so much depends

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

-William Carlos Williams

Jenny felt as if her entire life was leading up to some tremendous event. At fourteen years old, she had already witnessed a plethora of life-changing events; the car accident, the death of her mother, the loss of her legs and the move to the countryside. Yet Jenny still felt that there was something more that waited for her and she welcomed it with every breath.

The young girl’s room was dark and cobwebbed, like a mausoleum. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust that had once been a part of the bales of hay and chicken feathers, of the dirt and silt of the farm that surrounded her. She pressed her face against her window, conscious of the cold glass against her skin. A red wheelbarrow stood, solitary on the dew-speckled lawn. A few fat hens pecked at the ground nearby, oblivious to their observer. The view never, ever, changed but for the position of the sun in the sky and the quality of light. The sun rose and set at six o’clock each day, condemning Jenny to another day exactly like the one that had preceded it. Each day was the same as the last. Everything accomplished by day would undo itself by nightfall.

Jenny was restless. Her lips parted and her breath misted upon the grime as she willed something to happen. She stared at the wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, imagining it carting her off into a new life, one filled with love and light. It didn’t happen, so she picked up her diary instead. It was the only thing within reach that did not necessitate climbing into her wheelchair.

It was a 48 paged, feint ruled exercise book, plain and non-threatening, like herself. She trailed her hands over a paper, feeling the indent of words and pretending it was braille. She felt the space between her mattress and the floorboards for a stray pen, located one, and began to write.

There is no present. It is just the future and the past, each instant moving away from us as fast as we reach it. I feel as if I am marching towards a predetermined end. To my father, it appears as if I have quietly accepted my life as an invalid and a hostage. But I have felt a shift. Something is changing; something will happen today. The white chickens are quiet… They are waiting for something, too.

Jenny flicked through her old entries, watching her handwriting devolve. After the crash, it had been an erratic and frightened scrawl. Gradually it developed into the fluid slope that she now used. She read the first excerpt.

Burning, burning. Fear and flames. Screams and sirens calling our names. Soft charcoal flesh. My legs drag, useless. Jaws of life; fruitless. In my dreams, she’s breathing and she’s crying but I can’t save her. I couldn’t even save myself.

The sentence fragments were splashed with tears from so many years ago. Jenny didn’t even bat an eye as she turned the page to another entry. This one was written shortly after their relocation to the country.

I think that The View That Never Changed would make a good title for a horror story (God knows I’m living one). It would be a psychological thriller, where nothing ever happens. A rusted wheelbarrow, dipped in blood. Motionless white chickens, like bloated fungi. The mother, trapped in a fiery inferno. And the daughter, trapped in suspended animation. I could be the poster girl.

It turns out that I didn’t need my legs, like I didn’t need my mother. Maybe I don’t need anything. Maybe I should just lie here, catatonic, until my remaining muscles atrophy and the listless look in my eye is all that’s left.

Her father was repairing the hinge on the front door. He would come in to wake her soon, then check on her once before retreating to his own cold bed. It was doubtful that today he would help her into her wheelchair, so that she could wheel herself about the farm. Most days he avoided his daughter like an infection. He was afraid that her melancholy and indolence were catching.

The sun was up now, warming the fields and pastures outside. Something would happen today. Jenny was sure; it was only a matter of time. Eagerly, she waited on her mattress. She felt just the way she used to on Christmas and Easter morning. Clasping her hands in her lap, she watched the dust mites dance around her room, joining their brethren upon her wheelchair. It was a week now since it had been put to use but her presence was hardly felt whether she was in it or out. There was never nothing new to see but the same dull scenery. The long snake of dirt road recorded each turn of her wheels, and chicken wire and barbed fences prevented escape.

Soon.

But how soon? Hours passed, with the young girl waiting patiently on the floor.

Someday. Today. I will be free of this. Come for me, Dues Ex Machina! I may not be able to dance or ride off into a sunset, but my body is blissfully unaware. As it encumbers me, hunched over this notebook, my ghost legs still haunt me. God forbid I be the one to break it to them!

She could still feel her limbs to this day, although they weren’t really there. Jenny imagined them stretched out before her; pale, malleable legs. Calves that would carry her to another life. Soft petal thighs that a lover could stroke. She hadn’t looked at her reflection for an age but she wondered if she was beginning to look like her mother. She wiped some grime from her window and studied herself. A smattering of freckles littered her face. Her hair was greasy and hung in tendrils. Jenny didn’t like what she saw but what else was there to do?

So she waited, feeling the edge of panic set in. Jenny felt her dreams become more elusive as the minutes ticked by. Finally, the day was coming to a close. The last rays of sun faded over distant hills at six o’clock precisely. The hoot of an owl pierced the night. Her father whistled as he put some soup on to boil in the next room. Jenny couldn’t see for the helpless tears in her eyes but she was sure that the wheelbarrow was still outside her window; a symbol of all she loathed. She picked up her diary, gripping her pen as hard as she could in her trembling hand. Her weak sobs violated the silence that had fallen on the farm.

My fears are confirmed. There is nothing left to wait for. I miss a world that does not miss me! I am cursed to a life of the banal and it will kill me. I am being stultified, suffocated. This day was meant to change everything. But now… now I will never know a first kiss, or a child, or cancer of the cervix. I don’t think I can bare another sunrise. How can I succeed? How can I escape this permanence?

The answer came to Jenny as her pen scratched the paper.

I can win by dying.

And that is how her father found her that night, as he entered her dim room to kiss her goodnight. Jenny was wrapped in warm wet sheets, her pale skin paler. A tiny smile played upon her frozen lips as she clutched a small notebook to her chest. How peaceful she looked, with the moonlight shining in her hair. Her face was finally free.

She looked just like her mother.