Writings

After her husband died, Elise began to visit the room he called the library more often. When Gerald had been alive, it had always been his domain and she’d never liked it. The windows were too small and sunlight never quite seemed to reach the tall shelves of books lining the wall from floor to ceiling. When he wanted to read rather than simply to think, Gerald would switch on the small table light next to his armchair; when Elise wanted to read – which she did often – she would choose the sofa in the living room. The light was clearer there and she could also gaze into the garden which was, primarily, her domain.

She couldn’t remember much about the funeral, except that people seemed to assume she would be feeling lonelier than she was in fact. The absence of Gerald lay more lightly on her shoulders than society expected. Still, Elise was not one to stir up trouble where it was unnecessary and so she accepted the condolences and compassionate looks with equanimity and did not stay long in conversation with any of the mourners. Her one overwhelming emotion when her dead husband’s friends and former colleagues had finally left had been simple relief.

Elise wondered if that made her unusual.

For the first time in her married – and now her widowed – life, she left the tidying up of the abandoned plates and glasses until the morning. Her sleep that night had been peaceful and she luxuriated in the unaccustomed space in what was now her double bed.

In the morning, she rose late and took a long bath, allowing the scent of lemongrass to prepare her for the day. For her new life. Of course she missed her husband; they had never been a demonstrative couple but thirty years of married life had carved its memories into her skin. Still, she knew she wore the loss well, as if she had been expecting it for a long time.

As a result, her mind was focused on planning the day ahead as she cleared away yesterday’s plates. She’d already stacked two or three on top of each other when her fingers touched something gritty. She stared down at her hand and saw a scattering of sand grains across her nails. And on the plate beneath lay a small mound of sand in a perfectly formed circle. Odd. Here they were nowhere near the sea. Perhaps one of Gerald’s friends had done this. Why couldn’t whoever have left it here thought to throw it away? She shook her head and brushed the sand into the wastepaper basket. Something about it disturbed her however. She couldn’t quite name the feeling.

It was that evening, as she stood poised in front of the library door, ready to enter and begin dealing, albeit early, with Gerald’s books and manuscripts, that she found that same fluid sensation making her hesitate. The moment her hand grasped the brass door knob, she started to tremble. Images of emptiness and a wild clear sky flashed up in her head and she stepped back with a gasp. For two beats of her heart, the door appeared to dissolve and all she could see was a vast expanse of desert. She shook her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The air around her quivered and then drew close again. When she blinked at the door, it was back in its accustomed place.

Elise told herself not to be ridiculous. This was probably something simple, like a response to unacknowledged grief. Although why grief should be simple, she could not tell. Determined not to allow anything to beat her, she took a breath and pushed open the door, which appeared to be heavier than she remembered.

Something was blocking her entry. Had a few of the books fallen by the door while she’d been out? She couldn’t see how. But, by the time she managed to get the door open wide enough to peer round, it was easy to see she’d been wrong in her assumption; what was blocking her way into Gerald’s domain was not books, but sand.

Not just a little sand, as she’d found downstairs either, but a great carpet of it, slipping across the floor and undulating into miniature hills and valleys. What was happening? And how could she stop it?

Elise took another few minutes to push the door far enough to get into the library. When she did, soft yellow sand sucked at her calves and brushed against her skirt. The wind blew across her face and for the first time in her life she understood what the smell of the sky could be like. Something wild she could touch but not hold on to.

Bending down, she buried her hands deep into the dry warmth and felt the graze of sand grains under her nails. For reasons she couldn’t entirely explain, she smiled.

She stepped further into the library. It was easier to walk on the sand than she’d imagined. Her feet sank a little but not overly so. On a whim she reached down and slipped off her shoes, padding barefoot past the shelves of books. Though they were books no more; the shelves had vanished and instead air and light and sky folded her presence up. Elise felt … she searched for a word to describe the sensation to herself, but could only find one: clean. Yes, Elise felt clean. As if everything unnecessary had been stripped away and she was left only with a wilderness where there was nothing to cling to but where she could be most truly herself.

She walked for what seemed like a long time. The sun played on her skin and the breezes eased the intensity of the heat. She saw nobody. It appeared she was alone in this world that could not possibly be real – for how could she be walking so far when, in all logic, she should still be in her husband’s library? Elise laughed. She did not care if it was real or not. What mattered more than anything was that she was here.

Finally, she became aware of a speck of darkness on the horizon. Something out-of-place that drew her eye and gradually coalesced into solid shape and form as she walked ever nearer. It was a book, lying open on the sand and with its pages fluttering as the occasional breeze stirred it. Her pace quickened and she was almost running by the time she reached where it lay.

Elise picked it up. It was a hardcover – although of course Gerald had allowed nothing else into the narrow confines of his library – and felt heavy in her hands. Framed in black, the front cover showed a picture of a man in Arab costume superimposed upon the shifting desert. Of course. The breath escaped her lips in what was half laughter and half exclamation. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. She didn’t understand how or why, or indeed any of those very human questions, but it made a kind of sense to her. An explanation that raised a thousand other puzzles, although, then again, which explanation did not?

The book was here, its written desert strong enough to walk on, to live within. She did not know whether she wanted to question this strange and wonderful experience any further than that.

She closed the book.

At once everything around and within her changed.

Instead of clear skies, the blackest of clouds rolled in; instead of the bare sand, Elise found she was walking in mud teeming with strange insects; instead of the peace that had flowed through her blood, there was only grief and war.

She screamed and felt herself falling. And went on doing so as her body found no earth beneath to greet her. All sensation vanished away as the darkness plunged in. She cried out for her lost life, her lost self and, most of all, for the lost beauty of her newly-found wilderness. In that mourning, however, Elise found something that remained hers; her hand still clutched the book, the magic it contained shut off now by the solidity of its covers.

Open the book.

The words filled her mind and whether the voice was her own or another’s, she could not tell. But she struggled to obey the command. The sharp edges of paper and the rough binding gouged at her fingers, drew blood, but still she continued, all but sobbing now.

At last, when she thought she must give up, the book opened and dropped from her grasp. It did not fall far. Smooth sand cushioned its landing and provided a welcome respite for her own. That same sand warmed her cheek and the sun stroked her skin. When she dared to open her eyes, she could see that all was as it had been: the desert; the air; the sky.

And all was beautiful.

Elise wanted to stay here forever, but human senses – and most acutely her own – were not formed for the enjoyment of beauty without a trace of pain. Being careful to keep the book open, she scanned the horizon and wished for a door back to the world she had no option but to live in. For if words written so many years ago could create vast lands such as this, what could she not do with her own thoughts?

As she desired, so it took place and in less than a heartbeat’s duration Elise found herself back in her home, the library door closing behind her. She dusted the last few grains of sand from her fingers and smiled.

For she knew she would enter this wilderness world again.

Indeed, as she went about her work that day, throughout all the days ahead and even for the rest of her life, Elise came to rely on her trips to the desert in the library.

There were many things Elise did not know and would never understand about what had happened and continued to happen each time she entered the place where the desert was kept. There were many things she did not wish to know. Another person’s words had created a space for her to breathe and her dead husband’s choice of literature had given her a path to find it. One thing she did know however and which she would always hold dear: she knew that everyone needed a wilderness room in order to live.

Anne Brooke’s fiction has been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Award, the Royal Literary Fund Awards and the Asham Award for Women Writers. She has also twice been the winner of the DSJT Charitable Trust Open Poetry Competition. Her latest poetry collection is A Stranger’s Table, and her latest novel is Maloney’s Law. Both are available from Amazon. Her work is represented by agent, John Jarrold, and she has a secret passion for birdwatching. To find out more visit http://www.annebrooke.com and www.myspace.com/annebrooke. She also keeps a terrifyingly honest journal at http://annebrooke.blogspot.com.

Share This Article »