Words by Janet Singh
Art by James Spencer
Tick tock.
I didn’t know how to tell them.
Tick tock.
It was settled at the bottom of my throat like the dust on my suitcases, hidden in the back of my closet, waiting for the next plane ticket. But I couldn’t just wave it away to reveal a shiny unused surface underneath. I couldn’t open it up and let it consume all my clothes, toiletries, passports… trinkets and things.
I had to consume it instead.
Before it gasped out, beckoning tears and snarls and invitations for pity. Pity for my lack of bravery. Tick tock.
It doesn’t understand the strategic placement of bronzer and highlighter on my 40 X 50mm passport photo. Or the time it took for the name above my nationality to be pronounced correctly. Or that shiver up my arms when I hold them erect for another random check. It doesn’t know that it will adorn that red target with neon lights.
Those neon lights.
Listen to these pages – the remorseful sigh before “those,” rolling off a yearning chuckle. Look for the light bouncing off the soundwaves of “neon” and melt away with the sibilant end. Can you see the lights now?
Tick tock.
But those neon lights were everything.
They were the little glow sticks we wound in tight circles, perfectly made for her wrist – you see I had to give them to her. You couldn’t help but be entranced by the blues, pinks and greens that danced on her skin. So, every year I would give her mine at the primary school disco.
Until the lights switched back on in the last year and she was huddled next to me with triangular paper, jagged on one edge. Do you like me? □Yes □No scrawled in the usual blonde boy fashion.
Tick Tock.
Don’t get me wrong, I love blonde boys. I’ve seen enough of them cuddled in their bed sheets asking if I had any friends. But the blonde boys don’t have those neon lights.
The blonde girl did though.
Strung up like tapestry in her lair, embellished with amethysts and incense and trinkets and things. We would get lost in the haze between the glass and the dark until her frame could no longer bear the weight. For a whole month we would drive around purposelessly, eyes glued to the city lights, drunken cliches.
Until I asked for too much, then she reminded me about the blonde boys.
Tick Tock.
Why couldn’t it understand that no one could understand? The blonde boys loved it for all the wrong reasons, the blonde girls wanted nothing to do with it.
Why couldn’t it understand that I was trying to protect it? Shoving it deeper down my throat as I trod bravely down the stairs. I am a warrior and the only lights I am concerned with are the ones glinting off my case.
Click.
It was the first time I had seen those eyes in months. They wandered down to my suitcase.
“Where are you going?”
He had a stereotypical gruff voice.
“Away. For a bit.”
“Okay.”
It was a prototype of an estranged father daughter exchange.
Tick Tock.
The car hesitates beneath me. It now bears the weight of all my trinkets and things but stalls once more. My forehead pulls forward to the cool touch of the steering wheel; it was the last day of winter but the first time there wasn’t ice on the window. With my declined position, it claws up my throat again, begging to be loose. I don’t resist. But I do stall.
Tick Tock.
Dashing out the car, through the porch and in front of the door, I can almost see those neon lights distorting the crevices in my vision. The door swings open before I reach it.I see my father’s mouth curling outwards, ready to exclaim. Seems like there’s something stuck in his throat as well.
We stand in shock for a few moments, and I urge it to break out of the hellhole I created for it. Make a noise. Wreak some havoc. Do something.
He hands me an envelope. “Some emergency money. Just in case.”
Whatever’s stuck in his throat is still there.
“Thank you.”
Whatever’s stuck in mine remains.
There’s a painful silence deafened by the melted ice trickling down the gutter and the morning birds welcoming us to sing. I’m tempted to walk away; it would be so nice to walk away. But a little light in my mind asked if perhaps it would be nicer to stay.
What would it be like to have family dinners without brief requests and solid chewing? To be able to talk about something other than work and the weather. If I were the audience to my play, I would be sick of all the internal monologues and bashful soliloquies. Perhaps Ophelia didn’t need to drown after all.
“Dad, we need to talk…”
Tick Tock.
