A fleeting present predicament of past and future

Once, in a time not unlike ours, in a nearby land, lived a man and a woman known as Mr and Mrs Fleet.  They inhabited a house that was neat and modest in size, positioned within a row of other neat and modest sized houses with tidy gardens to the rear and well presented driveways to the front.  The residents of these houses, much like their homes, were orderly, predictable and polite, going about their lives in a tidy and modest way.  To any casual observer, everything appeared exactly as it should - regular and routine, with nothing out of the ordinary.

Every Sunday evening, Mr Fleet would switch off his laptop and exclaim how that was another weekend over, and with a sigh Mrs Fleet would put down her phone and nod reticently, agreeing with a weary tone that indeed the following day was Monday when the well polished cycle of their lives would begin again.

On Monday mornings, Mr Fleet would peck his wife on the cheek, and leave the house with his briefcase.  After driving to the station, he would catch the train into the city where he worked in a small grey office in a tall concrete building, full of other small grey offices containing other neat and tidy people.  Mrs Fleet would raise their two small children from their beds, wash and dress them, feed them breakfast and jostle them along the ten minute walk to school, where she would usher them through the gates before heading across town to her job at the local library.  She would work there until two-thirty when it was time to go and collect the children again.

In the evening, Mrs Fleet would feed and entertain the children, tending to their every innocent and childish need before bathing them and bundling them into their pyjamas and reading them a bedtime story.  Once they were tucked up safely in their beds, she would return to the kitchen to prepare a meal for when Mr Fleet returned home after his long day at the office.  After washing the dishes and tidying the house again, Mrs Fleet would sit in the neatly presented lounge as the familiar soap operas and light entertainment programmes blurred across the television screen.  She would spend a solitary couple of hours scrolling through her phone, barely seeing or hearing, whilst Mr Fleet, earphones inserted, would take himself, his phone and his laptop into his study and close the door, only to emerge again much later to finally clamber into bed some hours after Mrs Fleet had fallen asleep.

At the weekend Mr Fleet could be found either in his study, or at the golf course, where depending on the weather, he would spend varying amounts of time on the green and in the clubhouse.  Mrs Fleet would divide her time between the merry-go-round of children and their home, swimming lessons, school friends' parties and trips to the park.  And that is how it was each day of the week, except for Wednesdays, when Mrs Fleet did not work at the library and instead filled her time with household chores and errands.  

—

It was one such Wednesday afternoon, as Mrs Fleet was folding the laundry, thinking about a film she had once seen as a teenager about a girl who ran away with a guy from a record store, that she was disturbed by an unexpected knock at the door.  Bemused, as visitors were rare, with a tea towel still in her hand, she opened the door to reveal a man standing on the front step.

In a street, known for its well presented frontages and immaculate shiny windows, the stranger appeared immediately out of place.  He was distinctly shabby looking, ‘unnecessarily so,’ thought Mrs Fleet, with unruly grey hair that stuck out in various directions and his dated clothes were patched at the knees and elbows.  His face was weathered and undernourished, and his eyes, though tired and sunken, had a peculiar green light about them that disarmed Mrs Fleet without her realising.

“Sorry to bother you,” said the stranger in a chocolate cake voice that didn’t quite fit his appearance, “I’m looking for some help, a little food if you please have anything to spare.”

Instinct told Mrs Fleet to be cautious and she held the tea towel in front of her, a flimsy shield, but there was something in the man’s voice, something deeper and more knowing than his external appearance might suggest, and for a moment she paused.  “Wait here,” she said, pushing the door ajar, not wanting to appear so rude as to close it entirely.  She disappeared into the kitchen, where she abandoned the tea towel and returned moments later with a sandwich that was intended to be her lunch, and a few coins from her purse.  She gestured towards the wooden bench to the side of the front door.  “Please, sit down,” she said to the man, and she handed him the sandwich and coins.

“Thank you,” the man said, lowering himself gently onto the bench as though he might break if he sat down too quickly.  He took a bite of the sandwich, his eyes lingering on Mrs Fleet’s face.  “You’re kind,” he observed as he finished chewing, “but you’re sad.”

Mrs Fleet bristled. “I’m not sad,” she replied quickly, “whatever makes you say that?”

The man nodded as though expecting the objection. “Not on the surface, maybe,” he put down the rest of the sandwich and turned to her, “but there’s a part of you that’s forgotten what’s important to you, what actually brings joy to your life.”

Mrs Fleet’s breath caught for a moment, she coughed slightly, absorbing the words for a moment before composing herself.

“I’m fine,” she said, forcing a polite smile.

The man tilted his head, his peculiar green eyes catching the light, causing Mrs Fleet to look away. “If you say so.  But if you’re ever ready to remember who you are, what you truly want, all you have to do is tell me.”

The man then finished eating the sandwich and put the coins in his pocket.  Mrs Fleet stood in the doorway watching, pondering his words, and the more she considered what he’d said, the more she questioned, and it dawned on her that perhaps he was right.  She hadn’t allowed herself to fully realise it, but perhaps the words he spoke did contain some truth, however uncomfortable that made her feel.

“Thank you for your kindness,” said the man as he rose stiffly from the bench.  “Think about what I said, and if you can remember who you truly are and what would bring more joy and colour to your life, then you must tell me.”  He paused for a moment, looking around the pristine front garden and the street beyond.  “I will return at the same time next week to ask you the question again.”

Mrs Fleet stared at him, unblinking, unsure whether to laugh or be frightened, but before she could respond, the man gave a small nod of gratitude and walked away, disappearing down the road.

That evening, as the Fleet children slept in their beds and Mr Fleet tapped away on his laptop behind the door of his study, Mrs Fleet sat alone in the living room, scrolling through her phone, the television chattering away to itself in the dimly lit background.  She fidgeted, clicked likes, her eyes felt tired and dry, then irritably she tossed her phone to the side and switched off the television.  The quiet stillness shocked her and she looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time,  the strange man’s words echoing in her mind.  ‘Who you truly are.’

‘I have absolutely no idea.’

—

The next morning, as Mr Fleet left the house, he paused at the door for a moment and looked at his wife.  “Are you okay?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing, you just seem…”

“I’m fine,” Mrs Fleet forced a smile, though inside she was oddly irritable.  Nothing had changed but today she was troubled, her monotony disturbed, she didn’t feel right.  “I’ll see you tonight, have a good day,” she said and Mr Fleet nodded and left as he did every morning.

At the library Mrs Fleet moped, put books on the wrong shelves and snapped at customers.  She behaved so vastly out of character that the head librarian suggested she leave at lunchtime as she obviously wasn’t feeling well.

It was a fine April day, though to Mrs Fleet it felt like the bleakest part of winter as she walked home, her feet heavy and her mind contorted out of all shape as she grappled with the emptiness that had now replaced comfortable predictability.  As she turned past a small park, the bright spring day tugged at her, imploring her to take notice of it, and so she sat down on an empty bench under the blossoming cherry trees where small birds were flitting about and chattering to each other.  For a moment she closed her eyes, trying to clear away the clutter of the day to day, new shoes for the children, what to cook for dinner, the laundry that needed bringing in from the line, her sister’s birthday next month… ‘Even if I knew who I truly am, there’s no room for me…’

When she got home, Mrs Fleet brought in the washing, folded it neatly ready to iron later and then sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, staring blankly through the window.  ‘Everything was fine until that weird man appeared…’, then although she didn’t know it, something in her subconscious pricked, and with a start, she drank the last of the tea, slammed down the cup, dashed from the room and sped up the two flights of stairs to the attic.  She flicked on the light, filling the dark space with a harsh glow from the solitary bulb.  ‘It must still be here somewhere…’

Behind a collection of old computer monitors and other redundant technology that Mr Fleet had accumulated over the years, Mrs Fleet found the box that had crept unknowingly into the corner of her mind while she’d sipped her tea.  It was the box, that years before at the age of twenty-one, she’d packed in her pink bedroom at her parents home, ready to leave and start her life with Mr Fleet, the box of everything that she had been before she became Mrs Fleet.

As she peeled back the brittle, yellowed tape, a faint musty scent filled the attic, the smell of things long buried and forgotten.  She hesitated for a moment, then lifted the lid, searching for something, anything that might define who she had been before slipping unknowingly into the world of responsibility and routine.  Teddy bears, records and CDs, small ornaments of cute animals, story books, school certificates, she took each item in turn, fingers brushing over them, memories stirring like dust as she placed them to one side, searching.  But nothing resonated, nothing glittered with the magic of who she might be.

The box and Mrs Fleet both sat on the dusty attic floor, each of them as empty as the other.  Mrs Fleet, her knees drawn to her chest, put her head between her palms and stared at the pile of objects.  ‘They’re just things, there’s nothing here that’s helping me remember who I really am.’  She glanced at her watch, almost time to collect the children, and being the well ordered and structured person that she was, Mrs Fleet began to pack the objects back into the box.

As she arranged the books neatly in a pile, she noticed a small notebook poking out between the storybooks.  Unlike the others, this one didn't have any sense of familiarity and Mrs Fleet tugged at its narrow spine.  The pale green school exercise book had no teacher or subject written on the cover, just a name, her name, the name that had belonged to her before she became Mrs Fleet.  A frown fell across her face, unsure what the soft notebook might contain, and as she flicked through the pages, her own familiar handwriting stared back at her, looping and twisting, but still she felt nothing, only a growing sense of frustration and unease.

—

Later that evening, after the children had been settled in their beds, and whilst waiting for Mr Fleet to return home, Mrs Fleet took the green book from the safety of her bedside drawer.  Its contents shocked her, ‘surely I didn’t write this,’ the dreams and fantasies of a teenage girl, some in poems, some as diary entries, everything that she had ever thought she might have been, when her world was a simpler, less complicated and demanding place.  There was one poem that rattled Mrs Fleet more than the others, though many had similar themes of life and love, this one seemed to be wise beyond the years of her teenage self;

Don’t ever stop believing in yourself

when the world is hard and cold and stark

and never leave your dreams up on a shelf

forgotten over time, lost in the dark

when the world is hard and cold and stark

the sky will shine all colours each in turn

forgotten over time, lost in the dark,

a light within your soul will always burn.

The sky will shine all colours each in turn

and memories of that child that you once knew,

a light within your soul will always burn

bring to the world your gift, perfect and true

for memories of that child that you once knew

and never leave your dreams up on a shelf,

bring to the world your gift, perfect and true,

don’t ever stop believing in yourself.

The front door clicked open and Mrs Fleet pushed the book under the sofa cushions, before heading into the hall to greet Mr Fleet returning from his day.  They ate together quietly while he responded to texts on his phone.  Then before he left the table for his study, he caught his wife’s eye.

“Are you okay?” he asked, taking her by surprise.

“I’m fine,” she said simply.

He frowned. “You haven’t been yourself the last couple of days.”

“I’m fine,” she said firmly.

There was a beat of silence. “You’re obviously not, but if you won’t tell me then there isn’t very much I can do,” said Mr Fleet rising from the table to leave.

Mrs Fleet met his eyes.  “I need to remember who I am.” she said, shocked at herself for speaking the words that had been haunting her.

Mr Fleet blinked, clearly unsettled. “You’re still you aren’t you?  I don’t understand,” he said cautiously, “I thought we were happy.”

She sighed. “We are I suppose, ignore me, it’s probably just my age or something… everything’s fine, forget I said anything.”

He had no response, only smiled and nodded, then shut himself away in his study for the rest of the evening.

—

The days that followed were filled with their usual predictable and safe routine.  Anyone observing would note nothing peculiar or different in the comings and goings of the Fleet family, and nothing out of the ordinary occurred and nobody mentioned the curious mood that had settled over Mrs Fleet.  On Sunday evening, as Mr Fleet closed his laptop and sighed about the weekend being over, Mrs Fleet didn’t nod along in unison in her usual way but simply murmured, lost in her phone, lost somewhere else entirely, caught in a hypnotic state of scrolling.

On Monday she put the green notebook in her handbag and pondered over it on her lunch break at the library.  On Tuesday Mrs Fleet returned the notebook to the box in the attic.

On Wednesday afternoon, as Mrs Fleet was cleaning the kitchen worktops, a knock at the door that she had only half been expecting, pulled her up at a start and she gasped as her heart began to hammer violently against her chest.  She looked out of the window for a moment, steadying herself with deep breaths, her knuckles white as she grasped the edge of the worktop.  Then, checking her hair in the hall mirror, she composed herself and moved purposefully down the hallway to open the front door.

The strange man stood on the doorstep as he had done the week before.  Nothing in his appearance had altered, still dishevelled and out of place, and his green eyes still sparked in a whimsical and peculiar way.  “Hello again,” he said in the dark chocolate covered voice, “I shall not take any more of your time than is necessary.”  He smiled and cocked his head to one side, considering Mrs Fleet for a moment before continuing.  “Do you have an answer for me?  Do you now know who you truly are, and what would bring more joy and colour to your life?”

From a garden down the road, the scent of fresh cut grass mingled with the hum of a lawnmower, touching the edge of her senses and Mrs Fleet’s eyes drifted over the top of the man’s head, falling on the trees in the street beyond.  Birds hopped amongst the branches, set against the wash of a bright spring sky, streaked with pale clouds and trails of aeroplanes heading to distant lands.  

The stranger gave a small cough, bringing Mrs Fleet’s attention back to her doorstep.  “So, do you have an answer for me?” he enquired.

Mrs Fleet inhaled deeply, filling her lungs, filling her body with the world beyond her and behind her, with everything that surrounded her.  Then finally, she met the man’s inquiring gaze and a small smile crept across her lips.

“Yes,” she said, “I do believe I do.”