Adult short story in the English language runner-up

‘Borderline’
By Stephanie Moore

The sound of my breathing is the only thing that exists. In the dark stillness of 6am there is nothing but my inhale and exhale.

Engine and lights of an early commuter break my cocoon, forcing reality, the daily cycle of societal life, into my sanctuary. The distant noises of morning rituals seep into my asylum; padded footsteps, coffee pots, the soundtrack of cogs warming up to another day of the system. My sleepy mind starts pushing its metaphorical rock up its hill, and then lets it go. What’s the point?

The exhibit of human ritual is interrupted by an intrusion of thoughts slamming into me, forcing me through a lurid slideshow of shame. Oh god. Why did I do those things? The bed beneath me opens up, swallowing me down into the dark, wet throat of mortification, where I’d disappear were it not for my child bounding into my bedroom, throwing his warm face into mine, demanding a hug, pulling me out of my spiral to make him breakfast.

Pushing down the intrusive dread, fuelled by my exuberant child’s enthusiasm, I commence our own morning ritual, our own padded footsteps and coffee pots, mindfully acted out, with a count to three, so as to ensure hobs are safely turned off and containers safely shut. The smile on my face as I flow through the motions of this morning routine for his sake, however, belies simmering inner torment waiting to erupt.

With him gone to school, I return to the sound of my breathing, letting go of all things until I am suspended in a vast nothingness. I am safe in this space, nothing can hurt me. Nothing here matters. My breathing slows, I’m aware of the vast universe around me, the relative minuscule size of Earth, the stupendous irrelevance of human life, and the happily nihilistic freedom this affords me, when I’m dragged legs first back down to Earth by a knock on the door.

My heart begins its involuntary hammering, my face no longer my own by the time I open the door. Words in my mind find a different order as they come out of my mouth, and I’m aware only of tunnel vision and sweat. A broken conversation about someone who doesn’t live here, upstairs maybe? I can feel my pulse in my ears as I close the door and walk to my bedroom. Did I say something I shouldn’t have said? Was I offensive? Oh god, oh god.

In an effort to distract myself, I read the news, but the political affairs of humans only serve to further compound this sensation of being so other, so alien, and I shut the laptop. Humans make no sense to me. Why am I like this? I think of the creative, hedonistic days of euphoric escapes into substance abuse, and the bittersweet, ironic way wanting to be my best self for my child is what keeps me sober.

Sat on my bed, I shrink inwards, retreating into myself until I’m nothing more than a dot. On my bedside table, my phone sits violently silent, aggressively without notifications. Nobody has replied any of the messages I sent yesterday. I impulsively delete all messages, delete the app, and turn off my phone.

I lie down with the sound of my breathing. I have no idea how long I’m there, minutes, maybe hours. In the absence of events, with my child gone, time becomes compressed and expanded simultaneously. The only measures of it are the shadows shifting, and meal times; landmarks in an empty, but very regular and consistent, wasteland.

I am nothing if not consistent; I eat the same foods at the same time, pace the same steps, do the same things, all in isolation. My silence is broken only by my breathing and the turning of book pages. Any deviation summons anxiety, but what of this contradictory anxiety that my life is wasted by this daily monotony? I exist both squeezed and stretched in the spot between the two, sharing this small space with my equally dichotomous suicidal ideation and fear of death.

Another knock on the door. This time it’s my child, so confidently sure of who he is. He collides happily into me with tales from The Outside. It’s clear that the world I inhabit is his; he understands it. How effortlessly this child, formed in my own neurotic womb, navigates social interaction, partaking in society with such ease, working alongside his peers, no visible signs of the executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation or avoidant behaviours of which I’m afflicted.

How can the inept alien that I have birthed and raised such an adept human child? How can neither my nature nor nurture have tainted him? I watch him, bouncing around our home, making plans with friends, commanding his universe. The world outside me cannot be the problem when this child so easily thrives in it; the problem must exist inside me. I withdraw and retreat into myself, convinced that if I search long enough I might find the broken element.
My reverie is snapped short by my child’s “watch me, mum!”, so I do. Pulled up out of myself by him, watching him move with the secure reassurance of a child who knows he’s loved, it occurs to me that this is what life is really about. Not about all the noise, politics, expectation, pressures, trends, social norms, and all the other arbitrary human stuff I find impossible to relate to, but about this, about loving this child and carrying him through his life until he can carry himself.

The shadows lengthen and the familiar sounds of evening human rituals guide us like lullabies to our own Bedtime. I watch my child as he falls asleep. He is all that’s relevant. He is my cocoon, my sanctuary, my asylum. The sound of his breathing is the only thing that exists. In the dark stillness of 9pm there is nothing but his inhale and exhale.

Judge’s Comments:

‘Borderline’ is a raw and intimate portrayal of mental illness and personal struggle. It is roaringly honest, and captures true dread and anxiety with every word. The mundane turns into something excruciating, and the act of living becomes hard to do. With each line the reader is drawn into the quiet chaos of the narrator’s mind. The writing is completely immersive, and despite the pain there is also the theme of love and strength. A lovely portrayal of a parent’s resilience and love for their child, and the strength in showing up for the people you care about, even when it feels like a hard thing to do.