First Event

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Erin crouched at the edge of the rooftop, staring down at the crowd gathering in the street below. Vultures, she thought, come to pick over the remains of her life. She wasn’t even dead yet, though she soon might be. She still wasn’t sure that she wanted it all to be over. So here she perched, like a fleshy gargoyle, on the edge of the precipice to either death or to understanding where it all had gone wrong.

At the beginning of her life, she was perfect. Everything about her was divine – from her tiny toes and fingers to her pink shell-like ears to her chubby face and limbs. Her world was an adventure, and she would conquer it. She would live the life she'd come here to live and be the physical embodiment of her true spirit self.

There was nothing to stop her. In her innocence, she saw only infinite possibility, unlimited opportunity, constant love and everlasting support. Now she saw nothing but pain and disillusion. Where did it go wrong? When did she start to lose that innocence? What awful event closed the doors of opportunity and left her bereft and alone, filled with doubts and lacking in belief?

She had wondered about this for many years. The only significant event that she could link it back to was the death of her father. Oh certainly, there had been many other events in her life that stung and stabbed, ripped at everything she had believed was true about herself and replaced those beliefs with something she supposed others would call reality. But the first event must have been the loss of the one man who had loved her.

At least, that is what she assumed. She didn't really remember her father dying. She was only two and half years old when it happened, and had no conscience memory of the event. Yet she could see its effects in old photos. There were pictures of her as a baby being held by her dad where she was laughing and smiling. Then there were pictures of her after his death, and in every one she was frowning, glum, defiant or “just plain bad-tempered”. That last phrase was her mother's words, not hers. Her mother had little sympathy for her daughter’s travails – her own were much too important.

So there in black and white (for that is what the photos were) was evidence of the first event. Something happened to change that sunny baby into a surly toddler, and the only event that had happened was her father's death. An event she could not remember.

She couldn't even remember her father. At times, she thought she did. There were vague snippets of image and voice, of him sitting at the kitchen table in a singlet and shorts, watching her over the top of the paper and laughing as she crawled and played on the kitchen floor. But she thought her mother may have told her that, one of the rare stories her mother shared about her father. It may have been that she wanted so much to remember her father that she constructed this memory. It was one way of assuring herself that he had truly loved her. 

Her father used to bring home poppies. That she remembered. She'd always been fascinated by the bright orange-red of the petals and the velvety black centre. Poppies were for remembrance, her mother had told her. Erin had been full of curiosity. Why did her father bring home poppies? Whom was he remembering? Her mother didn't seem to know, or knew and would not share.

Erin sighed. She would never know now. The crowd below had grown large, and she could hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs to the roof. She turned her head to see an earnest young woman walking gingerly towards her.

“Hi,” she said. “My name's Poppy. What's yours?”

Erin smiled to herself and stared back down into the crowd. She thought she saw a man who resembled the pictures of her father. It could not be him though. He had been dead now for thirty years.

"What's your name?" asked the young woman softly.

Erin stood up slowly and took one step away from the edge.

“My name is Erin,” she replied. “And I'm ready to come down now.”