The Secret World of Maya Alexander

Chapter 17

The new day was still an hour away from rising into the light when the dawn chorus summoned the residents of 101 Riverside Drive into wakefulness. Skylarks, song thrushes and blackbirds were amongst the first to mark the Lord's Day. Stephen had drifted between haunted dreams and foreboding consciousness for most of the evening. Relief came when the birdsong reached in from the outside to signal an end of his restless slumber and the promise of a new day.

He opened his eyes. Daylight had not yet joined the birds in marking the passing of time. Pulling himself up in bed and turning to place his feet on the floor, he raised his wrist before his eyes. 03.55. 03.55. 03.55. His feet marked the morning three times on the cream pile. Maybe he should check on Maya. His feet became lead and his chest became tight. He checked his watch again 03.57. 03.57. 03.57. His heavy soles reconvened their ritualistic three step dance with the bedroom floor.

The floor across the hall rustled beneath the home's only other occupant. Maya began to stir. She could hear the faint whispers of birdsong tiptoeing around her cocooned body. A quiet yet demanding and impatient chirp determined to announce the inevitable turning of the Earth towards the dawn. She opened her eyes to receive its relentlessness and was confused by the sterile darkness that greeted her. A memory of her enchanted slumber floated into the darkness. She slowly reached her arms out to sense the ground beneath her. Instead of warm sand or moist earthy grass, a clump of twisted polyester pile grazed against her fingertips.

She inhaled the stale air. The familiar institution of her home connected to her consciousness. Daylight crept through the curtains. Reflections of the real world. You are home, you are home, you are home. The light echoed in a sinister dance which began at the window, scuttled across the floor, bounded upon the bed, caressed the bedside table, knocked upon the sealed door, and rested upon the dark mirror. It brimmed only with the grey shadows of her enclosure.

The hostage refused the offering of light and shadow stalking through her prison; she pushed it out of her sentience as she squeezed her eyelids tightly together. She searched instead for her memory of the night before. She hunted for trees and birdsong and grasses and saplings. Faint images of murky greens and barren browns haunted her imaginings.

Giving in to the shadows of day, Maya leaned forward and explored the mirror before her for a sign. There was no humming bird or old oak tree in the cold glass, only a reminder of the empty room she now found herself enclosed within. A sense of loss and uncertainty tied a knot in her stomach at the cruel trick of her senses . She closed her eyes again and tried to dream up the place that had made her feel so welcome. Her memory of it seemed so much less than her imagination wanted to believe. It left her shipwrecked, drifting endlessly between reality and nowhere. She refused to open her eyes.

By 9am Stephen had showered, dressed and tidied the sheets of his marital bed in the precise way that usually provided him with a brief period of contentment. Sheets tucked neatly in all four corners. Pillows perfectly plushed so that they provided a pleasing symmetry. He checked his watch, willing the moments to pass by so that he could present breakfast to Maya and try to get on with some normality. 09.01. 09.01. 09.01 announced the timepiece. His foot obliged with a hopeful triple tap to mark the return to uniform practice.

He quietly tread the boards until he reached downstairs and proceeded to make the same breakfast that he made every Sunday for him and his wife. Seeded toast with scrambled eggs, a cup of strong tea for Maya and a black coffee for himself. He checked his watch, 09.27. 09.27. 09.27. He drummed his foot against the tiled floor. Maya was probably not going to appear in the kitchen as she usually did. He put both of their plates and mugs onto a tray and began a change in the typical Sunday proceedings. He delivered their breakfast through the white corridors and into the guest room.

The well oiled door did not make a sound as Stephen gently broke its seal. It was the painful light from the white corridor that screamed at Maya to sit up. There was a jerkiness in his wife's movements as she seemed to bolt upright from the floor. Startled.

'Maya,' he spoke softly, denying the existence of the hot uncomfortable feelings inside of him. 'I brought you breakfast, baby.' He did not venture any further to gentle questions of whether they could forget about the last two days. He did not offer his sorrow at the things that he had said. Nor did he explore his anger and concern about where she had gone when she left the house two nights ago. Instead he replaced all of these words with an offer of breakfast. Surely that was enough.

Maya looked up at her legal companion. His presence cast a shadow over her body, providing her some relief from the harsh light that had been demanding she pay attention to the void before her. A hopeless despair in her chest, she was confronted with her longtime obligation to make Stephen feel okay. Maya managed to tell her lips to provide a smile, as she whispered 'thank you sweetheart' and offered her hand to her husband to help pull her to her feet.

Stephen wanted to check the minute of his clock three times but he was too busy balancing trays and accepting his wife's hand. The moment did not get marked and a foreboding feeling began to build inside his mind.

Keen to escape the shadows of the guest room, Maya relieved her husband from the burden of a changed routine, by suggesting they take their breakfast back into the kitchen. And there they sat, where they sat almost every Sunday, accosted by each other's distant faces and luke warm breakfast as they both tried to reach somewhere faraway from where they currently found themselves. Maya's glassy eyes meandered in search of a peaceful forest.

Stephen scanned the moments stored in his brain for a sign of a time when Maya could make everything seem okay. And even though Maya was sat before him, as she did every Sunday, accepting the routines he had inflicted upon them both, Stephen felt far from okay. The heat on his brow would not be relieved by the comfort of his wife. 10.03. 10.03. 10.03. His foot broke the silence with its beat upon the tiled floor.

Unusually, Maya did not notice the tapping of her husband's foot and the anxious feelings it sought to announce. She moved her toast and eggs around her plate, cutting up the bread into smaller and smaller pieces as though by doing so she could make it disappear.

Watching his wife, the fire inside Stephen grew as the breakfast and his best efforts turned cold. The day was wrong already and there was no way to reset it. 10.07. 10.07. 10.07. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Then louder.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The knocking of the door startled the pair who rarely had unplanned visitors.

Stephen glanced briefly at his wife, still clothed in her dress from two nights ago. He stood quickly, 'I'll get it,' he assured her.

10.09. 10.09. 10.09. Tap. Tap. Tap. He strode into the hallway and reached the door to be greeted again by a louder, impatient drumming upon the door. It was quickly followed by a high pitched screech to ensure all the neighbours knew that there was a visitor at 101 Riverside Drive and that its inhabitants had not been forthcoming at answering their door.

'Steeeephen! Maaaaayaaa! It's me, your Mam,' bellowed June from the outside.

The door was opened. 'Mother.' Stephen acknowledged her presence. And another part of his day reset.