VOAT - March 2017 - "Communication Problems" - Vote Here.

Mr E

With a delicate flourish of the wrist, I’m finished. Ready. Everything is perfectly in its place; painstakingly blended, outlined and contoured. The make up is part of my ritual, almost an obsession if I’m being honest. I find comfort in the absolute control it allows me to exercise. These gels, lotions and brushes empower me to assert dominance over the disheveled, soft creature that appears in my place in the mirror at first light. They allow me to transform into me.

There’s often a jarring disconnect between our mental vision of ourselves and the one we present to the world. I’ve often pondered on that, usually prompted by seeing a cringe-inducing capture of myself on video. Sometimes I don’t even recognise that person, that imposter sitting in my seat and speaking with my voice. I’m sure I’m more graceful than that, less flustered, more authentic.

My job relies on me remaining composed and yet approachable, on my ability to interpret the underlying tones of a conversation. Keeping absolute control while maintaining the illusion of being an equal partner in the conversation. My emotions must be controlled, surpressed. I’ve built a reputation on being effective and calculated while remaining sympathetic. My track record is, on paper, flawless. Colleagues and bystanders gush with admiration over my work, but I can focus only on the flaws, the mistakes. There is always a chip in the polish.

Flattery is but one of the many tools I have in my arsenal. Each one is honed to perfection, each with a different application, a different purpose. Every person that comes to sit in the chair opposite me has a story to tell and a willingness to tell it. I never colour their story or project my judgement onto it. I simply use everything at my disposal to help guide the narrative, to elevate it to something more than just the facts. To force the teller to artistically apply a dab of emotion in the right places. It’s ironic, but I’ve found that often people with the most interesting stories are the most banal. Extraordinary events had shaken their otherwise ordinary lives, but under the bright studio lights they falter and clam up. They need me to lead them, to give them permission to speak, to shape their tale into something powerful, something cohesive. To help them to tell the story that deserves to be told.

Prying a good story from someone isn’t unlike seducing them into bed. Lord knows I’ve had no trouble with either. The majority of people just want to be heard, they long for someone to understand their trials and tribulations. Each person and each context is different, but the goal is always the same. You need to give enough of yourself away to establish trust, but maintain enough distance to allow for intrigue. You need to listen to the cues and allow them to do most of the work with only a smattering of encouragement from you. In either case there’s always an undertone of manipulation, a silent battle for power. I crave the thrill of the chase followed by the ecstacy of success. Each conquest is to me a personal triumph, one to be savoured and stored.

I remember my first big interview like it was yesterday. It was far from my first, but I had suddenly been catapulted into a new arena. Landing it had been a coup, others had seethed with jealousy. My memories of that time are tinged with the smell of his aftershave, something woody and cloying. My mask had not yet been perfected then, you could see the hints of nervousness and panic clawing at the edges of my visage. It disgusts me to watch that video now. Objectively I know that he was just a man, a petty criminal at that, but my memories have contorted him into something much larger than life. His presence seemed to suck the air directly from my lungs, as if there was no room for anyone else but him in the room. He was charismatic and polite, but his eyes mocked me. His careful manipulations were almost invisible but I felt their cold fingers on my spine. I was applauded for that interview, but I knew it had been a failure. He had been toying with me, allowing me to think for short periods of time that I had control before mercilessly yanking that away. That was when I understood how weak and exposed I was, how I needed to evolve.

Every aspect of my life has been meticulously considered. I have enough professional accomplishments to be considered a success, but not enough to elevate me to a pedestal where I’m untouchable. I’m well compensated, but not wealthy enough to create a chasm between me and my childhood friends. I was married at an age old enough to be deemed mature, yet young enough to still be at the peak of my beauty. I have detailed plans for when I’ll get pregnant, and what role I will transition into when my face isn’t quite attractive enough for primetime TV. I’m driven by an obsessive compulsion to maneuver, machinate and micromanage every little detail until I’ve gotten what I want. I look with pity on those weak souls that hope and pray for life or an invisible deity to grant them their wishes rather than putting the work in themselves.

Life, they say, is what happens while you’re planning. The trick is not to let those challenges that it throws up become obstructions. Jack was one of those curveballs, a spontaneous burst that temporarily threw me off-course. From the moment I saw him, I knew that I wanted him. It almost pains me how cliché our first meeting was. We locked eyes across a crowded room at an upscale do in Galway. His dark hair flopped seductively over vibrant blue eyes, but it was his smile that held my attention. It was cheeky, almost dirty. I knew he would be a lot of fun, and I wanted to make him my plaything. I had already grown bored of my date. We had been lovers for a few weeks but most men have trouble keeping my attention beyond that. He also had a date that night, a pretty blonde. I think I vaguely knew her, the crowd we network in is small and exclusive. I inserted myself in the conversation around him, but didn’t directly speak to him. I just subtly radiated my interest towards him. I thought he hadn’t noticed, but when he winked at me on leaving, I knew I already had him.

The next time we met, we were both alone. The coincidence still amuses me to this day. I was at a hotel bar in London, having a nightcap. It was a Tuesday, a blustery October evening. I almost thought I was hallucinating when I saw him burst in, rainwater dripping from his hair, dragging a small black suitcase behind him. I quickly threw back my single malt and told the spotty young barman to charge it to my room. Jack, although I didn’t know his name then, was heading towards the elevator. My heels clicked on the marble floor as I caught up with him. I walked into the elevator behind him, feigning surprise. I made sure the last thing he heard before he left was my room number and a promise.

Jack was unlike anyone I had ever met. From that first steamy night in London, I was hooked. In many ways he was the polar opposite of me. He embodied the free spirit of a designer. He spontaneously make decisions on the spot with no real regard for the consequences. He was so vibrantly full of life that it often spilled over and splashed everyone in the room. I had never been with a man that could take control of my senses before, it was invigorating, intoxicating. It was like colour had suddenly burst into my greyscale life. I hadn’t even been aware that there had been something missing before him. The arguments were dramatic, passionate, loud. So too was the sex.

It was his idea to get married. He proposed on a warm Sunday morning in Spring, over eggs and tea. He had been living with me for two months at the time. I was wearing my gym gear, he his pyjamas. He had a gorgeous ring, a family heirloom. An princess cut emerald set on platinum. It fit like a glove and I didn’t hesitate in accepting. I booked a venue I had been eyeing before we even called our families. We settled on a June wedding. We weren’t in a rush but I knew it’d be aesthecially better for me to be a summer bride, a tan and sunshine complements me far better than fur and snow.

Nothing changed after we were married. There was no question of me taking his name, my name was part of the foundation of the brand I had carefully cultivated over the years. We continued to exist, to work, to love, to live, exactly as any couple in their late twenties does. Our relationship maintained a primal, raw edge. My work schedule was punishing, but Jack served as the perfect way for me to decompress. We were on track, perfectly aligned to my master plan. We talked about getting a dog, buying a house, having children. We had so many possible futures ahead of us, and we could steer towards whatever we wanted. The options were almost endless. Best of all, we were in no rush to make any decisions.

It was almost two years to the day after our initial meeting that I found the note. From the moment I saw the envelope with my name scrawled onto it on the bed, I knew something was wrong. I could hear nothing but the sound of my own blood pumping in my ears for a few seconds. I think I read it eight times before it began to sink in. It wasn’t a terribly long note, just a few handwritten paragraphs. Funny to think how that was nearly all it took to destroy me. Handwritten letters scribbled onto an A4 page with a blue biro, but it may as well have been a knife.

He was gone. He didn’t say where, and he specifically asked me not to look for him. I looked for myself in the details of the story he left, but I couldn’t find a trace. A note is such an ugly way of telling a story, so crude and solid and permanent. It can’t be shaped or spun. It just is. He wrote how he could no longer suffer in silence and had to leave for his mental wellbeing. He detailed a relationship that I couldn’t recognise, one with only coldness and indifference. He mentioned how many times he had tried to raise our issues with me, only to be callously shut down. He wrote of his resentment that I never left him see the me that was behind the mask. Of my obsession with unimportant details and control. He wrote of the irony of someone that has made a career out of her communication skills being so closed. The pain of sharing a warm bed with a cold person. His despair at his failure to ever reach the real me. His refusal to spend the rest of his life with a superficial shell of a person.

I carefully pasted the pieces of my mask and myself back together. Presentation is key and that cannot falter even for a minute. It’s my protection, my sanctuary, my armour. Tomorrow is another day and tomorrow I’ll plaster my mask on again and start again. He has given me his story, a final gift to me to spin how I want. I will wipe him from my life and start again. I am still young, there is still time.

Mr E

Story 2

"There is a ghost of a smile on your face when you see me. I know you aren’t sure what to say, what to make of the situation. Neither am I, so that makes two of us. We sit in a small café, that type I can’t believe still really exist, with a plastic table cloth, with the ghosts of its former colours still barely visible though fading into the ether. Some things hold on long past their replacement date. The chairs are uncomfortable, but I’d have sat awkwardly anyhow. This café is almost designed to be uncomfortable. In every one of them I’ve ever sat in there’s always a door that doesn’t quite close, or a door that bangs, a table not level and tea that tastes more of hot than of anything else.

I don’t know if I should look you in the eyes or not. People joke, but I really was lost in your eyes for a long time. They were what struck me first, they are the last great memory of you I took so long to forget. I add too much sugar to my tea and I wonder if you’re judging me, I’ve gained some weight since we saw each other last. I wonder if you ever notice little things about me, like I notice about you. I wonder what they might be. I wonder if I look you in the eyes will the years fall or will you have aged?

The conversation shifts and suddenly we’re talking like the old friends we still are, will always be, and I forget things like sugar and eyes and years, and just talk, freely. It’s as though the first sips of tea have normalised things, and we have taken part in a ceremony that allows us speak. They’ve been hard years, but not all bad, we’ve had good times even if I missed you for most of them, your absence was always present, but something I got used to, accommodated, in my day.

“How have you been, really been?” you ask, your voice just slightly softer, slightly lower, and I could answer any way at all, even honestly. I could tell you that there’s not a single thing in the last ten years I didn’t also want to show to you, to share with you. I could tell you I got drunk and then got sober in intervening years in your absence. The traffic outside jolts me from my thoughts and it’s hard to believe that you are just another person here. She who has walked so long in my mind. “Grand,” I say, “grand, really, hard times sometimes but getting through. It’s good to be back, I never thought I’d be gone so long, town hasn’t changed too much.” “Town, here, never changes too much”, you said, and I wondered if it was with a touch of sadness, if you had felt left behind when I left. And radiant is a good word to describe your face, I wasn’t lying to myself all the years.

When you speak you wrap your accent around words, running them into one another, the way you always have. Pauses are unnecessary here. Ten years of speaking slowly to be understood falls away in ten minute of talking to you, and suddenly I’m fluent again, as though Munster English is a language I’d forgotten I’d spoke. I hear my words match your cadence, I hear the syllables start to blur and mix.

There’s still only about three good roads in the county, the road to the airport and the road to Cork border, the third is the Limerick bypass, so people don’t have to go into town at all. Town itself though, that’s the same. The same grey rain comes down hard in sudden, unpredictable bursts and the streets get slippy and water splashes up over our shoes from loose paving stones. That same dirty water settles into our socks and reminds us how unsatisfactory everything is, and always has been, as that we were fools to ever miss the place.

You hadn’t changed too much either. You are still beautiful, surprisingly able to match up to my memory. You don’t look like ten years has passed and it didn’t feel like ten years had passed, and you were asking me about Australia, and if I thought I’d stay there for longer. I stared at the faded table cloth and wondered if now was the time to be honest. To tell you that you were never out of my thoughts, that I’d counted down the days to this meeting. Instead I escaped into generalities about mum not getting much younger and Australia not being home. I could have, and should have, said nowhere was home without you, that I’d had ten years to work that out.

“How is town doing,” I asked, “since Dell left?” Since Dell and I left, I could have said.

“Ah, it’s still very quiet, but it’s coming along. Rents are going up again, and traffic is getting worse, so the place must be improving. I don’t see too much difference in the streets yet, but we were always behind Cork and Dublin anyhow.” You didn’t pick up the subtext but maybe you were having your own internal conversation, or maybe it never meant as much to you as it had to me. It mustn’t have, after all, you’d even sent me an invite to your wedding, though I didn’t travel 3,000 miles to stop you or see you getting married. I didn’t even send an email to be read out and one of the lads said I’d been missed but it didn’t seem likely. I didn’t tell him, and I won’t tell you, I spent it blind drunk and homesick, and sad for everything that could have been. That might make you sorry for me, and if all anyone has left for you is sympathy then things must be very bad indeed.

The café was warming up and the damp air had nowhere to escape to. The condensation was fogging up the large plate glass window, turning the street outside into shadows and passing people loomed up like phantoms called forth from some other realm. It was just the two of us, really, alone in the world. I wondered again was there any voice inside you making you second guess yourself. The door of the café banged loudly or maybe it only seemed loud because we were barely speaking now, and speaking only in low tones when we did speak, as though we were going to tell some intimate story and we didn’t even want the walls to hear us.

I looked at you, those ageless brown eyes, still so perfect. A full decade of waiting came to mind, a full decade of wanting to hold you again. I caught sight of the band of gold around your finger and knew I would never speak my mind.

The moment had passed. Not just because you are married, I don’t suppose that even mattered all that much, if I had been willing to make an effort. No the moment had passed ten years ago, when I found it easier to leave than to stay, when you had found it easier to stay than to leave. When the great tonnta of emigration had swept me away with the thousands. The reasons we had seemed flimsy now, I was only going for a year, things would have improved by then, and you didn’t want to leave a good job for so short a time.

We fell apart in the barely communicated phrases, of contracts taken for six more months, of holidays planned, and plans scotched, and because it was easier to be with almost anyone else that to miss someone. I know now you can miss someone right down to the marrow in your bones, deeper even, if there’s any deeper.

And so we sat, and I knew you wanted me to say it, to tell you I still loved you but I was never interesting enough, never bright enough, to really be worth those eyes looking on me, I always thought. I was lost in them again, and I knew I always would be. Those eyes that had watched me walk away. What good was loving someone if we could never find the words? Outside Parnell street never really changed, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever really change either."

Mr E

Story 2

"Kids, settle down in the back seat, please. We’re nearly there."
"But Mom, it’s my time on the Nintendo DS."
"Harry, give your sister the DS."
"Just a minute, mom, I just want to finish this part."
"Just let him finish his part, Katie."

Katie folded her arms and sulked. She was very headstrong for a ten-year-old and hated when things didn’t go her way. They had been driving for three hours and it seemed like this was the fourth or fifth time that they’d had this exchange since the drive started.

Fiona, her husband Brian and the two kids were on the way from Waterford to Sligo for their summer holiday. Summer, hah! It had been pissing rain since Clonmel and was showing no signs of abating. She had changed places with Brian in Limerick and was now behind the wheel. She adjusted the rear-view mirror to get a better look at the kids and was greeted by a scowl from Katie. She made a mental note to get Katie a Nintendo DS for her birthday. This grief wasn’t worth it. Maybe she could find one in Sligo for the journey home – her birthday was only two weeks away so it could be an early present.

Fiona stuck her tongue out at Katie in the mirror and got a small smile in return. A little victory.

There was only an hour left in the drive. Brian was playing with the radio, trying to find something that he wanted to listen to. He was manually tuning it and with every found channel came different genres – country, classical, pop, Irish language, diddley-eye shite. Kate slapped the off-switch with her palm and Brian took the hint. He gazed out of the passenger side window. The Connemara scenery was beautiful. It was like stepping back in a time machine - back to simpler times with no technology, no radios, no Nintendo.

Brian was the first to see the fox. It ran straight out in front of the car.

"Honey, LOOK OUT!"

He grabbed the wheel from Fiona and pulled it violently to the left. The fifteen seconds that followed seemed to happen in a slow-motion, soundless vacuum. The car hit a low stone wall and tumbled several times down a hill, coming to a stop on its roof. The wipers were still swooshing and the sound of the car horn reverberated for miles around.

8 Years Later.

Fiona put the basin of hot water on the bedside locker. She submerged a facecloth into the water and wrung it out and as she had done so many times before. She started with Katie’s face, then moved to the feet and worked her way up to the torso and arms. With the help of a nurse, she rolled Katie on her side to wash and dry her back. Finally, she sat Katie up in bed and brushed her hair. With the morning routine completed, she put her daughter in a fresh nightgown, lay her down on top of the sheets and kissed her forehead.

As a nurse massaged Katie’s limbs to help with circulation, Fiona sat in her chair by the window and scrolled through the day’s news on her tablet, relaying the highlights to Katie. It all seemed like doom and gloom these days. Was it ever anything else? Trump, attacks in Germany, Brexit, Frexit (who makes up these names?) and more Catholic church scandals. The highlights were slim pickings today – Fiona tried to stay away from anything overtly negative. She thought the Trump stuff was funny and tended to lead with that. If Katie was awake, Fiona liked to think that she would find it hilarious too.

There was a knock on the door. Dr. Sheng and his team entered the room, a big smile on his face.

"Good morning Fiona."
"Hi Jian."
"And good morning Katie - Happy Birthday!"

Today promised to be a big day. With Katie’s eighteenth birthday came her eligibility for Dr. Sheng’s experimental treatment. After eight years in a coma, could this finally be the day where…? She didn’t dare finish that thought. Until it happened, Fiona didn’t want to get her hopes ups.

Sheng continued. "Please leave us for a few hours. We need to prepare this room for the treatment. See you just before 4."

Sheng offered his hand for a handshake. Fiona ignored it and gave him a hug. She whispered "thank you" in his ear and left the room.

--

When Fiona returned, the room had been transformed. There was a second bed in the room. A machine that she had never seen before was positioned between the two beds. Black-out blinds had been installed and some ambient lights in the corners of the room provided the only light source. Katie was wearing futuristic-looking headgear and there was a matching item on the spare bed. Fiona had changed in an adjacent room and was in a nightgown. She lay down and a technician helped her with the headset. It felt cold and metallic against her skin. Some pads were put on her body to monitor vitals. She was handed a vial of clear liquid and told to drink it.

Katie opened the vial and downed it in one swallow. A concoction to heighten her senses, apparently. She expected something foul, but it tasted of citrus.
Sheng had been writing on a tablet. He looked up and addressed Fiona over the top of his spectacles.

"This experience is different for everyone. I can’t tell you what will happen for you. You should be able to talk to Katie. When you make contact, getting through to her is completely in your hands. Any questions?"

Fiona thought for a moment and said that she didn’t.

"OK. Good. Now - please start counting down from 100."

Fiona started.

"100, 99, 98..."

One of Sheng’s technicians started operating the machine between the two beds.

"... 97, 96, 95 ..."

She didn’t get to 94.

--

When Fiona opened her eyes, she was lying on grass. She lay there for a moment to get her bearings. It was a summer day and the sun felt warm on her face. She was back in the house they lived in before the accident. It had been sold since then - it was weird to be back.

She stood up and looked around. Apart from the house, there was nothing else. The blue sky blended into a white fog that surrounded the house on all sides. There was only one place to go. Fiona walked tentatively to the back door and pushed through.

Katie, still ten-years-old, was sitting at the kitchen table, writing on a sheet of paper.

"Hey mom, can you help me?"

Fiona hugged Katie from behind and kissed the top of her head - "Sure, princess."

It was such a strange feeling to talk to Katie again – not just because it had been eight years since their last conversation, but because she was exactly as Fiona had remembered her the last time they spoke. A far cry from the adult woman that was lying comatose in bed.

Fiona looked around the kitchen. It was very clean, almost clinically so. There was no clutter and everything was in its place. Apart from Katie’s scribbling, the only other noise in the room was a ticking wall clock. It seemed to be ticking at quarter speed. Tick… Tick… Tick… She looked down at what Katie was writing. "It’s my time" was written many times on the page. Fiona’s eyes started to well up with tears when she read it. She reached out for Katie’s hand and she stopped writing.

"It’s my time, Mom."

Fiona raised her voice and immediately regretted it. "STOP TALKING LIKE THAT".

"IT’S MY TIME!"

Fiona whispered: "Stop. Please stop."

Katie slammed her palms on the table.

"But MOM, Harry has had it for ages. It’s my time on the Nintendo DS."

For Fiona, that opened the floodgates. As she openly wept, Katie started writing again.

It took several minutes for Fiona to compose herself.

"Talk to me, princess. Tell me how you feel."
"I have a headache, mom, and I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept here for a long time."
"Why not?"
"Dunno. I just can’t. I’m not tired."

Fiona took a moment to process that. If she sleeps here, what will happen? Will she be gone forever, or will she wake up?

She made a decision.

This conversation may be the only real stimulation that Katie has had for years. She needed her to tap into her emotions. With that outburst a few minutes ago, she knew that her emotions were still there – just buried deep.

"What can you remember before this place, Katie?"

Katie stopped writing and squinted her eyes, concentrating.

"I ‘member it was raining. I ‘member… I ‘member the car? I ‘member dad playing with the radio. I ‘member…. HONEY! LOOK OUT!"

Fiona jumped.

Suddenly, Katie screamed and Fiona had to cover her ears. It was so loud! Glass panels on the cupboards exploded. Glasses and cups in the cupboards shattered. Spotlights over the counter popped in unison. A lightbulb overhead exploded in a starburst of light.

"The car! It crashed! Mom I was in that car. We all were. Harry. Dad. Where are Harry and Dad?"

Fiona didn’t answer.

"I was upside-down in the car. It hurt so much, mom. The seatbelt was digging into me. Harry… Harry wasn’t moving. He was looking at me but he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t saying anything either. Blood. There was blood. What’s wrong with Harry, mom? Is he…?"

Fiona nodded gently and Katie started to sob.

"I ‘member it was getting dark. It got so dark and I can’t ‘member after that. Am I dead too, mom?"
"No, princess – only sleeping."
"How long?"
"A little while."

Through the tears: "And Dad?"

Fiona shook her head.

Katie ran into her mother’s arms and hugged her tight. Fiona held her for a while, then carried her up to the master bedroom and they lay together on the bed – Katie’s arms around her neck and her head on her chest. She could sense that Katie was drained – it was only a matter of time now. Both of them closed their eyes and Fiona stroked Katie’s hair in silence.

--

Beep. Beep. Beep. Fiona wondered what that noise was? When she opened her eyes, it took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Sheng was standing beside her. His team had left.

"That seemed like a tough one, Fiona. How do you feel? You were talking and crying while you were under."

Fiona looked sideways towards Katie’s bed. The machine was in the way. She ripped off the pads and stumbled out of bed. She was still woozy from the experience. Sheng helped her to stand up. When she got to Katie’s side, she was devastated to see that she was still asleep. Why didn’t it work?

Fiona sat in her chair. She put her head on Katie’s midriff and just lay there, completely and utterly drained – physically and emotionally.

She felt a hand stroke her hair and a low voice said: "It’s my time."

Mr E

Story 2

About 48 hours left to vote in this...

Rubecula

Story 2

Great stuff folks, sorry I have not been much in evidence recently, but these things can not be helped

Mr E

Story 2

Just under 2 hours left to vote, folks.

Mr E

Story 2

OK all done!

Congrats to mahamageehad for a beautifully written piece. A deserving winner.

HarveyHunt wrote Story 2 and I wrote Story 3.

If anyone has any feedback or comments, feel free to post below.

See you for the next one in April (someone else can pick the theme!)

Congrats mahamageehad, great story, and thanks for the vote.

I was torn between which story to vote for but went with story 3 just because I'm awful at dialogue and admire anyone who can do it.

Story 1 is really well done, and I think I would have voted for it if it had revealed just a small bit more of the narrators inner life. It is very good at saying how the narrators inner thoughts aren't reflected in how she believes herself to be perceived, but we know from it that how she feels she is perceived is differently to how she is perceived anyhow from how her partner leaves her.

Story 3 is obviously a more straightforward story, notwithstanding the sci-fi ending, but there's an art to saying everything it says with so few words that I admire in writing. It's a skill I completely lack.

mahamageehad

Story 3

Thanks for the votes folks! I certainly didn't except to get such good feedback! I've never written anything like that before, anything beyond boards posts or Facebook posts to be honest. It grew into something much more nuanced than I would have thought. I literally started with a blank page with the phrase "Someone who works in communications but has difficulty communicating in her own life." I think the tone is heavily influenced by the fact that I've been binge-watching the first 2 seasons of Hannibal recently. :pac:

Really enjoyed the other two stories too. It was a tough choice for me but I thought Story 2 really captured the emotions beautifully. Well done to both Mr. E and HarveyHunt. Also really appreciate the feedback on the piece Harvey. If I'd had more time with it I'd have cut a lot of the more repetitive stuff.

I'm going to be on holidays for the first half of April so I'll likely miss the next one, but I'll defo be back, this was a lot of fun!

Rubecula

Story 2

Great stuff. Well written and a cracking read.