Careers

All the hands had shot up in the air, each face lit up with eagerness, backs stretched and bottoms lifted off the seats, as if not being picked to answer would cause them to lose their flimsy purchase.  Helen was quite pleased, she had become all too used to an awkward shuffle, an audible inhalation, or a pensive murmur whenever she usually asked a group of children what they want to be when they grow up.
    Carefully, with exagerrated precision, she pointed to one boy whose name was Jamal.
    "I want to be famous," Jamal beamed.
    "Ok," Helen nodded, he must have misunderstood the question a bit.  She picked another child, a girl called Susan.
    "Me too, I want to be famous as well."
    Quickly glancing around the circle, and at the slackening in those raised limbs, she began to suspect that every child was planning on saying that.  Just to make sure she picked another.
    "I also want to be famous," Magda bashfully smiled.
    Helen lowered her clipboard, usually she would have written each child's respective choice in the box next to their name, but today they all remained blank.
    "Does everyone here want to be famous?"
    "Yes miss," a boy called Ben said, "who doesn't want to be famous?"
    Helen sighed, clicked her tongue, "It's not really a career though.  That's what today is about, finding out what career you'd most like to pursue."
    "What career did you pursue, miss?" Susan asked, well-meaning but ultimately infuriating.
    Helen, you see, had wanted to be famous too.  When she was eleven she'd even been in a few adverts after a friend of her parents, who worked as a casting director, 'spotted' her at a birthday party.  Helen had gone to drama clubs after school and at the weekends, been the lead in a number of school plays, taken singing classes twice a week, and auditioned for a great number of stage schools.  But the auditions were unsuccessful, she found herself doing a theatre course at a mixed discipline University instead, though she never really wanted to be a stage performer.  Sure, she managed to wrangle her way into a few student short films, but the scripts were clunky and whatever efforts she made to raise their level just seemed futile at best.  Ultimately she grew bored, her course offered nothing of any real interest, and besides she'd made some good friends and started seeing this guy called Luke, and she thought there could be a future there.  They'd talked about moving in together after University, somewhere just outside of London to suit both their needs, because despite her apathy the only career path she really knew to pursue was her desire to be a television actress.
    So, when Uni was over, and after a couple of Summer months spent at their respective family homes, they moved to a small flat in Walthamstow, where she would commute into the city to try and attend whatever auditions she could scavenge and he would drive into Essex to intern at a nature reserve.  But Helen didn't really care for any of the roles she went for, she restricted herself to only film work - be it shorts, adverts, television, low-budget features, etc. - and each part seemed to offer nothing, no progression, no light at the end of the tunnel, and she was conscious of unintentionally building a resume littered with bad credits.  She would look at the filmographies of actors she admired and see the intelligent progression of their career, compare her age to theirs and worry that it was already too late.
    This began to impact her confidence, she knew she'd need to get a job to tide her over whilst she waited for the good parts to come her way, but she wasn't so keen on doing something ultimately unfulfilling like waiting tables or tending bar - it's not that she felt like she was above these jobs, having done both whilst at Uni - so she got an administrative role working in an online shop.  She made some good friends there, friends who really helped her when Luke ended their relationship after four years together, she moved into a house share in the city and then one of her housemates, who worked for a recruitment agency, told her about a vacancy within the company.  A little tired of the online shop's somewhat repetitive nature, and looking to work face-to-face with people, she applied and got the role that would eventually lead to her going out to schools to meet children to help advise them on pursuing the right career for them.
    "What do your parents do for a job?" she asked the children, leaning forwards and gesturing enthusiastically, trying to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.
    "My mum's an accountant, and my Dad mends electrics." Jamal responded quickly and proudly.  After a pause he, unprompted, added, "But my mum's mum was a baker and her dad was a taxi driver, and my dad's mum was a nurse and my dad's dad made furniture."
    "Very good," Helen was rather impressed, she couldn't really recall what her own father did, something in an office somewhere.  "That's impressive that you know all that."
    "But miss," Jamal innocently began, "doesn't that prove that what your parents do won't matter to what you do?"
    She was somewhat stumped, but then her point hadn't really been to give the children a sense of heredity through employment.  However, it had made her think about the cautious intake of breath that her mother had taken when she told her that she was moving near to London with Luke to pursue acting.
    "Are you sure that's a good idea?" her mother had said.
    Helen had rattled off their joint plans in defense, but also in defference, hoping to convince her mother - through her passion for the notion - that they were really going to try, that this would be the best for both of them, her and Luke.  However, ultimately it had proved to be their undoing, they found themselves two ships merely moored at the same port and with each day the different worlds they sailed into became their real homes, the city for her and the wilds for him.  But Helen couldn't help but think that her mother's sharp intake of breath had been the light to the touchpaper, sewing a seed of the doubt that would push distance between them both, like a tree busting through concrete.  But she never could have comprised, that's what she reiterated to herself there, right there in that classroom, she couldn't have turned her back on her acting and stayed out in the countryside for him.  Then she looked at herself, as much as anyone can, and remembered that she was not an actor, that she had not been to an audition in six years, that at first she had placed that dream on the backburner expecting to come back to it, but as time had wore on the notion had gathered dust, like so many things, and ultimately become like tinnitus, forever there, unchanging, and over time subsumed.
    Having been on that drama course she did know people who had continued to work away at it, hoping to become an actor, and she'd seen them rewarded with varying degress of success, and she'd felt bitter about it, sneered and wrinkled her nose when she'd seen the name of one of her contemporaries in the credits of some tv show, willing them to fail, sometimes masochistically watching the show and hoping that their performance would be so monumentally awful as to restore her faith in her own abilities, even though they lay dormant and unused.  If she could not be an actor then no-one, nobody but the pre-established celebrities she had no chance of knowing, could be.  It felt ok for the famous people she didn't know to be famous, because it was almost as if they were born that way, molded and designed for fame, they weren't one of us, they were Olympian Gods carved from stone, birthed into greatness.  She knew that she was formed from humbler stuff, so it didn't seem unfair that they had it all and she had nothing.
    That's what the reality shows changed though, they began to give people the impression that fame was a raffle prize, that celebrity was inside us all, and if we were there, if were lucky, it would be unleashed and once it had been discovered our trajectory would be unstoppable.
    But that was a world alien to Helen.
    These children though, they lived every day expecting some mysitcal talent scout to walk anonymously into their school, point their finger and hoist them - like a cuddly toy in an arcade machine - out of their squalor into a dazzling, glittering world of wonderment.  They could wave goodbye to their friends from the window of the limousine, perhaps come back to parade their newfound celebrity in their faces, bask in the fawning adoration, especially of those who once doubted them, laughed at them, pushed them over in the playground.
    Helen decided to grab a coffee from the staff room at the school, she stood listlessly stirring her sugar into the ill brown liquid, her mind wandering.  A teacher approached her, Ms. Cotton, recognising Helen from a previous visit.
    "How were they today?"
    "Hmm?" Helen responded, a little startled.
    "How were the children in the group, they've had a strange time recently."
    "Strange, why?"
    "Oh, did nobody tell you," Ms. Cotton edged the kitchen door closed a little, "one of their classmates died a few weeks ago."
    "Oh God, that's awful."
    "I don't know if you'd remember him, Billy Hudson."
    "Yes," Helen lied, she could barely remember any of the children she'd just been talking to.
    "Well, it's such a terrible thing, he took his own life."
    Helen froze, she was genuinely taken aback, "What?"
    "Oh, he was depressed, he was part of the school drama club and this casting director came in, looking for boys for this new film or something, well, Billy had a casting, but he didn't get the part." Ms. Cotton poured herself a tea.
    "And he killed himself?"
    "Yes," she said, adding the milk, "hanged himself with a scarf from his bunk-bed."
    "Because of the...?  Were things ok at home?"
    "Yes, as far as anyone knows, I mean, a lovely boy, wonderful student, really tragic."
    Helen finished her coffee, she talked with Ms. Cotton about other things going on in the school, about their plans for the summer, inconsequential things.
    Later that evening Helen sat on the sofa in her flat, a beer in hand, a dinner plate with the remnants of a Chinese takeaway by her side, and a talent search show on the television.
    She watched the hopeful file past the judges, each one giddy with the possibility of escape from whatever life lay on the other side of those doors, and she laughed unintentionally at those clearly lacking in talent yet full of delusion, she welled up at the awkward people who expressed unexpected abilities, or scoffed at the good-looking excitable groups who coasted through on - what the judges called - 'star quality'.
    But more than that, she wondered what any of them could hope to gain from it all, what did they want?  One young boy was crying in the hallway, having just failed his audition, the presenter put a comforting arm around him and thrust the microphone to better capture his sobs, and the boy wailed; "I just want to be famous."  Not earning any sympathy from Helen, but that's all any of them wanted really, they all just want to be famous, and all Helen wants is to feel better than them, that no matter what fame the successful ones may find she can feel, in the pit of her stomach, that it is a fleeting fame, a transient glory limply afforded to the naive by a triumvirate already caluclating how best to package, market and - ultimately - discard the performer singing, dancing, trying before them.
    When she was little, and the teacher had asked everyone to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up Helen had struggled.  In the end, on that day in primary school, before the casting director had unearthed her, she had chewed the end of her pen, lost in thought, trying to sneak a peek at the drawings the other children were busy scribbling.  Eventually, in an effort to try and relieve her creative block, Helen had just drawn a picture of herself as she was right there and then, no uniform or scenery, nothing to indicate any sort of designation, and then when the teacher had come around and asked her what job she had given herself, Helen had shrugged and said she didn't know.
    Ms. Cotton, earlier that day, had off-handedly referred to a five year plan, she hoped to become the head of the Science department, she had some ideas for changes she hoped to put forward when she achieved this goal, and she'd asked Helen what her plans were.  Helen had shrugged, tried to visualise herself in the future, but, like that primary school precursor, all she could picture was her as she was in that moment, nothing new.
    Fame, she thought, for those eager children, was merely a way of staying in that moment, that lazy moment, but being removed from the responsibilities of a world that refused to acknowledge.  A way to be given a gift of apathy, you don't need to try, you don't need to worry, you're famous, you don't have any problems.  To not be famous was to be burdened with everything, all the impossible misery of the world, and if that was the only alternative then that is why Billy Hudson had strung his scarf around his neck and hanged himself.  For all the good Helen felt she contributed to this world she might as well do the same.
    She took another slug of her beer and turned off the television, finding her reflection replacing the reality show, and she sat there and watched it until she fell asleep.

Still Life

On my birthday they take me outside, they lift me from the bed, carry me downstairs, put me in the chair and wheel me into the garden, where I sit and watch the birds at the feeder.
    It was my twelfth birthday last week, it felt like both a day and a lifetime since the last, and I wasn't expecting much. But mummy and daddy brought presents into my room and later that evening I had a cake and they brought in a television for me to watch a film. It was a film about toys who come to life and get lost and want to go home again. I was glad when they got back home at the end because I knew they would be safe.
    In my bed I listen to music sometimes, I draw on my pads, I always draw birds and trees and the sky, sometimes I will draw a picture of me and mummy and daddy all standing outside, but then it makes me sad and I throw it into the bin.
    Mummy and daddy take it in turns to teach me each day, and then we all say prayers on Sundays.  Sometimes I forget what day of the week it is, but the prayers always remind me and I can start to remember again.
    My favourite stories from the Bible are the ones where Jesus heals the sick, because I know that when I die and go to Heaven he will heal me and I can walk up there.  I wonder what Heaven will be like for me?  Daddy says it is where your dreams all come true, but I don't really dream.  All I know is this room, the hallways, the garden and the films they show me.  I sometimes feel sad that I am poorly, because I make life so hard for my mummy and daddy, but they are so happy and kind and they never make me feel bad.
    I remember when I was little and I would ask my mummy about the other children, sometimes I could hear them through the window, they would be laughing and shouting and on the sunny days they would be playing sports and games.  She would tell me that I shouldn't be envious of them, that there is more to life than playtimes and kicking footballs or hopskotch and skipping.  She would always read me the story of Job and tell me that I should be grateful no matter what lot I had received in life.
    Once I asked why I could not walk, and they told me that all children are born differently, some more able than others, but that does not mean that the Lord loves you more or less, but that he has chosen a different path for you.  I asked them what my path was, and they told me that it was something that I alone could figure out.
    They also told me about the doctors when I was little, that my condition was so fragile and precarious, that they were worried that I might die as a baby and I had to be kept in various braces and contraptions, that if I moved a muscle it could have caused various complications that would have killed me instantly, or worse, slowly.  Though I was better now than I was then, they did warn me that I should always be extra careful, that too much effort on my part could be fatal.  I asked if there was any cure for my condition, they told me that doctors were always working to find out how to help children like me.
    I hadn't seen any doctors since I was too young to remember, but my parents told me that they spoke to them regularly and updated them on my condition. They let me know that the doctors would tell us as soon as they had some tests they would like to try, but, as they had explained, medical science can take many years to progress.  I had special tablets that I had to take to help numb the pain, I had to take them three times a day, once in the morning, once after lunch and once before I went to sleep.

It is my thirteenth birthday and I have a cold, my mummy was surprised, she said she thinks daddy must have brought it into the house.  I don't often get sick, which mummy says is an advantage of being away from other children, and she tells me such funny stories about how disgusting they are, all snotty and splotchy with little bugs called nits crawling in their hair.  It made me very glad not to have any of those ailments!
    But today I wasn't feeling very well at all, and I kept sneezing.  Mummy put her hand on my brow and told me I had a temperature, she said that maybe I should stay inside today, but I begged her, I pleaded, and said that maybe the fresh air would do me good.  Mummy could see how much I wanted to sit in the garden and watch the birds, she smiled and said it would be okay, but not for too long just to be on the safe side.
    I grinned and mummy gave me my tablets and some milk before going downstairs to get the chair ready.
    I took my tablets, but had a terrible sneeze just as I did and they flew across the room and landed behind a cabinet.  Suddenly I was overcome with worry, I had never not taken my tablets before, and I was concerned that the pain would come to me quite suddenly.  I wished that I could get out of bed and find where they had fallen.
    The door opened and daddy walked in, I wanted to tell him about the tablets, but for some reason I was embarassed and scared about what he might say, he might think I had disobeyed mummy and him on purpose, they had told me about rebellious teenagers.  I was worried that if I told him, and if he thought that, then they might not let me outside.  Besides, he was smiling and singing me a little birthday song, so I just smiled back.
    Daddy carried me out of bed, into the hallway, down the stairs and put me into the chair.  He wheeled me out the back door and into the garden, stopping the chair in the usual place on the patio so I could see the bird feeder clearly.  He ruffled his hand in my hair and gave me a kiss on the cheek and wished me happy birthday again, then, as my mother was calling him, he went back inside.
    It was a little chilly, so I rubbed my arms to try and fight the cold.
    Maybe the birds were cold too, because there weren't any at the feeder like there usually were on my birthday.  I sighed and my breath came out in a cloud, which I had never seen before, I tried to do it again, but it didn't happen.
    Then a most peculiar thing occured, a bird came hopping out from a bush, as if it had been hiding, waiting for me.  I cooed to it, trying to make the best bird sound I could, but I didn't want to frighten it, so I was ever so quiet.  The bird did seem to notice, but it only twitched its head in my direction.  There seemed to be something wrong with it, and I saw that it was standing on one little foot, the other was raised up and bent backwards, like it had been sprained or broken.  Poor little bird, I thought to myself.
    At the back of the garden I saw a visitor that I had not seen before, a cat, it was big and grey with a white beard and mittens, and it walked low to the ground, moving along the fence with both its amber eyes staring hungrily at the little bird. I knew what the cat was thinking.
    I waved my hand and shouted for the bird to shoo, but the bird's curiosity only seemed to be raised by my gestures and sounds, and the cat was still stealthily slinking closer and closer.  Everything I tried only appeared to fascinate the little bird with its soft red tummy, and I would point and tell it that there was a cat, but it would just skip closer to me, twitching its tiny head and looking at me with curious eyes.
    With vicious intent the cat, now so very close, snuggled down against the ground, stretching itself out in readiness, a determined expression on its face.
    "No!" I cried and flung my arms with all the energy I had, and it was far more strength that I had anticipated, so much so that I managed to propel myself forwards and my chair pushed itself backwards.
    Down I fell, crashing hard onto the ground, my top half landing relatively softly on the grass, but my bottom half scraped nastily on the cold patio, it was rugged and angry against my skin and a sudden, searing pain rushed from the tip of my toes to the top of my head.  I did not wail, I was fixated on the bird, which had not flown away, but the cat had been so surprised by sudden collapse that it dashed out of the garden as if it were the one responsible.
    The dear little bird looked at me, a tumbled fool draped inelegantly on the ground.  I could feel an electric dampness around my shins, and I knew it must be blood.  I was so scared that I might die that I could not scream out for mummy and daddy, who would usually leave me alone in the garden for an hour or so when it was my birthday.  I remembered that mummy said they would come back sooner because of my flu, but I did not know how long she had meant, and I did not know how long I had already been outside.
    Lying on the ground, looking at the bird, it felt like forever, and I did not know what I could do, and I felt the wet of the blood make a pool and then rivers that tickled my knees.  I stared at the bird who stared at me and wished for an answer and the bird flew away.
    Alone on the ground I remembered the strength that had thrown my from my chair, the power of my arms, and I bit my lip, afraid of the pain, and braced my arms, pushing with all my might and managing to turn myself from my front to my back.
    I looked at my legs, expecting to see a grotesque and mangled mess, but there was barely a smudge of blood where I had imagined gushing rivers of frightening red.  I told myself off for such silliness, it was all in my head.  I moved my knee closer so that I could see.
    A tingle that began between my shoulder blades and danced up and around my neck caused me to stop.  I felt as if I had suddenly left my own body and was floating above it, looking down on me sat on the grass, with my cut knee cradled and supported by my left hand, and even floating there looking at it from afar I still could not quite comprehend what I was seeing.
    I stretched my left leg back out, back to where it had been previously, as if I was trying to undo what I had just done, but the very fact that I could do this was just as surprising.  I looked at the other leg, brought my right knee up, the same thing but mirrored.  With a new found sense of confidence I moved each leg in turn, and then brought them both up towards me together. Nervously I placed my hands behind me and carefully pushed on the floor.
    As I arched my body up off of the ground I could feel a numb weight, my legs, unused struggled and battled with the great surge of effort I was putting into them.  But I persisted, bringing myself up as high as I could before reaching out and pulling my chair back towards me.
    I climbed, my arms shaking with the strain, their juddering had a terrifying urgency as if they might explode if I pushed them too hard.  But I did it.  I hoisted myself up and flopped, a little inelegantly, into my chair.  I brushed my hair as neatly as I could, I rubbed at my grazed knees and pulled my nightie down far enough to cover the redness.
    There was a part of me that wanted to call out and tell my parents what wonderful thing had just happened, but, again, I was frightened as to how they would react.  I wanted to keep this to myself, a little secret until I could be sure it wasn't just chance.

Over the next few days I managed to only pretend to take my medicene.  My mummy and daddy were so used to the routine that they did not pay much attention to make certain that I was swallowing the pills, and I stuffed them under the pillows when their backs were turned.
    When I was left alone, which was often, I would practice moving my legs, I would raise them as far off of the bed as I could - which was not very far at all - and try to hold them off of the mattress for as long as I could stand.  Each one in turn, over and over, for every available moment of the day.
    But I was eager, greedy for progress, and knew I would not be satisfied until I had stood on my own two feet without holding onto anything.  However, I was worried, that I might fail, I might collapse on the floor, and my parents would hear the thump and come running to find me in a heap and scold me, warn me of the dangers of exerting myself.
    It had been three days since I began my exercises, I was confident and determined.  As soon as my mother had given me my morning pulls and left the room I whipped the sheets away and stared, fixedly, at my limbs.  I didn't say anything, but I felt like I was preparing them, giving them a little speech to raise their spirits.  Inside I was willing all my strength, all my energy, down from each extremity so that it would fill upside my legs like hot soup and give them the power, give them the tenacity to not let me down.
    Pivoting on my bottom I swung my legs so they dropped over the bedside and hung, loosely, down over the floor, a small drop between the carpet and the soles of my feet.  Keeping my hands gripping the bedspread, just in case, I edged a little further forwards, worried that once I pushed myself off that I might fall forever.
    Cautiously I leant ahead, getting a good look at my landing, my target, and I moistened my lips with had grown dry with nerves.
    And I pushed, and I slid down, the mattress rubbing the base of my spine as if it did not want to let me go, just as I refused to let go of it, and my feet placed themselves quietly, modestly, on the floor and my legs began to bend, I began to drop, but then I started to rise again, whispers of strength hurrying, as if they were late, up my muscles, and coming to life for the first time, being born again, and standing, and pushing me up, and standing, and my fingers opening, letting go of the bedspread, and rising out at either side, coming up so far that they were at shoulder height, stretched out either side to give me balance, like wings, and I was standing.
    I did not want to over do it, but I did not want to waste this moment, I stepped, slowly, made my way around the outside of the bed frame, so that I would always have something to grab if I fell.  I made it all the way around to the other side of the bed and I looked back at my path, at what I had accomplished.
    I decided to walk to the door, to see if I could make it without a crutch in arm's reach.  Each foot fall landed with a moment of doubt, I would check that it was placed solidly on the floor before moving the other, cautious that at any moment I would wake from this dream and find myself still lying in bed.
    I reached the door and placed my left hand on it for support.  My other hand, from some unknown instinct, had reached for the handle, but it just hovered over it, whilst I stared down at it, as if we asking one another of our intentions, waiting for the other to give the nod, to encourage the action that we both, so eagerly, so unashamedly wanted to do.
    What would be the point, I thought, of going back to my bed, of lying there like I have done for thirteen years?  Maybe this will all be taken away from me again, maybe this is a dream, but I should not turn back just because it might be dangerous, I should keep going until I can go no further.
    The handle turned, there was a quiet click as the door moved, and I stepped against the wall to pull it open and slide, eyes wide, out onto the landing.
    Things looked different, I had always been carried, now my view was the right way up which made everything most strange.  I took quick steps and put a hand out onto the bannister, giving myself a little support as I shuffled towards the top of the stairs.
    Standing there, one hand on the bannister still, I felt like a great change was happening, that this was truly a miracle, that I had been blessed, my good spirit was being rewarded and now my life could begin.  I could spare my parents burdens, they would not have to nurse me any longer, they would be so happy, we all would, and things will change for the better with every passing day.
    "Sophie?" came my mother's voice from a doorway behind me.  I did not know what room she had been in, having never seen any but my own.  "What are you doing?"
    "It's a miracle mummy!" I beamed.
    "You know that you could fall, you could fall down the stairs and die, that your condition could flare up at any moment, you could die Sophie, you could die!" her voice was rising with panic, but she did not move from the doorway.
    "I can walk mummy, I can stand.  Look!"
    I took my hand away from the bannister and showed her, I stood there before her, unassisted and her expression did not change.
    "Did Jesus heal me?  It's a miracle, isn't it mummy?"
    My mother called out, her voice directed past me, "Frank!"
    My daddy came hurrying to the bottom of the stairs and called up, "What is it?"
    "Come up here, Frank."
    My daddy walked up the lower stair case to the corner and stopped on the spot when he saw me stood at the top.
    "Be careful Sophie." he warned me, holding out his hands in front of him.
    "I'm fine Daddy, I can stand, I can walk."
    "We need to get you back into your bed Sophie, too much excitement, it could be deadly, you don't want to be in pain, do you?"
    "I'm not in pain, mummy, daddy, it's the greatest thing that has happened."
    My father moved forward, started to climb the stairs towards me, keeping his hands in front, like I was a wild beast and he thought I might strike.  I looked back to my mother, she was still standing in the doorway of that unknown room, it was dark behind her.
    As my daddy approached me I could not understand why they were not happy, why they hadn't run towards me with huge smiles and we had all wrapped our arms around one another and been so full of joy that we cried magnificent tears.  His face, the face stepping cautiously closer, was one of concern.  I knew he would put his hands on me and hold me still, that he would pick me up, like he does every birthday, and he would carry me back to my bed, that he would make me lie there, and now they would watch me take my medicenes, they would maybe even lock the door, they would not trust me any longer, and I did not understand.
    I thought we would all be happy, that they would praise the Lord and we would say how much we loved one another, and how much we loved the Lord God and Jesus, and thank them for the miracle, thank them for the gift they had given, the second chance.  I did not want to go back to bed, I did not want to be alone in my room, I knew there was a world out there and I could reach it, that I could fly away like the little curious bird and discover everything there was to know.
    My hands reached down to the bannister, I looked back at my mother and then turned again so that my eyes met my father's.  I did not want him to catch me.  I found all my strength again, I lifted myself up off of the ground, I swung my legs over, and, as I had done earlier, I fell and I felt like I fell forever.