the roog

On the morning of his big day, Garland Sheen heard the clang of the letterbox close and yet no envelope had hit the hardwood floor. He knelt underneath the cascade of the slit, peeked underneath the foot mat, opened the door to check both left and right and down the street, and even checked in the no man’s land of the letterbox bristles between either metal entry. There was no envelope and yet he had not been mistaken: there certainly was an early morning clink like the cheers of a sodden messenger.

It was not that he was without greetings cards. He had garnered quite a few in the days prior. One from his brother to whom he immediately returned a card, them born a mere one year and five days apart. Another from a friend he had made at university of whom he could never remember the name but often shared posts on social media about lost cats around the city. It was this peculiar clink that puzzled Garland, though. There was no one he was particularly expecting a card from. Though her cards usually arrived promptly while he lived in the city, Garland’s mother would surely present her card in person this year. Yet, it was the uncertainty that Garland did not like; the possibility that he was forgetting someone who might have sent him their well wishes. Nevertheless, Garland supposed he should get on with his day. He could check again tomorrow.

Slipping into his finest blue shirt, he grabbed his notepad and decided to walk to the café where he would meet his mother for breakfast. He had been back in Milton only three days but already he was refreshed by his ability to walk anywhere. No cramped subway cars. No confusing taxi apps. The entire town was his deck and he the captain.

The morning patrons of Milton’s precinct all seemed to have somewhere to be. Garland watched them pass by as they petered into supermarkets or checked by the bank. Marvellous, he thought. Everyone in this town has a plan and yet they go about their day in an orderly fashion. They do not barge nor litter nor squabble to squeeze through the doorways. Better still, they even sometimes make eye contact with you and offer a brief smile or a hello. Garland felt a warm pool of comfort arise like molten rock in his chest as he scribbled down his contented thoughts, waiting for his mother on the bench outside of the café.

‘There you are, darling.’

Heidi Sheen appeared in front of Garland, dressed in a dark purple pinafore over a white jumper. She gleamed with that motherly ray of sunshine that only comes with time and distance. The ridge of her nose was tattooed red with the imprint of spectacle pads, her glasses buried in the nest of coiled whiting hair swept back atop her head. Garland embraced her and looked down upon her, his hand firm on her arthritic forefinger.

‘Mother,’ he choked his words. ‘I’m so glad to see you. I’m sorry I haven’t popped by yet. It’s been an adjustment to settle into the new place.’

Heidi frowned. ‘An adjustment?’

‘Oh, a positive adjustment, Mother,’ Garland laughed. ‘Milton has welcomed me back with warm arms.’ He leaned in and hugged her again. ‘Just like I with you. Shall we go in?’

Heidi’s concern drifted away and resolve returned to her face.

‘Absolutely.’

The café Garland had chosen for his special breakfast was a shoebox of childhood memories. Walking in, he was floored by the triangle sandwiches he had after infant vaccinations; sugary tea diluted with tears after he had cut his leg on broken glass; the last breakfast he shared with his father- Garland with a small plate of sausages and beans, Father with thick streaks of bacon and a cluster of mushrooms. Garland pulled out a chair for his mother and they took a seat near the window, a seat he had kept warm for himself.

‘Has it changed much?’ Mother peeked over the plastic menu and her eyes creased into a smile.

‘Not one bit.’ Garland licked his thumb and began to rub at the window on his right. ‘There’s even the same stain on this same pane of glass.’

The waitress came over and they each chose a breakfast and she walked off to get their coffees. The coffees arrived almost immediately and Garland took a sip while it was still piping hot. He winced and his breath drew back.

‘Darling, what’s the matter?’ Heidi threw out her hand and squeezed Garland’s spare.

He bit his lip and his eyes sunk toward the table as his head shook on a heavy fulcrum.

‘Oh, nothing Mother. Just the taste, that’s all. It’s not what I remember.’

Heidi gave Garland’s hand a gentle rub between her thumb and forefinger like used gum waiting for a rubbish bin and she tutted beneath her breath. It was not the coffee that bothered Garland, however. It occurred to him, twenty seven minutes into their being together, that she had not yet mentioned his occasion. She has to be building to some great climax of balloons and candles and, of course, a card, thought Garland. Mother has never forgotten a card: not for me, not for her neighbour Janet, not for anyone who matters half as much as the bird in the nest outside her bathroom window. His first instinct was to let it all unfold. Garland was no egotist. He really did not care about greeting cards and bunting and all the bells and whistles that celebrations often entail.  However, still echoing in his mind was the clang of the letterbox.

‘Mother, can I ask you something?’

Heidi looked up from the steam of her coffee mug which misted her green eyes with a hazy film.

‘Of course, darling.’

Garland shrivelled with coy embarrassment and looked at his feet as he broached the question.

‘See, I know you’re probably waiting until the breakfasts come out to give me your card. And I suppose you’ll wish me health and happiness then. And, well, I had a strange experience this morning where I heard the clanging of the letterbox and yet there was no card on the…’

Garland trailed off as his gaze lifted to catch his mother with mouth parted, brow furrowed and coffee mug frozen in the pinch of right thumb and forefinger.

‘What is it, Mother? Is everything OK?’

On the table, Heidi’s glasses were placed from atop her head and they received upon them the pressing of her hand to clasp shut.

‘I’m. Well. I’m just a little confused about what you mean, darling.’

‘Confused at which part?’

‘Well, the entire thing. Why would I wish you health and happiness today?’

Garland’s coy expression turned to one of perplexity. Then he smiled.

‘Ha. Ha. Very funny.’ He looked around. ‘Is this when the cake comes out?’

Heidi’s parted lips maintained their distance.

‘Mother,’ Garland chuckled. ‘You’d make a fantastic actress, you know that? You’re doing a wonderful job of keeping a straight face right now.’

‘Well, then this is a play.’ She laughed with a slight twitch in her right eye. ‘If that’s what you mean, it’s not today. Next week, next Wednesday. That’s when it is. The fourteenth. Today is the day…’

‘Yes, today is the eighth.’ He laughed again, this time licking his lips as he did. ‘It is today. How do you think I could forget that, Mother?’

At that, the waitress returned, bringing two breakfast plates to their table. She placed a mountain of eggs and hash in front of Heidi; for Garland, a small plate of sausages and beans. The waitress smiled and told them sauces were on the counter at the side and then she was off. Garland slumped into his chair and his chin sunk towards his breakfast. He looked down at his digital watch to check the date and reached into his breast pocket to open his notebook, checking his diary entry for the eighth of this month the year prior. This made him shoot back up into his chair, then lean over the plate and the coffee and turn the notebook towards Heidi.

‘See, see. You’re wrong, Mother. Look here. The eighth. Had cake with Alison from the flat opposite. Opened my card from Mother. See. That’s it. You sent me a card.’

Down the tip of her nose, Heidi’s sunken eyes beamed towards the notepad and up to meet her son’s wide eyes.

‘Why would you have cake? Have you forgotten?’

‘Forgotten what? The card…’

‘Well, yes. I sent you a card, darling. I sent it early. I’m always on top of these things, as you know. But the card wasn’t for…’

‘Well, actually, you usually time it just right. Your cards always arrive on the 7th.’

Heidi looked down at the two plates of waning heat between them.

‘That’s not just right. That’s early. Just in case.’

Garland leant back in his chair and drew a long breath in. His lungs filled with the aromas of plastic cheese and instant coffee. He coughed without covering his mouth and met his mother’s gaze directly.

‘So, you’re trying to tell me I’ve been celebrating my birthday wrong all my life?’

At this, Heidi’s expression froze. She fumbled for the glasses on the table and nipped the creased wings of her eyelids as she fixed them to her face. Her still steaming mug of coffee misted the panes and with a handkerchief she streaked across them both in one fell swoop like a window washer in a hurry to clock off. Garland met her squint through the lenses and then she put her hand to her mouth.

‘Garland. Darling. I. I thought it was. I thought. Well. You and Harry sound so similar. You look so similar. I thought…’

Her voice trailed off, eclipsed by Garland’s howls from across the table. His head flung back as he gasped for air and tears streamed down his cheeks. Never in his life had Garland laughed like this. His own mother had, for over half an hour, mistaken him for his older brother. Yes, people said they looked similar. Yes, people said they sounded similar. By no means, though, were they twins. Garland had a square face. Blue eyes. Harry had a circular face. Brown eyes like Father. He even sometimes sported facial hair.

‘Mother. Why do you think I invited you to breakfast?’

Wiping the tent of skin between his eye and upper cheek, he saw Heidi’s face had still not changed. Her lips were parted as if she wanted to speak.

‘Well, it’s all quite confusing as Harry came back to town a couple of days ago, too. And I suppose I’m seeing him this afternoon. But Garland…’

Garland’s tremors of chuckles ceased abruptly. ‘Harry’s back? And he hasn’t come to see me on my birthday?’

Heidi reached out for Garland’s hand. She placed it between her finger and thumb.

‘Darling. That’s the thing. Today isn’t your birthday. Tomorrow is.’

Garland snatched away his hand.

‘No. No.’ Garland pushed the plate in front of him so that it now buoyed over the gap in the centre of the folded table. It sent a squeak and the clang of porcelain ringing around the room and the heads of an elderly couple turned across the way, then bobbed back to their plates. ‘What do you think I invited you to breakfast for?’

Heidi retracted and dropped her fork on the bed of hash.

‘Garland. You’re making a scene.’

‘I just don’t understand what…’

Heidi pushed Garland’s plate back toward him and nodded toward the small sausages and beans. She smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘I thought you were inviting me to have breakfast where you and your father used to go. Ten years’.

She met his eyes.

‘Ten years to the day, Garland.’

Garland tilted his head to the plate and then to the smudge on the windowpane. He pressed against it the soft of his thumb and saw to its left a faint copy of himself that seemed to hover on the other side. The sun beat down harder now and sent a shimmer from a pool of oil on the street. It twisted and shivered the phizogs of the old couple like phantoms stranded in sand, inverting their features twice over and returning them to slither through Garland’s gaping lens.  

‘Garland, darling. Talk to me. Stay with me. Tomorrow’s your birthday, darling. Then we’ll have cake. A proper celebration.’

Garland looked up at his mother and smiled. He rubbed the palm of Heidi’s hand between his thumb and forefinger and she resigned into her chair, knowing what was to come.

‘What’s a celebration? Just the same old farce. Just light that’s caught and flung back like some ungrateful catapult. Celebration. Ha. I celebrate. I have celebrated. I’ve raised a glass and I will raise a glass. But as the rim of that glass reaches the blade of my eyeline I often pause and fix my gaze toward the horizon. And through that murky brew, through the pores in the membrane that bore away through the glass, do you know what I see? My reflection. Ha. What is ‘celebration’? Tomorrow. Just a piper’s dream of playing to the crowd.’

He laughed. The café seemed vacant now.

‘Well, what does it matter? Let’s eat cake.’

The image of the couple slinked up Garland’s optic nerve and nestled itself into the crevices between his frontal lobes, made residence and installed a shoddily constructed zoetrope and that night Garland peeked through the slit and saw dancing like the hands of some malformed shadow puppet the faces of the old couple in the café. They were smiling at Garland but they seemed taller than him. They were leaning over. Then, hands reached out of the zoetrope, it spinning still, and they grabbed Garland. He awoke before he could enter the zoetrope.

In a blanket of dusty sunlight, Garland Sheen rose and boiled coffee on the morning of his birthday. He sat with his coffee on the low-rise brick wall waiting for the postman. He remained sitting on the brick wall for some time as he knew that, if he went back into the house, the letterbox would clang in his tailwind.

By J. Bristow