The Secret World of Maya Alexander

Chapter 37

The radio screeched loudly and interrupted the soundtrack of the rain hammering against the windscreen from the world outside. It caused Maya to jolt from the thoughts, which were replaying what had just happened in the magnolia walls of the Oasis Counselling Service. Her arm reached forward to hit the button on the dashboard and end the pointless ramblings which usually provided a distraction and catharsis for the many as they began their journeys home. The rain was wild and hard and Maya closed her eyes and enveloped herself in its sound, hoping that it would take her mind away from the words that had spilled from her mouth moments earlier.

She had not expected to share so much of herself with Emily. Yet as her mouth betrayed her mind, she had felt as though she had been whispering words that had become a secret even to herself. Unfamiliar words had been spoken into that almost empty room. Maya had begun to respond in new ways to the questions she was sure Emily must have already asked before. Maya had noticed a red-breasted robin perched on the windowsill looking into the bare room from the outside as she sat down on the padded chair for her session. A chair which had been precisely positioned in a triangle of attunement, but also opposite the only window in the room.

She had felt surprised that Emily had not noticed the bird. She had not even turned to look as it began tapping against the glass pane as though it was receiving Maya's words and acknowledging them. Even though Maya's brain was processing the prompts and questions given to her by her therapeutic partner, it was as though she was in fact responding to the little feathered ally, who had remained fixed on the window ledge and hung from each of Maya's words, until the very end of the session.

The clock display on the car announced that the day was still almost 2 hours from darkness. 16.05. Maya felt a restlessness which she did not recognise. Between her once still and orderly days of keeping on and her new routine of going to work and visiting her secret place each evening, Maya had mostly managed her entire life by keeping her mind wrapped in a soothing cloak of still. Routine. It allowed her freedom from contemplation.

Even though the world she traversed each night seemed searching, for now it seemed to place very little demand upon her. It shielded her with a peaceful solitude, where all life welcomed her with a warm curiosity as though it were welcoming back a family member who had been lost or absent for a long time.

The rain drummed relentlessly on the car window, making the world outside a blur and drowning out the sounds of early evening in the quiet Welsh town. Maya tried to focus on the crashing sounds of the rain. She closed her eyes and tried to take herself back to the thrashing of the waterfall she had found herself beneath during one of her flights of fancy. Its waters had been warm. They had crashed so hard against her skin that she had begun to feel as though she was one with the water. She was its sound, its warmth, its piercing silver-grey. Her body became its endlessness as the waters had crashed until it was all that she knew. A sharp yet gentle sting upon her skin, a drumming in her soul. It whispered she was alive. It hummed that she was free. There were no thoughts creeping through her mind. Her soul felt awake and her mind was still.

Inside the car, she could feel no raindrops upon her skin. Its rhythm was repeatedly interrupted by her restless mind, which insisted that she reminisce her day. The office. Conversations with Helen and Marge. The moments during her meetings with clients when she caught herself drifting. Her own voice telling Marge how she was feeling 'ready' for the counselling session whilst her rapid pulse had told a different tale to that of her lying lips. She recalled further back. The weeks and months and years of discontent and emptiness. The rain seemed to drip the words into her ears. Burden. Burden. Burden. Alone. Alone. Alone. They began to crash into each other until they became a single soundtrack to the vision of a lifetime of disconnectedness which flashed through her mind. Her eyes filled with tears. She felt a warm droplet land upon her fingertip.