a new recklessness

It was cold that day, Helen remembered that. She was in a hurry, cycling to work. She was always in a hurry then. Too much of a hurry to notice the sunshine and the  autumnal golden leaves on the trees, crumpling like spent stars and drifting silently to the ground, or the murky water in the canal and the weeds creeping up on to the straight path she followed every weekday to her work. An app counted the speed she was travelling at and counted the calories she expended. Her legs awhirl, she liked to keep at a constant fifteen-mile-per hour. Working in the lab with a white coat on, measuring and counting and putting the world in order, she was always good at that kind of thing.

To feel good and healthy again was one of the things she hoped for. There was a tricky section on the road, a busy dual carriageway at Bowling, cars scooting in and out, overtaking and undertaking lorries on the inside lane. She was careful, always careful. She did it every day, measured the distance between two objects and measured how things can change in a millisecond of a millisecond.

Physically, she could do all the things she used to do. Her hair had grown a soft red fuzz and then rich as iron, covering the dent in her head, as if it never existed. As if she had never existed. They said that was normal. The afternoon naps and thoughts. She’d been smart enough to lie, and not tell them she didn’t just nap in the afternoon. Her days were filled with aches and pains and fatigue. I’ll feel better tomorrow, she’d tell herself. I’ll feel wonderful.  And not lonely, not alone.

They said Steve sat by her bed, stroking her hand, stroking her growing hair. Someone had joked he was probably feeling her up. You know what Steve’s like.

No she didn’t. Not at all. She didn’t even know what she herself was like. There was bits of him that floated through her head. He was married, or had been married and there was that feeling in her stomach. He’d stolen a peck on the cheek in the lab at Christmas, a joke kiss, with mistletoe and warm glasses of Pomagne, or she’d given him a kiss. He wore a child’s cycling helmet with little whirly plastic rotor blade on top. He flicked it with his fingers and laughed as the blades turned and made a ne-no-ne-no noise and he floated up to the ceiling. She tried to grab his legs, but couldn’t hold on. The others at the party looked over and giggled. You know what he’s like.

The nurses had a nightlight they used to shine in her face when she couldn’t sleep. They whispered to each other and had meeting to talk about her, even though she’d cut out their tongues. That’s what she did to the cats in the lab, so she wouldn’t have to listen to them. Most folk realized how noisy dogs could be but didn’t realise the strangulated noises rabbits could make. Rats were simpler to handle in any cultures. Before and after.

Helen sat on her bed for a long time analysing what had happened. They said there’d been a dog on the road and a car had cut in, and a truck had swerved and mounted the junction of the pavements.

Memories were miraculous like that. One neuron jumping on the back of another and an electrical signal lighting the brain like a Christmas tree and provoking tears and a feeling of deep regret.  

She’d checked her time and she was still on track. Time enough to wrestle the rucksack from her back and take out a bottle of water and take a long satisfying swallow. Fat raindrops on her hand had startled her and she checked the hair on the back of her head wasn't yet wet. Frontal lobe injuries came with a bullying gang of smasher uppers. Life changing.

She’d recognised the dog, it was limping. She’d excised a piece of its tibia the day before, but it was not alone. Thousands of other dogs and cats and rabbits and rats and even some monkeys came behind it, in waves of chattering noise, spilling up over the road and on to the pavement, until there was not a soul moving. They waiting in deep silence and stared at Helen.

The limping dog’s tongue hung out and it spoke to her quietly. ‘It is an abomination what you do, cutting and harming our healthy bodies that have never harmed you. Making us suffer for no good reason.’

Helen’s body was torn apart they said. But she was an academic, a scientist, who never really listened to what others said. You’re nicer than you were before the others told her when they came to visit. But she didn’t know who they were. She smiled sadly and glanced out the window. They stunk of formaldehydes and chattered like monkeys when she wasn’t looking at them, a strange sound that rung in her ears.