Happy Birthday, Glen and Phyllis

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Consciousness slaps Phyllis like cold water
Wresting her from the dream she has every night
The one about being late for school
Sometimes Phyllis feels unfairly hemmed-in
By her own limited imagination

Dreams should be a respite
A chance to do fantastic, impossible
Or disgusting things
Yet the rooms in her dreams
All look the same as the ones in her life

And she never dreams of anyone new
Only vague approximations
Of old classmates
Who never meant anything much to her
In the first place
But must have wedged their way
Into permanent memory
At just the right time

Tommy Anderson sneers at her
As she bursts, red-faced
Into a classroom setting
That amalgamates primary and secondary
And hospital into one

The dream is always dull
But Phyllis's first instinct on waking
Is to climb back into it, to close her eyes tight
And travel backwards into warm nothingness

The new day prods at her with birdsong
Traffic sounds and life insurance adverts
That scream from an FM radio
Refusing to go anywhere
But she tries her best to force the dream

It almost works
But the characters look slightly wrong
Their faces keep swapping and their words merge
With the real-life radio jingles
That rupture the air

She isn't welcome in the dream anymore
No-one will look at her
They talk amongst themselves until she gives in
Flinging the duvet aside
And wondering how her own thoughts
Can be so much against her

This is how every day begins for Phyllis
Except for a single difference
That occurs to her only once
She is in front of the bathroom mirror
Adjusting to today's face
It's our birthday!

She clatters uninvited into Glen's room
Glen, clinging foetus-like
To an underwhelming dream of his own
Frowns and squints
In the same messy confusion every year

His sister is an irritating blur
Imposing herself at the end of a creaking
Neatly-made single bed
That can barely take her weight
And that he never saw any point in replacing

It's the thought of this old bed
And everything it means
That makes Glen realise
What Phyllis is going to say
Just before she says it.
Glen, we're 70!

Glen feels like he's been shot
He ducks under a pillow
I'm going back to sleep
But it's our birthday, I thought
We could go for a walk
Maybe a trip to the garden centre café
We ought to get a discount there as of today
Oh, and you've got a DWP appointment at 3

Glen recoils, almost slitting his shoulder
On an exposed bedspring
It's 7am, just leave me for now
We'll do all that, the café, fine

70 shared birthdays
70 years of well-meaning smiles
Visibly bitter clowns
Identical gifts wrapped in pink or blue
Parties in fast-food restaurants
With too many empty chairs

Failed teenage attempts to separate
And become two distinct entities
Dousing shyness with drink
Changing the setting
To the cinema or the bowling
Or a park at night-time
But still getting it wrong
Somehow always wrong
And met with well-meaning smiles

70 years of staring helplessly
At the one you're stuck with
As you feel yourselves hurtling
Faster and faster
Into a state of isolation
That can never be reversed

The gifts getting fewer and more thoughtless
The laughable stockpile
Of never-to-be-used bath salts
And budget-brand cologne
Destined for a dusty corner
In a charity shop stockroom
Once all of this is finally over

The two sets of wrinkled hands
Opening card after card after card
After card, and as they read
Each identikit greeting
From someone married and happily retired

They can picture all too clearly
In their shared mind's-eye
The well-meaning smiles
The well-meaning smiles
The well-meaning smiles

No tea then?
No
Thanks
Happy birthday, Phyllis
Happy birthday, Glen

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