The Diaspora

 

My heart is breaking.

There are messages. This is something new. One of the many things that never happened in my day when I was that age.

We are playing a word game and listening to music sitting on the soft carpet when with a swift movement of his thumb we start to get the messages,

“I can’t get the boiler to work,” says one.

We haven’t got the boiler on here. Perhaps it’s the heat from the laptop or heat coming from the television we’ve just been watching. It’s also been a warmish day. I’m surprised that anyone should want to switch a boiler on.

‘It’s the shock I guess. It’s making her feel cold that’s why she wants to get the boiler switched on. Shock makes you feel cold.’

The teenager, whose swift thumbs are busily changing the screens on his PDA to bring this news, knows that it could have been him in that small lonely unheated room. He nods grimly the dark curls of his hair enjoying the freedom of his movement.

There’s another message.

‘Jake can’t get his boiler to work either.’

We can imagine them messaging each other with their worries and being prompted to test and check things out for themselves.

It’s a network of first impressions. And they’ve discovered that things don’t work.

We imagine them fiddling with switches and controls, opening dusty metal covers and peering into an unknown world of mechanical devices things that don’t power themselves up over the ether with the flick of a thumb, while their boxes and suitcase lie unpacked behind them.

‘Oh no!’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s a message from Matt.’

‘What’s he say?’

'"See you never know what you’ve got until you don’t have it anymore.”’

‘No!’ I exclaim. ‘Oh that’s so sad.’

It takes me back to the day when I left home for the first time when Joni Mitchell was singing about paradise and yellow taxis. From his words I know that Matt has never heard the song.

We sit in dismay imaging all that Matt can see: from a lonely room overlooking the railway station.

‘Where is he?’

‘Bournemouth.’

Within seconds there is a message posted from Matt’s sister from over a hundred miles away. ‘Are you all right, Matt?’ she asks. Her worry so tangible it’s taking form in our room with ours.

We look at each other. I’m biting my lip.

The teenager checks the other social networking sites.

‘Oh!’ he exclaims. He gives a name, but it slips me by, there are too many names now, too many situations, ‘he says there are people running around with axes!’

‘Oh my God, where is he?’

‘Birmingham.’

‘Who are those people?’

‘Probably his roommates.’

We imagine the noise, the terror, the impossibility of understanding what’s going on. Is it fun? Is it bravado? It’s an agony of worry and loneliness that families were spared in my time. A time when even a phone was rare or impossible, and we did not speak of our feelings. A time when we imagined we were the only ones feeling like this.

There’s another message from Matt,

‘He says he likes Northampton.’

‘Does he use an exclamation mark?’

‘No, that’s not his style.’

‘Hang on,’ the teenager gets up and walks off into his room and returns less than a minute later.

‘Did you send him a message?’

‘No, I just wanted to take a look at my room and make sure it was still there.’

I know what he’s seen. blue walls, books, piles of boxed games, his lap top, the Wii, the soft blue carpet, the patchwork curtains -that look like a stained glass window when the sun shines through them-, the king sized bed, the side light, the clock that lights up, the giant red claw on the floor, Nessie, the teddy bear…all that is familiar and which he holds dear.

He now sees these things as treasures.

He’s checking for messages again.

‘Harry’s packing.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t have too far to go does he? Where is he going? Loughborough?’

‘Yes.’

I’m imagining his mum worrying about him, checking that he has this and that. Fussing over the things he might need. The wires and computer being packed into its new bag.

‘Do you wish you were going to a university somewhere?’

‘No,’ the teenager replies. He is sounding mightily grateful that he has been saved from this ordeal for a year at least.

He checks again and finds the message that confirms his decision to take a gap year. The message is from Matt. There’s no exclamation mark… or even a full stop…it’s not his style. The teenager shows me the small screen and I read the agony of Matt’s words…

“Growing up sucks”