Weak Heart

WEAK HEART

Ban Gilmartin

To my best friend.  You’ve saved me more times than I can count.

Pick up your sorrow, this is not who we are.

I won’t cry uncle having come so far.

— Blood Under The Bridge, Frightened Rabbit

1. THOMAS

This isn’t real.

The nightmare creatures sitting in front of me may look like my students, but they aren’t; not really. This isn’t real.

I just have to work through this nightmare vision and it will be fine. I just have to stay normal so I don’t scare the two thirteen year-old girls who are actually here, hidden somewhere under the fucked up monsters my brain is currently showing me. I do this all the time. Half my conversations these days are conducted with nightmares. I can get through this.

“So I have some questions about this paper you wrote for me,” I say, taking deep, even breaths. I pull my attention away from where Rimi’s pure white eyes are staring unblinkingly at me. I don’t know what’s worse: the filmy white of Rimi’s eyes, or the oily black of her twin sister Resha’s.

It’s fine. It isn’t real. Their ashen skin and plaster cracked lips aren’t real. My growing migraine pulses against the back of my eyes, and I bite back a curse. Just a wee migraine. Just a small nightmare. No problem. Piece of piss.

“Right, so,” I continue shakily. My fingers grip the paper in my hands so tightly it creases. “You’ve titled it The Anthropological and Historical Practice of Bee Mourning, or, Colloquially, Talking to Bees. Why bees?”

The rain patters against my window, a horn honks outside, my neighbour blares his tellie, but inside my cramped flat there’s silence. The twins don’t answer.

I make the mistake of looking back up. The nightmares are still there. Rimi’s cheery pink hijab is still dark and sopping, wet rivulets of water running down her too-pale skin. Resha’s round glasses still missing, making her face look pinched and unnatural.

Fuck acting normally, this is terrifying. I want to absolutely book it out of here and keep going until I hit the River Clyde and pitch myself in.

But Fadwa would say that’s dramatic and probably wouldn’t be pleased if I offed myself in front of her sisters. So I guess drowning is out.

“So, bees?”

Normally when I ask questions I get two sets of rolling brown eyes and a cheeky answer. My students are brilliant magicians — I’m twenty-two and I can’t cast anywhere as easily as Resha can — but they’re also nightmares. Of the figurative, behavioural kind. Not the literal kind in front of me.