The Process of thinking

A Factory floor, dull grey and grunts of old machinery. An atmosphere heavy with apathy and an air so thick of an oil stench and dust you felt it gather at the pit of your lungs. A Man stands at the balcony looking over the dirty faced men at work , ruling over all. He turns back into his office ,closing out the outside world by shutting the door. The room is silent. Usually this particular silence is greeted with relief , respect and many thanks. However , this time is different, this time he is uneased. This time he was brought no peace or satisfaction as he is closed into his own mind. Trapped and tortured by his sub conscious , forced to face his current affairs. So many decisions begging for their fate. Here , he will find no revelation, this silent was too restricting, his thoughts were pleading to be freed from the walls of his mind. Liberation was vital but extremely unlikely.

He casts his mind back to 5 years of age. The room is filled with smells of fresh bread . A mother ,wrapped in a brown apron, slaves over a stove. A sister plays cards; a baby brother bangs a wooden spoon off the base of a metal pot. The wireless in the corner filled the room with hymns.

A small boy runs down a grass hill, he chases him. Fresh ,clean air , smells of flowers . The grass was lush and bright, sky , a deep blue , sounds of wind in the trees as the sun beats down on your back. Screams of laughter from a toddler as he is chased to the bottom. His name was James. At this point in his memory he was 6 , James 4. He likes to remember him this way, the happy way, the easy way. Remembering the good times in always better than the worst.

Pauline , the assistant , brought him coffee in an attempt to help concentration. Today this would not apply. His usually daily routine of files and supervision weren’t in action. Today was not the day.

He remembered the incident as if it was yesterday. It was a ghost that never parted. James had just turned 5 . It was a rainy day, roads drenched in water new from clouds above. Aberdeen was shadowed in a morose grey. As Mother was ill she was unable to run her errands leaving it his duty. He took James along with him. Their family was vast due to a large number of siblings, as were many families in the late 1890’s. He and James were the youngest of six. Four older sister well into their twenties never maintained contact. He remembers the tight grip of James hand. Clammy and sticky, random chatter about anything that came to mind , school , games , toys , teddies. Such innocence is divine, purity of gold. If only it was preserved. If only it was endured for longer. He had turned his head for , literally, a second, He had gone, disappeared into a thick gloomy air. The tram came screeching along beside him. A woman screamed from behind him ,shouts and cry’s followed. A frantic panic rose within him as he gasped for breath. An overwhelming sense of fear as his eyes began to swell, vision of blur, screams of alien nature as f one had parted from the body. Physical and spiritual were no longer in unison. He leapt to rescue but was hauled back. As the tram was stopped , driver , passenger poured onto the street, gathering around the tragedy like moths to a flame. A pool of red ,a pale hand ,small in size, lay out from underneath the tracks. Falling to his knees, a chaotic world frozen around him ,hearing no sound , seeing no sight , feeling no pain , nor emotion. The world had frozen blank. Numb Nothing.

Compared to this , nothing has been the same. No amount emotion matched. His engagement to the fiancé , just a ring of grey, no silver present. Such things didn’t not exist to him. The wedding , the bright bouquet the bride held, just a bouquet of barbed wire. The christening of the first child , just old pond water. Life had been emptied.

Admittedly he had made many mistakes in his time. Embezzlement, fraud, numerous affairs, fathering children in all corners of the world. He does love his family , without wife and weans there would be no means of life. But there still remained a hole, a Black void, an abscess in mind. The things he wished to change , to turn around a second earlier, to be able to grab him , save him.

He lost his whole family the day James was taken from them. Parents blamed him, he should have pulled him back , should have been watching him, supervising what he was doing , where he was going, what traffic was coming. A second is everything. A second is life. A second can be death. Parents blamed him, declared him dead also, leaving him to foster care. Couldn’t look at him, a constant reminder. He thought of his sister often but they lost contact after they left the family home, he could not even recall name or face.

He left the office, took pride of place at the balcony. How he wishes to be the men below. To have any other life. To have lived different experiences. Anything would be better. An older woman walked up the stairs and stood behind him. He didn’t know who she was but he knew why she was there. It was James birthday , he would have been Thirty seven today. Tears rolled down his cheeks , woman’s too. She held his hand and held tight, he squeezed tighter. He sobbed endlessly , for losses not only of James, but his family as he remembered. Two lives effaced by a tram.

This man was my great grand father. The woman, his sister.