Happy People Live Here

by C. Sean McGee

9A

  It was really funny weather, the kind that made it difficult to know what to wear. For most people, this was always kind of worrisome and for those that need not worry, it was always bothersome, even if they looked like they weren’t at al bothered. Most people you see didn’t carry around a ‘just-in-case’ bag with them, not like Linda did.

  For Linda, it was always better to be bothered or rattled by a little extra weight and annoying red marks on her shoulders, than to have to shiver your way through an overcast afternoon or pretend that you even enjoyed, the rain splashing against your face and messing up your hair.

  Most people didn’t want to look stupid carrying a big bag everywhere with all sorts of things for all sorts of occasions to protect against stuff that probably wouldn’t happen anyway. Most people preferred to carry nothing and keep their hands free for holding other people’s hands, and for smoking cigarettes and drinking espresso and for covering their mouths when they laughed out loud, so they didn’t look piggish.

  The sun had been shining when she arrived but now that it was grey and drizzling, it felt like even the sun had been taken away from her; even that she couldn’t have. And though, in her ‘just-in-case’ bag, she was prepared for all occasions, in her worrisome mind, and in her now broken heart, this was the last thing she expected.

  She had never thought about having a last day of anything. Change was usually always so unexpected but then again, she hadn’t changed much in so long that she’d forgotten that unexpected could come out of nowhere, just like it did.

  She always had a kind of plan for everything, if anything at all was supposed to change. Her favorite television shows for example. She watched her favorite shows every night on cable and she watched them sitting on her favorite cushion on the sofa – right in the middle, so if she wanted to tuck her legs up and rest her head on the arm rest she could, and she could switch to the left and to the right if she wanted to, if either side of her face got tired or sore.

  One of her fears though was losing things that were important to her. And not just things, but people, people that were important to her, people that were always there throughout her life that were always sharing their stories with her and opening their doors into their lives, and inviting her in. People that were always kind and never did bad things to others, even when bad things were done to them. And people who, at the end of every episode, always managed to resolve every problem and were always better for having gone through it and of whose friendships were just so darn special that they had to share it with the rest of the world.

  This kind of people.

  They were the best.

  But like all people, eventually, they went away. And though they would come back in old episodes and you could relive stuff you already knew about them and remember laughs you’re already had, it was never the same. It was like they just up and closed their door and pretended like it was never opened in the first place, and you’re just supposed to forget about them, like some stupid punchline in some stupid joke, as if you can just forget like that and move on and find some other person to find interesting and be your friend, like it’s that fucking easy. They were gone and they weren’t coming back.

  Linda had lost her favorite show once, a long time ago, like in the fairy tales. It wasn’t just a thing either, like how some people sum up sad moments as if they happened all the time and they don’t want to cry about it. It was a hell of a thing. It was the kind of thing that makes you not want to buy a cat, even though everyone who knows you says that you’re definitely the type of person that would love a cat, but not necessarily that type of person that a cat would love.

  No-one ever thought about what the cat might want.

  So anyway, Linda knew that all things ended. One day one day her gas would cut out, right in the middle of cooking lunch. And one day, her mother was going to die, eventually anyway, and if she was lucky, her sister would too – then she would be able to see her niece at the funeral.

  And she couldn’t do much about most stuff going away. She thought about her mum dying a lot. There was nothing she could do to stop that. People died all the time. Some died because they were really old and like a dusty old winding clock, all of their parts were just so worn out that they couldn’t tick and they couldn’t tock anymore, and they just stopped, between one and the other. Some people, though, they died either by accident or on purpose; either someone had an accident and hit their head really hard or maybe they got just what they deserved, on account of making somebody really sad or particularly annoyed.

  Though she couldn’t stop her mum dying one day and she couldn’t hold onto the last bit of gas any longer than her own breath, she could, and she did, take certain measures against losing things that were important so that when they did go away, there was something left from them, something unopened that she could unwrap and see for the first time, as if whoever that was, had never left in the first place.

  Some kids stuffed candy between the cushions of their sofa so that eventually when mum cleaned it, she would give it to them, and it would feel just as good as it did the first time. Some kids put the spare money they found or were given when their teeth fell out inside a piggy bank, or they’d give it to their dad to hold onto so in the future when they needed just a little, they would probably have lots.

  And mums and dads, they hid things too, for the future. They stuffed things away and forgot about them and then later when they least expected, they got a terrific surprise. Sometimes it was money and chocolates, just like kids did, other times it was dirty magazines and promises that were a long time broken, and things they wished they had said a long time ago, things that would probably only best be said then, right at the end, when it was already too late to do anything about it.

  Most people didn’t like change all that much. They liked to be different sure. That’s why they always bought so many new things like new clothes and new hair and new lovers and new cars and new jobs and new houses. Most people liked to be different in some way, but they didn’t like what they had to do to be different. They didn’t like that part of changing. Most people liked to be in a new house and a new city but they hated moving and they hated having to get their bearings and find out where everything was. And most people liked knowing lots of new things but they hated most of all, having to learn them. People liked to be changed, but they didn’t care much for change itself. They didn’t like the doing part. They much preferred it all to be done for them.

  And Linda was no different.

  She was a person after all, just like everyone else.

  Linda couldn’t stop her favorite television shows ending. She couldn’t stop them, no matter how many letters she wrote. But like the rapacious child, hiding sticks of candy under the cushions of the sofa or the child’s mother, hiding all of her compromises, under a waxing smile and drab apparel, Linda too, kept things that were important to her, hidden somewhere where even she would forget about them.

  She kept every card that her mother had sent her - for her birthday and other special days too. They were tucked away in a drawer in her bedroom. She kept the flower she got from Graham years ago when he tried to say that he was sorry. It was wilted and dried and little more than a crackly twig but she still kept it, under a pillow in her spare room. And her favorite television show, the bestest friends she had ever had in her whole life, she kept their last episode, their silly and stupid and sad and their ‘not at all fair’ farewell, on the mantle, next to a picture of her niece riding a horse.

  And most people, they wanted to be changed and they didn’t much want change to happen, but when it did happen, they would always act like they weren’t prepared, like even though they’d invited it for so long, they never thought it would actually come. And so even though it was sunny this morning and even though they joked with their friends about how it would probably rain in the afternoon as if it was a fact that they absolutely knew, none of them had an overcoat, a warm jumper or an umbrella, like they k
new that they knew all the answers to the test two but still left every line blank because they didn’t think to sharpen their pencils or bring a spare, in case the one they had was broken.

  And the weather was changing all the time. For a long time, that was about the only thing that Linda couldn’t control. She couldn’t control it and if it was nice, she couldn’t stop it from changing, from being grey and blowy and overcast and drizzly. She couldn’t control the weather, no, but she could carry round her ‘just-in-case’ bag, just in case.

  Linda stood in the foyer watching the rain spitting against the glass entrance. She was already digging into her bag and sifting through its contents for a nice warm jumper and her green umbrella. She hadn’t ever gone home at this time and especially, they had never gone home at this time. It all felt so strange, like watching her favorite television show in a different language.

  Linda waited in the cold and the rain on a rickety bench seat, waiting for the bus to come. She hadn’t taken a bus in so long. And she missed the sound of jingling keys, now that she only had one.

  As she waited on the seat, ignoring the splinters that were trying to poke and prod her goose bumped skin, she ran through in her head, over and over again, what The Receptionist had told her, just before she left.

  “One ticket to Morumbi please.”

  And as the bus arrived, Linda panicked. For only at that moment did she notice a rickety seat, like the one on which she had been sitting, on the opposite side of the street and approaching it, a different bus. And it occurred to her, the thought splashing across her stricken mind, “Is this the right bus?”