Slow Motion

Anna concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, looking down at the scuffed toes of her white pumps. She registered the crunch of gravel underfoot. She noted the lush dandelion leaves growing along the edge of the neglected garden path. Then she directed her gaze upwards, to the gate, and the world beyond.

Big mistake. Her heart started to pound, her breath caught in her chest and then exploded in rapid gasps. Her fingers started to tingle. “If I stay here I’ll die,” she thought to herself and quickly staggered backwards through the front door, coming to rest at the bottom of the stairs and slamming the door with her foot.

Once she’d regained her composure, talking herself back to normality, she assessed her progress: three steps. It had taken over a week to get that far along the path leading to her house. Some days she would look at the blurred image of the outside world, through the frosted pane in the front door, and could not even bring herself to open it.

Still, three steps: that was one step for each year she had been confined to the house. She had been fifteen when she last ventured outside, on a trip to the new out of town shopping centre. She was eighteen now.

At first she had coped well with the loss of her mum. Certainly better than dad: he looked like a ghost of himself since his beloved Sheila had died. There was something about the shopping mall though, that had taken the suppressed panic Anna had been feeling and magnified it. The head-spinning, limb-tingling wave of sickness she had experienced on a few occasions at school, hadn’t receded, but had escalated. The crowds, the vast space, the clashing tinny music blaring from the shops, had overwhelmed Anna, amplifying the sensations until she feared she would die. It had been so embarrassing. She could never face that again.

She didn’t blame her dad: what could he do? He could barely function now that mum was gone. It was good that he’d gone back to work soon after the funeral, as the routine somehow kept him going, but it meant that Anna was alone for much of the time. She read her mum’s paperback novels, watched TV and listened to music she taped off the radio.
…………………………

That night, her dad sat down at the kitchen table, where Anna was munching toast. He looked for a moment as though he had awakened from a long sleep. His eyes focused on Anna, as though seeing her clearly for the first time in three years.

“This can’t go on Anna,” he said, “you’re a bright girl – you should be studying for your ‘A’ Levels, planning your future, not living as a prisoner in this house.”

“I know you miss your mum, love, but she’s gone. She’d hate to see you wasting your life like this. She had such dreams for you.”

Anna started to sob, her body wracked with the pain of her grief. Dad held her tight and kissed the top of her head. Then he disappeared into the front room.

He returned and placed a grey plastic box on the table in front of her.

“My mate at work got me this for you. It’s called a Walkman. Well, it’s not the real deal, but it does the same thing.”

Anna regarded the new object. Yes, of course, she had seen ladies on the television, dressed in tracksuits and leg warmers, listening to music on headphones while they went jogging.

“It’s portable, see,” her dad continued, “you can go anywhere with it.”
………………….

The next day, while dad was at work, Anna sat on the pink bedspread of her mum and dad’s double bed. She gazed around the room: the assorted jars and bottles on the dressing table, her mum’s fluffy slippers neatly tucked away under the chair. Mum seemed very present. Anna could detect her familiar smell: Rive Gauche, talc and hairspray. She looked at the tapes scattered in front of her on the bed. It had to be something with a good steady walking beat, she thought to herself. She picked up a tape of Wham! ‘Fantastic’ and smiled: her mum had bought her that when she was thirteen. It was embarrassing, but who would know with her headphones on?

Anna walked to the bedroom door, turned and took a deep breath.

“I’ll make it four today, Mum,” she said aloud to the pink flowery room, “then five the next day – and after that - who knows?”