The doctor’s letter hangs over me like the sword of Damocles. It states I can leave prison, something I have wanted ever since I arrived, but the trade-off means home is where I must stay until I die. I have folded and unfolded that piece of paper until it is a limp, dirty rag, the ink seeping into the cracks, its creases the scars of my torment. Around me people murmur, touch my shoulder and look everywhere but at me. I can hear the lies in their voices as the words drip from their mouths, envy mixed with pity and sheer relief. It settles over my skin like snake oil.
Although it’s a death sentence, I find I want to stay. My life is here, amongst the routine. The lumps and bumps of humanity squashed into small spaces, familiar noises and ghosts of memories long ago. Who knows what the year will bring. I wasn’t expecting this, but who does? I wonder if this is how my father felt. This year I will give up smoking, I will get fit. Bet he wasn’t thinking Time to die.
I am afraid to sleep. The sword of Damocles hangs by a thread.


My sister is angry with me. Her thumb moves her cigarette up and down, and between the drags she jiggles her legs. When we were younger, she’d sit there, gripping the nearest piece of furniture, angry tears streaming down her red cheeks.
“I’m sorry I pimped your Barbie, Pearl,” I’d say, my head hanging while Dad stood over me, tapping his foot. From this angle I could see her face and I’d smile, just enough for her to see and get indignant again.
“And?”
“And I’m sorry I told you that Ken was a dirty fucker for getting Barbie pregnant.”
Whack. My head would ring with the force of adult displeasure. “For chrissakes, Tuppy, watch your mouth.” No longer smiling, I’d glare at Pearl. Just you wait.
I sit at her square table covered in a plastic table cloth. Pearl’s body is unyielding, she stares at the wall, waves of displeasure swim in my direction.
“You need to go.” I believe that Pearl thinks my illness is some elaborate ruse I cooked up to get out of jail and freeload off her.
If only I had thought of that.
She doesn’t feel it though, deep within me. My own personal demon eating its way out of my stomach, like an extra from Alien. I turn my coffee cup around and around by the handle, letting it cool down. I doubt I will drink it. The taste is bitter and pointless. I know the feeling. We have had this conversation before.
“I know, I’m trying.” I am dying as fast as I can. “The people at WINZ say-”
“They say a lot of things, Tuppy, but if you don’t push them, it’ll never get done. I can’t afford to take the time off work for you. Not after Dad.”
It stings like an insect bite unleashing their last gasp venom into my veins. Take that, it cries, I will have the last laugh.
“There’s no room for me- yet. Besides, you told the Judge you’d be able to cope.”
Pearl snorts and rubs out her smoke. “That was before. I’d forgotten what you can be like, what it can be like and now…”
She pushes some keys towards me.
“Get to WINZ today, use Paul’s car, and just get it done.”
I look at the keys and think of a time when we would have grabbed them and blown off the day. That Pearl has disappeared. She told me she had grown up, but I reckon she sold out.
“Two to six months, they say. Then I’m gone.” I smile at my macabre humour.
She stands avoiding my stare, the chair scraping backwards on the faux wooden floor, scoops up her smokes and phone. “See that you are,” and walks to the door before turning around, “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” her shoulders slump.
I shrug. “It’s all good, Pearl.” Her eyes are big and round.
I remember a time when we were kids, Pearl following after me, shouting my name. I ran away from her as fast as I could, not caring that she could not keep up. I remember looking back at her, seeing her face, ready to laugh at her and seeing her look, Pearl’s look. Please, it would say, please? Her look of rejected love piercing me.
Sitting here now watching Pearl, it occurs to me that I have left one prison for another. Though I am able to move free, the cancer keeps me chained in time and space and I still have no say in how I live my life. I am pinned and left like an old notice on a corkboard, frayed, yellowed with age, forgotten and unnoticed. Now that I am dislodged, all that remains is a sharp outline, the only indication I was ever there.


Grabbing our mugs, we go out to the front porch where the sun is shining and settle on the old tattered couch covered with a multi-coloured rug. Cushions with geometric patterns squash into the arm rest. A small table sit at one end with an old pottery cup plonked on top, a forgotten relic with weeds growing out of it. I pull a cushion free, plump it up and place it behind my back. I sip my coffee and roll a smoke, my fingers know the way, moving without conscious awareness.
But I don’t light it. I don’t have the taste for it now, like with many things that brought me pleasure. It has faded, leaving me a hollow version of myself.
“What’s it like?” Pearl asks, her voice is quiet.
My gaze wanders around the simple square garden. It has a patch of lawn and a fence. In one corner a sapling clings to the earth, a stubborn piece of flora, growing despite Pearl’s many attempts at gardening. The drive way is edged by a metal rail fence. It runs along the whole of the property and in some places has a few missing rails and is in a need of a good paint job. I smile at the whimsy of being surrounded by bars again.
“I dunno, P,” I say, “Frustrating? Scary?” What does she want me to say?
She shifts on the couch so her whole body is facing me. “Tuppy, we need to talk about the…funeral.” I watch her hands twist the fabric of her plain dress, her knuckles going white. My gaze flicks to her face and I see Pearl, see the woman she is, the sister she is and I see how hard this is for her. After all the pathetic things I have done, I am surprised that Dad bailed me out all the time. Now it is Pearl’s turn. There is a moment of clarity when you are faced by your own mortality and you feel the vastness of life. Pearl, my sister, working so hard to be the perfect daughter, because I was too selfish, too lazy. The weight of my sins crash down on me, clipping my wings. I need to start repairing the fence, before the thread snaps.
“Let’s not, just yet?”
My nerves jangle and though it tastes like shit, I light the cigarette sucking away as if it will somehow give me strength. The bitter brew steams between us as the silence grows.
“Remember that time we put that for sale sign on Mrs Carvers fence, when she went on holiday?” Pearl says, a chuckle passing through her lips. The memories start, awkward and forced.
“Shaving off your eyebrows before the prom?” I say.
“Putting dog poo on the front step of the local coppers house and setting it on fire?”
“I never did that…did I?”
“Oh you did, Dad had a complete fit when he found out.”
“Man I did some stupid shit.” I’m laughing.
“Yeah,” says Pearl, grabbing my hand and squeezing hard, looking at me with her look, “you did.”


The clock sits in silent rebuke. It is a muddy brown colour in the shape of Napoleon’s hat and the face has a glass cover you must open every day to wind it up. It was my grandmother’s clock and my father kept it after she had gone. Now Pearl has it stuck in a small room, where no one goes. It is a sparse room, a museum to old relics and forgotten lives. I found it as I snooped about the place while Pearl was at work. I stand there, my finger tracing its form; flashes of memory crowd my head space.
I grab the key sitting next to it and wind it up. The gentle tick-tick starts and blocks out the no-noise of my mind, the emptiness that sits inside of me. I wonder what Pearl will put in here for me.
I hope it’s a Barbie doll.