LYDIA & BILLY'S NIGHT OUT

 

LYDIA & BILLY'S NIGHT OUT

by Ellen Pepper

"Where is he?” Sitting alone at the table in a Stygian and cacophonous nightclub, a woman with a haunted expression scans the room looking for the man who brought her here to hear his favorite band. The music had been sublime and the evening pleasant; her companion amiable.

 

Earlier...

 While they listened to the music, a woman in a tattered crimson gown approached them and told the man that he looked familiar. Lydia glanced at Billy and noticed for the first time that he had shaved his beard – looking twenty years younger. There were a few stray short hairs near his right ear that he'd missed. She told their visitor that with his fine bone structure, he looked just as handsome. The woman vanished into the crowd after nodding her agreement.

The band they'd come to see left the stage and was replaced by another, much less musically appealing. She noticed that Billy had gone over to the far wall and was conversing with a man completely clad in black. They were smoking and wore serious expressions. She glanced away, only for a minute, but when she looked back, he was no longer there. He wasn't visible in the crowd. He'd said nothing before he left the table.

Unconcerned, she expected him to return shortly.

He didn't.

After half an hour had passed, she became worried. She had never enjoyed the frantic ambience of nightclubs or crowds, and the band was making a raucous noise. Lydia wanted to leave but she waited for Billy's return.

He didn't.

When she looked down at the table, she saw that he'd left two drawings done in black felt pen – one a self-portrait at his desk and the other a garish cartoon character with a malevolent expression. Disturbed, she put them in her purse.

She decided to check the men's room – perhaps he had been detained there with a problem. She knocked at the door but there was no answer. She entered and saw that the urinals had been removed – possibly during the social-distancing pandemic. The restroom was deserted but then a man with long, shiny ebony hair and intense gray eyes entered and asked her business. She told him that she was looking for Billy who seemed to have vanished. The man gave her an unsettling knowing look, washed blood off his hands, and entered a stall.

Back in the club, Lydia wandered aimlessly around desperately hoping that Billy was somewhere, anywhere in there.

He wasn't.

The feeling of abandonment was piercing her. There was no way that this errant behaviour could be understood.

As she stepped outside, she saw an ambulance leaving, lights flashing, but the siren wasn't on. A crowd had gathered around a large pool of blood on the pavement. Lydia spotted one of Billy's boots lying beside it. So was his knife...the one she'd given him on his birthday the night before.

©Ellen Pepper 2023

LAURA

 LAURA

by Ellen Pepper

The last time I saw Laura, she was sitting upright in a hospital bed attached to tubes and appliances put in place "to make her comfortable". She was conscious and alert.

Two of our brothers were in that private room - Laura laughingly called it "The Infamous Dying Palace" because patients who were leaving the planet soon were given their own space for privacy - mostly to contain the weeping and wailing of loved ones saying their goodbyes. Nobody wanted the relatives of other cancer sufferers to be exposed to the grief. After all, some people survive the disease, right? 

Right?

Our youngest brother was on a garlic kick - he chewed clove after clove of the stuff, trying to avoid "catching the cancer germs". When he hugged Laura, she told him that the stench was sickening her. He moved to the far side of the room.

An attendant came in to adjust the pain meds that came out of the wall and went into her plastic face mask via tubes. Strong enough to knock out a horse, the guy said. Laura wasn't even stoned. Just pain-free.

She told us that the doctors were planning to try out a new type of treatment in September. However, this was near the end of June and she was already at the stage where her pain meds were 24/7, so...

Also, when I'd first arrived that day and broke the news that a mutual friend couldn't make the trip down from Toronto with me but was intending to come the following week, she sighed and said that it would be too late.

As the day went on, we spoke of funny things that had happened when we were children and laughed until we cried.

We turned our heads and looked over at the sun-filled window, when the medics came in to tend to her.

Eventually, the time came for me to rush to the  station to catch the last train to Toronto. I touched her hand rather than going in for a hug, fearing to dislodge the medical devices attached to her. She insisted that I hug her hard because, "You never know when you'll see someone again."

When my other brother and I went out to the parking lot, I was saying something banal but was suddenly caught off-guard and started bawling. Bro didn't know what to do, so he was silent until I calmed down. Then he said that miracles can happen and to hold onto that thought. Right.

The next day, another brother flew in from BC to visit Laura. After talking for a while, she asked to have her headrest lowered and said that she was waiting for our mum to arrive so she could leave. She started smiling and pointed at the corner of the room and said, "Look! There are angels in the garden! Its Springtime. So beautiful!"
Laura had never believed in life after death. Religion was not part of her belief system.
Spirituality was laughable and a waste of time to her. And yet, here she was seeing angels.

Mum was late, as usual. She arrived after the angels took Laura away but, even so, a single tear fell from Laura's eye as mum grabbed her and wept. 

And then Laura's aura faded and she was gone.

June 30 1999. Laura was 29 years old.

  ©Ellen Pepper 2023