Ivan Hope
Perhaps, I should tell you about my wife. Forgive me if I do not name her. There is no real need for you to know her by name. I think that it is better this way. Of course you know my name is Hope, so if you wish to learn her identity then it would not be a difficult thing to discover. However, I beg you not to pursue us. This is my attempt to reach out. She knows nothing of what I write. Some men have mistresses... I have this.
Mrs Hope is not a beautiful woman. I resigned myself years ago to not attracting a movie star. She is dour, but there is solar activity behind her grey eyes. I have one child. She is five, she has inherited her mother’s looks. However, I have discovered that the young are beautiful, no matter what misplaced genetics have done their alchemy. Love is not resigned to life's more dazzling landscapes, this is why many of us live in cities.
My wife works nearby. She works for a small business who rent a space in an old railway station. She rarely has to catch a train, unless she is visiting friends. She grew up here and is the only one left behind. I am not from here. We met by accident and I came to join her.
We have been together for seven years. Our daughter was planned. There were complications at her birth which means that we can never have another child. The doctors failed to notice that she was a breach. It is too expensive to scan the womb as there has to be a technician present. When she was two weeks overdue we went to hospital expecting her to be induced. It was not to be.
The next day she was give an emergency Caesarian. My daughter was born at 11.59 am which meant that she only had to remain in hospital for three days. Had she been born at 12.00pm then she would have had to spend four days on the ward. It didn't matter to me.
Later that afternoon I returned from a walk to find a terrible fuss. It was a television drama taking place around her bed. She was dying. Here face was a light purple monochrome, all other colour filtered out by the nurses and doctors in order to be analysed later. Nothing was said to me but someone did have the grace to place my daughter into my arms before they rushed my wife away. It was then that I realised just what she meant to me. I did not want her to become one of the voices or apparitions.
They gave her an emergency operation, to stop the internal bleeding. A stitch had come loose. When she came round she had no idea where she was. Her eyes were big ice crystals, which reflected the light and she was in there, trapped in the cold.
*****
I have been away. Went to Wales. St Davids by the sea. It was grey, mostly, but there was a little sunshine. Arrived back yesterday with my wife and daughter. St davids is haunted. Over the summer you would never notice. I think because the phantoms dislike the presence of tourists. They re-appear at this time of year and simply put up with the surfers. There is an old cat there. My daughter played with it. It's more of a cushion really.
Getting back to London was a shock, today especially. The tube seems more claustrophobic. It was hot and close. Going underground is like disappearing down a plug hole, the rush of people takes you off your feet, you get crushed and you can't breath.
Today I sat next to two young Asian men and their bags. One of them had two text books about circuit boards. His bag may as well had wires sticking out of it. The books were a sure sign. There was a mother with an infant. Their presence was reassuring. They got off two stops before mine, but I got off with them. I didn't feel comfortable.
Work is in permanent snapshot, the colour of everyone's clothes might change, but each day is much the same as the last. You turn grey as walk through the doors and check in with security. It would be better if the colour was mat black because then at least I could be a beetle with robotic pincers.
I log the termination of lives. Welcome all you lost souls to my portal window. There is no eternal peace, but now that I have your name you are quite clearly categorised. Its good to be on a list. At least you are there, someone can find you by reference, and what is more judge your final hours. Its very important how we die. That's why I couldn't die on that train today. That would have made my life pointless. I didn't choose for these circumstances to come about. Death should be a termination of a full life, at least that is what it should be. I realise that sometimes life might get pipped a little quicker than is fair. Poverty can accelerate all this, and there are no sweet talking natural causes once the body’s mind is made up.
I thought about this a lot whilst staying in Wales. The wind would whip along the coast, blister you over the cliff edge. One day I even caught my daughter by her feet as she took off. She was a young Mary Poppins and nature was showing her what power it could bestow unto her. Nature's non industrial ideology. The sea crashed against the rocks. It was giving cardio to the land. All this makes sense. All this can be harnessed, hoist that sail and we will get there, you know?
In the office there is the same clatter of keyboards, the same whispers which circulate via the air conditioning. I'm sure this is why some of us get a little edgy and sick in the head. It's those nasty little whispers disseminating like germs. We all get jaded, our hearts boiling in our own distress.
My bag was searched today, this morning, when I arrived at the office. Bob, the guard, was agitated. He is normally jovial but today his pallour had that spread of harassment. He must have been a big mighty ball of red in the shower this morning.
There is a general unease. Everyone was unsettled at their desks. I gather something has happened. I asked Deidre.
"It's another scare, Ivan."
"Another one?"
"Isn't it terrible. I just don't feel safe."
I looked out of the window. It seemed too warm for October.
I have determined that Stokes is aware of some impending disaster. He is ginger. Too ginger for my tastes. A little too flash for the times. I am not sure what it is that he knows.
We have been transformed at work. What I see on my screen is nothing new but the presentation is crisp. It runs smoothly but the colour screen is too bright for my purposes. I have thought about asking them to turn it down, but the colours are new. They could be flowers for a funeral. My screen used to be grey clouds. It enabled the process.
Today I have put through fifty names. It has been productive. Not everyday is the same as often I feel worn down. The list of the dead and what it is that has taken them. No-one ever mentions old age. There is no such thing, I am sure. Cars are crushed before they are worn out completely. They keep them going in Cuba, I am told.
Margaret's son is too young to be a claimant but she is pleased that he is going to fight. If he survives long enough then he might be eligible of some sort of payment if they bring him back dead. This will all take time but she is aware of the intricacies of insurance which she claims is a blessing. If he dies her memory of him will be worth less than the certificate.
I think I preferred the whole system before. It was more sombre. My monitor was grubby. Lived in. When I put people away it is important that they are placed somewhere that has a sense of companionship. My sceen looks into the waiting room, on a name before it makes that final journey into pay out.
Because of the way I hunch at my desk I am aware of my skeleton. I am a companion to the reaper. There are many of us. This new bright screen is fireworks. Its celebratory. We have arrived at the end. It is the end of the process, the final party.
My names are silent. Doctors have filled in the forms. I process. It is not for me to make decisions or judgements on each of the cases. I decide nothing of merit. There is no merit in death. Margaret has opinions. She shares them. Sometimes we crowd around her screen to be more fully informed of her gossip. Margaret is very strict about how we represent our clients. The information we input must be correct. There is no room conjecture. Our opinion, as a rule should be slanted in our direction. Our sentiment should be hooked on the outside wall with our coats, our jobs depend on it. Insurance is funny like that. A substancial number who die wish to leave something for those they have left behind. It is not our concern. Each case is assessed on it's own merits. I often favour the dead. Margaret, who is my superior, is very clear that such empathy is unprofessional. It is not our jobs to grieve. Grief is for those who were involved in the person. She insists that pictures that depict some horror should not unlock our sensibility for they show us something which, ultimately, we are detached from. She loves her son, even though I think she will be glad if he dies. Death is welcomed if it has a purpose. He now has a purpose in his life. She tells me that he is now worth while. He has finished wandering, which many youths do. They spend a little time lost. He is no longer lost.
Stokes patrols. He is good natured, and wears clothes which would blend in well on a golf course. He insists that we should be spendthrift. He has recently awarded a pay increase and given us a good deal for our new phones. Communication, he insists, is everything. Stokes insists that we all drink after work together. Our office is generous and we never pay for a thing. I like to have three pints, but usually settle for two and make up for my abstinence at the weekend. At four o'clock on a Friday the office is shut and beer is bought. On a Friday afternoon, if we choose, we can drink as we work.
I am sure that Stokes knows something we don't. It didn't use to be like this. The screen on my phone is so bright I can use it for a torch.
It is hard sometimes to think about the future when I spend the day tapping in name after name, reason after mortal reason. We come, we pass. I read everyday that we are burning up. That before long we will be extinct. Our trees are ploughed up. Our water polluted. The air above our heads poisoned.
I am sure that if we could move house it would make all the difference. A new environment would be an asset. A new future. Future is everything. It is important to have something to look forward to or something to give reason to living. Variety is the foundation of modern life. It is vital to keep adding more into ones life to keep one enthusiastic.
My wife and I would have liked to have had another child. She even got as far as getting pregnant. We did all the planning, as it should be, but nothing can prepare you for a surprise. My wife went to the doctor and was then referred to the hospital.
It was the Royal Free Hospital. Down in the bowels, past the AIDS test room. My wife and I walked past a couple awaiting results. They were chatting quite pleasantly. I don't suppose there is anything else to do there. It was a small cut out square in the corridor. There were no windows just a lot of yellow ill air.
Before I go on, we were walking towards the abortion room. It's tucked away in a place without light. I kid you not.
So how do I justify or really do I need to? My wife was nearly killed by the birth of our daughter. We ain't kids anymore, my wife is over forty, so the prospect of a disabled child is higher. It wasn't planned. But mostly my wife was nearly killed.
It was past the AIDS smell of the hospital, under the spiders lid, the flip that takes you down as prey.
In a small room we sat cramped with other couples. There are magazines in the corridor, a library of affairs underneath posters advertising the morning after pill. So far it was easy. Natural. It was just an appointment.
In ancient days unwanted children were put inside pots and placed on hillsides. In China they leave them to die outside the train station, or at least they did. Now they have abortion gangs. They kidnap mothers and force them to give birth to still borns. There is no reason to attach anymore.
I'm not sure if human life is sacred. How can I be? There is flagrant abuse of it. Orders can be given which wipe out small handfuls in an instant, whilst a family elsewhere sues for a woman, who cannot breath on her own, hasn't spoken or communicated in years. A president can join in this fist fight as he opens his bowels on another country. No, life is not sacred. It is rather some thing that we vitally cling on to, and because it is our only one we attribute it a sense of importance that it doesn't deserve. By me stating that I believe that life is sacred, including yours, then perhaps you might not try and put an end to mine. We are not sacred. There is nothing sacred.
I was sitting there next to my wife. We were both quiet. I had taken the day off work. A day away from the list of names I type into the vaults of the dead. And there I was ready to flush a new life away. It is not yet human. I am unable to qualify what I mean by this term. What is human? Is it a thing with legs and hands, a head and a heart. Does it mean we are metaphysically significant. Are we an idea or a being?
My wife was examined. It was all fine. The feotus about six weeks old, except it was not a feotus, it was not a baby but a handful of cells. The doctor was humourless and tried to palm us off with contraception. We were made to feel sufficiently stupid. Sufficiently. And then sent off for a scan, to determine the age of this collection of deviding cells, this petri dish of life.
The day was punctuated by waiting. Each second meant that the cells had been added to. Each long wait was an extra moment of its existence, more potential memories of future things popping into being. However as yet it is was not cognitive. Any form of personality would be an invention. Any qualities that we would attribute to it would be a fabrication. It would be our fantasy as parents, fantasies we had purposely nipped in the bud.
Again what is a human being? Is it defined by physicality, or action. Often, as a species, we act inhumanely but what does this mean? How can I be a human and act inhumanely? I can only be human.
When did I become human?
In the waiting room for the scan we were taken care of by an 82 year old man who was in great shape and good humour. When someone commented that he was in great nick he replied that he keeps the wife happy. We all laughed at this old man. Perhaps he was an accident too.
They made us watch the scan. It was like watching a radar of a hurricane storm and there in the middle a heart beat, like a solitary ship at sea fighting the storm that would eventually sink it.
Well it has been done. On Monday. It was done and we went home and we took our daughter into our arms and hugged her. Hugged her hard, as if to mould the dead one into her, like a piece of clay that had fallen off her moulded body.
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