Adele Deep (excerpts)

for Adele

The news was still ringing in her ears… dead… shot dead… dead… dead and… gone…

The situation was beyond repair… no turning the clock back… and she was beyond therapy…

Late… too late… it was too late now… the damage was done… her son was gone…

A mother cannot see her son die…

A mother cannot see her son dead… it’s not on…

She wishes she had gone… instead of him…

She wasn’t called for on time and this wasn’t uncalled for…

They shouldn’t…

They shouldn’t live and die in that order…

There’s something wrong with this… mothers bear sons to take them to the grave… not the other way round…

The news… the enquiry the inquiry the inquest and the media did the rest… not their best…

Not a word… not word they printed was true… not one… they had spent hours asking and asking again… rubbing salt in the wound… rubbing deeper and deeper… all to no avail… she would have felt understood for lack of understanding had they told her story… had they told the world what she could bring herself to say… to tell…

But no… lo and behold… they only had their story told..

This had meant so much to her… this was too much…

The police did their best… their job… her husband was a police inspector so he knew and she knew… they knew… and she wasn’t sure it was better that they knew… but you never know… in your job you never think for yourself… you never think of your own… it never happens to you…

This guy had called her son… summoned him to come… to talk… it was about a girl… what girl ? Her son was virtually always home when he wasn’t at college… he was studying… where had that girl come from ? When had she stepped in ? Into his life ? He told them everything… he had never spoken of a girl…

But then your children never tell you everything do they ?

He hadn’t come back… he hadn’t walked back… he had been taken… on a stretcher to hospital… Emergency ward…bleeding to his death… never regained consciousness… they will never know…

Stab stab stab goes the beat beat beat of her heart… his had stopped beating forever and hers was barely any better… it was a wonder it was still beating…

She had left everyone… she had even left herself… in her wake… on her voyage… on her road to nowhere… nowhere to run…

Was she ever coming back ? Would she ever come back ?

Could she… ever come back ?

There was no turning back… no turning back the clock… she could only just run… run amok at best…

Tick tock of the clock that won’t stop… even you’re gone her life won’t go on…

That was when her sister came closer… got real close with her… not the best time… but as sisters go good days and bad days come and go… one day love one day hate… but love is always there eventually…

She called when her sister was listen to Adele… Rolling in the deep… and that was precisely how she felt… it was… she was… rolling in the deep… deeper and deeper down to the deepest reaches of her soul…

She called but she couldn’t speak… no words… just tears… of course her sister knew… who didn’t… everybody knew… the whole wide world… but nobody could understand… not a soul… and just as well their lips were sealed… even if her story was on all their lips…

Do you want me to come over ?

Do you want to come over ?

No ? Are you sure ?

Shall we go somewhere ?

Would you like…

No she wouldn’t… she wouldn’t like anything… she wouldn’t like to go anywhere… she wouldn’t like to be anywhere… she wouldn’t… she couldn’t…

She couldn’t be… she couldn’t live… without him… she… just wasn’t meant to be without him… ever… there was nowhere to be… there was no way she could be…

And then… but then… anywhere was better than here… but suddenly thinking she realised he was everywhere… he had taken on a global dimension… he had taken over her whole world… her whole life…

Her sister was lost for words… there was no answer… all she could do was listen… but if you can’t speak how do you listen to someone who won’t speak ?

She would just… be there… just in case…

She couldn’t talk to her husband… she had been estranged even to her second son… second to none nonetheless… but second regardless… her life was seconds now… nothing but seconds… imperfect… imperfection… nothing but imperfections… incomplete… holes… her life had been holed in… holed out… her whole life had been stolen… against her will… hollowed… from inside out…

She would be there anyway…

Depressed people have that vampire power over you… they suck… vacuum your energy out of you… you think you reload… you think you’ll reload… but in the end you find you don’t… you find out you didn’t… you hope…

You write yourself off to them as they write themselves into you… squat your brain and drain… life out of you… and you think all along you help them… when they take no notice… it’s a perverted reverted process… your own oblivion is in motion…

Words at work… business as usual… work in progress… working process… until they have bled you dry…

‘We could have had it all…’ Adele was singing on… and the beat goes on… but her heart’s not beating any longer… lock stock and barrel all gone asunder…

They meet and they cry… they cry their hearts out together…

And as her sister sinks deeper she feels dragged into her spiel…

She wasn’t… no she wasn’t… or was she ?

Was she ?

Jesse CRAIGNOU