I can feel myself awaking. There are birds nearby, I think, but I find it hard to make out any specific sounds indicating their presence. There should be birds nearby, there should be bird song. I am alone in my parents’ cottage in the forest. I was dropped off yesterday by Grace, my mother, as my father Barry had his weekly Friday meeting at the club. It is my first time here alone, a trial my parents had called it on my eighteenth birthday a week earlier. At the time I saw it as a cheap present from someone who did not care, now I wonder if there was something more sinister behind their insistence that I should stay the weekend by myself. To get my bearings of being an adult, they had proposed, alone at their cottage in the forest. Forests have trees. Trees have birds. Birds sing, or should sing at this time of the day, I think. What time is it anyway, I try and open my eyes, but they remain firmly shut. Odd, I say but nothing is said, and nothing is heard. My lips do not part as instructed. But how am I going to brush my teeth if my lips do not part. I need to brush my teeth now, I think, as I always brush them in the morning and this is morning, I decide, without any evidence of the contrary.
There is a knock on a door, or a window, there is no difference in my mind right now. Someone shouts ‘Harriet, are you there,’ and I shiver as I realise that they might be addressing me. I try to respond but no words are heard. My lips are not moving. I try to stand up, to swing my legs over the wooden bedframe but my limbs are not responding. I remain in my bed, stuck without knowing how. There is no pressure on my back, I think, so I must be hovering. I have never hovered before. This thought stays with me for some time.
‘Harriet!’ the voice much louder now. Closer. ‘Did you give her all of the instructions as we discussed,’ the voice now just outside the window.
‘Yes dear, both verbally and in writing, the checklist you made, remember?’ a calmer, lighter voice this time.
I am right here. I am right here. Nothing. Silence. Darkness. Why am I still hovering here. Why is my mind not racing. I should be worried. I am always worried. Why am I so calm. Is this what it is like to be an adult, a grownup. Always calm. I can live with being an adult then.
‘Here’s a copy of the checklist. Look, it is all there in your “Everything needed to survive a weekend in the Cottage – by Barry Hoople”,’ the light voice said.
‘But there is a page missing, Grace. Where is the page about the ventilation for the gas heater? Where is the warning of carbon monoxide poisoning.’
