The day was still. She felt like time, had frozen, the moment it happened. Nothing mattered anymore; her heart, her blood, her breath would be a constant effort hereon in. Life had stopped, and she with it.
She could walk around that Moment and examine it from all its angles – the bed, the face of the once-smiling consultant, the intake of breath from her husband, that grey fuzzing blur on the screen, and the stillness, the icy stillness, emanating from there. That amorphous blur became her new vanishing point.
She could still make out the consultant’s lips starting to form the words her heart had already heard
“I’m sorry”
Yet, somehow, months later, here she was. Still breathing, heart beating without pause. As she sat with that realisation, she looked and saw her world slowly begin to turn again. Complaining, creaking, its very bones aching from disuse and neglect, it moved back into its endless rhythmic cycles. Soon, she would feel its return. Life was not done with her yet.
Turning to look out of the window she watched the yellow balls of the belisha beacons blink at each other in perfect time, one a shade darker in tone. Their unceasing communication comforted her.
“On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two”
It reminded her of how she had made it back to this point, the point of Hope. One foot, another, one step, another, and repeat. Time may have felt frozen but that was her illusion, the thick blanket of grief that she was now lifting.
Movement. She watched as above the beacons she could make out a fine mist of raindrops distorting the pattern of light outside. The gentle, almost nurturing application of gravity; forces that held her and kept her safe.
“Gentle movement” she concluded. This was the message. Not still, no chaos or frenzy. Just regular, rhythmic, unceasing movement. One. Two. One. Two. One Two.
Writing and M.E. 