A world between worlds

Too late. A wall of metal was already between her and the track. She had left it too late. Shaking, hot tears sprang all over her face, down her neck, stinging her eyes, already sore from so much crying at The Boathouse.

Backing towards the shrub she decided to try again. She walked along the track, a world between worlds. Coppelia, this is where everything ends. You leave one world and enter the next. You are now leaving one world. Is this where you want to be?

Please God, give me courage. Please God. Give me courage.

Another train would come. Perhaps if she laid down she would be less visible to the driver.
She did not want to risk making him brake at the last minute, as this could cause a crash and people could be hurt - or worse. Later, she would think how strange it was that she cared about hurting strangers on a train, yet had not recognised the hurt her suicide would have inflicted on her daughters.

But we must remember, those who fall into the blackness where Coppelia had fallen, no longer experience the world in the way they do when living in light. Light reveals the truths we take for granted. Their absolute darkness distorts all but the pain inside them. That pain is their only reality, and they are driven nearly mad in its grip.

She lay face down. The damp, cold stones pressed against her knees, her hands, her cheek.
The ground began to hum, a deep, throbbing groan. A train.

She pressed her whole body down harder. Please God. Please give me courage.

At last, she would not have to live through the future without the man she loved. The man for whom her every cell was screaming, bleeding, longing... At last. It was over!

The future. She would never know that hateful future. Yet,what if the future held what she could not see right now? He was still alive. Whatever had been said, she knew he loved her. Would always love her. This truth - he was alive, he loved her - with this truth surely the future may not surround her with the desolation she so feared?

She lay hardly breathing, her heart racing, still in a world between, facing both backwards and forwards.

The face she adored came smiling to her from somewhere in her memory. She smiled back.
Please God. Give me courage.

Please God give me courage to keep living.

The train

Someone spotted her as she edged her way down the bank, so she looked along the track for a way more hidden but there were too many buildings, too many people.

Coppelia wanted out of all this, and she would do whatever it took. Nothing else mattered, everyone would be fine without her, they would find the suicide notes she had written, they would work it out. What good was she now to anyone, anyway? All was broken, worn down, and without hope she was nothing.

In a trance-like state she caught a train for home, but got out at the first station, where she knew a footpath followed close to the track for some distance before bending back towards the woods. They had been so happy walking here in that other life. A life which was no longer hers. The ground under foot was muddy and her bare feet in sandals soon became very dirty. Through the scant scrubland that separated the path from the track, she heard a fast train approaching in the distance.

Please, God give me courage. Please God. Give me courage.

The train was very close now, the track whirred and sang. The air around her seemed to be carrying her towards the edge, it became as a solid being, lifting for her first one foot then the other, pushing her body nearer and nearer. It wasn't Coppelia doing this, someone was doing it for her.

Escape. Any minute now the train would be so close, the driver wouldn't see her and she would crouch low and throw herself just under the front. In an instant all this pain would be over. For ever.

She heard the roar. She swung forwards.

The railway track

If you have experienced the trauma of loss you may be familiar with that need to seek and hold on to those things which keep the loved one feeling close. A picture, some clothing, a gift...as if doing so might somehow bring them back. The need to remain connected with them, to touch them in their absence, through objects and places where they - and you - once were.

Longing to stay connected with him in whatever small way possible, Coppelia made her journey that cold, wet, dark Saturday morning. This was not a rational choice, it was just something she had to do. If she could just see his house, walk by the same river where he used to walk to phone her, sit in the bar where they had met so many times, then these things might bring him to her somehow, make her feel his presence.

She shivered as the relentless rain cooled the summer air. Floods had devastated much of the country, especially in the west, where he was, at his brother's in Bristol. She used this as an excuse to send him a message, enquiring after his safety.

She was sitting in the bar of the Drapers Arms. The same table, the same smell of food and beer, the noisy hum, the dark wood, the mirrors...nothing had changed, yet everything was different. She wanted to stay there forever. The memories soothed her, knowing he had been there was a comfort, and if she sat there long enough she could not believe he would not, eventually, walk through the door one day just as he had done so many times.

He sent a warm reply to her message, the floods weren't too bad. He asked if she was alright. How could she answer this? Pleased that he was at least communicating, she told herself that what bound them together was stronger than what had parted them.

Yet as she turned to leave the comfort of being there turned to mockery, to a chill around her heart. Fool! She was kidding herself. Looking around at this familiar place she had to face it - they may never again be here. No kind of magic would conjure him back.

Outside, a blackness wrapped itself around her like a shroud as she wandered over the familiar crescent railway bridge, along the busy main road and on to the quiet close where he lived.

She stood briefly and gazed up at the bedroom window where they had spent many delicious and serene hours, whilst H was away. She had brought with her the letter she had written to him in purple ink, ready to post through his letter box. Yet something made her wait. What if H picked it up when they arrived home next week? This was not the right time. Maybe it never would be.

She left the close and crossed the green to the river, then walked along the river path to The Boathouse Inn. Quite often he would call her from here, but she had never been there herself, until now. He had described it all and so she knew exactly where to go.

Was this really her, this pathetic lone figure of slow, deliberate steps, watching the water as the soft rain punctured its grey surface, staring around her as if she had just landed from another planet? She could not take it in, even now, how quickly the life and love she had known, had withered to this eternal misery. They had skipped by rivers, strolled arm in arm by rivers, paddled, splashed, shared silences ... Coppelia's mind swam with his words, over and over, every cruel and hurtful word, every loving and passionate word, every promise...
Should she jump in the river? It looked quite deep and she couldn't swim. Too many people. The railway track. Maybe the railway track.

She ordered a drink in The Boathouse and sat away from the other customers in a quiet area overlooking the river. Angry and confused, Coppelia could not remember ever feeling so alone as she did then, and the tears came. For a long time she sat, quietly sobbing, drinking, not caring where her despair might take her. Wishing it would take her where this pain would stop forever. The railway track.

Taking out a small notebook she wrote:
'In the Boathouse with a large glass of red wine, in the corner, crying over you. Again.
Please, don't do this to us.'

When she left she wandered back to the station by the river path. She could not face seeing his house again. The rain had stopped. She was hungry but the thought of food made her feel sick.

Under the Crescent Bridge she found a way to reach the railway track.