Steal My Stuff: May 2011

I took a long drag on my freshly lit cigarette and blew out slowly. The smoke twisted and bobbed in the slight cool breeze of twilight.

There were still people on the street but this was a time of change. The last of the city workers were drudging their way home, happy for the few hours of home life they'd enjoy before doing it all over again. Meanwhile, the social peeps were just beginning to teem in and invade the city in their own way.

With ciggy in mouth I rubbed my hands together, trying to keep warm. I should've worn a coat, something warmer, but I forgot how cold Autumn nights get.

The glass pane on my back was freezing. I could feel the bumps from the relief text: Cook ducks $16.95 each. I peeled myself off the window and took another drag, stepping a few times on the spot to keep warm. I looked down at the pavement. Between the crack of cement was a patch of green, a small stem reaching up into the sky. On top of the stem a dull red flower, its petals almost completely unfurled, a little beaten up. Even in this concrete prison it was somehow surviving. Trodden on daily by boots and high-heels, pressed down, pushed, scraped, but enduring well enough to stretch itself out for the last dregs of sunshine. Then bunking down and doing it all over again tomorrow. That's the way these things worked. You didn't enjoy; you weren't happy – you survived.

'I'm here, Ange. I haven't gone. You can come out now.'

The voice was distant, diffuse. As if the words were meant for someone from a different world, a secret place, away from the pain and mundane misery of life.

I looked across the road for its source. I could just make out the silhouette of a laughing couple, swaying down the footpath arm in arm, their bodies pressed together as if they were one. For a moment it reminded me of a cheesy creature from an old B-grade film; some cheap version of Frankenstein's monster, joined at the hip, its two heads bobbing up from the marshy lagoon.

That wasn't where the voice came from.

I blinked. A little way back, behind the rampaging monster, shuffled a short, squat, blob. An old woman, hunched over. She moved a little to one side. Then back to the other side. Slowly. Craning her neck each time. Looking out into the grey light. Something in her hand, pieces of paper. She seemed tired, worn.

'Come on, it's time to go,' I think the old woman said. Nobody else was around. She was talking to no one. Crazy, most likely. How sad.

The street was in its nightly lull. It looked a little sad itself. It was built for people. It needs people, just like us. Sure, they'd come. Later. In their droves. Young girls painting the footpath with vomit. Young boys leaving their own rubber imprint on the road. But for now, it was nearly empty. Just the crazy old woman and me.

'Hey,' said a voice in my ear, loud in the crisp air.

She stood beside me. But not too close. Not close enough to feel her warmth.

'Hi,' I replied, looking down.

'Been waiting long?' she asked.

Another drag. I held the smoke in my chest.

The petals on the flower were beginning to close in. It had had enough. It was time to retreat and be alone for a while, protected from the world. I looked closer at its centre, at the stigma, and wondered in awe at the tiny, delicate appendages. It was only at times like this that I would take any notice of nature. When things are going well, you do. When things are going bad, you think.

I began to blow the smoke out subconsciously. I stopped abruptly, wanting to – no, needing to avoid spraying the flower with toxins. I coughed, spluttering to my side.

I rubbed my watery eyes with an arm and spat on the concrete. She didn't say anything. A time long ago she would have been angry, shocked with such bad manners. A long time before that she would have been too embarrassed to scold me directly, resorting to a little joke. But now she didn't really care.

'Not too long,' I responded, sniffing.

She didn't reply. I'm not sure if she nodded or not. I don't think I would have noticed even if I were watching.

We stood in silence. In our own little worlds. I tried to think back to what it was like when I couldn't stop talking to her. Back then, as soon as we parted, I would see something strange, think of someone silly, hear something funny, and have the urge to tell her right away. After a while I started noting them in my head, adding them to an invisible list which would come out when I saw her next. It worked well, giving us topics to talk about so we weren't sitting in silence. We'd talk deeply about serious topics like paedophilia, the death penalty and multiculturalism. We'd talk less deeply about bad music, horror movies and how we'd definitely, absolutely and without any doubt start our diet tomorrow. We'd sing the theme songs to 80's sitcoms. We'd laugh about anything and everything. That's how our conversations would always end, in laughter.

I frowned. Remembering lost happiness is worse than remembering old sadness. Time heals wounds, but it only makes good memories seem more distant.

'So Chinese tonight?' she asked.

I raised my eyebrows slightly and let my lips give a kind of nod. I don't think she saw it but she knew the answer anyway. She'd already picked it. Well before today. Well before I knew about this day and how it would end.

'Ange...youhoo!' sang the old lady, still shuffling, moving. Her hair looked dry, a tangled mess. 'If you don't come out soon I'll have to spank you.'

For a moment I felt the need to protect, to disarm any fears that might be brewing in the person standing next to me. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. It was strange, unnatural. 'It's just some crazy woman,' I said. 'Don't worry.'

'She's not crazy,' she said evenly.

I browsed the street lazily, blinking slowly.

'There's no one else around,' I said. 'She is talking to no one. The old woman's crazy.'

'That “old woman” is calling out for her son. Don't you know the story?'

She probably didn't say it condescendingly but it seemed that way to my ears. I breathed in deeply, then out again. A moment later: 'What story?'

'Her name's Diana. About twenty-five, thirty years ago she was right here, walking down this street, window shopping. Or maybe it was after she had finished shopping and was going home? I can't remember. Her son was a toddler and didn't want to be strapped into the walker. So she'd let him run around free now and then. This one time she wasn't fully concentrating and when she turned to call him over to leave he was just...gone.'

She paused at this point, perhaps waiting for me to respond, to say how terrible it all was, to ask what happened next. Maybe just to see some kind of emotion.

'Oh,' I said, flatly.

'So she started looking for him,' she continued. 'Most of the shops were already closed so there weren't many places he could be. Then others joined in, calling his name and trying their best to help her out. The whole street was covered with people. But they couldn't find him. The police searched all night. Dad says they did a big thing on TV and in the paper. But nothing ever came of it and they never found him. It's like he just vanished.'

I took another puff. 'So, what, she's still waiting?'

'Yes. Every week at the exact same time she comes here and waits for him. She calls his name. She hands out old photocopies with his picture on it.'

I took a long, deep drag on the cigarette.

'He wouldn't even look the same,' I said, blowing out.

'Maybe not. But she never gives up. Apparently when she first started doing it other people would come along too, help her look. It was like some national tragedy. I guess it made everyone think it could happen to them. If they turned their backs for just a few secs, their own kids could disappear. But then over time less and less people would show up and after a few years everyone just forgot. Or wanted to forget. They began walking on this side of the street to avoid her.'

I looked closer at the old woman. She didn't look distressed. Or manic. Just determined.

'It's sad,' I said.

'No it's not. It's uplifting. I mean, its horrible that she had to lose her son but the fact that she still holds out hope of him coming back to her, that she hasn't given up...imagine that kind of love?'

'Delusional?' I said.

She made her annoyed noise.

'It's easy to give up,' she said. Her voice had changed. It broke with anger. 'It's easy to destroy things, to break them. It's much harder to maintain what you have and improve on it.'

I could tell the topic had changed. But she was wrong. The easy way was to keep going. I knew right then that if I said a few words and put on a fake smile, everything would continue as it had. There was nothing easier in the world. She would convince herself she was mostly happy. I would be...relatively happy. We would avoid all the crying, all the loneliness, all the pain. Instead, the pain would seep out slowly, over time, until we woke up one day and realised we were covered in it. And then what? Wonder about what could have been? Think back sadly over unrealised dreams, our brains filling with a never ending line of what-if's?

No. Change is the hard part. Apathy plays its part. As does fear. Whatever the cause, most of us seem hard-wired to seek routine and to feel its warm embrace. I envy those people who get bored easily and have to move on to another job every year and who change their look every week and who go travelling and skydiving and do other insane things on the weekend. But that's not me. Which is why this is so hard.

'Wanna go in and eat?' Her voice was quiet now. Not calm, more nervous.

I dropped what was left of my cigarette, grinding it with my heel, putting out any last embers.

'Yeah.'

And I followed her into the restaurant one last time.