It was late September when the light flees from the evenings and the night tumbles down rapidly. Heavier than a summer night as though something has been added to it.
That year, it took me unawares - the days had been deceptively warm and bright, the skies were gloriously blue - making me forget that summer had been and gone. That day, when the darkness was seeping into the late afternoon, something was moving about me, rustling around my legs at first, then pulling itself across and over me until it enveloped me entirely, weighty and rough like a fire blanket. I could not shift it as it tightened across my chest, compressing my heart, reaching upwards, covering my face, pressing down on top of my head. By dinnertime I sat swaddled in it. It slowed my limbs, clogged up my mind and muted my thoughts. I started to speak, but a piece of blanket got stuck in my mouth and I couldn't finish my sentence. The blanket was covering my eyes, dimming all the lamps in the room. When the food reached my mouth it sat there for a time before I remembered to chew and instructed myself to swallow. My eyes fixed on what was ahead of me, my ears could not discern the surrounding chatter. Nobody noticed that I was hostage to the blanket. Then my mouth said, I need to lie down.
In my blacked-out room I crawled beneath the duvet and lay down on my back. The blanket settled over me, fitting me perfectly, keeping me still. It was more comfortable this way. My breathing slowed and within my foggy, stuffed-up mind a lacuna appeared. It soon filled up with thoughts about the week. On Monday morning I was late for a pitch as my car had run out of petrol. Later that day, I lost a sale. On Tuesday I spilled coffee over a not-very-understanding client. Wednesday, I’d locked myself out of the house and then there was the bill I’d forgotten to pay.
I turned onto my side. The blanket began to speak to me.
“Don’t you think,” it whispered, “you’re a bit like a plant?”
“What do you mean?”
“A vital plant, healthy and pleasing, good to have around, but after a while you begin to wilt a bit. Remember Tanya and Farah - out of nowhere they lost interest in you. You tried to meet up with them eight times. Eight times. But they never got back to you. Yet they still meet up with each other. What about the charming Haley who makes all the right noises, “Hope you’re okay.” Yet when it comes to meeting up, or when you really need her, somehow she’s always too busy. In other words you’re not worth the effort. Have you noticed she only ever materialises when it's expedient for her? She uses you, and you fall for it.”
“I know.” I sighed.
“How about when you started on the new project, it was invigorating, you were making an impact- at first. But now, no one is listening to your ideas. And no one is as friendly as they once were. Then there's the running club. It was welcoming when you joined, you looked forward to going every week, they found you interesting and fun at first. But then you noticed no-one replied or even reacted to your messages, you found out they often arranged meets without you.
It's a pattern. You’re like a sunflower. You shine and thrive initially, then you wilt. And a sunflower never revives.”
“They can’t stand me.”
“It’s more like they stop paying attention. There’s no hate, no love, no hot or cold.”
“Lukewarm,” I said.
“Yes,” the blanket said. “Lukewarm.”
I curled up tighter. The blanket settled further around me, tucking me in, soft and warm.
“Don’t you remember,” it cooed, “you’re all alone in the world?”
“I remember," I said.
The next morning, the blanket had grown inches thicker, making it hard for me to lift my legs.
“Stay here,” the blanket said.
So I stayed a bit longer. The alarm went off again.
“I can’t be late for work again,” I said.
“You’re not well, stay here, sleep, you need to rest.”
At lunchtime the blanket moved away a little so I was able to get up. I went for a run and drove to the supermarket. The day was warm, the skies were clear, and I forgot all about the blanket. It hadn’t forgotten about me, however. At dinnertime, it was back.
The next morning it tried to make me stay in bed again but I refused. I used all my strength to kick it away from my legs. It came with me to work, attaching itself to my shoulders like a cape. It was weighty and cumbersome, but I did everything I needed to do, at a slowed, fuzzy pace. Then when someone brought up the sale I’d lost, the blanket formed a hood over my head and said, “See?” Then it tightened around my torso.
On the drive home, one of my favourite songs came on the radio and I sang along; the blanket thinned out and detached itself. At home I started preparing dinner; I chopped and rinsed, but before I could cook anything, the blanket had crept into the kitchen and started to cover me, binding my shoulders and arms, and sitting heavy on my head. I could barely move and its weight made me weary.
“You can’t cook tonight, it’s a complicated recipe, it will take too long and you’re exhausted,” the blanket told me.
Back in my bedroom, the blanket embraced me.
“I’ve noticed something about your cooking,” the blanket said, “the recipes work well the first time, but then when you make them for others - when it really matters - they never turn out well. Could you be a cooking sunflower too?”
I buried myself deeper under the covers.
An angry voice blared out from downstairs. It was Kat, one of my housemates.
“Who’s left out all this stuff in the kitchen, clear up for God’s sake!”
But I couldn’t move. The blanket had cocooned me.
“I was wrong,” the blanket spoke into my ear, “some people do run cold when it comes to you.”
My eyes began to sting and fill, so I squeezed them shut, and then I fell asleep.
It continued on in this way; each evening the blanket would come to swathe me. In the morning it had grown an extra layer, and when I was able to get out of bed and go about my day, it would hang onto me. Often it would pull me under its hood, speaking in firm hushed tones: you’re too tired to go for a run; you're not going to be very welcome there; they’re unbothered; you’ve been forgotten again; you’ve made another mistake; lukewarm - sometimes they’re cold but never hot; a single-season wilted sunflower.
By mid October the autumnal rains streamed down with vigour, rendering the days in gradients of grey, masking the light so the arrival of night was barely noticeable. Green was disappearing from the trees and soggy brown leaves plastered the pavements.
Violet was in her eighties and lived on the opposite side of the street. I had been outside bringing in the bins when I saw her skid on the leaves and slam to the ground. I called the ambulance and accompanied her to the hospital. There was no one to visit her, and so every day after work and on the weekend I went to see her. We discovered we had a lot to talk about. After the swelling had subsided, the fracture healed, I continued to visit her at her house.
In the midst of those evenings, I noticed that the blanket became lighter; some days it didn’t come at all.
One afternoon in early November, a friend who lived far away called, “Just checking you’re okay, I know it’s a hard time for you.”
“Thank you for remembering. It’s the run-up to it that’s worse,” I said.
That evening the blanket reappeared. I told it all about Violet and the good-friend phone call. I said that I had things I needed to do. It didn’t listen, settling down on my shoulders.
“An old-lady neighbour, and someone who you barely see on the other side of the word, are not really friends, are they? Why don't we sit on the sofa for a while and watch some reels. You’re too tired to do those tasks now.”
I went outside to get if off me, but it clung on. I got into my car and drove to the nearby park. It was fireworks night, the towering bonfire was visible from the car park; the smell of smoke and burning wood suffused the cold night air.
I worked through the crowds, weaving my way to the front, towards the searing heat until I reached a wall of high-vis-clad stewards. I stopped and stared into the luminous orange heat. The blanket was thinning and shrivelling. An eddy of hot wind swirled behind me, lifting what was left of it from my shoulders and up into the air, then plunging it into the pyre. Tongues of fire leapt up around it.
In the morning I drove to the garden centre, heading straight for the houseplant section. I bought three flowering pink geranium plants. One I gave to Violet, another I put on my bedroom windowsill, the other I would take to my office. Geraniums are perennial; they aren’t doomed to wilt and fail; they can keep on blooming.