All Things Must Pass
All Things Must Pass
By Olivia Camillin
In Luxembourg, medieval buildings line ancient works of architecture so old they’ve become part of the natural world. In Luxembourg, the food tastes like a rich, abundant heaven that you could use to stuff a very expensive pillow.
In Melbourne, it rains. In Melbourne, tacky skylining buildings block your view of what might be a blue sky if you disregard all the grey cloudy ennui that covers everything. Well, that’s what his mother says. But she only says that because all the sunny days we’ve had this year have happened while she’s been away.
The drink sits in his grasp. Who the hell cares whether or not he drinks it. The golden amber colour of it has dizzying oily swirls. If he leaves it too long, the ice will all melt. The ice is fickle, so quick to leave. The velvet couch is dreadful. It’s so expensive and yet so uncomfortable, with random buttons in 4 rows of 8 right in the middle - the part that should be comfortable. If his mother were here, she would say, “best get off the couch, Harry”
“So dramatic, mother,” he drawls into the air as if she really did say it. The air starts to look dusty, and beams of sunset flicker through the blinds, stinging his eyes, but already he’s sort of falling asleep. His mother would’ve made him dinner, if she were here. But she’s not.
He often wishes she were dead. Lot of the time it feels like she is. Sometimes he pretends she is, just for a bit of peace. She may as well be. Places like Luxembourg, America, Cambodia, are all more interesting to her than he is, which is fair enough. Women are fickle, soulless at their very core. All they care about is looks and money, and though Harry has an unfairly large proportion of both, he could never have enough to keep one woman interested for more than maybe 5 minutes. Nobody has enough for that.
***
If I’d told you how quickly my father died, you would’ve thought my mother had poisoned him.
It was September, because it always is, isn’t it. I still have the Japanese essay I did that day, and I still remember the awards I was getting at assembly that day. I remember the speech I gave at the school dinner two nights before. I remember the way into the hospital, and the ward, and the name of the filipino nurse who wore black glasses and cut his hair like the dad in an ad for a home loan. I remember how two days before September he was yelling at doctors and asking to be let out. I remember how the wheelchairs work, what with all the pedals and levers. I remember how to get into my house, and what gates I liked and even what setting on the oven to use for yorkshire puddings.
I want to describe to you how my dad looked right before he died, the things he said, and the decisions I had to make. I want to tell you about the toys in the playroom down the hall, and about how my sister and I played with them because it was the only thing to do. I want to tell you about the time, on the day he died, when we went into the wellbeing centre and I made my sister play the guitar while I read a John Green book on a purple couch. I want to tell you what chords she played, and give you the tabs with the picking pattern so that you can play those same chords every day. But some things you just can’t speak about.
It felt like a butterfly flapped its wings in Malta at exactly the wrong interval, and now, across the world in Australia my dad was winded beyond repair. And when I think about it, I cry so much that my whole body seizes up in frigid fits of up, breath, down, breath. And my dad would think that’s ridiculous. Live your life, my darling Olivia Rose. You must forget old fuddie duddies such as myself and move on to bigger and better things.
So all I can do is tuck myself into the quilt cover and sheet set he bought me, and type a story on the computer he bought me, wearing a jacket he bought with the money he earned getting justice for the ‘little guy’. Hindsight’s a bitch. Or, payback’s 20/20. Or whatever it is.
It would be an endless list if everything that reminded me of my dad was categorised and written down on paper. But that wouldn’t even cover the beginning of the gifts my dad gave to me, material and non-material.
So all you can really do at the end of the day is tell yourself that if you go to sleep and wipe the day from your mind that tomorrow will be better, and that he would be proud of the work you’re doing to keep going despite your human instinct to make a whirring noise and self-destruct.
Illegitimi non carborundum, Olivia Rose. They can go fuck themselves.
***
When I saw that light that they all talk about, tears came to my eyes. It’s finally happening. All it took was a few pills, and a nap in my bed but now I’m here. I’m finally here. The sensation can only be described as a higher frequency, blurring your blood the way a milk frother on a coffee machine might blur some milk. You feel your insides expanding and then melting away. And all that’s left is a smile.
The truth is, maybe nobody will be there for your earthly ceremonies. The general consensus is that if nobody loved you, nothing will happen when you die. No funeral, no memorial. We all know that’s a lie, up here in heaven. But even if there really is no funeral, what does that matter? All the voices that matter are up here anyway. Everyone I’ve seen seems to forget where we all came from. It’s a different world now.
And they’d have you believe down on earth that if you take your own life you go to a different plane than everyone else. It isn’t true. We’re all here. Entities that were famous on earth don’t go to a different place either. Fame just doesn’t carry over. Neither does gold, precious vinyls, baseball cards. It all stays down there. And thank goodness, for what would an angel do with a baseball card? No hands, you see. Just eyes.
And then I was a cat, and I couldn’t read or write or talk. I could only hear and listen and see and walk and wait. And listen to the rain and nap on my bed, and wait to be fed.
