Short Story: 'Not Alone'

This short story by Dawn Sands is an entry for the Generation Lockdown writing competition. 

Her face numbed with disbelief, she closed the door quietly behind her before proceeding down the cold stone steps at a painfully slow pace, almost stationary. Gently, she opened the door and stepped outside. Everything seemed strange to her; tiny details that she had never noticed before seemed so prominent, those things that had been familiar warped and out of shape. A complex grid of tape stretched out across the school, each row and column precisely two metres apart, all preaching the same constant sermon: Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives. 

That was the rule now, the all-important slogan that every person must follow. But what for? thought Ella. Whose lives are we saving? Slowly, she entered the library, opening the door as silently as she could, her footfalls light as she padded over to her solitary desk in the corner. Trying not to attract any attention from the other key workers’ kids, she sat down, staring with glazed eyes at her things spread out on the table. Pencil case. Exercise books. School computer. Each arranged in exactly the same way as they had been when she left, but now all with a totally different meaning. Her fountain pen that had been given to her by her father – previously a treasured gift, now a treasured memorial. The page of her Maths book with his blood smeared across it after he ‘swore the clean page was a sheet of kitchen roll’. He was dreadful at making excuses, laughed Ella sadly to herself. Then she stopped, berating herself for not being somehow sadder, berating herself for not crying.

“Your father passed away an hour ago, Ella,” said Mrs Sherman, gravely. “He has been ill for some time with Covid-19.”

Ella stared blankly at her headmistress, not daring to speak a word. This must be a mistake, she thought, her father never had Corona virus, he wasn’t even a vulnerable person…

“He contracted it while working at the hospital,” continued the headmistress, watching Ella wistfully over her thin, oval glasses. Ella continued to stare, her face pale, at a crack in the wall over Mrs Sherman’s shoulder. 
“I’m sorry, Ella,” she said. Ella nodded, unable to say a word.

It was impossible, Ella thought to herself again, staring down at her things, but it was true. He was gone, forever, nothing she could do about it. No time even to say goodbye. No time to hug him, tell him she loved him. 

Without thinking, she carelessly pushed her belongings into her school rucksack, handed in the computer at the library desk, descended the library staircase. School corridors were black and empty, she was guiding her way through the darkness. She was detached from the world, like she was walking on a film set, the things surrounding her not really there, rather edited in by someone behind a computer. Everything out of proportion with each other. If she were to walk into a wall, she wouldn’t feel it, but tumble straight through it. This was no longer her world, she no longer had a world. Her world had fallen apart.

“Ella!” a voice called in the distance, as if from a dream. 
She pivoted round to see a boy behind her, a boy she knew to be the headmistress’ son, holding out her father’s fountain pen, standing from a precise two metres away. She took it, smiling bleakly, and put it into her school bag, zipping it tight.

“Thank you,” she said, the words only just escaping her lips.

“That’s OK,” said the boy, hesitating. “And – I know it’s hard, but – you’ll make it through, OK?” He smiled back at her. “There are always people who can help. You don’t have to go it alone.”

“Thank you,” she said again, not able to think of any more words to say.

“We may have to stay physically apart,” he continued, “but that doesn’t mean to say that we can’t come together. You’re not alone.”

“No,” she said, with a wan smile. 
He turned, awkwardly, and walked off, into a classroom.

Carefully, Ella extracted the pen out of her bag once more, clutching it tight. “I’m not alone,” she whispered. “I won’t have to do it alone.”