The Murmur

The draught started the week after my wife died.

The seasons had started to turn, from the intermittent dry heat of autumn to a more relentless chill. On a warm day the cool air was a sometimes pleasant relief, but as rain clouds began to crowd the skies it became more inconvenient.

To start with, I created an excluder with the stuffed toys that had littered our bedroom. I didn't use the back door anyway, so a pile of animals heaped in front of it weren't an inconvenience.

When that didn't work, I pulled the cottony guts from a few, and stuffed them into a pillowcase, which I kicked against the front door when I came home.

It grew though, from a draught to a breeze. My nights were disturbed by the susurrus of the air swirling through the house, rustling the bank account closure documents and insurance claims on the desk.

It got so that I had to close all the doors in the house or be kept awake by slamming or the quiet groans of hinges. Picture frames on the sideboard would be blown over, the sound of shattering glass shaking me awake. I gathered them up, and threw them away, the broken boards and scratched, defaced photos.

Finally, it got too much. A last restless night, tossing and turning as the streetlights flickered through billowing curtains, and I resolved to fix the problem. Rip out the double-glazing, start again. I made an appointment, and set out down the high street.

Walking, the strangest thing happened. There's a cliché, that you see your dead spouse's face all around you, on strangers and in your memories. In the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of her in a reflection in a shop window. As I turned there was a sudden gust of wind, not a whisper but a shriek. Buffeted, I slipped on a discarded crisp packet, turned my ankle on the curb and then I was falling, falling, falling.

The wail of car brakes, like her last despairing cry, a pitiful yell of my name as I pushed her from the mountain ledge. She reached for me, fingers splayed, and I pulled back my hand and smiled as she tumbled down and away from me.

And then there no more wind, no more draught, no more anything, just the impact, and the pain, and then silence.