Adam's Story

I keep having the same nightmare. It all starts out so pleasant and unsuspecting; a crowded restaurant, colourful and abstract like a Leonid Afremov painting. A faceless waitress with a brunette bob, white blouse with black skirt, stands to take the orders of the endlessly long table. Our raucous group exploding with chatter and laughter, gentlemen in greens and blues, ladies in red and pink smudges of a brushstroke, all having a fantastic time. Wine overflowing from glasses, the surrounding tables joining in with the infectious antics, all boisterously celebrating each other, celebrating life.

Except for me. I’m at the end of the table, a crude black stick figure on the canvas; my cartoon like eyes wide in fear. Trapped in a bubble filled with jet black fluid, swirling around up to my neck, rising slowly. As I thrash, waves slosh round bubble, slipping up the sides and crashing over me again and again. Drowning in the inky turbulence, my lungs filling as I scream for help, but the sound cannot escape my spherical prison.

And then I wake up, and can’t decide whether the dream was worse than the reality of waking up again to another day. Boulevard of Broken Dreams blasting into my ear drums from the night before; I’d fallen asleep with my earphones in, trying to drown out the questions my mind wouldn’t relent on. Awful questions I cannot bring myself to admit to.

You see, everyone has their flame, in different colours and intensities. It fuels their desires, and gives them the drive to achieve. The artists of the world have fluorescent pinks and peacock blue flames, I could see them burning in my old housemates as they floated through life. Mine was a steady beige at best. No really a proper colour, but a gentle flame burning enough to eliminate my surroundings. But small flames cause great shadows, and I feel like these shadows have been looming over me, growing greater and greater as my flame diminished. It’s been completely extinguished for some time now, with every ember drenched without hope of being restarted. The smoke choking me like the waters in my dreams, life choking me.

“….Check my vital signs, To know I'm still alive, and I walk alone.”

Green Day got it right with this one. It’s funny, I’ve listened to this song since I was eight years old, played it on repeat, could recite it in my sleep, but it’s only now I feel like I understand what the lyrics mean. I haven’t really felt like I have been living lately. Just existing, walking alone. Four years ago to the day my flame died, I guess that’s why I’m writing this now.

A psychologist would say it’s all to do with my childhood, and to be fair they might have a point. I’ve always lived in my sister’s shadow. It’s hard to compete with someone who isn’t alive anymore, it’s not really a fair competition. But that’s what my parents did, they constantly remind me of my sister’s sacrifice, that she’s the reason I’m alive, that I need to do better, to be better, live a life for two. Can you imagine that kind of pressure? To put that on a child, who doesn’t know any better?

My sister was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition at the age of four, it’s on the recessive gene so she had a four in one chance of getting it. It’s a type of autoimmune condition that affects the nervous system, and reduces your life expectancy significantly. Unfortunately, it’s characteristic that by the time you start showing symptoms, it’s too late. When she got her diagnosis, I was only two months old, and immediately tested. I had the same condition, but they’d caught it early enough before the onset of symptoms to intervene.

I was the first to receive a ground-breaking NHS treatment involving stem cell therapy, and “the world’s most expensive drug” if you can believe what the newspapers at the time said. I spent the first few years of my life at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, after which you can barely see my disability. My weakened nervous system means that I struggle to walk very far, so I have a crutch and a wheelchair if needed. But I know that I am lucky to be alive, and able to live a relatively normal life.

But the ghost of my sister never stopped haunting my parents, the void she left was the biggest presence in our house. It was like each time they saw me, they were reminded that they only had one child where there should have been two. I could see the sadness in their eyes, that I would always be associated with her, with the pain of her loss. I think that’s what robbed us of being close to each other. I was a reminder of their pain.

At first, they wrapped me up in cotton wool; they couldn’t lose me too. Every cold and sniffle meant bed rest and a hospital visit. But I was resilient, I had been through more than most children already, and as my parents became more aware of this, they put it to the test. They insisted I do ballet, to build my strength in my legs up without a contact sport. I enjoyed it for a few years, when there wasn’t stigma or judgement. But once I reached seven years, I started to be aware that I was the only boy, aware the Dad’s picking their daughters up would shake their heads at me, mutter things like “you wouldn’t catch MY son …”. I didn’t want to be singled out, I just wanted to hang out with other boys, be normal.

Voicing that I didn’t want to continue was the first time they made me feel guilty about my sister, but not the last. Never the last.

“If your sister was alive she would be thrilled to do ballet, but doesn’t have the chance. Are you going to give up on everything, when she didn’t have a choice?”

Lovely aren’t they, my parents. This carried on for years, and I let it, because I didn’t know any better. I left ballet 5 years later when I started at secondary school, by telling my parents that I was scared of being bullied. Subconsciously perhaps, I’d learned that families manipulate each other. My parents feared I would be bullied for my crutches, so I leapt at the chance to say that Ballet would be more ammunition for the bullies, and they took the bait. I mean, I would have been true anyway.

It didn’t stop them making snide comments about quitting, and that I should never quit anything again. This made it super difficult when deciding on new clubs and hobbies, but eventually I thought that learning to swim, which was a feat in itself, would be a sensible choice. But that started out a whole “Paralympian” phase that even I don’t want to go into.

For all our sakes, I won’t go too much more into my relationship with my parents, you’ve probably stopped reading already, but let’s just say that the years transpired much the same until I left home. I was a huge disappointment, and nothing I did or didn’t do was ever enough. They pushed and pushed, and when it couldn’t take the strain and relented, I was branded selfish, a quitter, and a failure to the memory of my sister.

You could almost say that in all aspects of my life, I was never enough for people. I passed my test first time, meeting the minimum level of Mum and Dad’s expectations as usual, and received my disabled badge in the post a few weeks later. I drove into town to meet my friend Chris, we were going to the cinema. We always went to the cinema together as I could manage the short walk from the bus to the cinema without my crutches, and a day without my crutches just made me feel so normal. Chris liked all the marvel films, so we vowed to see every single one.

I smiled at my bay parking; my instructor Dave would be so proud. This was my first journey out as a qualified driver, I had never felt so free; no instructor, no parents, no crutch, no wheelchair! As I walk across the road, away from my space, a man gets out of his car and makes a beeline for me.

“Oi mate, you can’t park there, it’s for disabled.”

“I am disabled”

“Don’t take the piss, my brother’s in the back in a wheelchair. You’ve taken the last space, so get back in your car and find another one before I knock your block off.”

“I really am disabled, I can’t walk very far, I –”

Before I can finish he punches me right in face, and I feel the bones in my face crack and fracture under his fist. There’s blood everywhere, spurting from ruptured nose and dribbling down my cheeks.

“That’s for my brother, you arsehole” He screams at me, leering at the public who are staring and filming the scene, undecided as to whether they should intervene”.

“That’s right, share and shame this F*****”

As I lay there, ashamed that I couldn’t stand up for myself, huddled in a ball and anticipating further blows. But that’s when Chris arrived. In and out of consciousness, I don’t have the best memory of it all. Chris drove me to the hospital, where they realigned my nose. It’s always been crooked since then, and my sneezes are more like shrieks, but thanks to Chris the damage wasn’t too bad. The man who hit me was eventually found, but not before several videos of my assault had made it online. I received death threats on Facebook from total strangers for a few months, until the images were removed and the story died down.

Chris was always there for me. We’d met at secondary school, Aldergrove Academy, and were definitely the “inbetweeners” of the school hierarchy. We shared a passion for Warhammer, both Space Marines obviously, and spent hours painting, battling, and following the lore on YouTube.

Chris was the kind of friend everyone needs in their life. We passed our GCSE’s and A-Levels together, having gotten into the same sixth form college. We were inseparable, known as the twins by our classmates. He introduced me to my first proper girlfriend, Sara. I lost my virginity to her. But when I moved away for University, the long-term relationship was hard to maintain. When she broke up with me, Chris came to stay at my rented university house. He brought a BB gun, a six pack of Stella, and a whole plastic can of pellets. With my flatmates out, we turned the garden into a firing range. What can I say, it helped.

Our friendship did survive the distance, and Chris was there no matter what happened to me. For the highs, and the lows. For my series of very short relationships, and the subsequent heartbreaks that followed – what else is University for, as Chris put it. For passing my exams, for getting to my final year, lined up to get a 2:1 degree if my grades held. It didn’t matter to Chris that it wasn’t a first, he celebrated my successes and told me to ignore my parents.

“Whatever I do, they always find a way to make me feel never enough”.

“F*** ‘em. Life’s too short Adam. You’re doing amazing bro!”

And I tried Chris, I really tried. But it’s not just them, the world keeps telling me I’m not enough. If only we could have known then, if only we could have prevented it. I wish I’d listened to you and not my parents, wish you’d come to me instead. Things could have been so different.

That Christmas I went home on the last Friday of term to spend an obligatory few days with the parents before stopping at Chris’s flat, I had another altercation at the bus stop. Waiting for the coach in the winter darkness despite the relatively early time of 5pm, I’m approached by two lads. One in a grey Nike tracksuit, the other black Adidas, with a small blade outstretched.

“Give us your phone, the shoes, and any cash”.

“But brothers really? One of your own?”

“You’re not one of us, you half-breed”

Their words cut deeper than their knife ever could, and hurt more than the shame of the mugging, the cost of the new trainers, and the pain in my feet from walking shoeless from my final stop to my parents’ house. At least they hadn’t robbed my ticket.

My mum had prepared me for racism, as a black woman growing up in the 70’s, she had experienced it first-hand. I knew it was something I couldn’t escape, but that the world was changing for the better. Dad didn’t have a clue, but that was okay, he was a strong advocate to have. But what neither could prepare me for was the racism I experienced from other black people. You see, I knew the white racists just saw black, and I was prepared for that. Most people were fine these days and anyway, I was lucky not to live in America! But when my own community rejected me as one of their own, for not being black enough?! I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Maybe that was the first trickle of water onto my dying flame. I was optimistic that things couldn’t get worse, and at this point the sanctuary of my parents’ home seemed now a blessing, a safe space. But as you can see in the book that is my life, each preceding chapter always seems to be a mere foreshadowing of the darkness yet to come.

My parents had planned to tell me when I got home, but with the state of me and the shock of the mugging, they left it until the next day, Christmas Eve.

Chris was hit by a drunk driver on Wednesday 21th December 2016. The stupid man had driven to his work office party, had a few too many and thought he’d be okay to drive home. As is always the way, the driver survived whilst Chris died at the scene. Died for the cost of a taxi.

That’s when my fire went out. Hearing that news. I dropped out of Uni, with the course saying they would keep a place for me the following year. But I wasn’t ready the following year, or even the year after that. I don’t know where the time went, I just seem to have existed for a while, numb to everything. After experiencing that level of pain, it uses up all the emotions you have until there’s nothing but an empty shell left.

For the first year, people were understanding about it. But January 2018 was declared by public opinion to be my new year, to start my new life. To find a job now that I’d had time to process, and go back to university that September. But how could I? How do people just get back to normal after something like this?

I asked my parents how they managed after losing Adele, but they refused to talk about her. I could see that they still carried the pain of my sister, even twenty years later. I didn’t know if I could do that, live this way, with Chris missing, for another twenty years. The thought nearly finished me there and then.

But I prayed for a sign, for there to be a reason to carry on. I said I would give it my all, that what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, and that after all I have been though, I must be strong. I finished my degree, for Chris’ sake more than anything, a legacy that he could leave. I graduated in 2019, with a scrapped 2:1, but a 2:1 none the less.

I didn’t know what I would do for work, I was so focussed on finishing my English Lit degree that I hadn’t thought about the future. I decided to do what all lost people do, and travel the world for a bit. Discover myself, who I am, be true to me and be the person Chris was helping me become. I worked on the Morrisons’ checkouts whilst I was studying, so stayed on until after Christmas to save up money for the trip, and to avoid Chris’ 3rd anniversary.

It was all booked for spring, Thailand, Cambodia, Australia, Bali – I even had some of Chris’ ashes to join me on the journey, and scatter somewhere breath-taking. But we all know what happened this March. No travel, quarantine.

I’d implemented my own quarantine of sorts since Chris’s death, and now finally ready to emerge, I’m forced back into my cave. Nine months of solitude with only yourself and your thoughts is dangerous, especially when your brain thinks the way mine does. My new-found optimism ebbed away; if it wasn’t for my next-door neighbours parcel’s, I don’t know if I would have made it this far.

Khadija is some type of nurse, I’m not sure exactly her job, I should ask really, that’s terrible. But not only does she care for her patient’s, she cares for everyone she meets. She’s the type of neighbour who buys biscuits just because, and can see the sadness in people, knowing when to reach out. We need more people like her.

It all started with leaving a note on her doorstep. I’d seen her that first morning she had been redeployed, the fear in her face, hugging her Mum like it might be the last time she saw her. So many people were dying back then, and whilst we all hid away, she had to carry on and risk everything to help the sick.

I thought that was such a brave thing to do, but could see she didn’t feel brave. I could see through the cracks, the fear, and the abyss she was in. I’d been there, in various forms, myself. I wrote her a letter of appreciation, something silly, but something to motivate her. Something that I would have loved someone to do for me.

Since then, every so often, she’d leave me a parcel on the doorstep. Eggs, milk, even a packet of toilet roll once when we you couldn’t get it at the shops. She’d leave a little inspirational quote, and I found myself looking forward to these sporadic surprises on the doorstep. Adele would have been the same age as Khadija had she lived, so Khadija has almost become my sister in her own way. We weren’t close before COVID, but I guess hard times brings people together. We never saw each other, weren’t even allowed to chat, but the little tokens gave reason for my continued existence.

Six weeks ago, the parcels stopped. I think about two weeks in, I had a bad feeling. I posted a letter through her door, to check in on her, praying for a response.

Her father Saeed wrote back a very curt letter, but I could understand why. His wife, Khadija’s mother, had passed away from COVID. Khadija had contracted it at the same time, and although was not infectious anymore she was very poorly. It has affected her lungs so the point that she was breathless getting up and down the stairs, and she had been told not to leave the house. She was on bed rest, and had to have some kind of therapy to help her breath. He asked that I give the family some space, as she was very weak, and could not risk catching an infection.

I was devastated. She’d given her all, and was rewarded with this? I felt like she and I were kindred spirits, trying our best whilst the world gave its worst. It wasn’t fair on either of us, and all we’d tried to do was good, and all we asked for in return has happiness.

Everything had been taken now, not only the meaningful people in my life, but my belief that those who do good are rewarded, had been destroyed. Why keep going, why keep trying? With no happy ending in sight, I can’t help but think I should be writing my own ending on my terms. To have some form of control over my life, even if it’s only in the final say. And what more fitting day that Chris’ 4th anniversary? At least we’d be together.

Reaching into my sock draw and bring out a gold locket, in the shape of a heart. It was Adele’s, or would have been. The antique passed down through our family for generations, and was given to the eldest child on their 5th birthday, a milestone she never made. Instead, on my 5th birthday, I was given it with a photograph of her in the middle to remember her by, along with my parents’ image on the other side.

After he passed away, I’d replaced my parents with a photo of Chris. He’d probably find it hilarious that he’s in a heart shaped locket. “I didn’t know we were that close!” I can hear him say. It just seemed like the right place to put him.

“What do I do Chris, do I carry on? Am I letting you and Adele down if I stop fighting and choose to join you?”

I look from him to Adele, holding on the golden frame tightly, praying for answers. I put the locket round my neck, brushing my laptop as I do so, and causing the screen to flash on.

The Samaritan’s website comes up. This isn’t a miracle, I was looking on that page last night, wondering what to do, headphones in and blasting music loudly to cover up my thoughts. And here I was once again, alone with my questions, with the number on my screen.

Could it be a sign though? I had brought the webpage up yesterday so it wasn’t some mysterious force that had done so, but did Chris make me put the locket on, make me knock the laptop so the webpage came up? It happened right after I asked whether I should join him.

I type 116 123 into my mobile, thumb hovering over the green call button. I take a deep breath, and loudly exhale. Chris, I’m doing this for you buddy.

“Hello Samaritans?”

This is not where my story ends, I decide, it’s just the final page of this chapter.