The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2916 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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243 dozen for dodecaphiles

Diane was typing something when I returned to the office, “Good break?”

“All right,” I responded. I opened up my own computer and saw a long string of emails—just what I needed. I sighed and started dealing with them.

Diane came in a while later with a cuppa.

“So what happened that wasn’t good?”

“The weather for starters. Apart from Good Friday, the rest was pants and that bloody storm Katie or whatever they called it blew down a tree and destroyed half of David’s cottage. We’ve now got builders in.”

“Oh joy, what fun eh—still take the number of weeks they gave you to finish the job and convert that into months and you won’t be far out.”

“Do I get the impression that you’ve had bad experiences with builders?”

“Only with every house I’ve ever owned.”

“I’ve only ever owned my parents old one—oh and a Victorian villa in Southsea and house in Portsmouth and one at Aust. I suppose I actually own the one we all live in but I consider that is only when Tom dies.”

“You’ve owned five houses?”

“No, I own five houses, six if you include Neal and Gloria’s place.”

“Who’s Neal and Gloria?”

“Lizzie’s parents, they both died and asked me to look after Lizzie.”

“Lizzie sounds as if she was a very lucky little girl.”

“If you consider losing your parents is fortunate, then yes she is.”

“I meant to have you as what, foster mother?”

“I adopted her.”

“She’s even luckier then.”

“I think she might have been happier with her natural parents.”

“Yet you went to great lengths to take Hannah under your wing because you felt her mother was neglecting her. Sometimes these things appear to be meant to happen.”

“Appear yes, but it’s pure coincidence.”

“Oh a Dr Thomas phoned or her secretary, could you ring her back—it’s about your appointment.”

“I only saw her this morning, what’s all that about, I wonder?”

“Pass, here’s the number.” She handed me a post-it that I stuck on the side of my computer.

Of course I got so involved with my work that I completely forgot all about it. Then reflecting on having what we desire wasn’t sure if my life was anything like I wanted. I suppose we all have moments like I was experiencing when life appears to be what happens instead of what you planned.

Back before Stella hit me off my bike, I dreamt of just being me—a woman with somewhere to live and a job to pay for it. I had no thoughts about having a partner let alone a husband and as for children and a professorship—that would have been like winning the lottery. Then not only am I married but it’s to an aristocrat so I have a title and he’s got more money than Croesus or his dad has.

Life has provided me with ten times as much as I’d hoped for and I know I should be really happy, so why aren’t I?” The honest answer is I don’t know. I have the most wonderful family and a lovely husband not to mention the most amazing adopted dad I could wish for. I’ve got a super house and a brilliant car, nice bicycles and an important and well paid job, so what’s missing? I don’t know—I have no idea, but something is niggling me.

At lunch I went for a walk, I now keep some flat shoes in the car so I changed out of my heels and went for my stroll. I wondered if it would help me sort my head out and grabbed a roll from a shop about half a mile away, eating it as I wandered. The day stayed dry but the wind had a bit of a chill, so was glad of the jacket I had on.

I wandered as far as the dock at Spice town or Goose port as it was called. It’s not an area I usually frequent, simply because I rarely need to come this way although it was near where I found Julie. I wondered if she was happy or did she find life as empty as I was at that moment. My head was in a very strange place and it worried me.

I sat looking at the water drinking a coffee, ideas spinning round my brain like the hadron collider. Why was I feeling so dissatisfied with life and myself? For a moment I wondered if it was because I felt trapped in both my domestic and professional lives, in both spheres I had people depending or relying on me. That was how I liked it, being the hub of things, making things happen, solving other people’s problems and ignoring my own because my needs were just those things I’d just considered. By myself, I was actually nothing. Without the others, I barely existed except perhaps as a faint glow from some distant nebula, certainly not a star. I only could see myself as reflections from others.

So who was Catherine Watts or Cameron for that matter? A mother and wife and teacher but was she? Did she only exist because of others, did it need two or three hundred students for me to exist as Cathy the teacher/professor, did I need dormice to be Cathy the ecologist? Was I a mother only because I had adopted children who needed me or a wife because my husband made me so and did I only live because those people needed me. Would I simply fade out like a dying light if they ceased to need me or to sustain me?

I’d never seen myself as an existentialist always believing that a tree falling in a forest far from the nearest human still made a noise because noise is simply sound waves and they happen whether or not anyone actually hears them. Stars explode in space and no one sees them but they still happen and it might be millions of years later that we see the light from the event as a supernova because it takes so long to get to us. Even at 186,000 miles a second it takes millions of light years for some of these things to get anywhere near enough for us to see them—it’s mind boggling and my mind feels boggled enough, so I went back to my seemingly pointless existence and job and did some more futile paperwork.

At about half past two, Diane brought me in some mail with a cuppa and a biscuit. “Diane, are you happy?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look and said, “If you asked if I were contented, I’d say yes immediately. Happy, that’s more ephemeral, harder to quantify, why?”

“I just wondered.”

“Why?”

“Okay, I just thought about myself. I’ve got everything I could possibly want from life but it all seems rather empty.”

“Oh dear, you’re a bit young to have a midlife crisis aren’t you? You’re not going to run away and wander round Tibet in just a pair of flip flops and a teddy, are you?”

“Certainly not, it would put the Dalai Lama off his breakfast.”