Danson - Faint echoes of laughter : sequel to Empty chairs

Faint Echoes of Laughter

Sequel to 'Empty Chairs'

by

Stacey Danson

ISBN 146990683X

EAN 978-1469906836

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

'Faint Echoes of Laughter' is published by Night Publishing who can be contacted at: http://www.nightpublishing.com.

'Faint Echoes of Laughter' is the copyright of the author, Stacey Danson, 2012. All rights are reserved.

The cover design is by Sessha Batto and is her copyright, 2012. All rights are reserved.

Chapter 1

I had packed in a lot of living into the years since I walked away from my nightmarish childhood.

I was, after all, a lot older now - four decades plus in fact - and surely visiting the places of my youth no longer had the power to cause me pain.

I was wrong.

It was not so much the places it was the memories attached to those places that even now had a power over my emotions.

I made the short trip by bus and got off well before the nearest stop. I wanted to walk and calm myself before going into that neighborhood, before standing in that street, before looking at that house.

I had expected it to have changed. Surely, there should have been a blazing crucifix on the front lawn or, at the very least, garish police tape declaring it as a crime scene.

My childhood was murdered in that house.

I hoped that the bricks and mortar that had encompassed the horrors of my younger years would have been torn down completely.

Yet there it stood, newly restored and painted, an officially protected building to be preserved for all time in its period elegance and grace.

Im not certain how long I stood across from my old home. I remained partially hidden behind the trees that were probably the only things still living in that street from the years of my youth.

I laughed out loud when I realized I had concealed myself. There was no one still present who could touch me now, yet I remained concealed as the shafts of remembered pain and paralyzing fear began tearing their way back into my consciousness.

I hadnt been back, not in all the years since I left on that hot morning in November 1965. I had stopped myself from coming here.

What was to be gained by it?

Yet when I decided to write about my life after I hit the streets at the age of eleven, I knew deep in my gut that I would have to go back and confront my demons.

I wouldnt write the book unprepared this time, have those demons crawling all over me, tormenting me, as they did first time around. I knew I would have flashbacks, but I thought I was better prepared and would be immune to the pain of remembrance.

I guess I still think of myself as six foot tall and bullet proof, especially when it comes to brazening my way through my crazy life.

It only took a few minutes standing in that street, looking at that house, for me to realize I was wrong. I was never going to lay all my ghosts. I had never been bullet proof; I had simply presented myself that way.

I doubt very much that I had fooled many folks that looked beyond the faade I presented.

Most of my demons, and their causes, had been dealt with, but not this place, never this place. My screams and pleas for mercy, my cries for help, went unanswered inside those walls. It was here that I forever lost the ability to trust and learned too early the horrors human beings were capable of.

I stood in that street in the year 2011, and I felt dizzy. Once again I was helpless. My stomach clenched and I felt the sour burn of bile in my mouth.

This had been a mistake.

I took one last look. She had died in that house. That was my only thought when I turned and walked away.

As dreadful as it sounds, that thought gave me comfort.

I hated myself for feeling that way, yet I have been honest all the way along; no point now in trying to kid myself, or anybody else, that I had hoped she wouldnt meet a bad end.

I had wished for it, on and off, over many years.

But she didnt have a bad ending.

In fact, she died the way most folks would wish to go out. She died peacefully in her sleep of old age.

Please dont anyone ever tell me again, What goes around comes around.

The way she died proved to me beyond any doubt that such a handy little belief is total bullshit, unless what I had heard was untrue, and why should it be?

All the horrific deaths that I had wished upon her evil soul had failed to come to pass, so how likely was it that she was now frying slowly in hell for all eternity?

I hurried back to the bus stop. My determination to cover as much ground as I could was still intact.

I had wanted to do it all that day. I had wanted to prove to myself that I had grown well beyond the abused youngster who had first turned to the streets of Sydney for solace in a world gone mad.

* * *

The Botanical Gardens were a great place to begin. I had known many moments of happiness here sleeping in a sandstone overhang on the waters edge. I recalled my utter wonderment during my first night of freedom when I found this place and spent the night lying under a sky filled with stars.

I headed back to it, my instincts taking my feet where they needed to go. I smiled when I saw it. It remained as I remembered it, blessedly unchanged, no disrespectful graffiti adorning it. The sandstone glistened in the morning sunlight eons old and unmarked by the 21st century city that hovered on its edges.

I sat allowing the warmth to seep from the rock into my body, drawing peace from it as I had done countless times in those years on the streets. I also recalled the nights I sat in the rain, or lay under hedges in the mud, hiding from the gangs.

The sunshine memories won hands down.

I walked down the pathway that bordered Sydney Harbor to my favorite fishing spot, and beamed at some young guys trying their luck with a line.

I backtracked and headed deeper into the gardens to a kiosk I once knew well. It had been remodeled but still stood in the same place. I purchased food for the birds and sat on the edge of the lake feeding them and marveling that the stepping stones out to the island where the birds roosted at night were still there. I wondered how many others had sought safety here at night as I had done so long ago.

Funny, isnt it, the way we color memories through time, seeking out glimpses of the happier, more brightly tinged moments.

I also glimpsed the fear and the hunger briefly and let it go. I am not afraid and hungry now.

An entire lifetime separated me from the physical harm of the bad stuff. Memories can only cause you pain if you allow them to. Yeah, sure and a pink pig just flew by my window.

I wandered through the city streets to Hyde Park, to the other fountains that stood as unrelenting survivors of a time gone by.

Unrelenting survivors

I recreated in their crystal water the laughing faces of my friends. I could almost hear the squeals of delight we used to make when taking a weekly bath in the fountains during the summer months. They were good memories. I resolved not to think about the bad ones, not here, not now, not yet.

I left the beauty of the parks and made my way down to the docks.

I barely recognized the area we kids had called 'home'. The container terminals are huge now and no visible remnant remains of the area where we lived in the shipping container we called 'The Palace'.

What had I expected, a shrine to the memory of all those wonderful, crazy, half-feral kids that had once shared some years of their lives with each other in this place?

There never would be a shrine. Not here.