See me

From fifty meters away it hits him. Distinctive? No. Flowers. Wine. Aromas to be appreciated, savoured, are distinctive. This. This is a scream. This is a desperate plea. This is someone’s last cry for acknowledgement. Find me. See me. Help me. This says loneliness. This says abandonment. No one was looking. No one was listening. Now no one will ever forget.

The new guy is retching by the rose trellis. You tell them. They stand there, bravado brimming. No problem. Roadkill. They think roadkill, but this is concentrated. What gets out is a teaser. A macabre lure. A contradiction. Scale. One to ten. They laugh when you tell them twenty. Thirty. If there was a thermometer that could measure what waits, the mercury would be a volcano. Do they still use mercury? Probably not. Mercury corrodes. Poisons. A slow death if not treated. Ask the people that do this for a living, and they might think that kinder. What awaits corrodes the mind. New guy thinks 'exposure therapy'. He’s got it backwards. Maybe it’s his fault the new ones don’t get it but there are no words that do it justice. Seeping. Clawing. Clinging. Invading. Overloading. To the body this says purge. This says run and don’t look back. There is no fight. There can be no struggle, no victory. The game is over. The result inevitable.

His first time? It was different for him. He was looking away. Well his mother was. You nurture a child and in return you expect love, or at very least compassion. Most people hold their parent’s hand at the end, the only comfort they can give, that last smile. Then there are those that look inward. 'I don’t have time'. 'I have other priorities'. 'My life is going to shit because the only choices I seem to make are poor ones'. Time for your own kid? A mother with dementia who, like a babe, constantly requires attention? Give what you can? No. Turn your head, cover your ears and hum. Surely someone else will step up. Good Samaritan and all.

If a tree falls in the woods... She fell.

At the time he didn’t remember what his grandmother looked like. Well what she should have looked like. He only saw her in person once. Twice. Last guy took everything that wasn't nailed down? Debt collectors working out you only moved two streets away? Dealer wont take an IOU? He remembers her house. There was a garden. The first time he ever tasted strawberries. He can’t touch them now. He remembers his mother pushing open the screen door carrying a small TV and a sandwich press. He remembers a woman swiping at tears as she closed the door. There was a photo of a couple his mother would always display proudly. A ruse for those that barged in and out of his life. They eventually saw the lie and fled. He wonders if the photo came with the cheap ass frame.

He hid the birthday cards. He thought about writing back, but compassion was absent by example. When his mother let some asshole beat the stuffing out of him again he grabbed the cards and ran or hobbled to the only other person he had.

She reached out when he hit the path. A last strangling hug. He knew. Was recognising the message instinctive? He ignored the warning. Curiosity? No. The cards. 'Thinking of you'. 'Your loving grandmother'. He needed that love so desperately he couldn’t run away. Each step ripped at his senses. It tore at his very being. It was physically painful, but he was accustomed to pain. You fight the only way you can. You keep eye contact. You keep eye contact when they slap, when they kick, when they pick up the nearest object and you are a kid shaped tennis ball. That day he looked this in the eye. He looked this in the eye, and he pulled down the door handle.

Flies. They were in his eyes and his ears and his mouth. They peppered his body as they passed, desperate to escape. They shrieked. Run. Flee. He waited, enduring the nauseating wave that crashed and battered. It’s not the flies or the unimaginable stench but the warmth that he remembers most. Warmth said safety. Warmth was the small cupboard under the stairs. Warmth was his own cautious accumulating breaths. Warmth meant they hadn’t found him, a timer of sorts.

He stepped across the threshold. The hall was a putrid haze. On the hall table were photos. A woman in a white dress and a man. The same grinning man holding up a large pink fish. His mother. His mother, unfamiliar. Leaning in to place a kiss on the older man’s cheek. The three of them shrieking, his mother just a child, captured by a fixed camera on what he guessed was a roller coaster. His mother in a graduation gown, the older man standing beside her. Pictures of him. Coming out of the gate from school. Getting on the bus. Walking down 5th street delivering newspapers. He batted away the flies and picked one up. A close up of the woman. Hair the same colour as his, a ruddy brown, but peppered with grey. His mother’s eyes. The smile was unfamiliar. He turned it over, unhooked the catches on the frame and put the folded photo in his pocket.

He still has it.

That smiling woman was everywhere and nowhere. She wasn’t in the kitchen. Confused flies who had yet to realise their liberation, battered the windows, circled the light fixture, swarmed at his approach. Life from death. Her, but not her. On every surface were post it notes. Turn off the stove. Take medication at 8am. Check the mailbox. Wednesday shops Martha. Melinda Harris. There were a lot of those. He took one and put it in his pocket. An address. This address. His mother’s name. Paul Harris. His own name. There was an oversized calendar. Each day had Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner written on it. Meals, or at least breakfast, had been crossed out right up until seven days ago. The spoilt food in the fridge didn’t rate a mention as far as odours go. Weeks? Had it been in there for weeks? The only thing in the cupboards was cereal. Cocoa Puffs.

He always skips breakfast now.

She wasn’t in the lounge room. There was a faded blue couch, a beige rug, and a glass fronted cabinet filled with frogs of all sizes and colours. He opened it. A large green one looked ready to jump from the shelf. A multicoloured knitted one the size of his fist had tiny button eyes. The smallest one was glass. Blue glass. He put it in his pocket and then quickly closed the door before the flies got in.

On second thought he opened it.

He threw up when he reached the hall to the bedroom. He threw up flies and bile and that was about it. Yesterday. Did he eat yesterday? His calendar would have less ink. He moved forward, trying to pry the watering slits open and look it in the eyes. Easier said than done. The door was open. The flies, the feted hazy air, the stinging film all blurred his vision. It made taking in the thing at his feet just a little bit easier. Well not really. He stepped back. He was standing in a yellow soup. Run you say. Look away. He couldn’t. The buttons on her floral dress had burst open. She was bloated and green and yellow and blue. Her head was turned away. Some of her silver hair had fallen out, floating on the seeping liquids. He unfolded the photo. This. This horror. This unrecognisable fowl putrefied mess was the only person who had ever said they loved him. This person had left this earth alone and no one but him had answered her cries.

They all looked away.

Sirens. Yes. They had watched when he passed the corner store. A beaten, undernourished nine-year-old. You aren’t meant to be here. That house beyond the paddock. That kid opening the gate. A crime. A thief.

Yes. A crime. The sirens misdirected.

The new guy has masked up. The detectives are almost done but it will still be half an hour before the forensic guys finish up and they go in. New guy will be swimming in sweat. Dehydrated. New guy will take one glance and topple like a tree. He looks across at earl. They rock paper scissors. Earl loses. Earl gets to gurney him out.

The detective steps out the door and pauses. He’s trying to leave it behind. All of it. It doesn’t work that way for most people, but good on him. There is a washdown. The detective scrubs and turns. He and Earl set it up. The suit and the mask keep it out, the chemicals in the shower do their job, but some people never feel clean. Some step back at just the mention of his profession. There is no one at home for him to repulse. Not anymore.

It's time. He slips his hand in his pocket before he suits up. He’s surprised he hasn’t worn the blue glass away. They wheel over the gurney. Most of the flies have gone. Some captured. Indifferent time capsules. The house is modern. Well kept. Colourful art prints on the walls. He abandoned stereotypes long ago. Malcom Finley is in the lounge room. It’s not as bad as he expected.

The guys are hanging back. New guy is still on the stoop because he is putting this off as long as possible. The rest wait because they know. He walks around the room. He opens draws. He heads to the bedroom. He finds what he is looking for in the bedside table. A gold ring with a small amethyst in a green velvet box. He puts it in the plastic bag. On the way back he stops at the photos on the wall in the hall. There aren’t many to choose from. All are from about two decades ago. Combat gear. A group crowded in around some sort of armoured truck. In one Malcom is wearing his uniform, grinning at the camera. He looks to be about twenty. Malcom would like this one. It goes in the bag, frame and all. He heads to the fridge. A slightly faded photo of a woman in a green swimsuit. Late twenties. Long gold hair. Yes. That one goes in the bag. He hands it to Earl. Would someone come to claim them?

New guy is gone with just a sideways glance. They gurney him out first. He saw the way new guy was looking at him when he went through Malcom’s belongings. He doesn’t get it. If he lasts, he might never get it. This. This is a scream. This is a desperate plea. This is someone’s last cry for acknowledgement. Find me. See me. Help me. This says loneliness. This says abandonment. No one was looking. No one was listening. Now no one will ever forget.

He will never forget.