Emma Riley is the lead character from a longer piece that I’m still working on. As part of her development, and because it was required as part of a creative writing course I’ve been doing, I wrote the following short monologue…
[Emma Riley is in her 40’s, sitting in a small beamed cottage living room. She has both hands clasped around a mug of tea and is looking towards the window. She speaks ‘matter-of-factly’, but with frequent pauses. The weather outside is wet and wintry – heavy rain is running down the windowpanes.]
You can’t possibly understand it – not unless you’ve experienced it. That day we found him…
Dead. Killed, not by someone else – but by himself. Not taken from us – but leaving – not wanting to stay.
Just me and Lucy, his wife and daughter. Not perfect… but I thought we were worth staying for.
But he couldn’t.
Or wouldn’t.
I still don’t know.
The thing I notice the most is the fury. Not that I’m angry all the time. It’s more like a part of me has cracked and, in the chinks of light coming through, I see something of the world that I couldn’t before.
[She pauses to sip her tea – keeping both hands wrapped around the mug for warmth and comfort.]
Lucy and I are learning to function – we can even play and laugh. It’s incredible how resilient people are. But this furious sadness is inside everything, in every moment: I can hear it in the wind and rain battering the glass. Like something scary and dark wanting to get inside, but I can’t let it in.
But it’s also there in the sunshine…
I run a lot – it’s one of the things they suggested I do to help with the grieving. That and writing; but I haven’t got the hang of that. I just end up staring at the paper and chewing the pen.
Anyway, I run. And when I’m out running is when I feel it most – almost see it in fact. Like, I used to think that the leaves and grass were moved by the breeze – but now I see that there’s a restlessness that simmers under everything.
When it’s gentle it’s like it just ripples along the surface of things. But other times it rages. It tears through creation, shaking the trees and houses, and hits me with a frightening force. Sometimes I can stand. But sometimes I simply fold and drop to the floor, like I’ve been punched. And I sob.
[She pauses for a moment as there is a sudden gust of rain against the window]
It’s interesting though: the more I see it – and recognise it – it’s like it’s becoming familiar; like a friend. It’s big and dark and scary… but I know it.
Does that sound weird?
It’s like in Harry Potter – you know the carriages that take people to Hogwarts? And everyone thinks they just move by magic? But Harry and that other girl, Luna, they can see what’s pulling them: these freaky scary horses that’re actually really gentle… but you can only see them if you’ve seen death.
That’s what it’s like – this thing. It’s there, in everything, it rages in the wind and shimmers on the warm grass and it burns in my tears. But only if you’re like Lucy and me, only if you’ve seen death, can you see it for what it is. You learn to tame it, some of the time, but with other people; people who can’t see it; you use words like ‘grieving’ and ‘healing’ and ‘bearing-up’.
[She sips her tea and stares at the floor before speaking again]
But all the time you know the truth is there’s a raging sadness and a fury inside everything and it’s OK… because it’s moving your carriage slowly home.
Obviously, all references to Harry Potter, Hogwarts etc. are with full deference to JK Rowling. If, perchance, you haven’t read the books and therefore didn’t understand the reference above, then for heaven’s sake go get them and read them.
And, no – they are not just kids’ books!
Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels
Don Lowe 