The Night — A Short Story

For the latter part of my life I have become someone that has been at peace with myself, guided by logic and no stranger to rationality. I was not to be classified as an overthinker. With my ten fingers I would be able to count the rare nights in which my thoughts kept me from sleeping well. But these records were put to shame last night and the countless nights leading up to it. Barely sleeping, drifting in and out of consciousness, nightmares, doubts and the surrealness of it all could no longer be ignored.

In between deep, shallow breaths I whisper to myself, “One more sleepless night, just one more”. As I tuck myself into the bed that shudders synonymously with my heartbeat, I convince myself that I am calm, ready.

***

Daybreak has crept upon me and as I awaken I immediately sense myself to be in a hypnotic trance. I sit enclosed by the deceiving warmth of the blankets which somehow now, leave me suffocated. The pure life of the fire as it crackles and burns is the only thing my eyes are fixated on as I lose the confidence one gains when in control of where it is their mind wanders. Fire, the real perpetuator — charming when controlled, deadly when used with intent. I can’t physically tear my eyes from its livid flames. It feels odd to be numb, to be free of the possession the mind has of the body.

Time pauses as it morphs into one long, unidentifiable blur.

For hours and hours, I sit immobilised and watch intently as the wood burns, waiting, thinking. I’ve never been one to cry and mull, but the months of facades and trying to forget threaten to explode with the knowledge of the reality of tonight. My lungs with a bittersweet sense of finality — give in.

Drowsy from the tears I have not commanded, I fall into an unexpected spiral of desperate, hopeless attempts of possible remedies. Is it truly too late? And am I truly sure this is what needs to be done? The questions I had given every ounce of my mental being into for so long now, ring and persist mercilessly in my mind as if for the first time.

I have not slept, eaten or moved from where I once arose from sleep, but I know this mood must swiftly change if I am to have the strength I need for tonight. “Six o’clock” the striking red numbers stare at me directly, unblinkingly. A strange and sudden impulse of duty strikes me cold and my legs instruct me to stand against my will. In a split moment, I remember my purpose and I am awoken. As my comb almost robotically runs through my hair and as my woollen coat meets my bare skin, I am aware that it is time for the unknown to be exposed.

I take a deep breath — my last? We never really know.

***

It was night, it was damn night.

Dusk had settled, and night had awoken — meaning secrets were lurking. There are many fancy, dressed up words that can bring to life what the setting of the sun calls upon. But today with conviction, I describe it as the time of day when the darkness is no longer hidden. There are certain things that only come out with the moon, like the glimmer of the stars, the flashing lamps on the streets or the secrets I hide.

The soft streaks of the orange and pink of the horizon slowly transform into a navy as the two women drive against the curtained sky. The ferocious wind from the car travelling at 100km per hour stings the growing ache of the painful anticipation in my soul.

It had been 31 years, 31 long and imperfectly perfect years together as we created memories under the harsh Australian sun and dry shrubs that were home to us. As our faces grew older, our days became shorter and we loved, learnt and grew. We were so differently the same back then. We were raised in the outback, away from the urban lights and city bicker; Papa was a strong believer of struggle, experience and “a fight to be the best of teachers’’. He had single handedly raised two wild girls into women and in its process — formed an unexplainable bond between the two.

The figure who had seemed to be in silent contemplation like me, speaks for the first time and breaks the silence. She slants her head, signalling to her right. I notice we are crossing the familiar plains of our old home.

“Remember the time you wanted to prove everyone wrong and spent the entire day under that tree”, she laughs and it is pure and real.

“Well I did, didn’t I?”, I instinctively reply with a controlled smirk. I almost forgot about this memory, it was a gem from a time so ancient — it wasn’t the incident I was expecting her to recall.

“Debatable”, she responds with those glimmering eyes of hers.

Although I was different to Papa and my sister, we were taught to love each other fiercely. I didn’t get their blood — no matter how I tried, I was never bold nor viewed the world with the emotion they did. From the days Mama was alive and well — she was logical, careful and stubborn. I, while growing up, much to my dismay was always more like her.

One day I decided I would prove to my household of my capabilities. The entirety of the day; in the cold of the night and the silence of the crisp morning I stood outside, under our eucalyptus tree. 7 year old me was terrified of being alone but 7 year old me was also determined to hide it. In retrospect I’m not sure what I gained from such an endeavour but at the time it was a sweetness of great accomplishment.

No more hiding.

My sister’s face gleams as she once again breaks my reminiscing stream of thoughts. “Look around you!”, she exclaims. She was always excited to share the beauty of the world with the people around her. If she appreciated something, she was sure to have the person beside her, behind her and in front of her to do the same. It was a quality that set her apart from the crowd, a part of her I would have forever admired if it hadn’t led to her demise.

As the tip of my head bends left towards the magnificent scene that has unfolded — I quietly observe the endless plains of perfect, untouched nothingness. But as my eyes scan the breathtaking landscape, there is that one thing that seems to somehow always tug uncontrollably and triumph victory over my vision. Too sentimental for my own good, I disliked succumbing to the beauty of the stars that have always been symbols of safety and comfort to me. And so as I place my head out of the window to the world of the Before, I simply cannot help but direct my eyes upwards in wonder to the eternally far symbols of hope that call upon me.

“Yeah, it’s unreal”, I reply with my eyes glued to the stars. I can’t look at her.

The vicious wind is now almost bittersweet as it painfully pricks at my face like an uninvited visitor reminding me of our blissful childhood together. Now the burning stars stand as an unmoving representation of an unforgettable, painful past, they confuse me. They are like blinding lights that morph my vision. Their stubborn glimmers are intrusive stains on my mind as they relentlessly toss me back to the days of the Before. Without a grain of mercy, it evokes a flood of nostalgia within me as I am transported back to the nights where Papa and his two little girls would gaze into the moonlight as they laughed, fought and cried in the open fields of their backyard. For me the stars represented life Before the incident, life when I knew how to love.

Silently, I repurpose my attention to the figure that drives beside me and wonder if she too is thinking it, feeling it, aching for it.

“They’re majestic, aren’t they?”, she asks in a low voice embodying the reciprocation that I won’t admit that I am longing for. I already know she speaks of the stars. Yes, she too is definitely feeling it.

“Over here, the stars are as they always have been. Away from the vices of air pollution, they are enduring…. they are bright, watchful and I won’t even try to describe their beauty. I simply can’t do them justice.”

Damn it. Why does she have to speak? Why such articulation? Her words, her actions were always able to leave those who witnessed them in awe. It always let her get away with anything. She loved the glory that her silver tongue and her heroics brought. Not this time.

I do not answer her and we are left with an extended unbroken silence.

As we pass the red sands that once met our youthful bare feet and as we cross the old fields we once rested in — I try to gather the strength to not allow my uncalled thoughts to linger. But they were really the days. Oh what I would have done to be that carefree child once more — unaware, content, loved and able to love in return. I didn’t want to think about Papa, I missed him too deeply, loved him too much. Now he was gone, and like Mama, earlier before his time.

“I don’t like when you get quiet”, as her eyes transfer for a second off the roads ahead, to the eyes of the beating piece of flesh beside her, I am snapped out of my trance.

Instead that look has taken me into another.

Oh, the internal strife — I knew a part of me would never forgive myself for what was about to unfold. And another part that would never forgive myself if it didn’t. I simply wanted us to end as badly as I didn’t. But I refused to reason with myself once more. I would no longer be in a constant battle between justifications, guilt and destruction. My mind was set. It had to be. This was a result of her own actions and so I would not allow a single thing in the world to change my mind anymore.

I note the horizon has slowly begun to transform from the red sands of the once familiar landscape to the roads I wish I didn’t have to trespass upon. The slightest tremble of my fingers, the stiff posture of my neck as it gazed forward at the rain droplets collecting on the windshield. The dark of my pupils dilating off into another dimension as it so often would when I was lost in thought — I wondered if she would notice. Of course she would, I quickly scold myself — this was your older sister you were talking about.

She cocks her head for a moment and looks at me again with those brown eyes of hers — they dance with a song of potential and loss. Those eyes were never empty — curiosity, excitement, indiscipline, desire, darkness. I almost pitied those never-empty, beautiful, trusting naive eyes of hers now. But why? The only innocence within them is that they came from sweet, old, deceased Papa.

“Smile, won’t you. Why have you turned all glum on me?”

I can’t help but notice the way the words do not flow off her tongue with the simple ease they once did. I can’t ignore the thick tension in the car that holds the air in my chest captive.

“You have a funny look in your eyes”, she says with a light chuckle.

I want to laugh with her. I would have laughed with her. Should I laugh with her?

I don’t.

Instead, I look towards her, my eyes now shining with an emotion I no longer know if I can translate. Suddenly the distance between us is more than vast, it is enormous. We are like two stars. Million and millions of light years apart, but to the naked eye it would seem as if they were fingers close. We sit side by side in this car heading back home to Sydney as we have done a million times before. But this time it is different. I have finally let go of her passionate soul, and allowed us to become galaxies apart. I wonder if she can hear the thud of my heartbeat as it drums wild against my chest, I wonder if she can feel that time around us is holding its breath.

“I can’t do this anymore”, I manage to escape in a much too undignified tone.

Silence.

“What happened to you? I don’t know who you are anymore, I just can’t understand you.” There is an unexpected depth to my voice, cloaking any weakness — the confusion and hurt I feel enveloped with.

I hate seeing her like this, I hate that we had to get here — to become this. I hate, hate, hate. I know she will fight; I know she will cry; I know she will always wonder what she had done wrong. And that is what hurts the most right now — my mind was already set from the moment I decided I would spend one last day with her, and no tears, no bond in the world could change it. Even if it was this bond, this special person.

“Look I can’t justify my actions but I can explain them, it’s just that-“

Before she can continue, I cut her off. I don’t remember with what. There are no valid justifications.

“Why do you not trust me?” She finally speaks and it is not a rhetorical statement nor said out of rash emotion, but a genuine question.

“You and I both know that trust is not enough to bind blood”. It is barely a whisper, barely a phrase that even makes sense to the life I thought I would have. It is a choked plea that has begged to escape for many, many days now. This conversation, on repeat in my mind for so long, I can’t completely be sure that I have truly uttered it in this moment.

But I know she has heard me as the silver line of wetness on her face is an image that cannot be missed.

“I’m sorry, I am, I really am”, she offers. It is genuine and it seems enough. I want to forget it all and hold her fragile soul in my arms. But why did she do it? Why did she continue to do it? Why didn’t she just get help before it was too late? Maybe she was scared, maybe it was an addiction she had to feed? But why?

The sudden flash of emotions synonymous with my sister’s raw hurt is overwhelming. I did not calculate this in the equation, nor did I prepare my heart for it. I was not trained for this, but must I falter now? Those sad eyes so familiar, they are almost mine, the slight quiver of her lip identical to my own nervous quiver, the features on her face — conflicted now, a painstakingly mirror to my own. Damn genetics, damn history. In this moment in time, this foreign moment of unexpected vulnerability, I have memorised each line and curve on her face — I know it will forever be a haunting strain on my conscience. As a fine strand of raven hair falls upon her beyond beautiful, ironically delicate face — I am at war. A sudden and compelling urge to tuck the fallen piece back into place and carry on as if it had never fallen, negates all rationality.

No. Halt. Control.

I stop myself and am met with more dreadful silence.

Almost as quickly as it came, this void is replaced by the growing anxiety in my every bone as the long drive ever so slowly comes to an end. My mind is screaming. I sit completely still, gutsnatched, my stomach twisting and turning as if about to burst. The blood is pounding in my ears, it is getting harder and harder to breathe.

After an eternity of time, our car pulls up in her driveway and mere split seconds after the engine has turned off, I have stepped out. Only moments later, I know she has seen it. It’s all real now.

With the arrival of our car, the flashes of red and blue surround us with the planned but sudden presence of a dozen more vehicles. Contrasted against the dark of the night — it is the only thing which bombards my vision, disfigures it. The clarity of the stars have been blocked by the flashing lights now. I do not dwell on it though, because an unexplainable flood of relief has washed over me. The night has served its purpose, the truth is out. But relief is not enough to silence every other emotion that leaves me uncontrollably shuddering. As the clinging of metal is forced upon her and as her screams break the silence of the night around us — I do not look. As the sirens become fainter and fainter, I do not look.

Sisters, friends, best friends, arsonist, strangers. My trembling does not cease.

As I bend my neck upwards towards the night sky — the stars are tiny specks of glimmers, barely visible. “I’m sorry too”, I whisper into the night.