by Pera Barrett
What a life.
A copy of the local paper sat on the windowsill; Aimee smiled and mouthed the words from her profile piece.
“Aimee Day is an artist. She paints landscapes of laughter, fun, and family. She spends her days making kids giggle like lunatics and her nights dreaming up new ways to do the same.” It was nice to reflect on how wonderful things were going. She had made a note to thank the journalist again.
That was then.
————
Now, Aimee was sitting in a plain, grey armchair facing the psychiatrist, Mary, who sat in her own matching chair just a few feet away.
Mary wore a spun-wool cardigan over a modest green dress. An understanding half-smile waited on her face.
“Thanks for coming in, Aimee. I know we talked over the phone about the rules while you’re here, but I just want you to remember first and foremost, that this is a safe place.” Mary rested her elbows on her thighs and held one hand in the other. “My responsibility to you is one of care and partnership. We’ll work through what’s bothering you together. I also want you to remember that anything we talk about here is absolutely confidential.” Mary leaned forward in her chair. “Now, why don’t we start with why you decided to visit. What’s on your heart?”
Aimee drew a long breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. Here goes. “Well, it’s like I told you over the phone, I guess. I’m just not excited to get out of bed anymore. I’m not excited about life. I’m sad. I’m sad about breakfast, sad about work. God, I’m sad about everything.”
“OK, well, firstly I just want to say it's great that you’ve noticed this change and have acknowledged that you don’t need to face it alone, Aimee. That’s a really important first step, and I know it can be hard. Now can you tell me a bit more about what makes you sad?”
“Everything.” Aimee sighed. “I used to love my morning coffee. Now some days I can’t face drinking it, or stirring it, or even leaving the house. I just sit and look at the cup. Sometimes I end up crying - over nothing.” She looked up at Mary for a second then dropped her eyes back to the floor. “Maybe sad isn’t the right way to describe it. I just don’t feel good. I don’t feel any good anymore. None. Does that make sense?”
“Go on.”
“I used to be excited to see what would happen after breakfast. You know, I found an old poem I wrote about the colours of the morning. It talked about the blues of the water, the whites of the kids’ smiling teeth, the sun-yellow sand on Castaway Beach. Everything used to be so bright and colourful.” Another sigh escaped.
“I see.”
“But when I think back to those memories, I can’t see the colours anymore.” Aimee rubbed the back of her foot against the armchair leg. “It all looks grey. Like someone painted my recollections of the park, and then copied it over in a dark, ugly, grayscale.”
Mary jotted something on her notepad.
“I have to fight with my alarm clock just to get out of bed now,” Aimee said, “and when I do get out, it’s so I can spend my day sitting in that awful cubicle with the rest of Cog Team thirty-six, grimacing through the day like the rest of them.” She rolled her eyes. “Fill out the spreadsheets. File the reports. Copy this document over to that format.” She moved her head from side to side.
“OK, tell me why exactly you’re not happy in your job,” Mary said. “It’s a new job, is that right?”
“Oh I’m not finished yet,” Aimee said. “Repeat step one. More spreadsheets. Then repeat again. Once more, and then it should just about be time for a Supplies & Snack break. Sorry, yeah, it’s a new job. God. A new, boring job. A week of new, boring days, for my new, boring life. I should have never sold the water park.” She looked up at the single painting on the wall. It showed a house in a field. Very soothing. That was probably the point. “So, yeah, I’m not just unhappy in my new job. I hate it. I guess that’s why I’m here today. Is that enough?”
Mary paused. “You mentioned your mother’s passing when we talked on the phone,” Mary said. “Why don’t y—”
“Oh, and the dreams.” Aimee rubbed her face. “They’re not like the usual ones. Every night, whatever I’ve done that day gets unpicked and pulled apart like a cushion having its stitching undone and the stuffing wrenched out. It’s like someone has taken my day and turned every good thing that happened upside down, into something bad. It started with the park, Days Park that is, obviously.” She looked down at her feet.
“In the dream, I choose the park over Mum, and then she dies of loneliness. Because of me. I had that dream for six weeks straight after she died. I sold the park just to stop the dreams and the guilt. But the dreams carried on, they’re just about something else I’ve done wrong. Every night, the same thing happens, and every day I wake up wondering why I bothered the day before.”
————
The session went its full fifty minutes; it ended with Mary writing a bill for the time, and a script for some pills; Amitriptyline, twice daily; the weekly sessions were to continue.
“We’ll work through this together,” Mary said again. “We’re not going to get to the solution straight away, but next week we’ll talk about some strategies we can start with.”
Aimee put on a smile for Mary’s sake.
“The medication I’ve prescribed will help normalise your emotions,” Mary said. “It will take away some of the tears. It can take up to six weeks to start working, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t notice a difference right away. And Aimee, I need you to understand, this might be something you deal with for the rest of your life, and that’s not as scary as it sounds. We can deal with it. People go through it and live perfectly normal lives.”
Aimee nodded, looking down at the folded prescription note clutched in her hand.
“I've got you booked in for the same time next Tuesday,” Mary said, lifting her head up from her diary. “Does that still work?”
“Yeah, that's fine.”
“I look forward to seeing you then.”
Aimee didn’t think she could look forward to anything ever again.
19 HEAVY PLATE BOOTS
“Sometimes you gotta take a punt. Push the what-ifs and the how-abouts to the side, and just see what happens. However the plan turns out, good or bad, at least I won’t be on my deathbed, gutted that I never took a crack at it.”
- Olly Patterson, 23 years old.
————
I was standing in a field of trampled grass; patchy green hills rolled out as far as I could see. Thin fingers of black smoke spread through the sky, pushed by the swirl that was once my rattling ceiling-fan.
At my feet, a thick book lay prone under a sword’s chipped edge. A wooden crossbow was pinned under an open notebook with watery blues and magnolia pinks flowing off the page. Here a scrapbook under a spear, there a diary over a dagger. Hundreds of flies buzzed over the battlefield of abandoned weapons and books.
Ahead, a cone of upright logs stood burning, cloaked in an undulating haze of heat. Each trunk crisscrossed against the others at the top. Past that, another teepee of logs burned just the same, and so on from one side of the battleground to the other. Flames leapt, and sparks floated inside black smoke threads, coaxed from the fires’ blazing bases. It was a strange scene, but then, one TV ad earlier, I was in my lounge watching the six o’clock news — so, not that strange.
Clang.
Scrape.
Crash.
The sound bounced off the hills.
Two armoured figures exchanged blows not far from the first bonfire. One wore a blue shirt over shiny silver chain-mail. The long sleeves of the mail were exposed, and its tiny rings shimmered as one, like a lake top in light. The other fighter wore a suit of sharp-angled, grey-plated armour, steel sections sliding over each other as it moved. They both wore open-faced helms; I squinted and focused on their features through the wavy lines of heat.
The warrior in grey plate was the lady I had seen on TV; the one in bl
ue was The Old Man.
A dark winged creature stood to the side of Brigitta. Behind The Old Man, a small gathering of charcoal coloured stick figures with triangular heads stood on wobbly lined legs.
The Old Man shouted, “If everyone keeps doing what they’ve always done, nothing new will be made. We will only have the things we’ve always had.” He swung his fist. Brigitta ducked the incoming missile. As The Old Man’s torso continued twisting with the momentum of his punch, Brigitta flicked her arm up and brought the black ball of a mace crashing down.
“We don’t need anything else,” Brigitta yelled, “the industry of hard working souls is what built this world.”
Crash.
The mace smashed into the Old Man’s shoulder guard; his knees bent; he staggered forward. Brigitta pulled her arm back to strike again, but The Old Man’s left hand snaked out and gripped the mace’s chain.
“What of invention?” he yelled. “What of the ideas that grew into the machines your beloved workers turn each day?” The Old Man tugged on the chain, pulling Brigitta towards him. He leaned back, head tilted up, neck exposed. He flung his forehead at her in a head butt. The rivets across his helmet collided with Brigitta’s shiny nose-guard.
Brigitta stumbled back and adjusted her helm. A sound like a laugh gurgled out. “They serve their purpose. We have them now. We need more workers. Not more machines. Not more dreamers.” She launched forward, heavy plate boots making the ground tremble. She took two massive strides then punched her foot forward - a steel-shod kick straight into The Old Man’s stomach.
Knocked backwards, The Old Man bent over, shoulders hunched forward. “Life is–” he gasped for air “–more than...that!” He straightened; his shoulders went back; he pulled a sword from a scabbard I hadn’t seen on his waist. He raised the blade above his head, steel cutting through the smoke. “And their happiness?” he said, sword wavering in the air. “Their enjoyment of this life we made for them? You talk of research but ignore the results you don’t agree with. The work they do is your purpose, not theirs.” His sword swayed in the air. “With no purpose of their own, they break. They die! What is the point of us building all this if the people can’t live here? They need a purpose; they need to find their own reason to breathe.”
“I give them purpose,” she yelled as she charged.
The Old Man dropped his stance and braced for the impact.
20 LEAVE ‘EM TO IT
“On a dark lonely shore, oh, the clouds and the mist.
Pulling stars from the black mouths of silvery fish.
Tell her, follow no man like most nobody does.
Handed their dreams on a plate from above.”
- The Fisherman’s song, scratched on the bark of a Pohutukawa tree
————
The air changed again. It came in a thick wave of sticky heat smelling of salt, mud, and sweetly rotting leaves.
The hills were gone, and I was standing in front of a lake at the foot of a low, grassy hill.
There was no wind, but a procession of leaves flew through the air in a pattern that, for some reason, I followed with my finger. The brown and green kites arced up into the fading light of the sky, then rolled back down to land on a rusted, corrugated iron roof.
The roof sat on top of a wooden building; the wooden building sat on top of the lake. The walls were a patchwork of mixed-shade whites. A row of broken windows glowed orange in flickers and starts, like candles burned in the rooms within.
The disappearing sun slunk behind a single Pohutukawa tree on the hill behind the building. The tree’s silhouette looked like a black cardboard cutout with edges of ember-deep red.
“Them two are always fighting, leave ‘em to it.”
Standing knee-deep in the lake was a fisherman. He wore a red-checked shirt, with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. A felt bowler hat sat snug on his head, a thick mane of black hair fell to his shoulders, curling up and reaching back at the sky. His face was brown like Totara wood. His eyes sparkled, and laugh lines swept from the edges of his eyes in a flourish. Tattoos wound up his cheeks to the sides of his wide, flat nose – sharp lines chiseled in dark green ink. The whorling koru patterns framed a gap-toothed smile that stretched his lips thin with mischief. He was huge. He must have been at least seven foot tall with shoulders nearly as wide. I realise that would make him a square. But trust me, they were big.
The fisherman was pulling a net through the water, slowly and carefully, draping it over his arm in bunches. When its end splashed out of the lake, he ran his hand over its outside as if feeling for something. He made a tsk sound and frowned.
“They carry the problems of the world, they do; you don’t need to worry about all-a-that, little ika, little fish,” he said without a look in my direction. He took the net off his arm in both hands, and tossed it high into the air, pulling the two edges open as it launched, so it formed a circle as it flew. The sides landed first, splashing softly into the lake; the rest of the netting in the middle followed, cutting down and through the water.
He pulled the net in by its rope, plucked six fish out of the mesh, and dropped them flapping into a tin bucket beside him on the shore. They looked like oversized silver shavings, shining as the last rays of sun hit.
“Much kinder than them gill nets they’re dragging behind the boats these days, aye?” He winked and cocked his head to one side. “Shhh. Hear that? ...No, course you don’t. Here. You’re gonna like this. Watch.”
He swept his arm upwards and pointed to the sky. Droplets of sparkling water flew from his fingers then floated back down to land on the lake’s calm surface.
A police siren sounded in the distance. A hundred birds I swear weren’t there before flew out of the Pohutukawa tree in fright.
I looked up and saw an outline starting to form in the sky. No, not an outline of something in the sky, an outline of the sky. It was as if the heavens were a painting, and someone was carving out a jigsaw puzzle piece.
“Never gets old,” the fisherman said quietly.
The displaced section of sky started moving out of the painting as if being pushed from the back. The piece became solid; the top moved out first, then the whole slice fell from the picture. It tumbled top over bottom twice, before hitting the horizon and falling down the gap between land and sky.
“Wait for it.” The fisherman pointed with a bent elbow and straight finger.
The puzzle piece void started filling itself back in, the white cloud and blue sky re-appearing as if being painted with giant brushstrokes, and the outline slowly disappeared into one seamless picture again. Soon I couldn’t tell there had ever been a gap.
“And another shall take its place, everything being fair, don’t worry it’s a big old ocean ouuuut there.” The fisherman sang the words to a Country-sounding tune I couldn’t place. He turned to me and raised his bushy eyebrows as if only now realising I was there, as if the rest of the conversation had been with himself.
“That there was a dream falling, ain’t it a sight to behold? One of my better ones, if I don’t say so myself.”
“Oh no.” My eyes widened. “Can we fix it?”
“Huh? Fix it? Oh, right.” The fisherman chuckled; the tattoos on his face wriggled, and his shark-tooth earring shook with excitement. “Kāore, little fish. No, we can’t fix it. Well, that ain’t entirely true. But we don’t need to.” He reached a huge hand over and rested it on my shoulder. “You mighta spent a bit too much time with the old fella. Even when that clever wahine, Brigitta, is winning, there’s still dreams-a-plenty in the sea. Not taking away from the importance of each of them, of course. The old one is right about that. If you don’t grow ya dreams into a purpose, you break. You always have. It’s on my list to fix, but aue, I’m only one fisherman, and when they’re runnin they’re runnin!” He smiled, mouth opened wide to show a row of huge teeth standing proud, somehow ancient-looking and brilliantly white at the same time.
“We break?” I said.
“But don’t we need to help The Old Man win?” I said. “Won’t the nightmares take over if the dreams keep falling?”
“No, no, no.” The fisherman shook his head and smiled. “Lord knows neither of those fools really want to win the fight. Imagine that! A world where all you did was dream? Or all you did was work? Only ever happened a couple of times on my watch, and sure enough, the other one always catches up. And everything comes right like it ought to. They’re like summer sandflies on skin, those two; they know where they need to be. They know they need each other – much as they like to pretend that ain’t the case.”
I knew I had something important to ask, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.
The net was draped over the fisherman’s arm. He flicked it out and whistled as the sides hit the water’s top in a perfect circle. He pulled the rope in, one hand moving over the other. The net chased its own ripple as it moved through the water towards him. More flapping fish. More lake-weed.
“Oh, go on then.” The fisherman sighed. “Ask ya question, little ika.”
And I remembered what it was.
“The Old Man made me promise to grow my dream. But I don’t even know what my dream is. And you’re saying I need to turn Cogs, too. I can’t do both. What should I do?”