Spoken: Part IV

Lunchtime on a Wednesday, always the same. A damp cheese and pickle sandwich with a glass of water and three pills. Some of the people sat around me couldn't even feed themselves, some refused to even be fed. I often asked if I could take mine to my room, but I was never allowed. They thought I might smash the glass or the plate and cut myself.

I suppose that's fair enough really.

"Urgh. That doesn't look nice." Ariel said boldly, sat across from me. I smiled and looked down at the sandwich. He was right, it looked poorly prepared, made of ingredients that were more chemical than actual food. The water had tiny bits floating in it. I wasn't that hungry any way, I only ever really ate in the evenings.

"Can we go outisde and play Alice?" Ariel chimed, bright eyed.

"Sure." I said, getting up. I saw Nurse Norton whispering to Doctor Lawrence. She didn't get it. It's fine, I didn't expect her to.

Ariel and I walked outside. It was bright, with a slight breezing brushing through the air. Ariel was a young boy, around nine years old. He had messy brown hair and giant brown eyes. He remained constantly shirtless, and had tiny vines running down his torso and arms, like veins. He wore sack shorts and no shoes. As soon as we got outside Ariel spotted a butterfly and tried to catch it. I sat on the grass and watched him scurry around, jumping and cursing mildly. He could run and chase things for hours on end, like a sort of tree-boy dog. I rarely had the energy to join him, but he didn't care all too much. He was content in his own bubble, observing nature, finding things out on his own.

"Gah! Cmon!" he exclaimed. The butterfly was proving elusive.

"You've got to jump a bit higher." I teased.

"I know ok it's just I.... Gah!" he attempted again mid sentence.

"Why don't you help me Alice? You're.. Taller 'n stuff."

I sighed with a smile and stood up. The butterfly was next to a tree. We crept up to it slowly. I tried to grab it, but my hand went straight through it, as if it were a hologram.

"Oh yeah." Ariel said. "It's not really there is it Alice?"

"Sorry mate." I said ruffling his hair.

"S'ok." he muttered.

"You alright?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's just that I have to go soon. Go back."

"Why? Go back where?"

"Up there." he said, pointing to the clear sky.

"He's telling you to come back eh?"

"Yeah. He said I need to leave here before the darkness comes."

"Darkness? What darkness?"

"He said you'll know when it comes."

I looked at Ariels sad expression, the leaves jutting from his arm gently fluttering in the wind.

"Ok... That's fine. Don't be sad little man." I tried to comfort him as he began to cry.

"I don't want to go Alice, you're not well…" he wept.

"I'll be alright, don't worry about me. It'll take more than some metaphorical darkness to get me, eh?"

He sniffed. "What's 'metaphorical'?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll be ok."

He smiled and embraced me.

"Go on, go and wait in my room, we'll play a game." I said.

Ariel wiped his face and ran back indoors.

I thought about what he said. About darkness. Biblical scare tactics, sure; the man in the sky used them often. But why coming for me? Why now? Why was Ariel so concerned, what did he know?

Nurse Norton was staring at me again. I smiled and wandered slowly back up to the house, and passed her without making eye contact. I went through the door back into the dining area. It was empty, everyone had either gone to their rooms or to vegetate in front of the TV. I wandered back through the halls, brushing my hand along the same wall I had when I went to see Raphael for the last time all those months ago. I thought back to what he told me. About trying to be happy, about appreciating life, nature, all the good things in the world, and not focussing on the ills. My fingernail peeled and chipped some of the fading wallpaper. I approached my door and opened it quietly.

"Ariel?"

The room was empty. I looked under the bed and in the cupboard. Behind the door, everywhere. He was gone.

Something on the floor caught my eye. I looked downwards; a small emerald leaf sitting there delicately. I sat down slowly on my bed, exhaled deeply and covered the leaf with my foot.

Spoken: Part III

I was nine years old, and my Father called me down for the third time that day.

"Alice! Alice!"

I was propped up against my cupboard, looking at my bedposts.

"Alice! Come here, now!"

I slowly arose and opened my door. I walked out onto the landing an saw Father at the bottom of the stairs.

"What are you doing eh? You're going to be late for Sunday School you stupid girl! Come on, hurry up." He shouted.

I sauntered downstairs, holding tightly onto the banister. When I reached the bottom, Father pushed my back, and I hit the front door hard. My left arm hit the table next to it.

"The idle soul shall suffer hunger." He said. "Now come on, go get in the car."

I wearily opened the front door and went outside onto the drive. It was a mild day, completely ordinary. The hanging baskets above our door were blossoming bright reds and blues, whilst the shrubs defining our drive way slowly withered, from dark emerald to a trite brown.

I got in the back seat and buckled my belt. My Mother tried to tell my Father to go easy on me, to leave me be, she always did. He pushed her back inside the house and slammed the door.

He open the car door, got in, and slammed that, too.

"Don't you ever take that long again."

"Yes Sir."

The journey to the church was silent, as always. I stared out of the window at all the other children; playing with each other in the playground, going shopping with their parents, eating ice creams and chocolates and all other treats. Father wouldn't let me have any of those things. "The Glutton shall come to poverty." he'd say.

The Church was about a mile from my house. Father parked the car and dragged me out. I'd barely unbuckled my seat belt.

I watched father briskly walk towards the church, with me in tow. He was a skinny, balding man, with severely thinning auburn hair, who always wore black shirts tucked into smart black trousers. He had thin, round spectacles that dug into his lined face. He had a permanent scowl.

"Come on." He whispered, grabbing my forearm.

We went through the entrance of the church, ornate decorations of biblical figures covered the interior. The centerpiece was a marble Virgin Mary, holding Jesus close to her breast, weeping. Decrepit stained glass windows were molding, preventing any light from penetrating the church.

I was pulled to the left and entered a small room at the back of the church. Sister Brewer was preparing the lesson on the chalkboard. There were unoccupied desks filling the room, graffiti crudely scrawled on them. The room was dimly lit, and it smelt musty.

"Sister, thank you for coming at such short notice, but Alice needs guidance from the Lord's servants. Don't you?" Father said slightingly.

"Yes." I said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes Sir."

"Righto!" Sister Brewer chimed uncomfortably. "Shall we get started?"

"Yes, certainly. Be good Alice, I'll be back in an hour."

I sat quietly at the least defiled desk. Father left, and Sister Brewer began.

"OK, so, take a look at this picture. Do you know what it is?" She asked whilst handing a laminated print of a painting to me. It was a painting of dark colours and darker themes. It was made of five circles, the largest circle in the middle, which was comprised of seven sections. Each section depicted a different human folly. In the center was a semi nude Jesus Christ, with a decorative cross behind him. The background was a sooty grey, with Flemish labels on the top and bottom.

"Bosch." I said after studying the image. "Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things. 1485."

"Er... Yes, yes well done, that's right." Sister said, taken aback. "So what do you know about the Deadly Sins?"

"Sloth, Pride, Envy, Gluttony... Lust, Wrath... Greed?"

"Very good Alice. Now-"

"Biblically they weren't so important, but lots of painters used it as a subject in their work which made people care a lot more. Like Bosch. A Greek monk listed 7 evil thoughts and I spose it stuck."

Sister Brewer stood in silence, a strange looking coming over her face. "Why do you know that Alice?"

"Father." I whispered, scratching the desk lightly.

"He taught you about all that?"

"Yes. Every day after school he makes me sit in the Kitchen while he talks about God."

"I see. Well, he's done well!"

"Mmm."

"What's that?" Sister asked, looking at my left forearm.

"Ah, yeah, nothing." I answered, pulling my cardigan over my hand.

Sister looked me in the eyes, lightly grabbed my hand and pulled the cardigan up. There was a light purple bruise sat on arm. Dark in the center, fading out to the edges. A few small veins stood out, decorating it.

"Hmm. Where did you get that, eh?" She asked me. I didn't answer.

"Alice? Eh? Did you fall over? Did someone do it?" She asked. Again, I didn't answer, I just looked away. I looked at the neglected floor. It needed a sweep. I thought maybe I could offer to sweep to change the subject. Then I thought that was a stupid, stupid idea.

"Yeah, fell. In the park I was... Playing." I lied.

"Alice, you know... You can trust me don't you? If something's going wrong at home, or anywhere else, you can tell me." She said. Her large brown eyes warmed mine. Sister Brewer was always a comforting presence. She was young, dedicated, sweet. She reminded me of Mary Magdalene, devoted to her cause, unwavering, yet stayed humble.

"No, really. I fell. It's fine." I threw her a cheap smile. I felt terrible for lying, but I couldn't tell the truth. I thought of all the times Father chastised me. Belts, shoes, cutlery, other bits of shrapnel. Somehow, they all found their way to me. Why? Getting things wrong. Forgetting the name of an apostle, things like that. The punishment was never, ever proportional to the crime.

"Well if you're sure, then ok" Sister Brewer smiled, squeezed my hand and continued the lesson. I answered all her queries, all basic biblical questions, Noah, Jonah, Matthew, Mark- simple stuff.

Once the hour had finished, Father came to pick me up. As I walked through the threshold of the room I looked back at Sister Brewer. She grinned at me. I shot her a glance, with which I told the whole story. Every minute detail, every scar, every bruise and bump, every cut and every crack, all expressed in that one, sharp look. Her face dropped as she watched me being dragged into the cold shadows of the Lord's House.

Spoken: Part II

I felt quite ill this morning. The new medication I was on was having an adverse effect on my stomach. I laid in my bed staring at my ceiling. There were brown nicotine stains around the dim light in the middle.

I stood up and walked out of my room. I turned left and wandered slowly down the corridor, brushing my hand along the wall. The walls were a pale, placid blue. There were a few people shifting around, men, women, aimlessly wandering, like apparitions out of the corner of my eye. I opened the door to the garden and walked out. It was winter, and the grass was crunchy below my feet.

"Don't go too far now!" Nurse Norton chimed as I walked away.

I turned and smiled at her, then continued down the hill towards the lake.

A figure was sat on the edge of the lake. He was using a makeshift rod to try and catch fish. He wore a white long sleeve shirt and loose white trousers. He had cropped black hair, with flecks of grey scattered across his scalp.

I did the buttons on my cardigan up and approached him.

"Ms. Fox, afternoon." He said calmly, admiring the winter sun's reflection in the lake.

"Hi." I said. "How's it going?"

"Ah, very well Ms. Fox. How else could I be with a view like this?"

"Spose." I said, sitting next to him on the cold ground.

"'Spose'? My love, just look. The midday sun's hitting the lake in the most perfect way. It's brisk, bracing... This is surely what life's about, no?"

"Please, Raphael. I don't think shiny water and prickly cold weather constitutes as the purpose of life."

"You don't understand." He smiled. "It's not about what it is- the lake, the sun, the weather, whatever it may be, it's about living for beauty. It could be the most gorgeous summer's day, in the middle of a field of Lavender, and I would say the exact same thing. You have to learn to appreciate why this earth is so painfully and exquisitely pulchritudinous..."

"Pulchritudinous?"

"Alluring, Ms. Fox. Charming, graceful, magnificent-"

"Pretentious?"

Raphael grinned at me. "Perhaps. Still though, Ms. Fox, you must learn that without knowing the world's beauty, whether it's in the nature or the person, you do not know happiness."

"I haven't known happiness in a good long while, you know that."

"Because you don't let yourself, Ms. Fox. You're too content with being miserable."

I look across at the lake. Tiny waves tumbled across my vision, occasionally being blurred by the gleam. A willow tree in the distance wept into the water, delicately laying its branches atop the wash.

"Maybe." I said. Raphael smiled again.

"'Maybe' she says. Lord in Heaven. Nothing's ever as bad as you think it is, Ms. Fox." Raphael said, setting down his fishing rod. "Never."

I stood up and brushed myself down. My breath was caught in the air as I hugged my shoulders.

"It's a bit chilly, I think I'll go back indoors." I said.

"Of course, my love. Take care. Don't forget..." Raphael said encouragingly.

I walked back towards the house, Nurse Norton was visible in the window helping someone into their wheelchair. I pushed my hands into my pockets and looked at the floor. I thought about what Raphael said, about admiring the world's beauty, about nothing being as bad as as it seems. It was horribly difficult to believe him. I edged back into the house quietly, and returned to my room. I sat on my bed and looked at my wrists, now just a clutter of scars. They were all so red and embossed, I barely remembered how they even got there in the first place. I was 18 year old girl, sat in a mental home filled with lunatics and deranged reprobates and docile vegetables, staring at my wrists wondering how they became such a dented mess. Raphael was comforting, but God was he so wrong.

The next morning the lake froze over. I went to see Raphael but he wasn't there. He loved to fish, he'd spend hours sat by the lake, watching the water, waiting for something to bite. Now that ice had encompassed it, there was nothing there for him.

I waited for it to melt before venturing out to see him again. He still wasn't there.

I suppose he was done with me. He had nothing more to give. In many ways, I was done with him too.