I am Alex

I was on the train yesterday morning and I had the idea for this story. When I arrived home, I watched Black Swan on DVD, which left me slightly edgy and disturbed. When I then went to write up the story, I found myself in a more scared and darker frame-of-mind then usual, and it actually became very hard to keep writing. So I tried to put on music to un-spook me, but every kind of music sounded spooky- even Owl City. I was actually having a "writer's trip", and the story just tapped itself out in a timeless blur of typing, shivering and remembering that those noises were just the possums outside. I did finish it, then I read back over it and shed a tear at 3am, for the first time in ATLEAST 5 years. (i'm glad that I've reset my cry-o-meter, because I was beginning to think that I had forgotten how to do it). Anyway, the great thing about writing is that its recorded, so you can be truely reading something in the light, that was very much written in the dark:
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I am Alex. It was the last train home, and my head was rattling against the window. It had been my first day working as a Lawyer, and Dad was so happy on the phone. The night was dark, and inside my carriage it was bright, so only the streetlamps outside broke through the reflection in the windows. I looked myself up and down in the glass on the opposite side of the carriage. There I was, that was Alex, reclined in a way that a ticket inspector would hate, with streetlamps pulsing past him. I had put 24 years of work into that guy, alot of it for today. Tall, healthy, principled, pinstriped and he didn’t look like he’d budge if a ticket inspector did walk in.

Alex stood up, and I stayed splayed across the seats, but I watched him. Alex started walking across the carriage; for a second he disappeared in between the windows, but he came out the other side, smiling and bright-eyed. A street light shot through his chest, and he turned to watch it fall away. The carriage was a fuzzy dark for Alex, and it was full of passengers that he knew.

On his left was Ms. Tait. He almost fell on her when the train cornered, and when she looked up she recognised him and they smiled at eachother. Her face was particularly fuzzy for Alex, because he hadn’t seen her since he graduated primary school. But she was his favourite teacher at primary school, and she hadn’t aged at all.

“Alex? Is that you? My goodness you are so grown up. Do you still run? Remember you used to win all the races, from prep to year 6. The other teachers wanted the other students to have a turn at winning sometimes, but I never wanted you to stop winning”. Her smile softened, and her head dropped to face the pitch-black floor. “I wanted to help you so much Alex. I wish that... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Alex. Come by my office after lunch tomorrow, you dont have to go to class, and I’ll have chocolates for you ok?”. Alex tilted his head and his smile started to fail from the middle. Ms Tait was going to say something else, but her head shook until it shifted and crumbled in Alex’s memory.

The train had stopped, and the streetlights hung through the carriage like frozen fire-flies. He reached out to one, but his hand slipped right through it.

A greying voice boomed from the back of the carriage “Alex!! Over here”. It was too dark to see who it was back there, but he recognised the voice; The train was moving again and he began to stumble towards it. He walked past a lady who was watching the ground and shaking, just like Ms Tait was. She was wearing a red dress. Alex burst into tears as he walked past her, and he didn’t want her to look up. He felt like he would die if she did.

“Hey Alex, Alex, come on” said the warm man’s voice. A streetlight lit up the man’s face for a moment. He was greying; one of those men who would have made a perfect supermarket Santa-Claus. Another light went past, and Alex recognised him. It was Mr. Adams, the High School Counsellor

“Alex, don’t be upset. If she saw you now..." Mr Adams flicked his eyes over Alex's shoulder to the young women in the red dress. "I mean look at you Alex. I knew that you would be great some day. How have the boys been treating you? I talked to Callum about the incident on Monday, and it wont happen again. Is study ok? If you need to we can push back the exam again? Cheer up. You are so young, and you have so much ahead of you. You’ll be great someday, I know it.”

Alex mustered an adoring smile. He never got to thank Mr. Adams, so he smiled so sweetly, and gave him that box of chocolates.

“Back to the oval Alex. Try to join in with the football, and be assertive. Thats my boy.”

The train went past a football oval. There was a night match on, and the flood-lights broke the reflection and pushed the outside world through the carriage. To Alex, it was as though he was hurtling across the ground on an invisible platform. A flurry of trees snapped and cut through him and he fell to the ground, but he was picked back up by a strong pair of hands

“Alex! Captain! Mate get up. Are you ok? I think you just got knocked out by Fraser. Guys get back to your positions, the Captain’s ok, haha, he’s ok. Look Alex, go to the bench. Coach wont mind, you’ve played some good footy.”

Alex’s team-mates ran outside just before it became dark again and the carriage walls returned. Alex didn’t know where abouts he was in the carriage but he wanted to get back to Mr. Adams or Ms Tait. As he shuffled against the direction of the train, row after row of his university friends emerged from the darkness, to his left and his right.

“Hey Alex, how are you?!”

“Alex my man! Did you finish torts?”

“Alex do you want to see a movie tonight? I was thinking independence day?”

Alex walked faster

“Hey tell me if you want to talk Alex, we all love you. You are the nicest person I know, that anybody knows.”

“Alex, your speech was amazing. I’m so happy for you.”

And he was smiling now

“You won! OH MY GOD YOU WON!! You beat Harvard? Who does that!?”

 And then he saw the lady in the red dress, maybe 10 meters away, like a dot of blood in the darkness.

“Alex, lunch?”

But he ran towards it. He ran towards her.

“I know that you are a genius, but you are going to be such a bad lawyer. You are way too friendly. I’m glad you’re my friend Alex. I feel like I’ve won knowing you.”

And when he reached the red lady, she was looking right at Alex, crying and shaking like before, but smiling too. Alex said

“Mum, its me! Its me!”

She said “I know. I’m so proud.” She was loosing her hair, and her flesh, and she sat, so frail, next to a table of chemo-pills and empty tablet-cartons.

“Alex, you’ll be amazing one day, I know it. I know it. Now go to school. Ms Tait will be worried.”

And when I got off the train, Alex left with me.