Mieux Que Tout

01

01 | cœur bleu

"Oh cookie, I'm so glad to hear your voice again," the girl's mother said on the telephone. Inhaling a breath, the girl, Annie, smelt the air. Smoke particles danced in on the inbound breeze, a sour taste layering the tongue. She'd left the phone box door slightly ajar.

"Cookie, you there?" The voice buzzed on the end of the receiver, "Cookie.. darlin', my body is betraying me again. Sometimes I think my life is nothing but one long process of bodily betrayal."

There was a harsh tick, tick, ticking noise in the background as the phone line hummed with static energy. Annie felt a drop of sweat roll down past her temple and wiped it away with the pad of her thumb.

"Yes," she mumbled. "Yes mother I'm here," she said a little louder and leant against the sticky plastic wall of the phone box. The sun beat down in scorching waves.

"Oh cookie," the woman wheezed, "I'm so worried. My left eyelid is drooping. Like there's a weight on it that's pulling it down, like a tiny fisherman's sinker or something."

"Right now?"

"It's mostly on and off. I twitch a lot too. I think it could be Bell's palsy."

"Whatever Bell's palsy is, you don't have it."

"If you don't even know what it is, cookie, how can you be so sure?"

"I don't know - because you didn't have Graves' disease? Melanoma? Alzheimers?"

There was a pause on the line. Sweat trickled down Annie's neck like warm soup.

"Well, I'm certain I have alzheimers," her mother explained. "I've been shaking a lot."

"Isn't that Parkinson's disease?"

"Oh, I don't know cookie. I could have that too."

Annie sighed. "Mother, you don't have Alzheimers or Parkinson's or whatever else you think you have."

Her mother inhaled. "You think so? I don't know cookie... It's like I've been losing my mind lately and its been so difficult with all this new technology that your uncle Charlie has set up for me and honestly," her mother paused, Annie imagined that she was sucking on the inside of her cheek. There was a loud pop - "Its like I've got all these people speaking to me whenever I'm in the house, and I can't turn off all these damn voices!"

Annie sighed. She looked to the sky. It was a denim blue. No sign of that smoke cloud yet.

"Have you tried turning off the television?"

"What?"

"You know, turning it off," Annie explained. She looked down at her fingernails - dirty and in need of a trim.

"What do you mean, Charlotte?"

"It's Annie, mother."

"Oh god yes, I know its you, I'm not losing my mind just yet!" Her mother laughed heartily. Annie frowned.

"Did uncle Charlie leave you a remote?" She asked.

"Yes."

"Have you used it at all?"

Another pause. There was a loud clatter of sound. Annie pictured the granite kitchen bench covered in vogue and womens weekly magazines, plastic lighters and coloured candles all falling to the ground.

"I've found it," her mother responded, a little breathless. "I think, I'm not sure kitty cat."

"It's Annie."