Scratchcards

I take a scratch card and hope to be a better person.

But I’m not the man I wanted to be when I was younger. This fact follows me through the blur (distinguishing days is often too heavy a task so I invest my energy in moving) and I find myself in limbo. Between having the power to hope for better but without the resources to do it. I sometimes imagine what I would say to him, the young boy with dreams like pinprick stars on a clear night and wonder if I could tell him about the unending cloud that covers them now. I hope we never meet.

I take a scratch card and hope to be a better man.

A better friend perhaps. Certainly not a better husband but. A better son. A better life. To be better at life.

I visit my mother again; she wants to know about the kids. And I tell stories about them as if I still see them every day. And she scribbles them down in her little black book in a short language (long dead), with a proficiency that still thrives. Thin, old bones. Aching bones. She writes anyway. Through aching fingers, the half-truths spill over lips and onto paper. Hers, mine and hers respectively. I try, I need desperately for her words to show the person I wanted to be when I was younger. The person she remembers. The one she sees when I sit before her. Two feet shorter. Better hair, worse beard.

A better son would bring her flowers.

I take a scratch card and hope to be a better son.

These are the only moments of my day. Picking the metal shavings from my thumbnail as I ride the bus north to visit my mother. Or south (being physically directionless feels cliché). But there are moments when my nail is clear and I ride a bus that I just don’t remember. Or I do. It just feels like one long ride. Endless, moving forward. Or on. Or whatever. I wonder about the boy I don’t want to meet. The younger me with pinprick dreams. Not weighed down by heavy monotony, or the gentle (not actually that gentle) rocking of the bus. He would want better for me as my mother does. At least how she would if she remembered.

I forgot to bring her flowers.

I take a scratch card and hope to be better.

One night I dreamt that she had died and I woke with enough grief to anchor me for a lifetime. Only, it was an illusion. Only, in those waking moments when reality lingers inches above your consciousness: it wasn’t. And no matter how real and how tormented the mind is – you can’t call in sick about a dream. My mother tells me three times down the phone that she’s fine. That the only thing that’s ended is her little black book and that she fears she’ll have to start writing in the margins. I tell her that there aren’t margins in a Moleskine but she pretends not to hear.

A better son would take the hint and buy her a new notebook.

I take a scratch card and hope my mother lives long enough to fill it.

And then.

The pinprick grows into a keyhole. No, a moon. My hope was stars and now I’m being swallowed by the sun. Closer, wider, warmer. Engulfing. £20,000.

It’s enough. Maybe even too much? Does it cost £20,000 to nudge you out of the blur? Had I been a stronger person, a more delightful one, this wouldn’t change a thing. I’d humbly collect my prize and continue with my day. But as the cashier double checks my numbers there’s nothing dignified about my heart rate.

I approach the boy (who is also me) and apologise for avoiding him. I tell him it’s not going to be okay, but he’ll survive anyway.

I call in sick and I buy a bunch of flowers. I hop on the bus before realising I can afford a taxi. I hop off the bus outside a stationery store and take the time to triple check the type of lines inside before I buy.

My mother smiles at me and I decide that I won’t lie to her again.

AN: For American friends, scratchcard = scratch-offs and £20,000 is around $27,800 as of 28.02.21 xx