Hey Baby

Safe, now, in the car, with the rain hounding her journey, Ffion’s hands: cold, slightly trembling clutched the steering wheel, her knuckles white. Beside her on the passenger seat was an already-open packet of jelly babies. She hadn’t eaten any yet, but she knew she was going to, and had opened the packet in anticipation of this moment. Borne of other journeys, this prop for eating the miles, a small comfort, this habit was now fully formed and had taken hold. The wipers squealed, back and forth: shall I, shan’t I? Shall I? Shan’t I? I can be good. I can not eat them. I can resist.

Her left hand drifted from its 10 position. Two was secure. But 10 floated, seemingly of its own accord, towards the yawning mouth of the open packet, and fingertipped the babies: what colour? What colour? The game she played with herself. If she drew a green one first, she had lost the game, and must not have any more from the pack. Any other colour, and she could keep eating… Her blind fingers chose for her, and 10 hand drew out and up. A quick glance registered almost without time knowing she had done it. Red! Victory. She was entitled to another. This time, yellow. Then, another red! Unheard of! A third – black – a fourth! Yellow! She was on a roll. Red. Yellow. Orange… orange again. A run of oranges. Red. Two blacks! Another black. Red. What luck! What a treat! Such an honest way to eat. The most honest of them all.

The rain outside seemed to stop for a moment, or perhaps the car was dodging drops. Maybe she was under the weather. She reached inside the bag once more.

And then – disaster!

The brief glance to her left had revealed a flash of citrus. Keep your eyes on the road, not the babies. Maybe it was yellow. Maybe. Yes! Yellow, probably. She recognised lemon, surely. Or was it lime? Did it matter? She stuffed them in, one after the other. Was that lemon, or lime? Yellow or green? The spell broken, she reached into the packet again. Eyes left. Green. This one was definitely green. And something always present, but usually buried beneath layers of other things, resurfaced. Something she had never bothered to confront before now. She dropped it back into the pack.

The wipers scraped to and fro. Back and forth, a mechanical, maniacal rhythm, an itching inside her head. Ffion’s powdered sugar grip tightened on the wheel, a weightlifter preparing to snatch. The road ahead blurred a little, and she was torn between repicking, and knowing that to do so was cheating. The other sweetnesses lingered on her tongue, but it wasn’t the sugar that troubled her now.

She swallowed, but it wasn’t enough. The green jelly baby had done its work. She could go no further.  She’d lost the game.

The guilt began almost immediately. How could she let this happen? It wasn’t as if she had no willpower at all. There were weeks when she ate no sweets at all. Months even. It was only on car journeys. Only when she was alone, travelling more than 50 miles. That was the deal. Any journeys over 50 miles could trigger the purchase of that friendly yellow packet.

Perhaps it was time for supper. She checked the clock. It was not time. The clock must read 7pm, not a minute before, not a minute after, and it was only 6.49. The air in the car was still circulating, and she could let go of the rising panic. Time would tick on. It would be 7 soon, and she could eat something real. She had time before she could pull in, and dig into the feast she had prepared for 7pm.  There was a parking pull-in every mile or so on this stretch of road. She would be fine.

Of course she had made rules, built them up around herself like a fortification. They weren’t strict, not dangerous, not the kind for which others could judge her. No, she ate well. She ate properly. Leafy greens, grains, proteins, all balanced, all correct. And yet—the plate must be blue. The spoon, always a spoon, never a fork, never those tines ticking against the plate, and tearing through the mounds of vegetables, leaves, pulses. And water—before, then after, but never during. A thin line of order drawn through the chaos of life itself.

She remembered her past in the way most people did: a series of images, half-formed and shifting, colours bleeding, edges blurry. Light dimmed. Once upon a time, when her voice scarcely existed, and was certainly never heard above the sharp clink of cutlery against crockery, she imagined joining in with the adult chatter, but her tongue was swallowed by a glare from Father. A raise of the eyebrows from Mother. The expectations would settle in the air, and then creep over her skin like a cluster of silverfish, darting and furtive, before burrowing under her skin and dissolving, filling her veins with hot, moulten lava which flowed through her entire self, restricting her movements. Sit still. Hush. Behave. Sip, don’t slurp. Chew slowly. Sit up, girl! Don’t spill. And the tiniest mistake, would result in instant shame, rising like bile, clawing its way up her throat, searing and inescapable.

And so she became good. The best player in the little games she invented, and could easily win. Giving herself rules, her own rules, while still marching to their orders.

But now, there was no need for all that. Those disapproving voices and faces were gone, reduced to silence and stillness by life’s own final game. They didn’t suffer, the police officer said. It had been quick. Mercifully, they’d both gone at the same time. A faulty boiler. And Ffion, masking her victory, accepted this explanation readily - now, there would be no more commands, no hands on hers, dictating and correcting. The rules would truly be hers now, and hers alone. No one else ever saw them, no one else noticed if her plate was always blue, if she preferred a spoon, if she only sipped water before or after she ate. But she knew, and would always know, and obey, shackled by invisible chains, failing to convince herself that only she had created them, and that she could choose to follow them or not, and at least those rules were hers.

Ffion made the decision quickly. She reached to her left once more, and withdrew what she promised herself would be one last one, and as she chewed defiantly, not caring if it were yellow, green, red, orange or black - all she tasted was the sweetness of her frail triumph.