Every two seconds
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 13: The Next Big Thing
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Christine Fontana
Download the complete article PDF
Christine Fontana's biography and other articles by this writer
Somebody dies every two seconds, and then every two seconds somebody is born. It's what Mum told me when my rabbit died. And I'm thinking and it's too quiet, so I say it now that somebody dies, I say it aloud, and Julia lets out a sudden sob like a death-rattle, like it's the last breath she'll ever take, like breathing's the hardest thing she could do right now. That sob is almost worse than the silence, so that's when I ask them:
"Do you think she still has a vagina?"
And sometimes I'm quiet and sometimes I talk, but I'm asking them because nobody's mentioning the legs. They're standing around the coffin which is shiny and brown and lined with white lace, and one of the things they're not doing is asking. Like about Beth's legs not being there. We're all supposed to notice. It's why they didn't keep half of the casket closed. Which they could have, if they thought about it, if they wanted to hide it from us, what she'd done. It's what I think, but nobody's saying anything so I'm flicking my fingers at my legs and my feet, I can't keep them still.
"Do you think it got ripped off?" I ask, right before Julia runs out of the room to be sick. And that's when I have to leave. Because of vomit. Everything's clean and quiet, and her heaving out in the hallway is like a big crack in the room.
WHERE I GO IS TO THE TRAIN STATION. Julia doesn't try to stop me. Mum'll have her head for that, but she lets me go because she's still heaving and she can't stand my flicking anymore – she can't stand it at all.
It's a two-minute walk to the station, which is a hundred and twenty seconds, which is divided by two which is six-add-the-zero which is sixty people died, sixty people were born, and I walk and I shuffle with my head down so that I don't have to look anybody in the eye. They say that's what it is about me that nobody likes, that I can't look them in the eye. That and the flicking. And the asking questions.
The flicking fingers and my big red mouth.
Somebody dies every two seconds, and then every two seconds somebody is born. It's why I don't mind the sound of the train. Julia can't stand to be near the trains anymore, but somebody died, somebody died, somebody died, and then somebody was born, somebody was born.
Julia, she's fed up with the trains.
BETH USED TO TAKE ME TO THE TRAINS. "I'll take him," Beth said, and she tucked my arm into its jacket because it was always cold here on the station. Julia didn't like it because Beth was her friend, but she took me to the trains and sometimes we stood by the fence and hooked our fingers through the wire and sometimes we sat on the platform and waved when the train pulled out. Stay behind the white line, Beth said, and she held me back by the arm just in case, because my feet they keep moving, my feet they just won't stay still.
And sometimes when we go to the train it's the 3.45 because the
3.45 is fast and the 3.45 doesn't stop, and we stand behind the wire or we stand on the platform, and we close our eyes and the fast train is like whoosh and it makes a wind and I say "nnnn" and I say "NNNGN", and Beth rubs my back and says "Davey" and her hands are warm friction then we go back home.
AND I CAN FEEL JULIA STARING AND SHE KNOWS I hate staring but she stares at me and her hands are on her lap, that's where I'm looking, because hands ... I'm looking and her hands are clasped and her fingers are long and they don't move. I feel it in my fingers, how they start to flick, and I'm like "nnnn" and Mum says: "Julia what are you doing to him?" and she says "Nothing", and my hands are flicking and I'm "nnnn" and that's when I have to leave.
And sometimes I talk and sometimes I'm quiet and always I run away to the train, and it's 3.45 and the train doesn't stop and I stand behind the wires or the platform and it's whoosh and I close my eyes, and the roar in my ears is like whoosh and they come and get me then, sometimes Mum and sometimes Julia but mostly Mum because Julia, she's fed up with trains.