Into the Gloaming

Gardening and horoscopes

I thought about the trial on the way back to Nan's. I wondered if everyone would wear curly wigs. I wondered if I should wear a curly wig. I'd have to look for one in my room when I got back to Nan's. I wondered if the judge would have a wooden hammer and yell "order in the court!" a lot. I wondered what my Dad would say. I wondered if he was back to normal. I wondered what the jury would say. If Dad just explained the whole thing to them properly, about how he's just trying to save the world and that they have to see it from a global perspective, then it should be fine.

I spent the afternoon gardening with Nan. She made me wear the most ridiculous hat and gloves so I wouldn't get burnt. We weeded, at least Nan weeded, I felt bad because dandelions are so pretty and cheerful, so I picked a few and put them in a glass of water in my room. She talked and talked and talked.

"... so Edie at bridge says to me that Joan has had a nasty fall in her bathroom, had to be carted off in an ambulance and everything. I thought to myself at the time that it was odd that Edie would care much about Joan, because Frieda used to live across the hall from the two of them in the home, and then also sat at their table during meals, said the two couldn't stand each other, or at least that Edie couldn't stand Joan. Of course Joan wouldn't have realised it seeing as how she never wears her hearing aid. Frieda once told me that it makes no difference anyhow, not with Joan. So then much later I realise that Edie has always had her eye on Joan's room, always commenting on how much nicer the view was from Joan's window than from her own. I don't see what her fuss is, she's as blind as a bat anyway, had her cataracts out a few months ago, I think it helped her a little bit. Still sharp as a tack though, is Joan, still very much 'with it' as they say."

I had a feeling she would have chattered away like this no matter who she was with, or even if no-one was there at all. Luckily it wasn't long before Elizabeth was home.

"Connie, can I go on the internet?"

"Just for half an hour, I'll be watching the clock."

"Thanks, wanna come Destructo?"

Anything to stop gardening and listening to Nan's stories about people I don't know. I sat down and shook off my dirty gardening gloves and hat. Dad would have laughed and said "I told you so" hearing about Nan's elderly friends, living in a nursing home waiting for death. He had a good point, it's one thing to put people in a hospital and take care of them until they get better and can go back to living their lives, but it's a totally different thing to put old people together and take care of them, because they're not going to get better, they're just going to get older. It's like this French word dad told me about, triage, it's from when they were in a war or something, and they didn't have enough medicine to go around, so they made a rule called triage, where the first people they gave the medicine to were the people who would definitely die without it, then the second people they gave medicine to were the ones who would definitely live without it but were in lots of pain, and then the third people they'd give medicine to, if there was any left, were the people who were going to die no matter what happened to them because there's no point wasting precious medicine on them if they're about to die anyway and there's not enough to go around.

"Destructo are you coming or not?"

Elizabeth poked her head outside to find me still sitting on the garden chair holding my dirty gloves. I jumped up and followed Elizabeth back into the house and down the hall, we went into a musty old room full of dark polished wooden furniture, books and cabinets. Photo frames lined the top of the shelves and cabinets, I stood on tip toe to try and see them all. I was looking for my Dad, until I met Nan and Prue I had never thought about him having a childhood, having a Mum and Dad and bedtimes and school. I couldn't see him anywhere. I didn't recognise anyone in the photos.

"Do you know who all these people are?" I asked Elizabeth

"What people?"

"The people in the photos."

"I've never really looked."

It didn't look like Elizabeth was going to start looking now, she was reading emails on the computer in the corner.

"Spam spam spam spam spam. No I do not want to please my woman more. Gross. Delete!" she muttered at the screen. "Hey Destructo, what's your star sign?"

"Libra. Why are you calling me Destructo?"

"Persephone, bringer of destruction, the coolest name meaning ever."

"Oh, right."

"Well come here and read your horoscope, it's bad luck if you read out someone else's."

I peered over her shoulder at the screen and started reading.

"Libra. The moon in your seventh house of-"

"SSHH! What are you doing?"

"I'm allowed to read my own horoscope aren't I?"

"Yeah I think so, but I don't want to take any chances, in case it's bad luck for me to hear you read your horoscope. Do you get me?"

I didn't get Elizabeth at all.

The horoscopes were full of cryptic astrobabble, not like the ones in magazines in waiting rooms. In a column on the side of the screen were the beginnings of news headlines.

'Massive Fire Destroys Twenty Homes in...'

'New Diet Takes Hollywood by Storm...'

'Government Announces Tax Reform...'

'Dr. Death Multiple Murder Trial...'

"Elizabeth, click on that." I said, urgently pointing at the Dr. Death headline.

"Ooh, that looks interesting. Multiple murders."

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