Photo: Canva
Sammy
The letters flew out of her mouth and shattered against the wall. The S turned sideways and snaked stealthily around the B, which was bouncing up and down, half of its top curve missing; the O became Humpty Dumpty who once sat on the wall. And then all went blank.
Sometimes she can hear voices in the distance, like when you are camping in a forest and hikers are passing close by. A cough, a shout, laughter, friendly banter. Their sound reaches you first, long before you see them coming down the path. And then they pass, carrying with them their words, loosely caught in their backpacks.
Most of the time, she prefers to stay in the darkness. Shutting out all noises. Safe. When they come to wash her, she goes to their favourite spot in the forest. There is a sunny patch of grass where she often lay with Sammy, watching the sun leap from leaf to leaf high above their heads, imagining clouds turning into a wolf, a dolphin, a monster. He would fall asleep against her shoulder, his soft child’s breath in her ear, and she would think, nothing in the world can be better than this. This. Perfect. Picture.
Sometimes they keep bothering her, touching and turning her body, talking to her as if she were going to answer, pleading with her to eat. She lets their words break up and flutter to the ground in silent syllables. Once, just once, someone mentioned a name that refused to break up. She then went away for a long time.
Sammy had this way of putting his hand in hers when she least expected it. Yes, they would hold hands when crossing the street, or in a busy shopping centre, but it is the other times she remembers. It was as if he just knew. His little fingers settling in her palm when she needed it most – when tears were filling up inside of her, and she just gulped it down, locking all gates, closing the exit to the world. When her words became letters fluttering away in the breathless air, his hand was there.
They often went to the lake in the park close to their house. He loved throwing breadcrumbs to the ducks; they got to know the little boy in his red raincoat and came waggling to him, prattling on about this and that, and he just talked away, telling them of the puppet theatre at the special needs playgroup, or the new boy who might just become a friend.
The ducks did not mind that his voice sounded odd, that he made more gestures than words, that passers-by cast an extra glance in their direction. And even if no word from his mouth made any sense, she could understand each one of them. As if she became his words, while he lost his.
The doctors were so brutally honest when delivering their diagnosis. Find him a special school, a suitable institution; you will not be able to care for him full-time. Their words she sent straight into oblivion. Sammy was her gift, her gateway to the world of the innocent, her precious little boy with his deep, brown eyes and tiny freckles sprinkled over his nose.
It was as if she had had no life till he arrived in her world and became her whole world.
They are bothering her again. A man’s voice is calling her from a distance, and no matter how hard she fights, shards of light are starting to filter into her safety net of darkness. She does not want to hear, she does not want to feel, she does not want to know. She is not ready for the light. She puts a full stop to their words.
It was such a beautiful, ordinary day – sunny skies and a light breeze rustling the leaves up into a pretty dance. They went for their daily walk in the park; Sammy ran from tree to tree, kicking up the leaves with his wellies, his cheeks glowing red from the cold. She breathed the cool air deep into her lungs, appreciating the crispness of autumn. There was a slight smell of the sea on the breeze, and she was thinking that they should catch the train and go to the harbour the next day; Sammy loved watching the fishing boats coming in and out of the harbour, and enjoyed ice-creams from the nice vendor man, who by now knew the happy, little boy whose words flew around in the air like seagulls.
The letters are creeping nearer now; she feels a Y touching her elbow, an O rolling down her hair, a U settling on her cheek. She tries to wipe it away, but it refuses. There are more letters hanging from the beam – an M touching a U, an S and T swinging towards her. She does not want to hear them, see them, but they are persistent, calling out to her. The man’s voice is calling her again. Full stop. Full stop. Keep the light out.
That day, the gate at the end of the park was not closed as usual. Sounds of the busy intersection on the other side of the gate drifted towards her on the wind.
Her son, her beautifully happy son, ran a bit ahead of her on the path and saw a rabbit emerging from the bushes, jumping right towards the gate. Instinctively, she cried out to him, “Sammy! Sammy! Stop!” while rushing forwards to stop him. Screeching brakes and a deadly thud stopped her in her tracks. The rush-hour traffic had got to him first.
A desperate, ancient, deep cry welled up from within her as she disintegrated into letters on the park grounds. Wordless.
The voices around her bed are much clearer now, urging her to open her eyes. But if she opens them, she will have to see. She does not want to see. There is too much light; she cannot deal with light – not now, not ever. The letters are everywhere, floating, dancing, calling out to her; she has no control over them anymore. Five letters are forming a word in front of her, duplicating in banners, swirling in the light. One A, two Cs, one E, one P and one T. And in the shadows behind them, a little boy, a beautiful little boy, dressed in a red raincoat and waving to her, is echoing the word perfectly. Accept.
A sob escapes from a place so deep within her that it frightens her. She opens her eyes to a world without words for the pain and anguish that streams from her inner being into the emptiness that once was Sammy.