Siren

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Across England, three men get ready for the evening match. Some of them have never met. Mobile phones at the ready. Each in a different setting, in a different part of the country. Two in London. One in Hertfordshire.
Lawrence. Sawyer. Declan.

Sawyer drifts in and out of sleep as his voice note vibrates. The podcast has begun. His phone is pressed against his pillow, the vibration and hum folding into his dream. The hum becomes part of the dream itself.

Sawyer strolls with friends. They move through Borough Market, the aroma of fresh bread filling the air, mixed with the hum of chatter and laughter from passers-by. The air is crisp as it brushes his legs. A cold breeze snaps at his skin, lifting the thin boxer shorts he is wearing.

The big belly laughs keep coming. He is warmed by them. He clasps his hands together; they are warm. Everything feels warm around him, even with the wind biting at his legs.

The conversation is being controlled by someone he cannot make out. Hell, he cannot even tell if they are his friends, but the conversation is good.

Laughter erupts, friends clutching their stomachs as the three of them stumble along. The conversation is good.

He hears a buzzing and vibrating somewhere in the market. He ignores it to concentrate on the conversation, though he isn’t sure what the conversation is about. Only that it’s funny. So funny.

His stomach aches from laughing. Are those tears in his eyes? Yes—he’s laughing, a big belly laugh, strolling faster now, crying with laughter.

His eyes open, and the darkness of his room hits him. His phone is buzzing.

---

Lawrence pounds the streets of Hertfordshire. It’s a cold autumn day, with snow threatening. He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket but knows that pulling it out will mean the cold biting straight into his fingers. He stops running and slows to a walk. He’s barely three minutes in and already feels his ankle threatening to give way. He hobbles, easing it with slow steps. He considers checking the phone, then decides against it. His hands are cold enough already.

An older man passes him—a regular in the square—and Lawrence performs his “morning, morning” routine. Got to say it twice. If his wife, Natalie, were here, she’d ask why. Twice is nice, he’d say.

He looks around the square. The water fountain churns away at its perpetual task, pumping streaks of water that smell strongly of chlorine. He moves away as he hobbles past. Not sure why anyone thinks it’s necessary to chlorinate a public fountain—it’s not as if the residents are going to swim in it. Either way, he definitely doesn’t want splashes of it on his clothes, so he veers wide, taking long, careful strides.

As he rounds the fountain, he spots two women sitting on a bench. He’s out of their sight, but he can see them clearly.

Lawrence figures that if he starts running now, he can pass them at speed, make it look as though he’s been running nonstop for half an hour. Hell, he’ll sprint past them.

He builds momentum and drops into a heavy run. He likes the way he looks—powerful, athletic. He settles into his stride and decides not to look at them, just glide past, locked into his athletic zone.

As he nears them, he’s looking good. Keep going, Lawrence, he tells himself. And then—just then, right in front of them—it happens.

His ankle. Bloody pathetic ankle.

It gives way, and he knows he has to stop. At least he knows his ankle well enough not to collapse in a heap, but still—he must stop. And he must stop directly in front of the two women. Damn.

He gives them a wry smile. Failed, Lawrence, you prat. You just had to get past them. Show them what you’re made of, and instead you falter. He feels judged, though the women are none the wiser. They smile a polite good morning. Defeated, he smiles back.

The cold starts to bite into his gloveless hands. He slides them into his pockets, making a mental note to order those lightweight gloves he saw online. He’ll do it when he gets home. To be safe, he pulls out his phone and makes a note so he doesn’t forget.

There’s a message—a voice note. It’s match night, and he knows the boys will already be throwing around their predictions and worries about Liverpool. Still, he’s optimistic.

Well. Faintly optimistic. What more can one do?

The ache in his ankle fades, so he decides on one more lap of the park. This time he won’t stop. He makes sure to run past the two women on the bench, to prove—to them and to himself—that he can. He concentrates, and there it is. He manages it.

He finishes the lap. His back now aches.

Bloody hell, he thinks, and decides it’s time to hobble home. His phone vibrates again with another voice message. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and heads off.

---

Declan glances at his phone, smiles, and pushes it deep into his coat pocket. As he moves through the streets, he smiles at familiar faces and stops for a chat with some. The cacophony of cars and sirens does not faze him. He doesn’t hear them as he strolls along; they’ve simply become part of his walk.

Moving down the cobbled street, he muses on the grandeur of the old Victorian houses. They have clearly stood the test of time, he thinks. The doors and windows, the stone steps leading to each entrance—all enduring, unchanged.

As he reaches the last stretch of road, his watch vibrates with an alert for a voice message. He taps his pocket to check his phone is still there and keeps moving. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and listens.

The streets are beginning to bustle. People appear from all directions. The first part of the main road is always quieter, but as Declan nears his destination, the crowds spill out from everywhere—the station, buses, parked cars.

People move aggressively, determined to get where they’re going, regardless of who stands in their way.

Declan is oblivious to them. He is the one they brush past, steady in his path, refusing to shuffle aside.

As he hurries on, he tilts the phone to his ear. His eyes are down now, and he walks the familiar route without paying attention to what’s ahead. A pungent aroma of floral perfume hits his nose. He raises his head as a woman in a business suit passes him, talking frantically on the phone, her hands waving as if conducting an orchestra. He flashes a smile at her. She continues her animated hand and mouth movements, her long trench coat swaying gently, her raven hair held tightly in place with a bun.

For a moment, he stops. His eyes follow her as she moves briskly through the crowded street. He catches a final glimpse of her between a cluster of people and watches her until she is out of sight.

 

His watch alerts him to another message.
“Here we go,” he mutters to himself.

He turns the corner and enters the building.

 

 

Sawyer sits still in the dark. He looks around the room, seeing what he can make out in the dark. He feels his pillow, his legs, and then looks at the shards of light that are forcefully breaking through the gaps in the curtains. They bounce off the wall and look like slim birds. He stares. He closes his eyes, then reopens them. The room remains the same.

He cannot hear the laughter anymore. It has evaporated with the dream. The dream is a distant, unseeable memory. As he stares, the laughter comes to a head, and then, as quickly as it enters his head, it evaporates into silence.

He feels the vibration of his phone, the familiar sound of a voice note message. He slides it carefully from under the pillow. The satin case feels soft and gentle under his hands. His phone is bulky, but he always manages to slide it just at the side of his pillow so he has quick access to it. Should anything ever happen.

He sighs a heavy sigh as he reaches carefully for his phone. Half awake, half asleep, he contemplates another spam message from a service provider.

His frown unravels to a smile as he sees several voice messages. He knows it’s match night, and the boys are back into it. Declan and Lawrence have started the podcast.

He stares down at them.

He decides to wait, that he will listen later and then form his witty replies.

He wonders what he would do without this communication, without the sound of messages around match day. How dull his life would be without anything much to look forward to. Without anyone to communicate with.

Since his separation, he has felt even more alone. He had endured so much with Malissa and had never, ever told anyone. And now she was gone, it felt a sense of sadness but, at the same time, relief. Relief that he did not have to endure her barrage of criticism, her temper tantrums, her hot-and-cold behaviour.

He wondered if they knew — if family and friends had guessed what had really happened — but he did not think so. Besides, they all continued to talk to him, send him occasional text messages. His two sons, off travelling the world, would constantly call him, ask him to come with them. But how could he? He could not move.