Re-Emergence

She looks out her window; the same window that's always been there. Out, over the grass, towards the same low wall, and the same narrow street, where the same hanging branches graze the same cracked pavements. The same weeds grow in the cracks; and the same spiky red petals collect in the gutters, unknown from which garden they've blown in. It's the same window as it's been every day. But today she notices the sky – how pink it is against the horizon, how the crooked landscape of roofs and chimneys looks like lace against the skyline; how sepia and ebony it's edges seem when contrasted against that pink.

And she notices two boys kicking a ball around in the park. Maybe ten or eleven. One blonde. One ginger. The blond one reminds her a of her brother at that age. She notices the way they chase the ball down like prey, the way they overtake it before catching it and kicking it back. She notices the old man sitting on a bench, not really watching them but watching a memory: sixty years past, on this same ground, two boys still kicking a ball, over grass now years long dead.

And for no particular reason she finds herself reaching for her coat, wrapping a scarf around her, and venturing out into the world.

-------

In the high, tangled branches of a tree, a speckled egg shudders in its nest. A tentative beak pecks at the shell from inside – cramped in these current confines, it senses a new, wide world beyond them.

------

Gina wonders if the world has changed much since she's been away from it. Since she's been hiding from it. But the houses she passes are all familiar – the gardens, their flowers, their trees, the walls and the windows. The familiarity itself is surprising – her memories rebooting as she walks. That tyre-swing: she used to play on that, as a child, when her then best friend had lived in that house.

There's Mrs Cartwright, waving from her porch at the top of her garden. Waving as if its just another day, and there's nothing untoward about Gina's presence on the street, as if there's been no gap, and no disruption to the normal order of things. Gina waves back, but she thinks: there has. The world's ended – more than once - since the last time we waved at each other. My world at least.

She stops in themiddle of the bridge, to lean over and check the stream for ducklings. She can see pink and white blossoms blown into the water, flowing over the rocks and collecting in a pool on the far side.

A voice in her head and a memory: I can't figure out what I saw in you now. I don't know why I'm here.

No, she doesn't need to remember that. Gina tucks her scarf in tighter around her neck. It's probably her imagination, but she thinks she can smell cinnamon on the air. She knows where she wants to go.

-------

There's a beehive, painted lavender, in the corner of a field. The sun comes early, a little bit warmer than it was yesterday. A humming cluster at the centre of the hive notes the change. A mass of ever-flickering wings. On the edges, one or two break away from the huddle, sensing out there the beginnings of plenty.

-------

Tando's Coffees is as she remembers it. The smell of cinnamon can be traced back there.
She remembers the red and cream striped awning as if she'd forgotten it until this moment. She can see Geoff Tando standing there, chatting with a customer. His tattoo seems to come alive when he
flexes his arm.

“Cappucino, please.” She stands just a little bit to the side, strangely uncertain of herself.

“Gina, sweetheart. Have you been on holiday?”

“I – No. Just- not around.”

“Well, it's good to see you again. You'll have a doughnut?”

“I shouldn't.”

“But you will. You will. I know my customers, you see. I know what they like.”

“Yes.” She smiles unwillingly. “All right, thanks. A doughnut.” And she catches that look in his eye: “No, don't make it two. Just one.”

“Just one doughnut, coming right up.”

She drinks the coffee, staring out over the market. There are a few new stalls, and it's busy. People flow around around the bright awnings like a rising and falling tide. A few faces she halfway recognises. And for a minute her heart tenses: what if he's one of them. What if he's out there in the crowd, and he sees her, looks right through her and sees how she's been hollowed out? How he's been the one to do that to her. When she's worked so hard to keep the wreckage decently hidden.

“All right?” Geoff is asking.

“Er, yeah. Yeah. Just thinking about something.”

“Good crowd,” he observes, “ but they're not coming over here. The new girl with the flowers is getting all the attention today. Bit of an attention-getter too, if you know what I mean.”

“By the tree?” She gestures at a purple awning sheltering a bloom of spring colours.

“That's her.”

“Geoff, you wouldn't stand a chance.”

“A man can admire from a distance.”

Over by the fountain there's a clown performing. Why didn't I notice that before? He's wearing the full rainbow, and has a huge, many-patterned hat, almost as tall again as he is. It lurches about on his head as if he can barely keep it on, and the bells attached to it jangle as he moves. There are puppets on each hand – one a cat, one a dog – and they jump out at passing children, making faces, trying to bite the child's ear.

“Him too.” Geoff says. “Been performing all week.”

“They seem to like him.”

“That they do.”

-------

In a cave, against the steep slope of a mountain face, a bear moves a little in his sleep. A thin shaft of sunlight creeps through from the outside, a warm stripe on his fur. There are sounds of insects in the air, the rustling of small creatures in the grass. He scratches his ear without properly waking, yawns, shifts position a little in his sleep. Dreams of fresh berries and green nuts.

------

There are daffodils growing near the theatre. Gina stops to examine them more closely. Or maybe she really is just stalling. Maybe she's not ready. A stranger startles her on his way past – because at first glance the man's coat is the same colour as his was. He's the same height, the same build, dark-haired. But it's not – too angular, a few years older, a different cut to his chin. “How's it going?” The man smiles pleasantly as he walks by.

“Fine....” Fine.... She half mumbles it, half thinks it.

She stands at the base of the steps for another half minute before she can convince herself
to go in.

“Hey, look, it's Gina!” Peter Roper calls as she walks through the door.

She stands there for a few seconds, framed in the light of the doorway, taking them all in. This place where nothing has changed, where the same ruffled curtains hang, the same torn leather seats, the same stage, the same aisles, the same patterned, sparkly ceiling.

“What, who is this stranger we see before us? Is it the East, is Gina the sun?”

“Gina? Could it be, does this stranger have a name?”

“Hey, guys.” She starts walking up to them.

Peter comes out along the aisle to meet her. He's been reading a book and he still has it in his hand, he's still reading a sentence or two even while he approaches. While he does anything, everything. It's all coming back to her.

“How are you?” He asks.

“Good.”

“You know, we heard....”

“About Jason.”

“I'm sorry...”

“Are you kidding?” Ruth Hurlington's voice cuts through the air. “We were all relieved to hear that you finally gave that dickhead his marching orders.”

I... didn't....

“We thought you'd never leave him! Come in, sit down. It hasn't been the same without you.”

Peter leans in close, in a whisper no louder than a breath: “She hasn't changed any.”

“Oh, I know,” Ruth's calling from across the room, “that you're talking about me. You'd better be saying something nice.”

“About you, Ruthie, what else is there to say?”

And when Alec comes out of the storerooms backstage, Ruth calls out to him: “Check it out, we've got Gina back! Let the games begin.”

They're working on painting something – cardboard blocks in bright primary colours, stuck together at a range of odd angles. A clutter of scenery for their next production. Blue tarps and ragged old curtains are lying around, draped over the seats. There are open paint pots and spare brushes. Why not then? Gina finds a seat amongst her friends, she reaches for a paintbrush, picks one out of a series of complex, geometric art forms, and sets about painting one section of it blue.

Peter says “I left those messages...”

“Sorry. I was going to reply...”

“It's all right. I didn't really mean for you to have to answer. Just wanted you to know we hadn't forgotten about you.”

“You either. I just couldn't face things, for a while.”

“It happens. I wanted to crawl into bed forever when Sophie left me. I thought the world had come to a crashing, burning end. But it eases up. I guess you know by now.”

Then Ruth's back on her soapbox: “I never liked that boy. He wasn't right for you.”

“We were happy sometimes....”

“He was happy. No, I never liked the way he treated you. The way he talked to you. Every time we went out and I heard it, I just wanted to smack his smug face for him. He didn't place enough value on you. Not by a long shot.”

“He wasn't....”

“No. Save it. He was that bad. You should have been with a guy who had respect for you.”

For me. Yes, but how do you respect a mouse? I'm not the sort of girl who can wrap a man around her little finger. I don't know the secrets.

Ruth says “You'll be better off without him, you'll see.”

“I guess.”

“Oh, and I know. We can find you a way better guy.”

“Or not,” says Peter, “if she doesn't want to jump back into the dating cesspool right now.”

Or not. She wonders if she'll ever be able to go through all that again? All the creeps, and the sleazes; and then when it's right, when it seems so perfect, the rug torn out from under your feet. No time to find your feet; and that's why you fall, that's why you bruise.

Sarah Cooper explains: “We've got a production on at the end of the month. That's what's with all the paint and canvas and what-not. Do you remember Zac Dollar?”

A name like that....

Her laughter seems to be taken for an answer. “Yes, I know. Yes, I know. What was he thinking? Sounds like a total dick. But anyway, he's written a play, and we're putting it on. The Sunflower at Midnight – that's what it's called.”

“Is it good?”

“It's good. It's a little bit surreal. He gets all arty, disappears up his own bum for a while, but then he gets over it. It is good.”

Ruth gestures widely at the back wall. “We're going to need a backdrop – a field of flowers with a windmill on a hill in the distance. We've got the basic design and we're pulling a Saturday to get the rest done. You're in, right?”

No, I have plans. She stifles her giggle, seeing as she isn't going to say that out loud. “Sure, yes, I'm in.”

-------

A flower, a bud really. Sleeping so long beneath the cushioning layers of old leaves, twigs, petals, earth. Overhead the cool presence of the snow-layer, the raging wind, the ice it carried with it; the wet air; the damp that descended into the ground. But now the first touches of warmth can be felt against its delicate skin; its head moves slowly – too slowly to catch the eye of any flesh and blood
creature – picking its way through its earthbound nest, following a trail of warmed gold, beginning to tentatively stretch its petals.

-------

They eat dinner about an hour before the sun goes down. Fish and chips, sitting out on the street. They talk about the way old Maddy Cawthorne used to bake fish – with cheese and tomatoes and fennel – and the old cake shop that'd been where the bank is now. They talk about politics. About the upcoming show, and if it'll make any money, and if they should have another costume sale fundraiser. They talk about sky, and the hypothetical shepherd it's going to delight.

I could go back to all this, Gina thinks.

She thinks about Jason as well, it's hard not to. He was a part of her life for nearly two
years. And in the beginning, of course, it'd been all good. He was handsome and sophisticated, intelligent, quick-witted, brash, charming – a real force of nature. He could make her feel like a
princess, he could surprise her, he could leave her almost gasping for breath with his grand gestures and wild talk.

But then, he'd also left her feeling grey, dowdy, like the anchor, the dead weight. When he'd laughingly called her the ball-and-chain it stuck with her, burrowing inside. That was what he'd made her feel like – a dirty sack of potatoes beside a bright-feathered, many-coloured bird.

He'd always phrased his put-downs as jokes, but over time they came thicker and faster – he'd talk her down to his friends - while she sat right there - throwing a grin in her direction every now and then, as if that were enough to cushion it.

Late nights. No phone calls. The screaming matches when she tried to talk it out. Worse: the patronising dismissals, as if she was just being silly, needed explaining to slowly if only he had the time and patience.

Dependence. She understood that that was where she'd gone wrong, letting herself become so dependent on him, seeing herself through his eyes, trying to make herself pleasing to those eyes, but never being good enough.

I can't figure out what I saw in you now. I don't know why I'm here. It
should have been her who'd said that to him, she who'd woken up from a dream and realised what a mess she was in. She'd rewritten herself for him, painted over herself in white paint and started again from scratch. It'd only driven him further away.

It just isn't working out for me any more. There's no more spark.

But- But- We love each other.

Not like we did. I can't figure out what I saw in you now. I don't know why I'm here.

What are you saying?

That we're done. This is over. We weren't meant to be.

He'd made it look easy to walk away, to leave the house, jacket over his shoulder, as if they'd just been killing time with each other.

“Don't worry,” Peter says, “there's more to life than Jason Bridgemott. We've missed you at the theatre.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. Just don't be a stranger.”

“I won't. I've learnt my lesson.”

“Hey. The right one is out there. We'll figure it out.”

We will, she thinks, one day at a time. And they'll each be a little bit easier than the last.

-------

In the company of so many brothers and sisters, a snake lies curled in its den, its long body in contact with ten or twenty of its kin. It moves slowly amongst their slightly stirring forms, sensing the same thing they do: a change in the air, a warmth that carries down here, into the dark – a sign that the season is finally turning.

--------

At home she makes a hot chocolate. She sits in her chair, chin on one knee, and scrolls through her facebook messages. There's a lot to catch up with on the newsfeed. An engagement. An impending baby. A childhood memory: Bill Watchley is talking about moving back to town. Gina takes her time, reading through them all.

When she's done, she updates her profile, changing her status from “in a relationship” to “single” and taking a moment to post a couple of pictures: one, a tall-hatted clown; another of Ruthie, with a torn
lemon curtain wrapped around her shoulders, pretending her umbrella is microphone.

--------

Hanging from a tree, a chrysalis twitches on its narrow branch. It's inhabitant moves inside, digging and pulsing its way into the open. There, beneath its former shelter, it hangs in the sun, still wet and still delicate. But it flexes its wings as the sun warms and dries them. Until its ready, until it spreads them – pinks, blues and violets – until it's time to fly.