Black Boxes. Caroline Smailes
your love for me.
Because the thought that you'd ever love me was funny.
That was a funny joke.
~It still makes you laugh!~
[sound: a snort]
[sound: a high-pitched scream]
Yellow.
The rose was once a symbol.
~Once upon a time.~
A rose was once a thing of love and devotion.
Lovers communicate(d) with flowers.
Those flowers carry their own language.
Colours and tone and words.
The language of flowers whispered words of adoration to lovers across time.
[sound: a sigh]
The words that you whisper(ed) to me were in the agglutinative language of Punjabi.
The adoration was stamped on by the subject.
Then the object.
Then the verb.
[sound: stamp stamp stamp foot to floor]
Our words were always yellow.
Shopping.
I was shopping.
My memory is sort of poor.
Backwards forwards, then round and round.
Shopping for me.
From you.
Because I was difficult.
~Remember?~
And everything that I bought for me from you was from Marks and Spencer.
Because you liked fine things.
And they sold fine things.
And the twenty pound coins were almost gone.
The loose coins jingled in my jeans' pocket.
[sound: rattle of coins within a china container]
~I'm setting the scene.~
You were difficult to buy for.
~Yes I know that I was buying for me!~
But you were difficult to buy for, even when buying for me.
Your tastes were so precise.
So straight.
No creases.
No deviation.
Straight.
~Why am I telling you all of this?~
I'm setting the scene.
The scene: ANA shopping.
[sound: a guttural laugh]
Then I think that I wandered into a chemist.
~No I didn't wander.~
I wouldn't have wandered.
I would have rushed.
I would have raced.
I would have been rapid.
I would not have wandered.
[sound: stomping footsteps on carpeted floor]
And I bought a test.
The Test.
The holder of knowledge.
The answerer of questions.
It was in a blue box.
I remember being shocked by the price.
But I can't recall the price.
~I think that it was over five pounds.~
~Maybe even six pounds!~
~Or was it seven?~
Funny how memory plays tricks.
~Not ha ha funny!~
~Obviously.~
Funny as in odd.
Strange.
Difficult.
It always comes back to difficult.
~Ok.~
~Ok!~
~I'll hurry the story along.~
The Test was positive.
I was pregnant.
[silence]
Pregnant.
A momentous moment and/or being with child.
I have adapted the language to suit the context.
Context is everything.
~Is my memory poor?~
It works backwards.
The middle is the beginning is the end.
[sound: a sigh]
I had waited until I got home.
I did the Test in my flat.
I remember it being cold.
But it couldn't have been that cold.
It was nearly April.
I think that
I was shaking. I was shaking.
~Yes I would have been shaking.~
I would expect to be shaking.
In that scene.
In that moment.
I was shaking as I held the Test in my hands.
I was shaking as I fumbled with the plastic packaging that wrapped around the Test.
I remember gripping the seal with my teeth and tugging.
I remember being desperate to pee.
Desperate to know.
[five second silence]
That memory seems right.
That memory seems to fit.
~Do you know that cold flurry of excitement and nervousness?~
Like on Christmas morning when you're a child.
You've hardly slept.
Your body is shaking.
Not cold shaking, just a nervous response.
A nervous energy that has combined with lack of sleep.
The response is a shake.
A quiver.
A bottom lip tremble.
I remember the moment.
I had been waiting.
Counting down.
Eleven Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One.
And then it was there.
The moment that seemed to take forever to arrive.
Well it arrived.
And I was almost too scared to know if he'd actually been.
~Father Christmas of course!~