In Times Of Want

by Marie O'Regan

  “This and that,” she said. “Nothing important.”

  Greg frowned. This vagueness was new, too; she normally detailed everything to the nth degree. “Nothing?”

  She frowned, then. “Nothing I can remember, actually.” The frown deepened as she considered this; as if she was trying to recall specifics. When she looked back up at him, her expression was troubled, her eyes the colour of a stormy sky. “I can’t remember anything.”

  “That’s not like you,” he answered, and saw her eyes gleam for a moment before the mask fell again, and her usual placidity returned.

  “Maybe it is,” she said. “Maybe the real me is a bit more relaxed than the Ava you’ve known up to now.”

  The Ava you’ve known. Greg didn’t like what that implied, and he was fairly sure she knew that, and was amused by it. He leaned forward, eager to press on, see what was at the bottom of all this. “Are you saying I don’t know the real Ava?”

  Again that smile, quickly stifled. “I’m saying that people… change. The face they show the world isn’t always the real one.” She giggled, then, but said no more.

  The session went downhill after that; Greg tried to draw her out, find out where she’d been, what had set off her outburst on her previous visit – but she wouldn’t be pushed.

  As their time together drew to a close Ava stood, and for once leaned directly over Greg, smiling down at him. She was wearing perfume, something heavy and intoxicating. Another first. “Remember what I said, Doc; I don’t like change.”

  “What’s changed, Ava?” he asked.

  She grinned, but Greg thought she looked as if that was the least funny question in the world.

  “Nothing,” she replied, her expression heavy with sorrow. “That’s the problem. I thought…”

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “I thought wrong,” she hissed, and turned away. The door slammed moments later, and Greg belatedly realised she hadn’t bothered with her usual routine before leaving.

  As he approached his home later that evening, Greg reflected on the sudden change in Ava – and the way she’d been when he first saw her. There’d been nothing in her notes to indicate such a change might occur. Thinking about it, there hadn’t been much detail in her notes at all – at least, not about her background.

  He placed the key in the lock, smiling at the familiar creak as the door swung inward, signalling his return. He switched on the light and hung his coat on the hook just inside the door before heading for the kitchen. Five minutes later he was sitting in the living room, eyes closed, with a scotch in his hand and the news on the TV.

  The newsreader was droning on about unexplained ‘disturbances’ in the local area over the last few weeks, and Greg felt something nameless roil to the surface of his mind. He opened his eyes and started to pay attention.

  None of the incidents were related, as far as anyone knew – but Greg couldn’t help himself. He studied the background footage showing as the newsreader’s words washed over him. It took a few minutes, but then he saw her – a face in a crowd, or a glance over a shoulder as she walked away – but it was definitely Ava. And not his Ava – this one was a far freer, if darker, spirit. She had a swing to her walk and a bounce in her step; she laughed outright in at least two or three of the scenes being shown; and her clothes were so far removed from the neutral tones he’d known her to favour – here she was in reds and purples and oranges, determined to stand out; to excite attention.

  Something snapped, outside his window. Greg muted the TV and listened for long moments – but nothing else disturbed the peace. A cat, he thought, or a fox, treading on a twig. His mind tried to whisper they’d be too light to make a twig crack like that, but he wouldn’t listen.

  Something crunched the gravel, and he was up and out of his chair in an instant, pulling the curtains back so hard they nearly came off the wall. Again, there was nothing, but that sense of having just missed something vital persisted. He saw no sign of movement, heard no further noise. Finally, he checked the lock and pulled the curtains tight, shutting out the night.

  Unsettled, Greg went through the rooms, checking windows and their locks, pulling curtains closed wherever he went. When he was sure the house was secure, he approached the living room once more – stopping when he heard the TV. Hadn’t he muted that? A gleam of buttery light spilled out onto the wooden floors, and Greg stood still, watching as a dark shadow walked across it, first one way and then back – slow and deliberate. His throat dried and he was cold – who was here? All was quiet once more, and finally he pushed the door open, watching as it swung inward, revealing his now-empty living room. The news had given way to the weather, and a too-jolly weatherman was predicting showers. “Not a day for doing the washing, ladies,” he joked, and then was replaced by the music blaring over the end credits.

  He must have hit the mute button again as he put the remote down, Greg reasoned. He couldn’t see anything else out of place. He sat back down in his chair and reached absently for his glass, eager now for a drink to calm his nerves. It took him a moment to register the difference in weight, then he looked more carefully – he had no memory of having finished his drink, and yet there was the empty glass. He placed this back on the side-table and poured another drink, then picked the glass back up – he’d keep a closer hold on it this time. He downed one, then another, and then he was nodding – the TV blaring rubbish at him as his head dipped and his eyes welded themselves shut.

  Morning. Sunlight poured through a crack in the curtains and hit him square in the eyes. Greg grunted and raised an arm, held it across his poor eyes. The TV was still on, and now it was the morning news.

  “Shit,” he groaned, and headed for the shower, shedding clothes as he went.

  An hour later he was climbing the stairs to his office, out of breath and fighting a headache that threatened to force him to bed if he couldn’t get rid of it.

  At the top of the stairs, he slowed. The door was shut, his office seemed as it always did, and yet he was nervous. His receptionist glanced up and nodded, then bent to her work once more. She never had been the talkative sort.

  Greg opened the door to his office and stared around its interior. The walls were bare, entire bookcases upended and their contents scattered on to the floor; pictures lay on the carpet, shards of glass crunched underfoot as he made his way to his desk, eager to check his computer.

  The leather chair swivelled as he got closer, and he stopped – Ava, the other Ava, was sitting cross-legged before him, grinning widely. She leaned forward, eager to see his reaction.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well what?” He tried to make sense of this but couldn’t – it didn’t fit with what he knew of her.

  “What’s the matter, Doc?” she asked, and the smile widened. “You look a bit lost.”

  “What?” His mind was shrieking a warning, but he couldn’t make any sense of what he was supposed to be frightened of. Why had she done this? It went against–

  “Me.” Now her smile disappeared, and in its place was a woman so cold and mannered that he wondered if he’d ever met the real Ava at all. She stood, and took a step forward, pretending not to notice Greg’s corresponding step back. “I warned you about change, but you didn’t listen.”

  “I-I know you d-don’t like change,” Greg stammered, “but what made you do…”

  He gestured towards the carnage that had been his office, lost for words.

  “You did,” she said, and now the storm was closer. “I warned you things had to stay the same, but you didn’t listen.”

  “I kept things the same,” he said. “I don’t know what else–”

  “You see, that’s the problem,” she hissed. “It was never about the office. Christ! How anal do you think I am?” She took another step forward, and leaned into Greg, her breath hot now against his neck. “It was about me changing. I mustn’t, you see, not unless you want this to happen.”

  Greg looked around the
office, noticing now the writing scrawled on the walls. He tried to make out the words, but failed – he had a feeling they didn’t really matter.

  Ava walked across to the wall, trailed her finger along the same lines he’d just examined, and walked the length of the office; talking almost to herself, her voice a sing-song of lunacy. “I tried to be good, you see. I tried to be nice Ava.”

  She stared back at Greg, her expression grave. “Nice Ava likes order. She likes to be neat.”

  Greg gaped in disbelief as she bent to the floor and picked something up, then turned and moved towards him. She’d concealed whatever it was in her hand, hidden in the folds of her long cardigan, but he fancied he’d seen something glint. What was it?

  Ava stopped a foot or so away from him, and her gaze when she regarded him was full of sorrow. “It was for the best, you see,” she said. “Nice Ava likes you. Even I like you.”

  “I like you, Ava,” he said, but she just shook her head.

  “You like nice Ava, that’s true.” She moved closer again, and breathed in his scent. “But you’re afraid of the real Ava, I can tell.”

  “Nice Ava isn’t the real one?” he asked, eager to delay whatever fate she had in mind for him.

  She shook her head. “No. Nice Ava is for when I need to play by the rules, let people think I’m safe. She’s for when I don’t want anyone to see me.”

  “And what happens when they see the real Ava?” Greg asked.

  She sighed. “Well...” she said. “Then I have to stop them seeing. It’s a shame things had to change this time,” she went on. “I really liked you. We both did.”

  Her hand swept towards him, and Greg reacted instinctively, leaning back so that the shard of glass she held did no more than skim across his chest. A crimson line appeared in its wake, and he watched in amazement as the blood started to flow. There was no pain yet, he realised, just cold.

  Time slowed, and he tried valiantly to move faster than the blade he sensed moving his way again – too late, this time. It’s shock, he thought. I’m slow because I’m in shock. He was in trouble now, fear stealing the strength from his limbs so that he couldn’t escape her. The blade flashed again, and this time the world went away – he felt the blood gushing from the wound in his neck, and was dead almost before he hit the carpet.

  Ava stood staring down at the body lying before her. “It’s too bad,” she said. “Ava liked you. All the Avas liked you.” Sirens wailed in the distance, looming closer, and she dropped the blade, then walked towards the office door, listening for a moment with her hand on the doorknob – before she walked out into the lobby to face the receptionist’s screams.

  In Times of Want

  Once in every generation, I come; whenever I am needed. It seems mankind can only go so long without making a mess of things.

  Time and again I have been sent; time and again I have died. And for what? Not for man, that’s for certain. I do it for my mother, the Earth. Every so often she must be restored, rescued from the privations forced on her by your petty voraciousness.

  Of necessity, I am born each time into squalor and privation – love not the only thing in short supply. It seems I always grow in solitude, my ‘siblings’ sensing from an early age that I am different. Not like them, thank God. “She’s strange,” they say, “something’s wrong with her.” If only they knew.

  In some ways I long to be like them, to be unaware, blissful in my ignorance. How I long to belong, to be accepted. To be loved. How peaceful it must be, in some ways, to live my life unaware of the true briefness of my span.

  As I grow to maturity, I and those around me become more aware of the changes wrought by their handiwork; the failing crops, polluted waters, dying wildlife… all the detritus of a supposedly ‘civilised’ society.

  Who are you trying to kid?

  I watch my family as they struggle to wrest one more decent crop from the failing earth, one more good harvest. They can’t. I watch the sky for signs of rain, coming to save me from what I know must happen.

  It’s no use.

  All the time, I can feel the clock ticking, the earth dying – inch by inch.

  When I am ten, my oldest brother marries. She is a healthy, smiling girl of seventeen from a nearby farm. Everybody welcomes it, saying maybe their luck will change now. Look at them. A girl of seventeen, and a ‘man’ of nineteen. He’s scarcely more than a boy. Survival of the fittest?

  Give me a break.

  Within a year they will have another mouth to feed. A mewling pasty-faced baby desperate for milk its mother will by then be too scrawny and malnourished to provide.

  And so it goes on.

  Round and round it goes.

  Generation after generation.

  When I am fifteen, both of my sisters marry. Just like that – within six months of each other.

  Both waltzing merrily off to the same fate, a lifetime of drudgery, struggling to raise families while their men struggle hopelessly to provide.

  It’s a farce. A constant battle in which no one can really win. Yet I still wish my life could be that simple.

  So the seasons pass, one after the other. I feel them winding down like an old, tired clock. As I am, I suppose. The time grows near. My time. I can feel my body growing, changing, getting ready for its final cycle. I am not the only one that notices, it seems. The local boys start buzzing round, like bees at the proverbial honeypot. My father shoos them away, issuing dire warnings to me of what will happen should I get too friendly with them. As if I would.

  It seems as if the heat this year is particularly intense, the air even more humid than usual – and yet there is no relief. No thunderstorms erupting out of the night air to cool and refresh. Not this time.

  Listening to the radio with my parents in the evenings, we hear of famine, drought, all over the world. Tiny little pockets yet, I know. But soon…

  Now. It’s time. My sixteenth birthday. Soon the sign will be sent, and I must go. The local boys are still hovering, and this year it is viewed with more tolerance. It seems I’m old enough now. I look into my mother’s mind and am amused to see she has started to muse once more of weddings, babies.

  If only she knew.

  Still, I must choose someone. One of these boring, coarse louts must be the one to initiate the final day. The ‘coming’, if you’ll pardon the pun.

  I watch them, and one by one they manage to put themselves out of the running. One remains. Shy and quiet, he had been content merely to stand back and watch the posturing of the others. He isn’t eager to repeat their mistakes. Laughing at something particularly stupid one evening I catch his eye, and we share a smile. He’ll do.

  We strike up a friendship, he and I. An understanding begins to grow. We take long walks through the fields, charmingly innocent – at least at first.

  One evening we come home to hear my father berating the world in general, the weather in particular. “If there’s no rain soon,” he says, “we are finished. It will be too late for the harvest, and we’ll starve.”

  I take this as my sign.

  As I say goodnight to my boyfriend (I’ve never liked that expression – so sickeningly coy) I whisper “meet me by the old oak tonight. Midnight.” He searches my face for confirmation of this, his dream come true – I have sensed his desire growing for weeks, although he has struggled manfully to behave in a seemly fashion. I smile convincingly, and he goes off happy. One night of joy will be mine, at least. Tomorrow belongs to mankind, once more. I can give them that much.

  I stand by the tree at midnight, shivering. The air is cool, holding the promise of autumn. I hear rustling, and turn to see my suitor trying desperately to be quiet, and thus making far more noise than he normally would. We sit in the shelter of the tree, he and I, his arm comfortingly around my shoulders. One hand slips lower to caress my breast, and my breathing quickens. Turning to him, I look deep into his eyes, hopelessly clear and completely without artifice. He’s mine, it’s that simple.
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  We kiss, and all is lost. I surrender myself to feelings, the tides of passion rising fast in us both. Dimly, I am aware of being penetrated, although in truth I barely feel it, so lost am I in the currents we generate in the earth below us and in the air above. Truly, this is my time.

  At last, when all is done and we lie spent in each other’s arms, I cry; for I know my time here is done. My lover tries to comfort me with his protestations of undying love and promises of matrimony – never knowing he’s only making things harder; knowing as I do that this is my last night on earth.

  He will marry some other girl, and live as his kind has done for more generations than I care to remember. And he will be happy; at least for the most part. He will dream of me, now and then, but that’s all. Of what might have been. I say my goodbyes and we each make our separate ways home, to our narrow beds where we lie aching and alone. I fall asleep crying. I would have liked to stay a little longer, just this once.

  I feel the sun’s hesitant call as it rises. Even the sun is reluctant to call me away, knowing today is the day.

  The sun warms me, and I feel my pulse quickening in response. Every cell in my body seems supercharged – absorbing energy in an animalistic version of photosynthesis. My senses are preternaturally alert. I can feel the new life flowing within me – my lover’s legacy; more important than he will ever know.

  Dust motes dance in the thin beam of sunlight piercing my bedroom’s curtains – time to go. I have a long way to go before I can begin.