HELENA - Chapter One

The Lifeless Line

The call came early in the morning with news--the kind of news that doesn't wait for a more convenient hour. It didn't surprise me. It should have, but it didn't. I don't know why, but the only thing I felt at that moment was the cold press of the phone against my ear, a lifeless object relaying lifeless news.
"It's your mother, son. She passed away." There was a pause, just long enough for me to hear the faint static of the line and the distant murmur of his breathing.
Her sickness was a permanent fixture in our lives. You learn to live around it. But knowing something is inevitable doesn't make it any less strange when it finally happens. No amount of bracing prepares you for the jolt of the fall when you finally hit the ground. She was sick, then slightly better, then worse again. It was the rhythm of her existence and, by extension, ours.
"When is the funeral?" I asked
"Next Friday."
"I'll come down for the weekend if that's okay with you and Verity?"
He paused, and I thought he might have accidentally hung up on me. "It's been a while," he said at last. "I know she'd like to see you."
"Mmhh." I manage.
"Take care, son." I kept the phone pressed coldly to my ear, even after he hung up.
The kettle began to whistle, its sharp, grating tone pulling me from whatever limbo I had been in. I poured my first cup of the day and stared into the steam, watching the faint tendrils of vapour twist upward. It was times like this when I craved a cigarette. I hadn't smoked in months--not since a bout of tonsillitis and the odd, nagging tightness in my chest that had me convinced my time might come sooner than I imagined.
My roommate, Tom, came trudging down the stairs, heavy-footed and loud, as if unaware the world was still waking up. His cheerful face froze when he saw me sitting at the table, partly dressed, holding my golden liquid of sanity.
"Hey, mate. You're up early," he said, his voice carrying forced brightness.
"Yeah. I know."
He glanced around the room, his eyes darting from the kettle to the window as if he were searching for something to say. "Is everything alright?"
"My mother died," I said plainly. "Today. Or yesterday. I don't know."
"Oh. Shit, mate. I'm sorry to hear that."
"I'm going down next weekend."
He nodded slowly, as though he thought that was the appropriate response. His face shifted, the corners of his mouth twitching as he tried to arrange a sympathetic look. It didn't suit him. He probably thought I was in shock, too numb to process the news. I didn't care enough to correct him.
"Let me know if you need anything, yeah?" He said, reaching out to tap my shoulder in an awkward, half-hearted gesture before heading toward the front door.
The quiet of the house settled back in, punctuated only by the distant hum of the boiler. I sat at the table, tracing the faint grooves in the wood with my finger. There were rings from old cups and little circles burnt into the surface that I'd never bothered to clean properly--the ghosts of mornings past.
I thought about the funeral, and the faces I'd see there. My father would be stiff and hollow. Verity would be making her endless attempts at kindness that I'd never fully trust. And then, there would be others--faces from the past, dredged up for the occasion, offering handshakes and whispered condolences. Strangers wearing the guise of familiarity, as if proximity to the dead was enough to bind us together.
The thought made my chest feel tight, so I stepped outside for some air. I reached for my pocket, half-expecting to find a cigarette there, even though I knew I'd stopped carrying them. I felt pissed off when my hand came up empty.
The air was damp, the pavement slick with dew that clung to everything. The rain was barely there--a mist more than a drizzle--each drop so light and fine it seemed as if it might evaporate before it even touched the ground. Water collected from the gutter above, deliberate beads trembling at the edge of falling. They hung suspended, swollen with the weight of existence, before finally succumbing to gravity and landing with a soft, anticlimactic plink in the puddle below.
The sky stretched above me, an endless expanse of pale grey that seemed to press down on the world, flattening it. The rain blurred the edges of things, softening the lines of the houses and trees until they looked as if they might melt into one another. In the distance, a car passed by, its tires hissing against the wet ground. A dog barked, its voice sharp and insistent. The garbage men were already starting their rounds, the clinks, and clacks of trash punctuating the stratosphere.

Even with the weight of it all--the distant phone call, the pooling rain, the quiet ache in my chest--the world kept spinning. Indifferent, relentless, and unchanged despite all it had lost.