Arcanist
It's always darkest before the dawn
“How has he been since Saturday?”
“He’s been quiet today,” the nurse said, sliding a book across the counter towards Olivia. “Well, had a bit of a struggle to get him out of his pyjamas this morning to go to breakfast. He fancied having an extra hour in bed.” She grinned, setting a pen down on top of the book.
Olivia giggled, lifting the pen. Her eyes fluttered over the varying swirls and curls of handwritten names and times, before settling on a blank space. “That sounds like him. Whenever we had a sleepover, we always used to spend an extra hour in bed, watching cartoons with big bowls of sugary cereals.”
The nurse smiled, though, Olivia could see the pity mounting in her eyes. She didn’t blame her; she probably had to listen to the wistful reminiscing of old times every day from visitors. The kind of old times where daughters, nephews, brothers, and more, wanted to transport themselves and their relatives back to. If only it were that easy, Olivia wished.
“He’s just in the recreation room,” the nurse explained, gesturing with a nod to the hallway ahead. “You remember where it is?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Olivia nodded, smiling at the nurse, who returned her own polite smile. “Thank you.” She hauled a shoebox, wrapped with crinkled grass green paper, into her arms, and walked ahead. She tried to keep her smile up, though, it felt heavy the closer she approached the recreation room.
There was no telling what her grandfather would be like today; though, she supposed there never was. His memories were often scattered and lost like puzzle pieces under the sofa one day, yet on others, he could recall them in a perfect sequence. Often, he chattered with Olivia about the plants outside the window, or the turbulent weather that meant he couldn't get outside to the garden. Other days, he stared at Olivia, his mouth gaping open before he closed it again, not quite possessing the words nor the knowledge to grace Olivia with conversation.
Either way, one pattern that always seemed to stick was how he couldn't recall who she was. Even with reminding him, or insisting she really was his granddaughter, he couldn't seem to remember. It only led to frustrated shouting in the end. She dreaded to think that could be the Grandad she would be visiting today.
Olivia crossed the threshold into a sparse living area. Several tight curled women sat motionless on ugly, cow-pat coloured sofas, with the occasional pinkish swirl dancing across the pillows. A man, wrinkles etching his face like the cracks in a tree trunk, stood mesmerised by a woman on the wall mounted TV, insisting that her grinning cat ornament was worth far more than twenty pounds (though, its chipped ear gave the indication it was far less than her estimate). Olivia lingered at the doorway. She watched a woman sitting at a table at the other end of the room. She lifted a magazine worn around the edges, scrutinising the cover with beady eyes, before dropping it back on the table. She stared ahead of her with a thoughtless, dazed look. Then, glancing down with surprise flashing in her eyes, she lifted the same magazine, inspecting the cover once again.
Olivia frowned. With the sight making her uncomfortable, she brought her eyes elsewhere, focusing on finding her grandfather. Her eyes finally fell on a worn leather armchair poised facing the wide window. Lounging in it was a man with cotton-candy wisps of hair, staring straight ahead. Even at the sudden shouts of demands from another resident for more biscuits to go alongside their ghostly pale tea, he didn’t stir.
Olivia’s fingers gripped onto the sides of the hastily wrapped box, before she approached the back of the chair. The man didn’t notice her coming; or, perhaps, pretended not to, as his focus stayed steady on the window. Olivia’s gaze followed to the window.
Outside was a sheltered garden, one where its use peaked during the sticky summer months. Now, the habitat had grass that grew the size of a forest floor, flowers retreated into themselves, some wilting and crumpling like burnt paper, and a lonely picnic bench rotted after onslaughts of wet forecasts. With the world approaching the bitter Winter months, it was far more difficult to get residents outside into the fresh air, even if to sit in this garden for ten minutes. Even if the sun did filter through the clouds, the residents would complain about the cold nipping at their noses and gripping at the sagging skins of their bodies. The garden only fell into disuse due to such complaints.
Olivia looked to her grandfather again, who hadn’t torn his own thoughtful gaze on the world outside his window. It wasn’t unusual for him to be like this. He had sat in this very chair with the same, dazed stare, almost oblivious to the happenings around him when his granddaughter visited last. She didn’t mind it. It beat the lashings out of other residents in their frustrations of forgetfulness.
Olivia shuffled, gripping onto the box. This time, it would work. He would remember her this time.
Finally summoning up the courage to break the older man from his spell, she stitched on a smile, appearing by the side of the armchair. “Hi, Grandad,” Olivia attempted a cheery greeting, hoping to get a better reaction today than she did on her last visit.
Her grandfather slowly twisted his head to the left, glancing up at her. He blinked once, twice, a few more times in slow succession, before his lips eased into a small smile. “Hiya, love,” he responded back with a smile of this own. This would seem like a good sign to anyone visiting him. Though, if they looked closer, they could see a haziness, an almost helplessness dancing in his eyes. It was a sign that Olivia had gotten used to; of not being remembered. His gaze soon turned back to the garden again, almost as if his social obligation to greet the girl beside him had been fulfilled. Or else, saving himself from embarrassment.
Olivia’s smiled. It was a start, at least. She moved to the front of the chair, leaning forward with the box. “I brought you some things you might like,” she began, raising her voice. “I thought we could look at them together.” When his eyes moved towards her again and to the box in her hands, Olivia nodded, and held it out. “We can set it down on your lap and look through it together.”
Her grandfather looked from the box, to Olivia, and back again. Eventually, after some gentle and persuasive nods from her granddaughter, he took the box out of her hands, setting it down in his lap. Though, he stared at it with puzzlement, like he was unsure of what to do with this scraggily wrapped shoebox.
Olivia maintained that comforting smile, though, her chest grew tighter the more she looked at that box. Taking a deep breath, she reached out and lifted the lid of the box. She watched as her grandfather’s eyes flittered over the contents nestled inside the box. To the common eye, the contents wouldn’t have made sense to them, not unless they knew her grandfather particularly well.
Olivia, wanting to prompt a reaction from her grandfather, reached her hand inside the box. She lifted out a worn empty packet, the faded label on the front showing a variety of pansies; differing ones of purples and whites bleeding out from its centre and onto the petals. She handed it to him, watching as he mouthed the name ‘Bridsmall Co.’ at the bottom, and traced the outline of the pansies on top.
“I know you planted a lot of pansies before you came to live here,” Olivia smiled, looking up at him.
Her grandfather nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Yes…” The helplessness that had been in his eyes started to dissipate. “…I used to plant other flowers too, you know,” he continued, still staring at the packet of seeds. “Like tulips and daffodils. I used to buy them in the village corner market. Tulips were my wife’s favourite.”
Olivia smiled, though, it felt worn down by sadness. Her grandmother died around six years before, just after she turned sixteen. It was a heavy loss felt by her grandfather, but he never failed to plant some tulips every spring when it came around. That was, until rather recently where he began to forget the tradition, along with the milk that curdled waiting for him outside, birthday dates, and later faces.
“I know,” Olivia managed to smile through such thoughts, patting his knee. “I can see why she liked them. They're very pretty,” she chuckled and her grandfather nodded. She asked, peering in as if she hadn’t packed the contents of the box herself. “What else is in there?”
The two rummaged through the box together, pulling out a plethora of stuff. A dusty, faded green pair of old gloves, which her grandfather remembered being given as a gift by Olivia’s mother around ten years ago – or was it fifteen? There were a few certificates pertaining to his participation in gardening competitions, most of them he had won bar one in particular – where he felt the judges felt biased towards a neighbour. Then, there was a small luminous pink and green dotted plant pot. He remembered his granddaughter, Olivia, painting it for him. Though, he couldn’t seem to quite connect the dots that his granddaughter would recognise it, and that he was right in front of him. But Olivia had to afford to be patient, or at least, that was what she had been told by several nurses and her mother included.
Finally, her grandfather lifted out a photograph. In it, there was a man, squatting down near a flowerbed. He had one hand on the soil surrounding and holding up a daffodil. It seemed like he was patting it down. His hair was as white as cotton, but much thicker and coarser on his head. He had more of a pot belly, compared to now where the skin sagged off his body, and he had a clear, lucid look in his eyes, and pure joy. It took him some time to recognise the young, strapping man in that photo was him.
Beside him, he noticed, was a girl, no more than six, he would say. She was in a yellow dotted raincoat, with a hat to match, and crimson boots that hardly covered the small, skinny legs that occupied them. Unlike the man there, she was working the soil with her bare hands. Soil embedded her fingernails and some of it managed to coat her cheek. Yet, her grin shone at the camera, proud of her work, proud to work alongside her grandfather.
The man chuckled as he looked closer at the photo. Soon, he said, “Your mother always complained about you getting on your face. Even in your clothes. How you did it, I'll never know.”
Olivia looked up, staring at the man who held the photograph up and inspected it further. She blinked, opening her mouth as if to ask if she had heard him right, to repeat what he just said. He had taken her completely aback. She was starting to believe that she wouldn’t hear him acknowledge her as Olivia, as someone he knew from a time long gone. She felt something warm run down her cheek. She raised her fingers up to it, rubbing away the tear that threatened to roll past them and off her chin. It was then she saw her grandfather put the photograph down, and saw his smile drop.
“Oh, are you okay?”
Olivia nodded, laughing. “Yeah, I’m fine. They’re happy tears, don’t worry…” She sniffed, quickly breathing out. She smiled, glancing at the photo that her grandfather had set in front of the shoebox. “I like that photo of us. Teacher and the student, huh?” She chuckled, and smiled as her grandfather joined in.
The two sat together in this silence for a few moments. Olivia’s grandfather’s gaze returned to the garden outside. Olivia spent the time wiping away more spilling tears. She could see her grandfather returning to his own bubble again, the lucidness fading from his eyes. She knew it couldn’t be helped. This was just how it was, how he would be. She just had to treasure every memory she could with him.
Olivia got onto her feet with a grunt, her knees stiff after leaning on them. She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him as he turned his head, returning his own dazed smile back.
“Let’s go put the photo and the box up in your room, yeah?”
Word Count: 2144
“He’s been quiet today,” the nurse said, sliding a book across the counter towards Olivia. “Well, had a bit of a struggle to get him out of his pyjamas this morning to go to breakfast. He fancied having an extra hour in bed.” She grinned, setting a pen down on top of the book.
Olivia giggled, lifting the pen. Her eyes fluttered over the varying swirls and curls of handwritten names and times, before settling on a blank space. “That sounds like him. Whenever we had a sleepover, we always used to spend an extra hour in bed, watching cartoons with big bowls of sugary cereals.”
The nurse smiled, though, Olivia could see the pity mounting in her eyes. She didn’t blame her; she probably had to listen to the wistful reminiscing of old times every day from visitors. The kind of old times where daughters, nephews, brothers, and more, wanted to transport themselves and their relatives back to. If only it were that easy, Olivia wished.
“He’s just in the recreation room,” the nurse explained, gesturing with a nod to the hallway ahead. “You remember where it is?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Olivia nodded, smiling at the nurse, who returned her own polite smile. “Thank you.” She hauled a shoebox, wrapped with crinkled grass green paper, into her arms, and walked ahead. She tried to keep her smile up, though, it felt heavy the closer she approached the recreation room.
There was no telling what her grandfather would be like today; though, she supposed there never was. His memories were often scattered and lost like puzzle pieces under the sofa one day, yet on others, he could recall them in a perfect sequence. Often, he chattered with Olivia about the plants outside the window, or the turbulent weather that meant he couldn't get outside to the garden. Other days, he stared at Olivia, his mouth gaping open before he closed it again, not quite possessing the words nor the knowledge to grace Olivia with conversation.
Either way, one pattern that always seemed to stick was how he couldn't recall who she was. Even with reminding him, or insisting she really was his granddaughter, he couldn't seem to remember. It only led to frustrated shouting in the end. She dreaded to think that could be the Grandad she would be visiting today.
Olivia crossed the threshold into a sparse living area. Several tight curled women sat motionless on ugly, cow-pat coloured sofas, with the occasional pinkish swirl dancing across the pillows. A man, wrinkles etching his face like the cracks in a tree trunk, stood mesmerised by a woman on the wall mounted TV, insisting that her grinning cat ornament was worth far more than twenty pounds (though, its chipped ear gave the indication it was far less than her estimate). Olivia lingered at the doorway. She watched a woman sitting at a table at the other end of the room. She lifted a magazine worn around the edges, scrutinising the cover with beady eyes, before dropping it back on the table. She stared ahead of her with a thoughtless, dazed look. Then, glancing down with surprise flashing in her eyes, she lifted the same magazine, inspecting the cover once again.
Olivia frowned. With the sight making her uncomfortable, she brought her eyes elsewhere, focusing on finding her grandfather. Her eyes finally fell on a worn leather armchair poised facing the wide window. Lounging in it was a man with cotton-candy wisps of hair, staring straight ahead. Even at the sudden shouts of demands from another resident for more biscuits to go alongside their ghostly pale tea, he didn’t stir.
Olivia’s fingers gripped onto the sides of the hastily wrapped box, before she approached the back of the chair. The man didn’t notice her coming; or, perhaps, pretended not to, as his focus stayed steady on the window. Olivia’s gaze followed to the window.
Outside was a sheltered garden, one where its use peaked during the sticky summer months. Now, the habitat had grass that grew the size of a forest floor, flowers retreated into themselves, some wilting and crumpling like burnt paper, and a lonely picnic bench rotted after onslaughts of wet forecasts. With the world approaching the bitter Winter months, it was far more difficult to get residents outside into the fresh air, even if to sit in this garden for ten minutes. Even if the sun did filter through the clouds, the residents would complain about the cold nipping at their noses and gripping at the sagging skins of their bodies. The garden only fell into disuse due to such complaints.
Olivia looked to her grandfather again, who hadn’t torn his own thoughtful gaze on the world outside his window. It wasn’t unusual for him to be like this. He had sat in this very chair with the same, dazed stare, almost oblivious to the happenings around him when his granddaughter visited last. She didn’t mind it. It beat the lashings out of other residents in their frustrations of forgetfulness.
Olivia shuffled, gripping onto the box. This time, it would work. He would remember her this time.
Finally summoning up the courage to break the older man from his spell, she stitched on a smile, appearing by the side of the armchair. “Hi, Grandad,” Olivia attempted a cheery greeting, hoping to get a better reaction today than she did on her last visit.
Her grandfather slowly twisted his head to the left, glancing up at her. He blinked once, twice, a few more times in slow succession, before his lips eased into a small smile. “Hiya, love,” he responded back with a smile of this own. This would seem like a good sign to anyone visiting him. Though, if they looked closer, they could see a haziness, an almost helplessness dancing in his eyes. It was a sign that Olivia had gotten used to; of not being remembered. His gaze soon turned back to the garden again, almost as if his social obligation to greet the girl beside him had been fulfilled. Or else, saving himself from embarrassment.
Olivia’s smiled. It was a start, at least. She moved to the front of the chair, leaning forward with the box. “I brought you some things you might like,” she began, raising her voice. “I thought we could look at them together.” When his eyes moved towards her again and to the box in her hands, Olivia nodded, and held it out. “We can set it down on your lap and look through it together.”
Her grandfather looked from the box, to Olivia, and back again. Eventually, after some gentle and persuasive nods from her granddaughter, he took the box out of her hands, setting it down in his lap. Though, he stared at it with puzzlement, like he was unsure of what to do with this scraggily wrapped shoebox.
Olivia maintained that comforting smile, though, her chest grew tighter the more she looked at that box. Taking a deep breath, she reached out and lifted the lid of the box. She watched as her grandfather’s eyes flittered over the contents nestled inside the box. To the common eye, the contents wouldn’t have made sense to them, not unless they knew her grandfather particularly well.
Olivia, wanting to prompt a reaction from her grandfather, reached her hand inside the box. She lifted out a worn empty packet, the faded label on the front showing a variety of pansies; differing ones of purples and whites bleeding out from its centre and onto the petals. She handed it to him, watching as he mouthed the name ‘Bridsmall Co.’ at the bottom, and traced the outline of the pansies on top.
“I know you planted a lot of pansies before you came to live here,” Olivia smiled, looking up at him.
Her grandfather nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Yes…” The helplessness that had been in his eyes started to dissipate. “…I used to plant other flowers too, you know,” he continued, still staring at the packet of seeds. “Like tulips and daffodils. I used to buy them in the village corner market. Tulips were my wife’s favourite.”
Olivia smiled, though, it felt worn down by sadness. Her grandmother died around six years before, just after she turned sixteen. It was a heavy loss felt by her grandfather, but he never failed to plant some tulips every spring when it came around. That was, until rather recently where he began to forget the tradition, along with the milk that curdled waiting for him outside, birthday dates, and later faces.
“I know,” Olivia managed to smile through such thoughts, patting his knee. “I can see why she liked them. They're very pretty,” she chuckled and her grandfather nodded. She asked, peering in as if she hadn’t packed the contents of the box herself. “What else is in there?”
The two rummaged through the box together, pulling out a plethora of stuff. A dusty, faded green pair of old gloves, which her grandfather remembered being given as a gift by Olivia’s mother around ten years ago – or was it fifteen? There were a few certificates pertaining to his participation in gardening competitions, most of them he had won bar one in particular – where he felt the judges felt biased towards a neighbour. Then, there was a small luminous pink and green dotted plant pot. He remembered his granddaughter, Olivia, painting it for him. Though, he couldn’t seem to quite connect the dots that his granddaughter would recognise it, and that he was right in front of him. But Olivia had to afford to be patient, or at least, that was what she had been told by several nurses and her mother included.
Finally, her grandfather lifted out a photograph. In it, there was a man, squatting down near a flowerbed. He had one hand on the soil surrounding and holding up a daffodil. It seemed like he was patting it down. His hair was as white as cotton, but much thicker and coarser on his head. He had more of a pot belly, compared to now where the skin sagged off his body, and he had a clear, lucid look in his eyes, and pure joy. It took him some time to recognise the young, strapping man in that photo was him.
Beside him, he noticed, was a girl, no more than six, he would say. She was in a yellow dotted raincoat, with a hat to match, and crimson boots that hardly covered the small, skinny legs that occupied them. Unlike the man there, she was working the soil with her bare hands. Soil embedded her fingernails and some of it managed to coat her cheek. Yet, her grin shone at the camera, proud of her work, proud to work alongside her grandfather.
The man chuckled as he looked closer at the photo. Soon, he said, “Your mother always complained about you getting on your face. Even in your clothes. How you did it, I'll never know.”
Olivia looked up, staring at the man who held the photograph up and inspected it further. She blinked, opening her mouth as if to ask if she had heard him right, to repeat what he just said. He had taken her completely aback. She was starting to believe that she wouldn’t hear him acknowledge her as Olivia, as someone he knew from a time long gone. She felt something warm run down her cheek. She raised her fingers up to it, rubbing away the tear that threatened to roll past them and off her chin. It was then she saw her grandfather put the photograph down, and saw his smile drop.
“Oh, are you okay?”
Olivia nodded, laughing. “Yeah, I’m fine. They’re happy tears, don’t worry…” She sniffed, quickly breathing out. She smiled, glancing at the photo that her grandfather had set in front of the shoebox. “I like that photo of us. Teacher and the student, huh?” She chuckled, and smiled as her grandfather joined in.
The two sat together in this silence for a few moments. Olivia’s grandfather’s gaze returned to the garden outside. Olivia spent the time wiping away more spilling tears. She could see her grandfather returning to his own bubble again, the lucidness fading from his eyes. She knew it couldn’t be helped. This was just how it was, how he would be. She just had to treasure every memory she could with him.
Olivia got onto her feet with a grunt, her knees stiff after leaning on them. She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him as he turned his head, returning his own dazed smile back.
“Let’s go put the photo and the box up in your room, yeah?”
Word Count: 2144