184 Puppet

Onward Journey

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184 Puppet

“I feel like someone is pulling my strings” Body said at 5.30am one morning after another dream had woken her. This time she was calmer but nevertheless concerned after writing it down and rereading it.
“Like a puppet?” the Little Red Haired Girl asked.
“Yes…just like that, and I don’t feel like moving under any obligation be it a ‘string’ or not. I’m going to get in a long shower and wash the dream away.”
“Was it important?” called Spirit.
“That’s the impression I got. It was about two family members being in hospital very ill, and I was told i needed to go and visit them in the UK.” Body looked pale and shaken but moved her feet to the floor and put on her dressing gown.
“Did it have any facts?” Brain asked.
“Yes but I can’t do anything now at this hour so I’m going to take a long shower, have a good breakfast and then any hospital switchboard will have reached opening time.”
“Opening times for hospital should be 24/7 surely?” Brain assessed.
“Not for in-patients only emergencies, so we will wait till usual opening times, anyway I have to look up the numbers first but I have the names of the hospitals and the ward numbers 10 and 18.”
“Oooh they are facts and worth checking” Brain concluded.
Body had the timing for the correct temperature of the water off pat. By the time she had turned the water on (the tap left located in the correct position), got the sponge, the salt and the body wash ready and stripped off her night clothes she could walk straight into the shower knowing the temperature would be just right, not too hot and not too cold.
“Like the porridge?” the child asked.
“Yes ‘The Three bears’. The porridge will be just the right temperature by the time I get to it.”
Body scrubbed the salt all over her skin and repeated it twice, followed by the body wash, and it felt good to have the luxury of hot running water. She was so thankful. She remembered a time in her life when she lived without any running water let alone hot water by living in a caravan on a building site for five years. Thanks to the generosity of her neighbour and good friend she was offered and allowed to bathe at her house. Body was able to bathe once a week, not that her neighbour restricted it to this but Body had not wanted to abuse the favour.
As she cleaned her teeth and switched off the tap inbetween brushing when she didn’t need it, a habit she had got used to from the lack of running water in the caravan, it made her wonder. How did people manage with very little water permanently? Surely it’s an absolute necessity? It certainly felt horrible to feel unclean Body remembered.
“Like children in hot, poorer places?” the child asked.
“Yes. It must be terrible. Everyone needs at least clean water to drink and water to bathe in too” Body empathised.
“And to play in too” the child agreed.
“Hmm” Body remembered her swimming lessons at school and taking her first swimming certificate.
“Yes I remember” the child stated. “We had to jump or dive in the deep end and swim the whole length of the pool.” The child looked uneasy and shuffled and looked at the her feet as if standing on the edge of the pool this very moment. “Sir had a big long pole with a hook on the end of it. He told me I was safe and that I could go ahead and jump in but I didn’t want to.”
“He was there just in case. Of course it was safe, that’s what the pole was for….he could fish you out with it if you got tired” Body reassured.
“I didn’t want to and I ended up having to lay down on a special sick bed.” The child was getting anxious.
“Yes even that went wrong” called Spirit. “You were right not to want to jump in even at that young age.”
“What are you saying?” asked Brain “I don’t really remember this incident?”
“I do now come to think of it” Body mused “I remember feeling really cold and shaking from top to toe. In fact the life guard said my lips were blue.”
“What life guard?” Spirit called.
“Oh just someone that worked there at the pool. He was there every time the school took us for lessons.” Bodies eyes glazed as the memory came back to her as if she was there.
“Yes. He sat on a big chair like a babies high chair” the child confirmed.
“What happened then?” Brain asked.
“Sir said I could do it, so I jumped in. He told me I was swimming towards the shallow so what was the worst that could happen. If I was struggling I could just put my feet down by then. But the floor wasn’t there” the child shook.
“Come on now child, you don’t have to shake” Heart cried. “We are only talking about it. It has been and gone. What happened is long gone.”
“But I still feel it” the child stated as Body began to get cold at the thought of it and hurredly put on her fluffy dressing gown and closed the window.
“So what happened?” Brain asked again.
“I’m not sure” Body admitted “except to say I sank like a stone in the shallow end and had to be fished out.”
“The guard took me to sick bay and I had to lay on my side whilst he thumped my back. Miss had to help me go to the dressing room and put on some dry clothes so we could go back to school” the child recounted. “But I just wanted to go home.”
“Why couldn’t you?” cried Heart “Did they not call your Mum?”
“Don’t think so. We just went back to school” the child said as she preoccupied herself by pulling her nail across the hair comb needles Body had just put down. It made a strange noise she liked.
“That’s unusual” Brain stated “Nowadays they would have to report the incident.”
“Sounds like the child nearly drowned” cried Heart.
“One has to question why she was persuaded into taking this swimming test in the first place if they knew she wasn’t a strong enough swimmer” Spirit called.
“It’s difficult to assess sometimes” Brain answered. “How do you know whether a child is just lacking in confidence? Or when they genuinely are not able to acheive it? It’s a dilemma. The teacher was just doing his best we can assume” Brain assessed.
“Can we?” Spirit called.
“We must” Heart replied. “It’s all anyone can do.”
“If you say so” called Spirit “if they have good intentions. ‘If’ being the operative word.”
“I prefer to believe that still” Heart repeated. “People do have good intentions.”
“It didn’t feel right” the child answered. “I knew not to jump in.”
“How did you know?” Brain asked. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I just know” the child answered and looked directly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She could only see her eyes, but they told a whole story. One that ‘they’ were only just realising as a whole, possibly there whole life.
“You will know soon” Big voice reassured.
Body got dressed and picked up the phone, it was the right time to phone the hospitals.
She phoned the first hospital, asked for the right name, gave address and date of birth and even the ward numbers but no family was registered as an in-patient. The same with the second hospital even changing over the two family members name and details just in case she had got the wrong one in the wrong place, no. No family member registered as an in-patient. Body sighed with relief and sat down with her coffee allowing her shoulders to relax. “All good. All safe. Thankyou” she whispered and Spirit lifted.
“Pulling our strings eh?” Spirit called. “A trickster Spirit maybe?”
“Maybe” Body sighed again “but I’m thankful. Everyone is safe.”