Copyright James Bent 2009


Waking up

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Waking up. Waking up to another day. We all do it the same, we all wake up. Some people do it to an alarm clock, some do it when it’s still dark, others when it’s light. Sometimes it’s the same time, other times it’s different, perhaps an unknown. Maybe some people don’t even think about it happening. I think that’s probably right. Who thinks about waking up? And I don’t mean the moment when we know the world is there and we know that we are here and that we’ve got to get up at some point. I’m talking about the point, that split second, that infinitesimal crack that happens between being asleep and being awake. The moment just as our eyes start to open or just as our brain switches back on to consciousness. Who thinks about that? Yep, I bet you are right now. I bet you can picture yourself in bed. Maybe it’s late at night and you’re about to go to sleep and now you’re thinking about tomorrow morning. Or maybe it’s the morning and you wish you could go back to bed. In any case, there’s not much you can do about it. Even the worst insomniac in the world has to sleep sometime. Even they get a little peek into the land of dreams, and even they have to wake up. And once it’s happened, then the only thing that you know for sure is that its already started, and you best be on your way. Go along now, time to get started.




A perfect square of cookie dough

Bibi walked home from school. Under one arm, Nelson Chong. She looked down at him, his head drooping down, looking at the ground. For a rabbit, his head was very long, very narrow, almost like an oversize thumb. And pink. The two ears sewn at the top of his head, both flopping, hanging loose, moving with each step she took. The brown leather satchel on her back full of books.
“What’s that Nelson Chong? Yes, my satchel is very heavy. Do you want to carry it for me?” She waited. “What’s that? You can’t because you’re just a rabbit?” Bibi sighed, lifted her shoulders and pushed the satchel upwards with her free hand, temporarily taking the weight.
At the corner of Rue X., she turned and walked into the courtyard of the apartment block. In the middle of the concrete blocks, a small park with a swing-set.
“Okay, we can play on the swings.” She went in through a gate, pulled it wide open and let it go, the large spring attached to the frame pinged it back, slamming shut. She jumped. Dropping the satchel on the ground, letting it fall with almost total disregard, she carried Nelson Chong over to the swing-set, laying him down flat on the plastic seat of the swings. “I’ll push you in a minute, okay?” Without waiting for his reply, Bibi sat on the swing beside him, her feet just touching the ground, pushed herself back and forward until the swing carried her freely. She pushed her legs out in front as the swing went forward, tucked them underneath as it went back, propelling herself. When she got to a certain height, she held her feet out straight in front, leaned backward, her head looking up to the sky. The tops of the concrete apartment blocks joined in a square. She imagined someone had taken a cookie cutter and stamped out a perfect square of cookie dough, leaving a hole through which the blue of the sky beamed through. A perfect royal blue. Bibi smiled. The swing slowed.
She used her feet to stop, jumped off. “Your turn now.” She grabbed the back of the swing on which Nelson Chong laid basking in the sun, pulled him back and up, held her arms above her head. Jumping up, she let the swing go. It created a perfect arc, almost parabolic as it came near the ground, then up, launching the stuffed toy rabbit into the air. For a rabbit he managed to travel a surprising distance. Bibi stepped to the side to mind the swing as it came back, watched Nelson Chong land about halfway back to the gate, head first. “Silly, you’re supposed to land on your feet. You’ll never make a cat.” She laughed, ran over and picked him up. “Shall we go back and get you a carrot?” She held his head, made him nod. Thick black wool sewn in an upside down Y, his mouth, two black buttons for his eyes. “You know, Nelson Chong, if you don’t ever smile then how am I supposed to know what you want?” She made him look down. “Aww, you don’t have to be like that. I’m not mad at you. We're still friends.” She picked her satchel up, one strap over her shoulder only, opened the gate and went out, across to building 1.
Inside the front door, the start of the stairs. Bibi walked over slowly, staring at the steps, at the handrail, at the first landing, at the stairs as they turned and came back round. She touched the handrail, covered in soft, shiny, red plastic, stood in the gap between the steps, looked up. All the way to the top of the building, below the glass skylight in the ceiling, the stairs followed the walls, turning at right angles. Bibi tried to follow the stairs all the way to the top, looking at every step without blinking. Halfway up, her eyes got dry and she blinked. She pressed her lips together tight, pushed her bottom lip out, her forehead screwed up. “Stupid stairs." She started up.
Large numbers on the landings as she went up. 1, in black. 2, in red. 3, in white. 4, in grey. 5, in gold. The number 5 in gold. She stepped away from the stairs, turned left and walked down the corridor to the door at the end. Number 531. Taking a key from round her neck, tied to a piece of white string, she unlocked the door, waited before opening it, looked down at Nelson Chong. He stared back up at her, blankly. She pushed the door open.
The apartment quiet and still. Bibi closed the door, stood with her back against the wall, let her satchel fall to the ground. Beside her, a wooden side table with a black telephone and a picture of her mother and father. She turned her head to the side and looked down at the photograph, sat Nelson Chong with his legs over the edge of the side table, his ears flopped down by the side of his head. “Just wait here. I just want to see, okay? I’ll be back, so don’t get lonely.”
She walked toward the end of the hall, a clear finished wooden door at the end closed. She put her ear to the door, listening, then slowly turned the handle, pushed the door open so that a slither of white light ran down the edge of the door. She peered through the crack, waiting, pushed the door open more. From behind, Nelson Chong would have seen her moving her head ever-so-slightly side to side, had his buttons been eyes and had he not been a stuffed toy rabbit. Bibi closed the door, walked back down the hall, grabbed the rabbit by his ankle, briefly looked down at the photograph on the side table before going into a room to the left, her feet dragging on the floor.




Too early

“What are you doing in bed darling?”
hyumm?
“You got into bed straight after school again?”
Bibi tried to open her eyes, the door to her bedroom open, the light from the hall too bright.
“It’s okay, I’ll be out in the kitchen. I’ve made dinner for us both.”
“Isersum fa Nelsochon?”
“Of course. I’ve got something to tell you too, so get up soon.”
“Kay.”
She kept her eyes closed, heard her father go back into the kitchen.


Copyright James Bent 2009