The Wind That Carries Us by Elodie Barnes
Her brother died when darkness was just sinking onto the rooftops of the terrace; when a slight breeze shifted the off-white pillowcases on the line; when a neighbourhood cat split the air with a yowl. She left him upstairs while she went to tidy up and wash the dishes, flinching when she dropped one as if he could still hear. The newsreel was starting on the radio. Nelson Mandela said that he was prepared to die. She dried her hands on her apron, checked her hair by feel, and telephoned the doctor. She didn’t bother with the priest.
(She kept all her old diaries - not journals, but appointment diaries full of sharp, jagged edges of ink that noted times, places, people. She liked reading them. They were like photographs, giving an overview of a life that had been slowly fading, of things she couldn’t always remember. She could hover over them for hours, like a hawk over the echo of its prey.)
She tried telephoning her sister, but the line was crackling, voices fading in and out on their way to some other destination. Disconnected. She checked a diary, last year’s, to make sure the number was right, but the number wasn’t there at all. She looked in the previous diary, and the one before that, and finally found it in the one from four years ago. Block capitals next to EDG-4910 read TEMPORARY LODGINGS. Carefully, she crossed out the number with a pen.
When the body had been taken away and the neighbours had left, she sat on the worn edge of the chair and gripped the arms. It was late. She could put the television on now if she wanted, watch the last half hour before the national anthem played and the screen switched to static.
She could, now.
If she wanted.
Outside, a gust of wind caught a sheet, tossing the unpegged hem up over the brick wall of the yard.
Sudden vertigo made her feel like she was on board a ship, a vast gulf of stars overhead, the yawning of the waves beneath.
………………..
Elodie Barnes is a poet and essayist who can be found writing in France, Spain or the UK (usually mixing up her languages). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, and she is Books and Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform
Twitter: @BarnesElodie