AT THE FIRST STROKE

Short Story FIRST STROKE.

Susan Mary Mullin.

mumsuemullin@yahoo.co.uk

1,914 words, including header.

A T THE FIRST STROKE.

Hello!

You were here last week! You have a van this time! I can see it parked in the lay-by. It’s not one I recognise but names change, ownerships change, way of the world, I guess. You have a toolbox and tins of paint with you! Well, this old place could certainly do with some work, It is a real

disgrace. How could it be allowed to get into this state? I understood there was a contract, a duty of care and maintenance. Those old obligations seem to mean so little these days. I have long supposed we were beyond bothering with, my kind, dispensable, disposable, and yet here you are!

  I was just biding time as usual, looking out of these cracked, dirty windows and thinking about, well, Time. Ive been doing that a lot lately, night and day, seasons beginning and end. Time has always been a huge

part of my working life you see, the accuracy, the transience. The brevity when an occasion is joyful, the tedium boredom brings. The echoing of each hour in loneliness or loss. You are only young, but time must have touched you in some personal way. It does everyone and everything.

Time is always moving, endless, infinite, light years and dog days. The vital chain in the running of lives, like that ingenious concept, the Speaking Clock,

“At the First Stroke the time will be” repeated and conveyed, across the world, time after time you might say. There is a comfort and an inevitability about it. It brings the world together. Ive heard people say there isn’t enough of it, its running away with them, that they have lost it, or they will try to catch it up, that is nonsense. It’s moving at the same old pace,

“at the first stroke the time will be,” it is what you are doing with it that’s the problem, or what it’s doing with you.

  Time is of the essence, I heard somebody say that once, several somebodies actually . A rock solid fact. In my job time, and words, went hand in hand. The mutual variable as it were is that time can function as the centre of order, words can function as the centre of chaos, and visa versa, it all depends on the time, and the words. For example, the right words spoken at the wrong time can be taken in the wrong way, however the wrong words spoken at the right time might stop a disaster, do you understand what I’m saying? From whatever angle, I have learnt that words, and time, are like siblings, they lead each other on or hold each other back, but there is always a bond that cannot be broken.

“I can’t find the words,”

“I haven’t got the time,” all nonsense. Sorry, I’m rambling on. It was never my habit but since Ive been so much on my own I seem to have adopted it, as they say.

  I am not really sure why I’m talking to you. I didn't bother with the last people who were here. Usual types, they had clipboards and poked and prodded around. Sniffed, tutted and muttered. They talked about Major Plans but they ignored my presence completely, so as ever I just

listened. The plans sounded a bit far fetched to me, gobbledygook, I like that word, but I suppose I was a bit flattered after so long that my little ‘dwelling’ was worth the consideration. On that point I have begun to understand finally that Dwelling in the past is not an option now because the present will just overwhelm my future, I will be simply swept away. It’s not easy to let go though. So much

of the past has been carved out or cut adrift here.

  You Are taking your time, being very thorough. Its’s been a very long while since anyone took a proper interest in me. Im usually the one who does All the listening, but then I haven’t been asked to listen in a long time. Times change, there we go again, and on that note I’d like to say, as

you Are here, and I Am talking, it is a sad fact in the existence of pretty much everything that was once young, innovative, hugely important on so many levels, must yield to the inevitable, change, growing old, outliving my use. I have no choice but to admit that my glory days, if that’s

how I can describe them, are long over. I am outdated, I’m bested, I’m out of fashion. To be succinct I have committed those two inevitable faux pas, Ive grown old and become disabled. Yet If you were to compare my contribution to that of many others who have given their existence to the service of the public Ive had one heck of an innings. Ive heard that said, more than once.

  I have lived through extremes of joy and sadness. Momentous events and the dirtiest of deals, (and language). Ive experienced the raw drama of life as it unfolded, oh

and of course, mediocrity. Mediocrity gets a bad press, but Ive learnt that it is the ground rule to measure humankind by, all other emotions and actions can be graphed from that basis.

  I am perhaps the epitome of mediocre now. Progress is a powerful tide, if you lose the footing you were once so sure of the rip tide takes you under. Ive had to move aside for the younger generation, not easy when your job was so important. Once my door was always open. I was sought

out day and night because of my ‘connections’ you might say. I saw so many faces, shared in so many joys and sorrows. Ive a reputation for not repeating what is told to me to anyone else but the intended recipient.The very soul of discretion. It seemed so very misguided somehow that a

life of service to others should end in decline and neglect because I know there were many who were fond of me.

  Its not always been an easy ride I can tell you, being a repository for the life of others, listening without comment or judgement. Keeping secrets. A secret service no less. It left me open to abuse sometimes. I shouldn't moan I guess, they all paid me money upfront, and the longer

they offloaded or celebrated the more I took. I provided a service but I wasn't a charity, far from it. I ran a business behind these windows, and I was good at it. I made a Lot of money. Money for letting conversations, illicit or otherwise, go on.

  Sometimes the money ran out and I had to be firm. Ive been thumped, kicked, sworn at, but a deal is a deal. They could go through someone else if it were Important, but that someone else had to agree. I could not change my stance, you pay or you got nothing. You have to be thick

skinned in the public sector. My silence could never be swayed by violence or abuse. I stood my ground. The Only time I relented was when there was a Real emergency. Ive seen my fair share of those. It’s ironic really, what the clip boarders said, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

  I hadn't expected the absorption of moments in people’s lives to be so profound, or the sense of emptiness after the moments stopped. Some used to come and see me often you see. I was so used to hello and goodbye, and the wash of human strength, frailty, pettiness. Sometimes I feel that strands of all that emotion have wound around me after so long, like the gossamer cocoons Ive watched spiders spinning in the dusty corners. Building and absorbing. Ive had people come to me at the very pinnacle of joy and the very depths of despair. Perhaps my evolution was a product of extremes, a mystery honed from drama, and yes, that word again, mediocrity. If those four walls could talk, Ive heard people say, referring to their homes or workplaces. Well, If four walls could talk I would with surety say mine Must have a head start.

  It was odd seeing change slowly creep in, seeing these ‘four walls’ go downhill so badly. I felt abandoned, and I guess in a way I was. Eventually I was left totally alone, well not totally, but I was robbed of my source of communication. I could no longer hold conversations, I could no longer process the words and emotions people shared with each other. I could no longer reach out and send out, I could no longer receive. My light went

dark. Vandals broke my windows. They scratched their inane messages across my lovely paintwork and urinated on my floor. I was defenceless, helpless, and then finally the ‘clipboards‘ realised I still had worth, a use, and of course that is why you are here.

  Last night, as always, I was biding time, looking out of my windows, now repaired and newly painted, at the rain-washed street, haloed in my light. The street that has been home to me for all my of my existence, like the purpose-built box that holds the echoes of Its seconds, minutes,

hours. Perhaps I am an anomaly, I can’t be sure, Ive never moved from this street, Ive never moved from these four walls but Ive travelled continents on sound waves.

  Ive heard it said that inanimate objects have no life of their own, they do not posses a soul, they are just products of practicality. Ive also heard the theory that buildings, structures, can absorb the echo and essence of

the drama that has occurred within them, perhaps hundreds of years before, like a tape recording. What was there in place first place I wonder, the ability to record or the substance of the recording? Its a chicken and egg situation, you wouldn't believe how many hundreds of people used that phrase by the way. Did I create my cocoon or did it it create me? Did I give ‘birth‘ to myself? It’s all theory anyway, yes, that’s another one. There is no logic

for my existence, yet I exist.

  I would like to say, before I pass the baton, so to speak, of all those incidents, moments, outpourings, totally regardless of the money I was geared, in part to make, the one that defined Me most of all, the very core of my worth, was the one all could use without cost.

“You have dialled 999, which service do you require? Police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance?“

“Ambulance, I think it’s a Stroke!”

.“He’s had a Heart Attack!”

“Shes stopped breathing!” Time truly was of the essence, every minute counted, and it still does, and I, whatever I am, will still Matter.

  My, you have done a very professional job. The defibrillator machine, I believe thats what the clipboards called it, somehow looks just right where My telephone equipment used to be, and it’s for public use! They will see my bright red paint in the day and the light in the dark, as they

have done for years. They will know me in an instant, and where they can go for help.

You must admit it’s a perfect revival for a decommissioned GPO Phone Box.

At the First Stroke...

Goodbye.