Today They Scatter My Ashes

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mental Health Issues (Schizophrenia) and suicide.

The world stopped making sense on a broken Monday morning. The leaves still fell and crunched under my booted feet, the wind still whistled through the oaks and ruffled my too-long hair, and a chill still rattled my teeth and bit my fingers. It wasn’t those things, not those things at all.

I had forgotten my gloves and hat, left my scarf on the back of my chair and taken a fiver from the jar on the dresser. It wasn’t mine to take, but my wallet was empty and my craving for pumpkin spice latte was great. I’d never had one before, never even been to a Starbucks, but knew I needed one now. The man on Breakfast TV had told me about the sweet autumnal flavour and then an advert for Starbucks had confirmed his description with a statement that my “autumn cosy” had arrived. I got a lot of my information from TV at that point. I can’t really do that now. Not since. . .

Anyway, my autumn cosy was pictured sitting between two white-seated armchairs with wooden frames, exactly like the ones on the Breakfast TV show, so I knew they were in it together. It often happened that way, I had known the extent of it for some time. It’s insidious. They get into your head and switch things around until you believe them. But until then they had never steered me wrong. I just followed their instructions and things tended to work out for the best. The latte was the start of a very odd day.

I made it to the coffee shop and placed my order. They wanted to know my name. Why would they ask that? Fortunately, I was quick back then, and I made one up. “Archie,” I said, “I-E” just to make it sound like I had to explain that a lot. I’m pretty good at being convincing.

It took them longer than I expected to make the drink, but it was warm in the Starbucks, and I didn’t mind, even took my jacket off. I was quite happy to be there, just hanging out. That was until after I reached for the oversized mug they placed on the counter as they called my ‘name’.

Well, it may be that Archie liked PSL, but I, most certainly, did not. Sickly, sticky, milky, creamy mess with sprinkled rubbish on top. Eugh. And that was when I knew. It had started. The digital people could no longer be relied upon for facts. They were turning against me.

I drank the ghastly coffee anyway because there was an electronic display screen above the counter which kept cycling a couple of smiling teenagers with their gloved hands wrapped around giant white mugs every few minutes. I knew it wasn’t TV, as such, but they are all connected – everyone knows it. Any failure on my part to agree with them would surely have been reported and I couldn’t have that. Not since discovering I couldn’t trust them anymore.

Hoping the satisfied mmmmmm noises I made were loud enough to reach those digital teenagers over the steaming and banging of the baristas at the coffee machines, I pulled my coat back on and headed for the door nearly five pounds skinter. I bet they cost more now, though money means nothing to me since. . .

Anyway, I needed to put that fiver back soon, and luckily that day was payday from the Golden Heart. Most places that employed college students paid on Fridays but old man Havers said he didn’t trust the bar staff to come back for the weekend shifts if he paid on a Friday. He must have been bitten before. I took a detour and stopped by the pub. There was still an hour before it opened for lunch, but he’d be there setting up.

“Hey, Paul,” he said as I pushed the street door open and stepped onto the terracotta tiles. My boss was standing on a chair fiddling with a giant wall-mounted TV.

“Hi, Mr Havers. What you doing?”

“Adjusting the new screen. Had it fitted this morning. Look, I’ll switch it on.”

The large monitor had been installed on the back wall, facing the bar. High enough to be seen above punters heads, angled well for the staff to have full view of it. And for it to have full view of us.

Mr Havers climbed down from the chair looking proud of his new bit of kit. He pointed a remote at it and it flickered into life.

“I got the license to show the footy. But I might expand, you know, with the London Olympics next year. Might make the Golden Heart into a sports bar. That seems to be where the money is. What d’ya think?”

I knew nothing about football, and still don’t. But that guy who advertises crisps was sitting in a television studio with a couple of other pundits chatting away. He stopped, looked directly at me, and laughed. It was obvious he knew they’d turned against me. He was in on it. If I hadn’t needed my money, to repay that wasted fiver, I would have turned and walked right out.

“Are you sure about this Mr Havers? Is it what our regulars want?” As soon as I said it, I sealed my lips. Damn. If they heard that I was for it.

“I’ve asked around – they definitely want to watch City play next week and why wouldn’t they? Big game! And then I got a call from the contractors offering free installation on a special deal, so I booked them in straight away. Coincidence, huh?”

Coincidence my arse. No such thing. But there was no way I could explain the predicament to my boss now that there was a damn big screen watching me. In fact, I might never get a chance to be honest with him about any of this, and it also meant I could never quit the pub. They would see. Not that any of that matters now, not since. . .

Anyway, I collected my pay packet and wandered home. The Nivea woman on the electronic billboard at the High Street bus stop pretended she wasn’t interested, but she failed to hide the smirk on her face. She might have had a revolutionary new deodorant that left no marks on her clothes, but I could tell she still stank. They all did now.

I got home, stuck a crisp five-pound note back into the jar on the dresser and turned to sit on the sofa. The TV was on. Muted, but on. Why hadn’t I checked? Stupid. It was some kids’ programme, that one where they made massive pieces of art out of everyday objects and the host was using a giant white studio floor as a canvas. He was laying out pairs of denim jeans to form a giant pair of legs. The camera zoomed in for a detail shot. Those weren’t just any jeans – they were Levi 501s. My brand of jeans. I was transfixed. That smiling, brown-haired artist was scooting about all over the screen laying down clothing to make a man. He finished the legs and then layered up socks to build a pair of black boots, laying down yellow laces as the stitching – he was making Doc Martens. Just like mine. When the feet were finished the artist pulled over a trolley full of jumpers. Khaki, Oakley jumpers. He built the torso, my torso, complete with the O logo made from a long, white scarf.

I glanced back at the dining table, to where I had left my own white scarf that morning. It was missing. I didn’t have to check my room; it wouldn’t be there. Neither would my gloves or hat. They had all been taken by the TV artist and he was going to use them to recreate a giant Paul Emly on national television.

And that was exactly what followed. It just didn’t end where I thought it would.

Once my hands and head had been constructed out of flesh-coloured flannels (my own blue gloves used to create the irises of my eyes), the artist expanded the scene, adding crisp autumn leaves (real ones) to the ground and creating a few bare trees out of reclaimed floorboards. He captured me in my favourite season, in my favourite Silvergreen Woods – he knew everything about me. This was proof.

One of the branches hung directly above my head. He winked at me as he passed a rope over that branch and, in no uncertain terms, gave me my final instruction.

That was eight years ago now. It's been an eight-year mire of sorrow and heartache, intermittent tears and mourning. They talk about me, uttering memories to each other and swapping old stories like a kind of emotional currency.

They had my funeral that November. The trees were nothing but blackened silhouettes by then. The heating had broken and they played my second favourite song in the freezing crematorium as they carried my coffin in. It pleased me that I had kept my favourite one to myself so effectively from so many people for so long. I had assumed the screens knew everything and would have passed the message on in some subliminal way, but no. Forty-something people shivered in their coats and gloves as the wrong song was played in my memory. I had maintained a secret from my tormentors, something they could never control, and I loved that.

My ashes were gathered into a pale wooden box with my name engraved on the front and three silver doves inlaid into the lid. I’d have preferred something darker, less traditional, but it wasn’t about me anymore.

They kept the urn on the mantelpiece where they could be constantly reminded of me, and I could watch them change and grow. Trapped in my time warp, I would never change or grow again. But I could move, unseen, about the house and watch over them. They were trapped too, in a world of memories and regrets. They wondered if they could have helped me more, done something different. I tried to tell them no, but they couldn't hear me. They weren't ready for that.

I couldn’t stray outside the walls. I couldn’t touch the trees, crunch the leaves, or feel the wind. But at least I was no longer bothered by the screens. I could tell they were there, but their noise and light didn’t reach me. I was free of all that. Floating above my family, feeling how much they missed me, watching them grieve. They were distressed, but it flowed through me like love. They say grief is just love with nowhere to go. But I was there. I was there to receive it. Until they were ready. Until today.

This morning my brother, Charlie, helped our parents on with their coats and lifted my box from the fireplace. They bundled into Dad’s car and now we are heading to Silvergreen Woods. It’s good to be on the road. It’s good to be out of the house.

We pull up in the tiny carpark just off the road and they climb out onto damp, mossy ground. Charlie untangles the passenger seat belt and lifts my box off the seat. I’m glad they let me ride shotgun, like they always did. I have been spoilt.

Flame-coloured leaves fall around us as my family crunch over the bark-covered path. Morning sun glints through the branches and off the silver doves on my urn. I follow along, silent and invisible, listening to them talk about me. The last words we exchanged, the humour we shared. The time they saw me in the school play, and I forgot my lines and stood stock still until Charlie jumped up on stage and held my hand. I’ve always known they were there for me.

We reach the clearing with the hollow oak in the middle. The one we used to hide in as kids, the one we sneaked flasks of hot juice into on autumn picnics and waited while our parents pretended to search for us. Looking at it now, it would have been obvious where we were – but everyone was in on the game.

“Do you want to say anything, Charlie?” asks Mum, taking my box from his hands.

“Nothing I haven’t already said.”

“Keith?” she touches Dad’s shoulder.

“I think I’m all talked out too, Love.”

“That’s fine,” she says, as she kisses each dove and gently releases the clasp. “Goodbye Paul, we love you so much.”

I have something to say. I whisper into the wind, into the woods, into their ears. I whisper the truth they have been unable to hear. That they did everything they could, that this was not their fault.

Today they scatter my ashes. As the breeze catches my earthly remains and disperses the grey particles I have become, amid my favourite trees, I start to lift from this place. My skin and bones are blown across the woodland, between oaks and birches, beeches and elms. The very dust of me swirls, intertwining with the air, with the leaves, with the lichen and mushrooms. As my body is freed, I spiral upwards, blowing kisses back down to Earth as I rise. I wave to the woodland below me, to the trees to the leaves, to my family.

Today they scatter my ashes. Today they set us all free.