Cells

My body is made up of cells, and somehow those cells swim around each other perfectly to form my corporeal being. If you break each cell down (or cut them open to expose their insides, like the diagram I’d seen) they’re further made up of even smaller things, and so on. It was Mr Larkin who told me this, my grade ten biology teacher. I never usually listened very actively in class, but it was this something that implanted in my memory and something I called upon to comfort myself in times like this. No matter what I do, every moment of every day, I’m a functioning union of cells doing their jobs perfectly. I breathe and I nourish them. Something to do with mitochondria. This is the cell wall. I can’t remember.

I’m sitting in my parked car on a dirt road next to Slayman’s Creek. There’s a bridge crossing the creek next to me, and a spattering of bushes between my car and the slope down to the water. It isn’t anything in particular that has called me here, although more accurately there is one precise thing that made it happen.  

John had been surprised to see me. He’d answered the door to me and then partially closed it behind him, shooting glances back into the house while we’d talked. His wife had been home and I’d gone there in a last-ditch effort to find a reason not to come here. He told me to leave, he didn’t want to see me, that I was being stupid. He followed that by saying my name pointedly, like he was spitting out a melon seed – “Ted”. So, I left and came here, to the creek.

I check my phone. A notification: a little blue box on the menu screen saying “You’re invited to ‘Sierra’s Surprise Bday Part (ssh!)’”. I open it. Some girl I barely know, Henni, had sent it to me. She works with Sierra at the gym and sometimes I worry Sierra’s closer to her than me. The blurb inside the invite says things like “…we all want Sierra to have a good night…” and “…I know she likes this venue but if you have any other suggestions…” and “….invite anyone you like but please don’t tell her!”. It’s in two weeks’ time. For some reason, I click to RSVP “yes”, which makes me laugh out loud. I lock my phone. 

I shut the car off and open the door. It’s a cool night in April, cool for here at least, and I roll my sleeves down. I make sure to lock the car behind me – another thing that makes me smile, in its ridiculousness – and walk towards the bridge.  I haven’t seen a car drive across it while I’ve been here, so I’m comfortable taking my time. I walk along the foot path next to the road and step over the railing onto the ledge. I sit on the ledge, feeling a draft that carries under the bridge on the back of my legs. It’s about twenty metres down to the water level - I googled it. Hardly an impressive height, and less definite, but I didn’t feel like doing this on the Storey Bridge and ending up on the news.

I still have my phone in my pocket, which I didn’t realise. It feels strange to have it on me, as if it should to be left in the car for someone to discover, but I don’t know why. I throw it in the water. A second passes before I hear it splash. A second. My body will be in the air for less than a second. My body is made up of cells. I breathe in and out.

“Hello?”

I look up. Down the ravine, creek-side, an older man in dark-green khaki shorts stands knee-deep in the water pulling a crab-pot in. He holds the rope in his hands and gazes up at me, squinting through the streetlights overhead. He points to the water below me and says, “Mate, you dropped your phone.”

“Yep. I, uh –”

“Is everything okay?”

I climb to my feet unsteadily and step back over the railing, embarrassed in the way you might feel if you got caught masturbating. “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine?”

“Yeah.”

A car drives by behind me for the first time, but I barely notice it, only feeling the rush of air on my back.

“What’s your name?” he shouts up at me.

“Ted.”

“Ted, I’m Robert.” He’s smiling at me now, warm, like a father or a counsellor or something.

“Hi, Robert. I’m going to back to my car now. Nice to meet you.” My voice sounds awkward and throaty, made worse by my attempts to appear casual.

“Alright. Shame about your phone. Those ones are expensive,” says Robert.

I walk back to my car without looking towards him. “Goodnight.”

“’Night!”.

I open the door and sit down, suddenly aware of the sweat on my palms and the underarms of my jumper. I rub my hands on my jeans and take a deep breath. I’m nourishing the cells. This is the membrane. This is the cytoplasm. A cell divides by mitosis, forming another exactly. This repeats. I take another breath. I put the keys in the ignition. Every action I take is just the cumulative outcome of millions of autonomous cells, so it doesn’t really matter.

On the way home, I think of nothing else.