ABIDE
ANITA JEAN
8
ABIDE
He let his fingers stretch out to touch the petals. They were beside the
path and beyond his resistance as each had collected a glow in the end of the
evening’s light. Then the sound of things too big to be grit, too small to be
stones, scratched between his feet and the slabs. His brow creased at the noise
as he neared the front door. Frustrated that he couldn’t find a name for these
shards of things and all too aware of his own placelessness, he rang the bell.
A flurry of warmth met him, scooped him in, hung his coat and pressed him
with tea. With a smile he shut out their kindness. He couldn’t risk letting it
in, though he ached to collapse into somewhere he could belong, like a foldable
item that becomes nothing when it disappears into its cupboard. Once he had
tried to let them hold him, but like a footless limpet he had become unstuck.
Biscuits appeared, then offers of dinner: ‘Oh, but you must stay.’
He could feel the heat from their electric fire creeping into him and pushing
out the good sense of the cold walk to the car.
‘Oh, go on. A good meal won’t harm you.’
Were they naive or wilfully oblivious? To him, they didn’t seem to know
these unspoken normalities of human interaction; the skill of keeping things to
where they belong. In contrast, he knew too well that their borderless welcome
held a threat to his composure.
‘Do I still not know how to leave?’ he wondered.
The glimpse of hesitation frightened him. Then he felt anger rise at his
reluctance to look after himself. It enabled his resolve. The pain from an
unrealised hope stood him on his feet and politely asked for his coat. This hope
was for a home and the hurt of its deferral had become his resilience.
Back in the car he felt the bottom of his shoes to check for pieces of the notquite-stones, fearing they might have been implanted with the memory of what
it is to be lodged somewhere one does not belong. Already missing the room,
the soft carpet with recent crumbs, he breathed in.
‘Maybe I’ve come back too soon.’