Spectating the Dream

It was two hours after the match ended in defeat for the home side when Andy finally stumbled out of the pub and decided to call it a night. The emptiness of his wallet was the real determining factor in the matter. It was a bad night. But then it was always a bad night when Arsenfield lost.

He’d spent his last fifty quid on this match. He’d had high hopes when he left the office. Whistling a tune that he’d heard for at least the twentieth time that day on radio one which was never ‘not on’ in the office, he made his way to the bookies and put down thirty quid on Sloan for first scorer. Sloan had been a thirty plus goals a season striker two years running; and with seven of those goals in his last five appearances against Linchester the six to one odds were pretty much guaranteed to be his in a few hours. Sloan was one of those rare players who stays with a club through some weird sentimental sense of loyalty, knowing in spite of this he could do better. Every time he played against Linchester he made their defences look like an awkward assembly of pub players.

It had been a clear day. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. He had the next two days off and was looking forward to catching up on sleep and season four of Stunned after winning a hefty profit on the bet once Arsenfield beat the pants off of Linchester.

He donned his Arsenfield away top which he truly believed, no, he ‘knew’ it to be lucky. He had every home and away shirt since the team came into existence back in 74. Some of them were worth an absolute mint but that didn’t stop him wearing them. He wasn’t just a collector, he wanted to show off his collection as well.

He’d been a fan since he was born. His dad used to take him to home matches and he was there when that famous goal was scored that saw Arsenfield qualify and go on to win the Premier League. Sure, he was only two when it happened but he’d seen the footage enough times to know deep down that he remembered it.

Andy was never any good at the game himself. He played with the lads in P.E. and sometimes on the school pitch on the weekends when he was growing up, but he was never fast enough. He didn’t have the same stamina and now that he was older and had an impressive keg sized beer belly over his belt, he knew his days of dreaming to make it into the premier league were numbered. But that was okay because he loved to watch it and support his team and his favourite footballer Sloan most of all.

Making his way toward ‘The Buggered Badger’ which was actually named the far less hilarious ‘Blundering Badger’, though he preferred the former and refused to use anything other than that; he stopped into a corner shop and bought himself twenty Lambert and Butler. He proceeded to drink the remaining fifteen quid over the course of the match.

Needless to say Sloan didn’t score first. In fact Sloan didn’t score at all for the entirety of the match which nearly saw him knocking a few teeth out of the bastard Woods from Accounts.

Woods was a Linchester supporter through and through, and it was enough for him to be one of the untouchables to Andy. He didn’t speak to him at work. He wouldn’t even piss next to him if they were in the toilet at the same time. In Andy’s world, Woods didn’t exist.

When Woods chose to make a few slurs against Arsenfield and that washed up Sloan, Andy noticed that he existed and wanted to pound him right back out of his world and right back to wherever the hell it was that he did belong.

He got one good hard swing in, but sadly he was too drunk to connect and instead ended up on his back on the floor of the Buggered Badger. Woods laughed and jeered and perhaps it was the lucky shirt doing its bit a little late that saw the bouncer lift Woods and throw him out for starting trouble.

Andy climbed back up from the sticky floor, winded and angry. His temples were throbbing and his face was the colour of the Merlot the bar tender was handing to a girl a few bar stools away.

Andy was out of cash but had half of his pint of Tenants remaining so he nursed it slowly, a part of him knowing that he was really waiting to be sure that Woods and any cronies he may have amassed had buggered off home or to another pub instead of lying in wait for him to begin his journey home; tail between his legs and head down in defeat while those bastards gloated.

Knowing he didn’t have any friends that would either buy him another pint or spot him the money for a taxi to get home safely he admitted yet another defeat for the evening and made his way to the door. He suffered a few more taunts as he went, the shirt acting like a beacon to attract unwanted attention. They rubbed his face in the failure of the night.

He thought to himself “How could Sloan have done this to me? Losing me thirty quid and on top of that making me the laughing stock of the entire pub. And after I went and waited for hours after the last three home games in hopes of an autograph that I never even got.”

He was angry and his breath came in pants before he had even reached the door. Once there, the bouncer that had thrown Woods out made another jibe at him, “You may want to cover up before heading out there, and not just because of the pissing rain!” Andy ground his teeth and dug his nails into the palms of his hands.

He hadn’t brought a jacket or a brolly and so he just walked out into the rain and stomped harder than necessary through the puddles that littered his path. Anger wasn’t the word. He was enraged. How could Sloan do this to him? Let him down like this? The thoughts kept echoing in his head.

As he plodded on, getting more and more soaked until the Arsenfield jersey was sticking to him like a second skin, he found himself remembering the good times.

“When he scored that goal against Renham with seconds on the clock and won the game at the end of last season.” He smiled. Who was he kidding. Sloan was the man. He’d proven himself many times over. “Sure everyone has bad days, it’s just a pity this one cost me thirty quid.” He said it out load but to himself.

“Just gotta keep on remembering all the times he came through for me.” He sighed. That was it. He’d won far more betting on Arsenfield than he’d lost. That was what mattered. The bottom line as that bastard Woods from Accounts would have said.

Andy was sure that if he ever did get to meet Sloan in person that they’d be great friends. That was the only problem with the Premier League guys. It took them out of your reach. He fantasised sometimes about himself and Sloan sitting in the pub, both wearing matching Arsenfield jerseys, talking sport. Reliving the good old days and going over the big wins in detail. Reliving the best bits of the best matches.

He didn’t tell anyone about it but it’s what he considered to be his own little happy place. Sometimes when the pressure was really on at work and he found it hard to stop thinking about it he would go out with Sloan in his mind. It always helped him sleep in the end. It relaxed him was all.

Andy approached his tower block. When he let himself in he saw the sign on the lift indicating it was out of order. “Aye. That IS out of order. Not on!” Any growled to himself as he approached the stairwell, his clothing dripping on the floor and leaving droplets of rain water around each wet shoe print.

He threw the stairwell door open by punching the door and looked at the momentous climb he had ahead of him. The stairs appeared to go on forever. With a growl of anger he lit a cigarette right there in the stairwell. He didn’t care and if anyone wanted try to stop him he’d put it out right in their face.

He decided to enjoy it before even starting on the long journey onwards and upwards and so there he stood, pacing and dripping and smoking his fag. His mind flickered between all the reasons he was angry and how the entire world seemed to have just had a massive shit all over him.

When he could feel the heat of the end of his cigarette on his yellow stained finger tips he dropped it into the puddle that had accumulated at his feet. The sound of it extinguishing in the water cheered him somewhat. He had already made up his mind to go back to his happy place.

Sloan would help him make it up the stairs. It would be just like training right along side his good mate Sloan. Under his breathe he started to sing one of the more offensive football songs he’d heard in his years following the team. After jogging in place for just a moment he lunged forward and made a point of not skipping a single stair as his feet rhythmically pounded in time to the song.

After two floors he was winded and the words were barely coming out between his wheezing. It was okay though. Sloan was right there along side of him in his imagination and struggling just as hard as he was. He shot him a smile and pretended to get a bit more encouragement from his imaginary friend Sloan before he continued on.

When he was approaching the fifth floor he was struggling so hard to breathe that he had to take a break. His pulse hammered in his temples and his chest felt as though it were on fire. His face was so hot that it looked purple in parts and he felt like his eyes might actually burst from his face if he wasn’t careful.

“Shouldn’t of had that smoke before training.” He looked to Sloan who seemed sympathetic and gave him a gentle punch in the arm. “And this isn’t even the halfway point! It’s no wonder they signed you instead of me.” Andy watched as Sloan took a seat on the step next to him with a bit of a scowl on his face. Sloan didn’t like it when Andy talked that way. Andy knew very well how it worked, Sloan did well if he cheered hard enough. If Sloan played poorly it was because Andy had jinxed it somehow. They needed each other. They were a team. Comments about which one played which part always hurt Sloan though.

Maybe he wore the wrong shirt and effected the game that way he thought to himself. That must have been it. He had to wear the shirts twice before washing them if he wanted Sloan to score and thinking back he’d had to wash this one after he was sick on it a few games ago and couldn’t remember wearing it another time before this match.

He had followed all of the other rituals. He put his left sock and shoe on before his right. That was an important one and had cost him a game once before but he’d done it correctly this time.

He made sure that he hadn’t spoken to his girlfriend Kelly about the game at all. That was a surefire way to jinx it. Birds had no place in football as spectators, players, managers, or otherwise. Just mentioning an upcoming match in their presence meant doom.

It had to have been the shirt that had done it. “I’m sorry Sloan. I made you look like a right burk out there tonight. It’s my fault.” He felt genuine sorrow and guilt for what he’d done.

Sloan gave him a wink and a nod of his head and he knew all was forgiven. “I won’t let it happen again mate.” Andy got back to his feet. “Race you to the next landing!”

Without waiting for a reply Andy took off and was panting again before he reached the sixth floor. He won the race but he was pretty sure that Sloan had let him win even though he was grasping his hamstring where the old injury appeared to be acting up. It did that sometimes on wet days.

“Hurting again? We’ll take it slow for the next few.” Andy was concerned about Sloan. He didn’t want to see him strain himself and be unable to play. Taking it easy was probably the best thing, and he could use the excuse for a break himself. These stairs weren’t going to climb themselves.

The journey was long and hard. Andy had to stop once more on the twelfth floor when the stairwell started to swim before his eyes. His heart was racing and that burning pain had reappeared in his lungs. He honestly felt as though they were on fire. He clutched his chest and sat down a bit too hard, sure he was going to vomit for a moment. Sloan was right there beside him though, reassuring him that he could do it. He would be okay.

That’s why Andy liked Sloan so much. He’d been there for him since that day when he first got signed and Andy defended him in front of some of his work mates that had been die hard Arsenfield fans just as he was. Sloan had made it up to him by winning him some serious money in the world cup and by giving him encouragement when he needed it too. It was a good healthy relationship the two of them had in Andy’s head.

Andy thought of Sloan as his best friend. He was the only one that he could count on when the going got tough. He was reliable which was a lot more than Andy could say about any of his other friends. He used the term friends lightly; most people Andy knew were colleagues, fellow supporters, and acquaintances. He didn’t have any real friends, but it didn’t get him down because he had something better. A winning team, well most of the time, and Sloan.

When Andy did finally make it to the eighteenth floor he was really knackered. It had taken him and Sloan just over an hour to climb to his floor. He knew Sloan could have done it five or six times over and not really shown any sign of being tired, but he was a good mate. He wouldn’t rub it in like that.

Andy dragged himself to room one-eighty-four; his flat. He attempted to get his key into the lock but his heart was pounding so hard from the climb that his hand didn’t seem to be able to stay still enough to get the key in.

That’s when the door flew open in front of him and he was face to face with a boozed up Kelly, who was in a bit of a state. Her eye makeup was trailed down her face from drunken tears and he couldn’t help be see the similarity between his girlfriend standing before him and an angry badger because of it.

“Where have you been all evening? Look at the state of you! You’re drunk again aren’t you! I should have bloody well known!” And with that she had made it past him and was out in the hallway as well. The neighbours would be able to both see and hear everything that followed and normally Andy would care, but this had come as such a surprise to him that he hadn’t even been able to fully comprehend what was happening yet.

“Let me guess, Arseholefield verses Lichfucker at the Buggered Bastard.” She had obviously been lying in wait, ready to pounce the second he came home and ruin the good time he and Sloan had been having. Kelly was always like that. Anything to piss on his cornflakes.

It was a wonder they had even got together in the first place. They had virtually nothing in common. She liked her soaps and going to the gym and trying to keep fit. When she wasn’t doing that she was on the Bacardi Breezers or fancy cocktails with the harpies that she called girl friends.

They were just two lonely bastards in a cruel world that happened to be lonely and bored enough by chance at the same time and in the same place. He bought her a WKD blue and listened to her nag and bitch for a good hour one night and she’d been his ever since.

She had moved in with him a week later and they’d managed to somehow have a relationship; if you could call it that, for the next three months. Andy wasn’t complaining. They both did their own thing and occasionally met up somewhere in the middle for a film or a shag.

“Your pathetic team lost tonight. Oh yeah, that’s right! I heard!” She was absolutely vehement. “I hope you enjoyed the show Andy! Do you know what else today was?” She got right into his face. “It was my bloody birthday you bastard!”

She broke down and sobbed. Andy looked at her, completely clueless as to what to do. He looked for Sloan but it looked like Sloan had left him to his own devices to sort this one out. He tended to o that when it came to aspects of Andy’s life that he didn’t really play any part in. Sure, Sloan made the tabloids for his romps with only the finest of the prossies, and Kelly couldn’t old a candle to any of them.

Going with his gut Andy moved forward to give her a reassuring embrace. She pulled away from him faster than he could blink. She moved like lightning when she wanted to. “Don’t touch me you slob! Go wank it to your beloved Arseholefield! I’m leaving!”

And with that she was gone through the stairwell door before he had been able to get a word in. He stood there dumbfounded. Almost as much so as when she came into his life.

“She’ll be back. She’ll need to collect her things eventually.” He heard Sloan’s voice in his ears. “You can make your move then. Flowers and chocolates should sort this one out.” He looked around and saw him letting himself in without even asking. It was okay with Andy. He was his mate after all.

Andy followed Sloan into his flat. He knew straight away that something was amiss. The living room wall which was normally chockablock with framed photos and posters, most of which were signed limited editions of Arsenfield, had one large gap dead in the centre where the old peeling paint showed through. Andy moved in closer and saw that the remains of the missing frame lay in a pile on this mis-matched armchair.

He picked up the sharp shards of glass and moved them aside before turning over the frame that had been lying upside down. There was the only photo from the wall that hadn’t featured football. It was a portrait of him and Kelly all dressed up from when they celebrated their two month anniversary when they’d gone on a riverboat cruise complete with dinner and drinks in the city. Andy looked closely and saw their innocent smiles.

She had gone all out and had her hair and nails done. She was wearing a figure hugging little black dress that looked absolutely cracking on her. Andy on the other hand was clad in his finest Arsenfield away jersey and a sports jacket with his best pair of blue jeans. She looked like a model. He looked like a fat, washed up, loser.

Andy looked around his flat. He could see the different elements that said that she’d been here. She had helped him put his wardrobe full of Arsenfield shirts in order of year. She had even been the one to buy the frames so that his collection of limited edition posters and autographs were in matching silver frames; one of which lay broken in his hands now.

She’d been the one to get matching throws for his mis-matched settee and arm chair. She’d spruced the place up a bit with cushions and even a vase and fake flowers in Arsenfields colours to add a bit of femininity without clashing.

Andy set the broken picture frame on the scuffed coffee table. He walked to his bedroom, complete with Arsenfield wall paper and matching duvet cover and pillow cases. This was the bed they had shared and probably never would again.

He peeled off his soaking wet jersey, now more soaked in his acrid sweat from the climb than rain, and cast it onto the floor. There was an aching pain in his arms. His heart pounded in his ears. He lay down with his hands tucked below his head which only made his heartbeat seem even louder.

Just what exactly had happened tonight? It seemed like it was going to be such an amazing day and yet everything that had been possible to go wrong appeared to have done just that. Why? “What did I do wrong?” he asked aloud.

“What did you do right is the better question, mate.” Opening his eyes and brushing away the tears that had begun to well up Andy looked up to see Sloan sitting on the edge of his bed. Sloan picked up the crumpled pack of Lambert and Butler that had fallen on the floor when Andy got into the bed.

“Way I see it, you ain’t got nuffin. Shit job, no mates, no bird, no kid. No one to carry on your legacy” Sloan tapped the last cigarette out and crumpled the empty packet onto the floor. “All you got is me.”

Sloan lit his cigarette with Andy’s lighter before dropping it onto the floor as well. He took a deep long drag and then leaned in so close that their noses nearly touched before exhaling a foul cloud of smoke into his face. “And I ain’t even real.”

Pain shot through Andy’s arms and then settled in his chest. His heart beat that was pounding so load only a moment ago was beginning to falter. The pain becoming more and more unbearable.

He was unable to breathe as Sloan placed his hand over Andy’s heart, “The only thing you ever truly loved was me.” Sloan pushed harder and harder against Andy’s heart. “You didn’t care about nuffin else and see what you gone an’ done Andy. Did you even live? Or was I livin for you?”

Something lurched inside of Andy’s chest and his vision began to dim. Sloan smiled at him, his face becoming more skull like with each slowing painful beat of the drum in Andy’s head that must have been his fading pulse.

Andy died as he lived, gazing at something that only he could see the importance of. Something that he couldn’t touch, he couldn’t be, and that he had wasted his life living vicariously through.

The moral of the story:

Live your life. Don’t let anyone else do it for you.

Elsa and her Shadow

Let me just begin by telling you a bit about Elsa; about the person she was and my own rendition of what she meant to me.

Elsa was born in the spring of 1974 to two loving and caring parents, Jim and Grace. She was born in a small town that was just getting its first taste of a recession that would see all but a handful of its then booming industry fade away into nothing but an echo of its former glory.

Her parents did what they could to get by after Jim lost his job in the mill. He worked odd jobs and long hours but there was always a hot meal on the table at the end of the day and though she would get more than her fair share of hand-me -downs and thrift shop school clothing, Elsa never wanted for the necessities in life.

I used to babysit her when her mother would go out for the shopping or running other errands and her father was earning a living. She would help me bake cookies or we’d sit at the dining room table and play board games. If it was a nice day we’d sometimes lay on a picnic blanket in the back yard and look for shapes in the clouds; cloud-watching we would call it.

Elsa’s parents weren’t particularly religious but she still attended vacation bible school for 3 weeks every summer in the non-denominational Christian Church on the corner of Parkview and West every year. She learned songs that she would sing for me and make arts and tell me about the bible stories she had learned.

Elsa was a girl scout. She had a sash literally covered in badges that she had earned by helping out with her mother at Mount Sinai Hospice and Retirement Home. She knitted blankets and even ran a workshop to teach some of the elderly residents how to knit; instead of the traditional role reversal where a grandmother would show a ten year old the magic of the old knitting needles.

She grew just like any other normal child. She went to sleepovers and played with barbie dolls or lego. She had a dog, a little collie cross named Runt that used to run along the side of her when she would take her bike with the purple streamers for rides through Orchard Park.

Elsa did well throughout her schooling. She was on the honour roll and had a high B average throughout school. She played the flute in the marching band and sang in the school choir. Her favourite classes were English and Music.

I knew Elsa from the day she was born and I watched her grow up. It went so fast but I still love to reminisce and stroll down memory lane as though it were only yesterday. I was there when she was out in the front yard in her prom gown, her hair all done up and looking very grown up as she had her photo taken sitting on the porch swing with Jason Bleaks. He looked so charming in his tuxedo, but Elsa looked elegant. She had her mothers smile. It was natural even though she was posing for the camera.

Elsa grew up as all of us inevitably do. She went to college for a couple of years and lived on campus. She would come home to visit for the holidays and it always warmed my heart to see her. She’d lightened her hair and cut it short when she came home for Thanksgiving the first year. I hardly recognised her only a few months after she had gone away! It suited her though. She looked lovely; like she was really enjoying life and the independence had suited her very well.

She came back for Christmas and Spring break. I’d hear the whine of her old Ford station wagon when it crested the hill and know that she must be back again to see her folks. The neighbours would all come out to greet her. It was almost as though we had our own celebrity in the neighbourhood and everyone wanted to catch up and see how she was doing and what college was like. We would ask about her classes and how she was finding campus life.

She returned home for the summer and found a part time job in the local pharmacy. The poor girl must have had to tell the same stories a hundred times a day as people from the area would stop in to fill prescriptions or pick up a bottle of aspirin. It never seemed to bother her though. She’d smile and answer the same questions again and again for the curious customers and make small talk, smiling all the while.

It was on her second summer back home that everything changed. I was washing the dishes from breakfast when I heard the familiar whine of her station wagon and realised it must be Elsa back for another summer at her parents house. I set the pot I was scrubbing back into the sink and dried my hands on the dish towel before making my way down the hall and to the front door.

I saw her darker and slightly longer hair trail behind her as she ran up the front steps and heard the slam of the door across the street. I knew something must have been up but didn’t want to intrude and so I went back to the kitchen and turned on the radio for a bit of company, and to take the edge off of the anticipated conversation that I had been unintentionally readying myself for had been so abruptly called off.

Only then did I hear about the whole ordeal. There had been a shooting at another campus not far from where Elsa had been attending college. Six students and two teachers had died in a murder suicide with details that were still sketchy at best. The entire eight hours that Elsa had been driving home the gory tale was unfolding in the guess work way that most of these stories start out. First blaming Islamic fundamentalists, then falling on to the stereotypical homicidal maniac.

There were calls for guns to be banned. There were rallies being organised by the NRA to keep guns in the hands of decent people with a need to protect themselves from these sort of psychos. There was talk of bombs and suspicious devices being left all over campus. There were people calling for anyone not born in America to be shipped back to wherever they came from. There were churches arranging candle lit vigils while evangelicals claimed that the lecherous party culture of college students in that area had brought this act of god down on the sinners like a plague of locusts.

It was bedlam on all of the airwaves and yet none of us knew what had happened to Elsa at the time. Over the following days people talked. There were hushed conversations out on the street between neighbours that looked at the house as they speculated. I heard stories ranging from her having been on campus at the other college for one reason or another and having witnessed the barbaric slayings all the way to a love interest having been a victim of the massacre; or even that he had been the sick mind behind the barrel.

It turned out of course that it was all hearsay. Elsa was driving home when the incident happened. She didn’t have a boyfriend and she didn’t know a single person; faculty or student, that had been involved in the massacre. She had simply spooked herself as a result of too much caffeine, too long of a drive, too much time alone while she was hearing the story unfolding, and too wild an imagination.

I only found out that much by speaking to her mother one day while she was out walking the dog. The poor woman was distraught. It was obvious she wanted to talk to someone and since I had been a family friend for so long she chose to console in me.

She told me that Elsa was in a bad way. She had managed to get herself so worked up and kept going on about how it could have been her. Elsa wouldn’t leave the house. She spent most of her days in her bedroom and most of her time there crying about what could have been.

Her mother told me of the nightmares she was having. How she would frequently wake up screaming. How no amount of comforting from either her or her husband seemed to make any difference.

During this time friends of hers from college had phoned but Elsa didn’t want to speak to them. She just wanted to be alone with her grief. There was absolutely nothing that anyone could say or do that helped.

Elsa dropped out of college that year. She cited stress as her main reason whenever anyone would ask her about it; once she did finally start leaving the house again that is. It took her mother and father every ounce of strength they had left to convince her that she needed to see a psychiatrist. Not even that helped in the end.

It turned out that the atrocity had been committed by one local and terribly unhappy male student. His parents had divorced. He had been struggling to pay off his student loans. He had suffered bullying about his lack of money throughout his life and one day he just snapped. He decided to take as many of the people he blamed for the hand he had been dealt in life down with him.

Of course the media never apologised to any of the numerous people they had targeted and hassled. The small Muslim community on campus were still receiving regular harassment from students after the claim that the shooter may have been a recent convert to a militant Islamic group that was secretly operating in the area.

Gun sales went up on the whole in the area due to the fear mongering that the media with the help of the National Rifle Association had created. There were billboards asking about the safety of not having a gun and bumper stickers declaring “If they make guns illegal only criminals will have guns” stuck to old chevy and buicks right alongside commemoration stickers reminding us all of the date of the incident and the names of the victims.

It is understandable that a person could hear about a terrible tragedy like that and stress themselves out enough to believe that it actually could have been them that had been there even though they were not. Unfortunately it was only the tip of the iceberg for Elsa though.

After several months of therapy she slowly started to retreat from her shell. We were all smart enough not to say anything to her about it but would ask how she was and she would normally give us a forced smile and do her best to reassure everyone that she was “fine, just fine and dandy thank you”.

In time she resumed her position in Laurent’s Pharmacy. They had expanded their store while she had been away and now also had what was essentially a small convenience store complete with birthday cards, makeup, drinks and snacks, and the staples like milk and bread. The change to store meant that it saw far more custom from the local population since it was within walking distance and had most of the essentials that people wouldn’t see fit to drive all the way into town to pick up.

At first she would work with her eyes down, never saying more than she had to and never initiating conversation with the customers. One word answers were about the best we could hope for and the first time I experienced it myself I welled up with tears. What happened to the little girl that I used to know? Where was that confidence and determination? Had that poor boy that did those terrible things been able to take yet another victim after all?

They say that time heals all wounds and to a certain extent I suppose it’s true that it does for most people. As the months passed and the seasons changed Elsa seemed to make a bit of progress. Her demeanour was still reserved and she shied away from people more often than not. Every now and then though I’d see a glimmer of who she was before.

One day I had to stop into Laurent’s Pharmacy to fill a prescription for antibiotics for a nasty ear infection I had picked up that didn’t seem to want to go away on it’s own. The store radio was still playing Christmas songs at the time even though Christmas had come and gone. I made a reference to a parody of ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’ that involved ‘Womens Underwear’ along to the music as I approached Elsa and handed her the money to pay for the drugs and she burst out laughing with a snort that reminded me so much of the unadulterated laughter of her childhood; and the Elsa I knew and loved so much.

Things like that were rare but they happened periodically. I heard similar tales of breakthroughs from other people in the neighbourhood and even from her own family. Sometimes she would laugh at something unexpected and funny. Sometimes she would come out of her shell just enough to remind us that she was still there and that all hope hadn’t in fact been lost.

As it turns out I needed to fill a repeat prescription for that particularly nasty ear infection I’d caught that year. I went to the Laurent’s Pharmacy and when I didn’t see Elsa I knew something wasn’t right. Franklin Laurent himself was there manning the cash register and I could see it in his tired and sullen expression that all was not well.

“Good morning Franklin! How’s Nancy doing? I haven’t seen you since the carolling! Did you have a nice Christmas?” Franklin had never been a man of many words and I could tell by his demeanour that the festive spirit was far behind him. “Ah Marilyn. Good to see you. Yes, thank you. Yourself?’ I was never one for beating around bushes. More a supporter of the ‘better out than in’ school of thinking I decided that there was no harm in asking.

“Isn’t Elsa in today?” He weighed up the damage a response would yield. Shifting his glasses uncomfortably he leaned in so as not to be overheard. “It’s the superbug that the damn reporters keep going on about Marilyn. It’s gone and spooked her just like that damned shooting did.” He straightened up and took the money I had been holding out for him, keeping his eyes down as he made change of a twenty.

“Just one elderly patient dies in hospital in a suspected case of this so called super bug and she can’t come in. What am I meant to do? I mean honestly! I can’t afford to have someone on the payroll when I don’t even know if they are going to be too scared of the bogeyman to be here doing their job! Does she think I’m made of money? I’m still paying for the renovations done last spring!”

He was exasperated but it didn’t stop him from grasping my hand ever so slightly as he slid the change gently into my open palm. “I just don’t know what to do about her. This can’t go on.”

It pained him to say it but I knew where he was coming from. Times were hard and profits were down. He should have been ensuring the shop was running efficiently, taking stock and placing orders, not trying to catch up with it after hours while spending his day doing the job he had employed her to do.

“I’ll see if I can get through to her.” I promised before pocketing my change and taking the plastic bag. The doubt was clear in his eyes and I realised I didn’t have much faith in myself making any difference either, but I was willing to try. Anything was better than just sitting back and watching Elsa wreck her life.

She had already missed out on her college education and all of the potential prospects that would bring and now here she was slowly throwing away her job, her references for future jobs, and hurting people in the community as well as herself. It wasn’t fair to anyone.

As I made my way back along the slush covered streets, careful not to slip and fall on the icy patches, I thought about this fear that she had. She ceased attending college despite having loved it there; and for what reason? The tiny chance that someone might come in with a gun and kill her? Millions of other students get their degree without ever even being grazed by a bullet. Just because it happens once, and she happened to hear about it shouldn’t mean that she should shut herself in and hide from the possibility, which was minuscule, of it happening again only to her this time.

I knew that was just plain silly but what about the super bug? Yes she worked with the public and not just any members of the public but a higher proportion of people that weren’t well and most likely had recently been to a hospital or at least a Doctor’s office. Then again there were many people that simply had repeat prescriptions to fill and hadn’t been to a medical professional for months or even years.

There was also the fact that the number of people that had contracted the super bug was so ridiculously low in comparison to the number of people who hadn’t to bear in mind. Surely the odds of being struck by lightning must have been higher than her odds of contracting the super bug at work would be. I debated saying this to her and realised that she may never leave the house again on a rainy day for fear of being struck by a rogue bolt.

I realised as I hit a particularly slippery patch of the path that there was a real difference in fear that is healthy to feel and what Elsa was feeling. I was mildly afraid that I may slip and go down on my behind, mostly because I was confident that it would hurt. There was also the mild embarrassment I would suffer if anyone saw me as an even milder secondary fear. Technically I’m sure that if I fell at just the wrong angle and perhaps too quickly to get my arms up to cushion the blow that yes, in theory I could slip and fall and hit my head hard enough to die. However, here I was walking on the ice and slipping and sliding my way home because I was being sensibly cautious.

I had my winter boots with good tread on my feet. I had my hands free and out of my pockets so that if I did slip I had more chance to catch myself. My eyes never ceased trying to spot the ice versus the safer patches to walk on. Because I was being aware and reasonably cautious my odds of imminent death on ice were drastically reduced. We all have to figuratively walk on a few icy patches every day, when had this become a problem for Elsa?

I decided that someone needed to tell her this. Someone would have to bring her back to reality. That someone was going to have to be me.

Carefully I climbed the steps to her front door, without even having returned home with my prescription first. I figured that I should do what I could to help her while it was fresh in my mind.

I knocked and waited only a moment before her mother came to the door. “Hello Grace, is Elsa home?” The troubled look she gave me spoke volumes. The scent of harsh cleaning chemicals struck my nose like a tidal wave. My eyes burned with the harshness as Grace stood aside motioning for me to come in.

I kicked the snow off of my boots and wiped my feet on the welcome mat just inside the door. Taking a moment to look around while I did I could see that the problem was a lot worse than I had anticipated.

The house had always been clean but lived in. It had been homely and it felt good to be inside of it. Right then the house looked clinical. There wasn’t a speck of dust sparkling in the beams of sunlight that shone in from the windows. The floors looked like you could eat off of them. The chemical scent was unbearable and I found that it wasn’t only my eyes that were burning but my lungs as well.

“Oh Marilyn! We don’t know what to do!” I wasn’t able to know for sure if Grace’s eyes were streaming from the chemicals in the air or from tears of exasperation. “I’m sorry about the state of the place. She’s been disinfecting everything in the entire house for days now. I can’t stand it! I taste it when I breathe, I taste it when I eat, I haven’t slept in days.”

Grace was close to having a nervous breakdown. She was so barely keeping herself restrained and the bags under her eyes looked like they might be permanent. Though there wasn’t a single speck of dust glittering in the sunlight, I did see clearly that the grey hairs at her temples had multiplied significantly in the few days that it had been since I last saw her.

“I want to help. I was at the pharmacy earlier and heard what happened. She needs someone to talk some sense into her Grace. Do you think she would listen to me if I tried?” She took my coat and hung it on a hook near the door.

“We’ve been trying for months now to get her to be sensible. Nothing works. She won’t even go back to the therapist because of this damned super bug that they keep talking about on the news. It was the only thing that was helping at all and now it’s out because there is this stupid germ that she’s afraid she would get catch that would mean certain death… When did my little girl become so afraid of dying? How did this happen? What did I do wrong?”

I opened my arms to her and held her, gently rubbing her back with my hands as she sobbed on my shoulder. We stood that way for a long time. I let her get it out and feel the support that I was there to give to her and her family. I couldn’t help but feel angry with Elsa for doing this to the people that cared the most about her. If she wanted to ruin her own life with these ridiculous actions that was one thing, but was she so blind as not to see what she was doing to everyone else around her?

I scolded myself for letting the anger of helplessness in the face of the situation overtake me temporarily. Elsa was sick. She wasn’t in control and she needed help. Similar events happen in most families where someone needs help and everyone selflessly pulls together and gives and does everything they can, and they suffer, but that is the bad that we have to take with the good.

“It’s okay Grace. I’m here. I’d like to talk to her and see if I can help.” She pulled herself together with a bit of effort and wiped the remnants of tears from her eye with her hand, sniffling slightly before becoming serious.

“I’ll get her for you but I wouldn’t hold much hope if I were you. Jim wants to take her to a Doctor in Chicago that has been making real progress with people that suffer from Thanatophobia; a fear of death.” “If money is the problem I could help out a little…” She interrupted, “No it’s not that. He mentioned flying there and she had a panic attack. She was babbling about terrorists and the twin towers and… Oh there’s no use! It’s still a Doctor’s Office and bound to be swarming with super bugs. She won’t accept the help and we try so hard to convince her…”

She wiped at her eye once more with the side of her hand. “I’ve been thinking about getting Doctor Stephens to tranquilise her so that we can get her there before she even realise that she’s been out! Isn’t that terrible?” I fished a tissue out of my pocket and handed it to her as she attempted to get herself back under control once more.

“It’s not terrible at all. She needs help Grace. Like I said, anything at all I can do to help her or to help you is…” We were interrupted by the sound of Elsa’s footsteps at the top of the stairs.

She descended and I was speechless. Looking as though she had slept even less than her mother had, the dark circles below her eyes were accentuated by the surgical face mask that she wore to cover her mouth and nose. Her hair was tied back and she appeared to be wearing hospital clothing, like the sort a ward walker would wear.

Seeing her like that broke my heart. The poor girl seemed to be literally dying of fright. “I thought I heard you down here.” She raised her left arm while her right held onto the bannister. She had a spray can and before I could object she gave the downstairs hallway a thorough dousing in disinfectant. I coughed and closed my eyes to protect them while the chemicals rained and added to the stinging feeling I already had from breathing them in.

“Elsa! Stop this at once! We can’t breathe!” Her mother scolded between coughs. Elsa stopped spraying and lowered her hand but wouldn’t come any closer.

“I stopped by to see how you were Elsa. I thought that you might come over to dinner this evening so we could catch up with each other. I’ve got a lovely big pot of stew simmering away and there’s no way I could eat it by myself.” I was aware that I hadn’t thought this through and the words were simply coming to me instinctually. Her mother and father obviously needed a break and it might do her good to get out of the house.

She looked at me as though she were in a bit of a daze. “I can’t.”

“Well if you have other plans I understand. What about tomorrow? There will be plenty left over.” I knew she didn’t have plans but maybe if I made it hard for her to refuse she would just accept.

“No, I can’t eat the stew I mean. Haven’t you heard about CJD? How could anyone eat beef these days? Don’t you know what it does to you?” She retreated by one step, still clutching the banister in one hand and the disinfectant spray in the other.

“Oh dear, I hadn’t realised… What about making some cookies together like we used to? I’ve been a bit lonely recently Elsa and I think it might cheer us both up.”

She retreated another step. “Salmonella. Raw eggs are really dangerous. We don’t have a cooking thermometer to make sure it’s hot enough to kill it.” She jumped at the sound of her own voice when she said ‘kill’, turned, and ran up the stairs without another word. The sound of her sobbing uncontrollably in her bedroom greeted our ears just seconds after the slam of her door.

I turned to her mother, “You’re right. She needs help very badly. You get on the phone to Doctor Stephens and I’ll stay here to help out wherever I can in the meantime.”

With a nod of her head she was away to the kitchen to get the phone. The poor woman just needed someone from the outside to agree with her to make her see that she had made the right decision. She knew that sedation in order to get help was the only thing that was going to work short of locking Elsa up in some sort of institute, but she simply couldn’t see it as the right thing to do without support.

She came back a few minutes later. “Doctor Stephens is on his way here. He agrees that it’s an emergency and that she needs to get help.”

I spent the next half hour phoning airlines and getting details about flights for a sedated passenger and her parents. As it was so close to the holidays not a single airline was able to get Elsa to Chicago for a few weeks and it was obvious that she didn’t have that much time.

Jim came home just as Doctor Stephens was arriving and I filled him in on what was happening while Grace and the Doctor went upstairs to see Elsa. A short while later they returned downstairs. Elsa was deeply sedated.

Doctor Stephens made a point of explaining how imperative it was that Elsa get professional psychiatric help as soon as possible. Apparently she hadn’t been eating or sleeping and he explained that she was so ill that a clump of her hair fell out when he attempted to brush it from her face. “If she keeps up like this she’s going to kill herself.”

Plans were laid out for Jim and Grace to drive the twelve hours to Chicago. I was going to help them pack and then book hotel rooms for their arrival. Everyone got to work and within an hour the car was loaded up and they were ready to set out on their long drive to help Elsa.

I agreed to phone Grace’s cell phone with details of hotels and be on hand for any problems that might arise with directions or anything else I could do to help. They gave me a house key and I agreed to look after Runt, their dog, while they were away.

Jim carried Elsa to the car. She didn’t regain consciousness the whole time as we laid her in the backseat and covered her up with a blanket and propped her head up on a pillow. I stood on the porch with Runt while they got into the car and waved goodbye before pulling out and driving off.

“Well Runt, we’ve got a hotel to book. Let’s go get warmed up. There might even be some stew for you tonight if you’re a good boy.” I locked up and then we crossed the street to my house. It’s scary to think that it was in that short amount of time that it happened and Elsa’s worries were laid to rest.

Grace and Jim had only driven to the top of the street where it joins the main road before they hit a patch of black ice and lost control of the car. It spun and Jim threw it into neutral, just as any smart driver that hits ice would, avoiding that maddening urge to hit the breaks that only make the situation worse. The car spun directly into oncoming traffic and if it had been seconds earlier or later it wouldn’t have made any difference and would have just been yet another vehicle that spins out before continuing even more cautiously on the journey at hand. However they spun directly into the path of an ambulance that was on its way to the sight of another accident brought on as a result of the wintery weather and icy conditions on the road.

They were less than a mile from the house when the accident happened, killing all three of them instantly. There was nothing any of them could have done differently. There was no precaution they could have taken that they didn’t take. They were wearing their seat belts. The airbags deployed. The ambulance was on the scene literally as the accident happened.

At the end of the day Elsa spent the last six months of her life being so afraid of death that she missed out on everything that would have been enjoyable about the time. It wasn’t any media hyped bogey man that got her in the end. It wasn’t Al-Qaeda. It wasn’t a super bug. It wasn’t eating the wrong food, breathing in the wrong air, or being in contact with the wrong customer. It wasn’t a bullet fired by someone on campus. It was just a run of the mill patch of ice on the road she lived on.

If Elsa had gone back to college it wouldn’t have happened. If Elsa had gone to work it wouldn’t have happened. Elsa lived in fear for the last six months of her short life. Elsa’s shadow that she had learned to be afraid of is what killed her in the end.

As I looked out over the congregation I saw not a single dry eye. They had witnessed it just as I had. I left the podium and approached the three closed caskets at the front of the church. “Don’t be afraid anymore Elsa.” I said my final parting words and laid a single white rose on the casket in the centre, just below the photo of the smiling girl I used to know.

The moral of the story:

Live your life. Don’t spend it being afraid of what could be.