a year.
“Ruddie, Ruddie, I’ve missed you!” you cry, tears spilling from your eyes. “I’m so sorry for everything. Please forgive me.”
Your tears become unstoppable and you can no longer control their gushing. Loud sobs rack your body and you can barely breathe from the pain ripping through you. Weakness comes over you and you bend in a crouch, folding in half, as if you have broken in the middle. You feel your soul crack open. You find yourself kneeling, rocking, crying, sobbing calling “Brian”, “Ruddie”, again and again. Then, strong arms surround you and Ruddie and, finally, the barrier within you gives way, flooding you with grief.
Time has ceased and you do not know how long you have been in this place, suffering a nearly unbearable agony. Only the wind returning and new snow falling bring awareness of where you are coupled with
And suddenly you view yourself through the clarity of returning memories: I am a person who has lost loved ones. Fate decreed that I, the driver, was not killed in the accident, but Brian, who died in my arms, was. There is no reason why I am alive, no real way of understanding why things happened the way they did. The facts stand: it was the other driver’s fault. But facts are cold comfort and have meant little. Guilt has been my tortuous anaesthetic, keeping the more painful grief of my loss at bay.
There is no guilt, only grief. Thank you, St Ruddie. Now I can mourn.
Front Row Rider
Muriel Gray
She’s not a morning person. Never has been. But lately mornings have become harder than usual. Blinking in the putty-hued square of light from her window she accepts that she has become a cliche, and she can’t bear cliches any more than she can bear the assault of the work-day alarm clock. Yet here she is, lying in a corner of her double bed, bought in a moment of optimism never fulfilled, clutching a damp, compressed pillow. What can be more cliched than the sleeplessness of the haunted?
There is little originality, she thinks, in the troubled creature who nightly thrashes the duvet to the edge of the bed, and hers hangs tantalisingly this morning, as it has on others, waiting to slither from the edge like a linen coin push as she shifts and squirms. Her waking is not gentle, following another night of sweats and nightmares, of falling and screaming and bright lights and hard surfaces, the knowledge presenting itself in the daylight that she won’t be able to bear much more of it.
She coughs, out of habit rather than necessity, tugging back the escapee duvet, trying to find solace in its softness, its familiar insulation. Feeling nothing, she huddles and crouches, making a ball of her body like an armadillo expecting trouble.
No part of her even wonders any more. She simply accepts it will happen. Time ticking, days counting, something inevitable approaching. On a good day she asks herself if it might be the same for everyone. Death approaching. The sands running down. Then her heart tells her it’s not the same. She won’t die an ordinary death in a hospital bed; fixed-smile, grown children at her side, framed by wilting petrol station-bought chrysanthemums. She writhes at the vision she has just conjured. Is that ordinary? Is that desirable? She coughs again, turns, and questions for a moment why she forged an image so dismal.
No matter. She feels certain she will never die a picturesque death. Her future is a blur and not a Norman Rockwell tableau. She has no children, no lover, no life that can be filed under satisfactory. She blinks at the ceiling. Recently painted it offers little Rorschach relief, mocking her with its absence of distraction in peeling patches or dampening blooms. A bland, plain, desert of magnolia, leaving her alone with reality.
She closes her eyes, sighs deeply and gives herself over to the day’s simmering fear. She frames the thought by saying the words. Says them in her head and faces the day.
If he isn’t here already, then when will he be here? It’s the same thought. Every day. On waking. Sometimes the dread cools as the day wears on and she dares to hope. Maybe he isn’t here at all. Maybe he’s busy somewhere else. Where would that be? Is her haunting unique, personalized, bespoke? Why should it be? What’s so special about her? Maybe it’s a chain-store haunting. Why shouldn’t it be happening at the same time to an Amazonian monkey hunter, a Korean care worker, or an Icelandic property developer? Are they afraid to look people in the eye? Fearful of reflections and shadows? Terrified they will see the face in the crowd, that person who shouldn’t be there, who has no right to be there, but who is always, unfailingly, reliably there? What vanity says a ghost is for you alone?
But such musings bring little comfort. The hope of a day without him is always dashed. He will come. Early, late. Day or night. Sooner or later. He will come. She realizes her breath is coming fast, her heart beating too hard. She closes her eyes and composes herself. She can do this. It’s a new day and she reminds herself that in this
