Orpheus

 

    (i)


     This used to be a field. A pure field. Only one line of mud peeking through - uncovered by years and years of feet over feet over feet.

     We couldn't walk on the field when it was wet. Not without pain at least to the white Bata shoes.

     "You are going to have to scrub that," Mum said as we ran through the wet squishy mud, knowing already that she was the one who would scrub us clean.

       Or on those sunny days, Mum would hold her umbrella and trudge forth and we would follow like ducklings behind. Looking at her back.

       Or us running forward and looking back at her. Always looking back.

      Mum and I sat down now on this field that has become a something else. The senior citizens practising qi gong, the kids running around on their little bikes and the maids sitting around with the dogs coiled around their ankles.

     "I miss the field," I said sitting here on the park bench. The ever sedentary spectator.

     "Do you remember how we used to trudge through the field?" I laughed as Mum watched Dad exercise on one of those strange yellow plastic bars.

     "You were so small," She said then laughed. "Too lazy to walk too."

    "I followed you everywhere," I protested.

     And I traced the imaginary mud line out for her. It was covered by running track material and wood now. But there it was --- one line under our feet.

(ii)

     Dad was a Virgo. To others less superstitious, this would mean nothing. But, to Dad, being Virgo was his birthright to being obsessively organised. We were pieces in his life that he had to organise in order for his world to make sense.

    "We have to organise Mum's cards," Dad said and passed me her bag and many card holders.

     Mum never unpacked her cards. "Throw Away Nothing" seemed to be her philosophy as compared to Dad's "Keep Nothing". Mum was a member of an astonishingly high number of places.

    There was only one name card through them all. Mine. I didn't even work there anymore, but that was the only namecard I had given her. It lay there among all the membership cards. One point in all her other lives.

(iii)

      Finally, Orpheus reached the depths of the Underworld. He bowed before the God and Goddess of the Underworld, Hades and Persephone. He played his lyre and sang with such exquisite sadness that Hades agreed to let Orpheus' recently deceased wife, Eurydice, return to Earth.

    "Your wife will follow you back up to Earth. There is only one condition," Hades solemnly intoned, "You must never look back until both of you reach above ground or she will return to the depths of the Underworld. Henceforth, the only time you will return to the Underworld is upon your death."

    Orpheus nervously nodded. Hades commanded him to turn around immediately and to return to Earth. Orpheus turned and began returning upwards.

    Orpheus, a man born of sound and music, heard nothing as he made his way up.

     "Are you there, Eurydice?" Orpheus cried out in desperate pain.

     There was nothing.

     At the steps of light, Orpheus stood, paralysed. When he left the Underworld, it would be forever. "Give me a sign, my love," Orpheus begged.

     There was nothing.

     He could not move forward.

     "If I cannot have you, can I at least see you for one last time?" Orpheus cried.

      He looked back.


(iv)

      I stood before my Mum's chair. I bent forward and circled my arms around the air.

      "You are hugging me too tightly," Mum chided.

      "It's the only way I know how," I confessed.

       She pointed at her feet, "My line ends here."

       She smiled at my feet, the tips of our toes touching, "Go. Don't look back."