The one that Got Away.

    The one that Got Away 

                       By Dawn Austin



I don't think I ever saw Stella without paint on her hands and a dash in her auburn locks. It was as much a part of her as the smile she wore whenever I arrived at her doorstep. In moments we'd be in her kitchen, her putting a coffee pot on and me producing something from the bakers as if it were all a big unplanned surprise.

The girl was her own miracle. Making something so impossible for others appear easy and natural. At such a young age, She was an Artist by day and at night she was a magician in the kitchen. Somehow showing us that the sublime was simply a mixture of the ordinary. It was her genius at play, seeing what the rest of us didn't. I guess that's why we called it her culinary magic and joked that her spoon was a wand carved from the spirit tree. Either way, she made us all so happy.

One glance at her ebony skin, and you could tell she was one for the future. Her blue eyes ,like the sea ,were calm and emotionless. Long, wavy brown hair ,so smooth and silky ,almost as if it was tailored from fabric.

Her voice didn't even help matters, whenever she dilated her lips to sing in church, the Angels did come down. We only hoped they wouldn't steal her back to heaven. Her fingers would limber as they danced across the keys, alighting first on ivory then gliding to ebony. She was the best pianist you'll never see. She played as if she had her own personal opera playing within. At times she moved as though she were the bow of the cello, steady and deep. Other times she was the violin in some rapid dance. Yet whatever rhythms flowed in her soul from day to day, be them tranquil seas or tempests, what she made was so heavenly.  

I always wondered how she learnt so much in so little time. Clearly she was the eye of her own storm, like a pandemic ready to take the world by surprise.

 By grade seven she had been the school celebrity, doll-like proportions with double D breasts. Boyfriends were easy to come by, as were free drinks in every bar; who was to know she was underage? Her twenties and thirties went by in a blur, one man after another. She knew why they all liked her, but it didn't bother her one bit. But from forty she began to unravel. Her self-esteem was superglued to her beauty and for the first time she realized how transitory it was. Her bathroom was a mess of expensive face creams- miracle wrinkle solutions. She barely ate and worked feverishly at the gym. She partied like a twenty year old and dated a man young enough to be the son she never had. When fifty hit, roots greyed and wrinkles deeply etched and the cosmetic surgeries began.

Now, at sixty-one, broke, abandoned and homeless, stella is one of the unseen who walk in broad daylight, clothed with regret. After her mum's husband died 7 years ago and her mum shortly after. Her immortal soul teased her friable body.

Looking back, memories of her youth played like a track, looping back to the start with seamless ease.

When she was young and beautiful .she was the sun and everyone orbited around her. But now she's old and torn. Most of which was internal , yet she felt socially distant and Alone. Her friends were as vapid as the winter snow was cold. Their love extended only as far as a social media post, stopping abruptly at the pixellated screen. Their smiles were little yellow faces that stopped coming whenever her world fell apart, which was often. From their posts their lives were one constant party, wine and meals in fancy establishments. Every post fed her loneliness, hacked at the tenuous emotional connections she nursed. She used to only feel the cruel bite of isolation and social distancing in crowds, now it followed her home, an ever present reminder that she was a failure on every front. 

Some days, she felt everything at once. Other days, she felt nothing at all.

 I didn't know which was worse; drowning beneath the waves or dying from the thirst.

Her health was now in a downward spiral. Less movement meant less strength, less strength meant less movement. Pressure sores were as much of a problem as the loneliness, the promised visits from friends coming less frequently than she craved. The phone never rang unless it was a telemarketer and fresh food was harder to come by. One tumble, one fall, and her aging was on fast forward with no chance of reprieve.

But this was the year, she was going to turn her life around. She was going to feel again. She was going to meet a guy, fall in love, not care about what any one said. She wouldn't care how or when. She had missed a lot and she had to start living.

Last Tuesday , Stella was rushed into the emergency department of the town hospital.

"Doctor , Doctor!", the nurses screamed from below.

At first glance it was obvious her lungs denied her the air she needed. And her temperature was like a burning furnace. It was nothing like we had ever seen. Definitely not from here. 

The sickness moved from door to door like a button salesman and just as unwanted. It washed from the east-side, a slow moving tsunami of fever that picked off both strong and weak in equal number. There was no greater leveler than this germ, impervious to wealth or pleading. The medicines ran dry in days and no medics would answer a call. All that was left was solace in the Lord and prayers for the souls of the departed.

I watched Stella stumble across the catwalk with indescribable pain flowing through her. Her heart squeezed as she fell over. Her ribs snapped like twigs. Blood flooded through her eyes and her guts came tumbling out of her mouth. So deep in ten shades of agony that she would be unreachable until the morphine went in. 

Where was the doctor when you needed him? I pressed the call button and paced the room, then pressed it again. The nurse appeared, tired but still smiling. She took one look at her patient and paged the doctor. There was little she could say , at this stage upping the dose was likely fatal but it was the only option left. 

She looked at me, her once fiery eyes doused in ice water, unnervingly making the blue more pale. It was like she'd drifted into a shell, so tough to reach. Just to move her heavy eyes was an effort. I was standing beside her doing my best to crack a joke, but she wouldn't spare a curve on her lips. 

She was on her way. I guess those Angels had finally come to take back what was theirs'.

After ten minutes that felt like a lifetime Doctor Divoc entered, his face without his usual smile. He called for the morphine. Looking at me he spoke, Mr. Ken, she can't breathe anymore and we're way out of ventilators. 

"Then let me breath for her", I replied. 

Two weeks after the transplant, her pale skin withered and her lungs grew fat. Her eyes shimmered with life and it lit with a touch of stale humor.. A dazed expression dominated her features, yielding a long delicate smile like I used to know yester-years.

Her voice was low and echoed around the behemoth room. Loud enough for me to hear , silent enough to keep the Angels away.

She looked at me like with a pensive look that melted into surreal appreciation.

" I love you, Dad ", Was what she said. The next thing she said was lost in an involuntary sob. As she leaned in to check my pulse. My breath was ripped from my lungs. Oxygen was slowly being snatched from my organs leaving scars of regret on the weak tissue. 

I guess , the Germ had gotten the best of my remaining lung As if it were all a big unplanned surprise, and then suddenly, Like an extinguished candle , I was gone.