Alicia Buchanan . Week 52
Every week, I pick a name off a list of randomly generated names and write a short short story based on this person. This year, I give them all a special power, or perhaps a curse. I thought I would share some of those stories here. This, is Alicia Buchanan who is the last person of 2016:
The first time she couldnât figure out how to make it stop. Or rather. Once she did make it stop she couldnât make it start again. The time. The world. The everything.
For 3 year old Alicia Buchanan it was not so much the All. The existence around her. The passing of time. It was her mum. Alicia sneezed and Mum stopped. Frozen mid-laugh. 3 year old Alicia first panicky. Then hysteric. Then quiet. Sobbing on the floor while the world stood still around her.
For Aliciaâs mum the experience was quite different but not any less terrifying. One moment she was playing with her child on the floor. The next, Alicia was sitting in the corner, tears streaming down her face. Cold, shivering and dripping wet. She never found out what happened that day, nor would she ever understand.
After that it did not happen for years. Alicia grew to forget it and her mother told herself it was a bad dream. A bad dream, nothing more. Alicia grew and the world kept moving. For years nothing happened until that one day. 6 year old Alicia sitting at the kitchen table, playing with her doll. Her baby sister crawling over the floor. Mum looking away, just for a second. The baby crawling towards the balcony. One moment Mum is turning to grab the babyâs bottle. The next Alicia is standing across the room. Holding her sister in her arms while closing the balcony door. Her young face a jumble of fear and panic and breathlessness.
6 year old Alicia Buchanan spent hours and days trying to figure out how to control it. Perhaps a word, perhaps a movement. Perhaps a certain way of breathing or thinking. A jump or a snap or a whistle. Staying up late at night staring at the cars on the road far beneath her room. Biting her lip until it bled and yet the cars kept moving and the city kept living and nothing ever stopped.
7 year old Alicia found that it happened more around her sister. The toddler taking her first shaky steps while her sister watches from the doorway. The toddler coming to a halt falling forward only to be caught by her sisters arms. The toddler dropping a spoon only for Alicia to catch it. Alicia catching leaves as they fall and handing them to her sister. Alicia having the favourite toy ready seconds after her mum realises it has been lost.
Little Baby Betty grew up a protected child. Her sister always by her side she never fell far enough to get hurt. She never burned or cut herself. She never lost anything for long and she never went hungry long enough to voice it. When she started school her bullies would only bully her once. After that, their shoes would suddenly be tied together and their belts undone.
Everyone knew Betty Buchanan had a guardian angel and everyone knew who it was. Yet no one ever asked a question.
10 year old Alicia watching from a classroom window as her sister climbs the school yard oak. A flock of children around her shouting their praise or their worry or fear. Betty putting one hand in front of the next. Slipping. Falling. Screaming. Alicia with her heart in her throat as Betty stops mid-air. Alicia running down the stairs. Pushing through a crowd of frozen children. Bettyâs scream, paused in her throat, turning to a laugh as her sister catches her. Alicia spending the next 12 years always watching her sister.
The first time it happened Alicia did not know how to stop it. How to make the planet start spinning again. The last time it happened she did not want to. Not yet. Always not yet.
19 year old Baby Betty Buchanan in a hospital bed. Tired eyes looking at her sister. The doctors have told them thereâs sure to be a cure. âbut she is running out of time. We simply cannot save her fast enoughâ. The costant beeping of machines keeping tab as baby Betty fades away. Alicia looking at her sister and Betty looking at her. She grew up protected but this Alicia cannot protect her from and she knows it. Alicia biting her lip till it bleeds. Then letting go of her sisters hand.
Between one beep and the next Alicia gets up. Her sister caught halfway through a cough. Momentarily not in pain and Alicia will keep her like this. She leaves the room and she does not look back. Instead she walks and she reads and she searches. 21 year old Alicia loosing track of her age in the space between two seconds. She does not know how long she is gone but when she returns she is holding a cure. As she hobbles into the hospital room. Her knees old with gout and her eyes almost blind from years of searching. 71 year old Alicia sitting down next to her sister and taking her hand before she lets the next beep come along.
For Betty the moment is different. She closes her eyes for a moment and she opens them to her sisters face. Alicia now a jumble of fatigue and satisfaction. Her eyes tired and wrinkled and pale. Her hands crumbled and bent. Her hair thin and dry and grey. Alicia unrecognisable but smiling.
âI did it Baby Betty. I did it. You are safeâ
And she never needs to do it again.
For more stories like this. Click here.
