When She Fell

Sarah adjusted her head against the hot glass. With the smug sun belting through the window and the knee of a tightly suited man digging into her, she was regretting her choice of transportation. She found it fitting that her final decision was one of regret. It was in keeping with the theme of her life.

The man sitting next to her seemed totally unaware of his wandering knee. He spoke into his phone at a volume so high one would think he was combatting the noise inside a fighter jet cockpit, and not the modest sounds inside the carriage of a crowded train. Sarah looked down at the vast distance between the man’s legs and fantasied about tapping him on the shoulder and asking him, “Is your penis so large that it renders you physically incapable of bringing your knees any closer together?”. There was a time when she may have actually had the audacity to pose such a question. When she was a teenager, nestled in the hub of her friends, she would savour any opportunity to shock and entertain them with her ability to sass strangers. Today she stayed silent and curled up closer to the window, telling herself that she knew the answer anyway, his penis was definitely tiny.  

               Her thoughts then turned to her baby boy. She wondered if he would grow up to be a manspreader. His father, Steven, could be selfish and inconsiderate, but all in all he was a good person. She didn’t blame him for leaving. She agreed that her “moods” had become “unbearable”. She just wished he had loved her enough to stay. Still, she knew he loved their baby. Their child would be safe with him and his mum, certainly better off she told herself. Sarah wanted her baby to only remember her as the body that brought him into the world, nothing more.

               At the next stop the manspreader slowly sauntered toward the doors, confident they would wait open for him. His seat was tenderly taken by a woman clutching a flushed face toddler. The child moaned “mummy” while testing different positions for her head against her mother’s chest. Once satisfied that she had found the most comfortable spot she drifted to sleep. The mother buried her nose in her daughter’s blonde curls, breathing her in.  After a few subtle side glances Sarah kept her gaze fixed to the passing scenery with the mother’s soothing whispers and gentle kisses piercing her ears. A surge of anger and jealously seeped right through to Sarah’s bones. This was followed by sharp pangs of shame and guilt when she realised that she was not jealous of the mother, she was jealous of the child. She pulled up the hood of her jumper and closed her eyes.  

               Sarah’s parents never liked Steven. They saw him as nothing more than a potential bump on the road they had already cemented for Sarah in their minds. “Sarah the solicitor, has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?”, her dad would say, rubbing his hands together. Steven reached his potential and Sarah fell pregnant one year into her law degree. When she told Steven, he laid out a life they could have together without hesitation. Despite her parents nonverbal but palpable disappointment, Sarah dropped out of college and moved into a small, terraced house with Steven. Follow your heart that’s what people tell you to do isn’t it, she told herself. For the first few months living together was everything Steven had promised her it would be. She felt such warmth and happiness inside their blissful bubble, playing house, but outside pressures and stresses soon set in and before they knew it playtime was over. Sarah could feel his infatuation turning to toleration as she moved further along in her pregnancy.  She couldn’t tell her family and friends when he left her. She couldn’t stomach all the conversations with the told you so undertones and the looks of pity masked as concern. She was “strong”, “sassy” Sarah. She couldn’t tell anyone that she couldn’t cope with her own baby. After a month of shame, self-loathing, loneliness, sleepless nights, and a crying baby, here she was, now an open wound, and every sensation felt from the outside world was a sprinkling of salt. She couldn’t take the pain anymore, so this morning she left her baby with Steven and told him she had plans. She didn’t even have to lie because he didn’t care enough to ask her what those plans were.

Sarah woke to the jostling and heavy sighs of a new passenger next to her, one who clearly wanted their presence known. The strong floral and powdery notes of perfume hanging in the air told Sarah that the passenger was probably a lady over sixty, and her audible commentary of the weather told Sarah that this was a lady who wanted conversation. Once she marvelled about how “beautiful” of a day it was for the third time, the lady must have realised that she would have to pose her comments as a question if she was going to get a response from Sarah so she added an “Isn’t it?”. Her tone was enthusiastic, and her pitch was high, bordering on shrill.

“Yeah, lovely.”, Sarah croaked. It then occurred to Sarah that it’s not just the overuse of your voice that can cause it to become hoarse. Uttering only a few handfuls of words over the course of several weeks can also cause it to become scratchy like a rusting bicycle going unused. Sarah cleared her throat. With her hood still up and her head still turned toward the window, she could still feel the spotlight of the lady’s stare on her, taking in her unwashed hair and baby sick stained clothes. A loop of “Please fuck off” played over and over again in Sarah’s head.

The main reason Sarah chose to take the train instead of a taxi was to avoid having to engage in small talk. Knowing her small town it was almost a guarantee that whatever driver she got would somehow know her mother, or her father, or her great aunt Agnes and the expectation of the talk would inevitably become bigger. Their talk or lack there of may even set off alarm bells in the driver’s head and cause them to contact a member of family.

Sarah’s stop came before the lady had time to ask her another question that she didn’t have the energy to answer. As she stepped off the platform a wave of heat greeted her. There was no breeze. The searing sun sitting in the bright blue sky followed her closely for the mile she had to walk. Sarah had been to the cliffs once as a child. Her father had scolded her for wandering too close to the edge and she assured him, “It’s ok daddy, I’m not afraid of heights.”. She remembered the scenery feeling so epic, like the edge of the earth, and today she would finally fall off. She expected to experience some gusts of wind as the sea came within view, and then she thought that perhaps she had become numb to that too. Once she reached the cliffs she stood from them at a safe distance for a moment and watched the soaring movements of the thundering water. When she finally went to take a step forward a wallop of wind knocked her onto her knees. She stayed on all fours for a moment and then looked around to see if anyone had seen her fall. As she scanned the area for potential witnesses to her fall, Sarah suddenly contorted with laughter as she realised the absurdity of what she was doing. About to jump to her death she was still concerned that someone may have just seen her fall. The laughter came as a shock to Sarah causing her to sit back and sink her hands and feet into the green grass. With the sea crashing against the cliffs below her, Sarah looked up as the blue sky turned to grey and gave thick, cool raindrops.