Miriam
She was absolutely sure that there was more cheese in the fridge. Miriam is standing in front of the fridge, a frown on her face. She checks the shelves again, and the more she looks the more she is convinced that a lot of the cheese has gone. She groans, just what she needed. She had sneaked into the kitchen in the dark, hoping to quickly grab a chunk, mainly to cheer her up. Now the cheese she was looking forward to is no longer there. “How strange,” she mutters, trying to think back to when she stacked the fridge. “I only stocked it just before the Cocktail Party…” her voice trails off, as she all of a sudden remembers some of the guests making multiple trips to the kitchen, coming out in giggles, and looking just a tiny bit guilty! “Oh well, I suppose I shouldn’t have it at night anyway. I have been so busy at this job, I haven’t done any yoga for a while either, so cheese is probably not the best idea anyway.”
Miriam hesitates, but decides to go back to bed, back to her thoughts. Slowly she makes her way through the silent house, relieved that everyone is asleep. Explaining midnight snacking is always a bit embarrassing, she grins, and I don’t really feel like talking to anyone either. Here the grin melts away, replaced by a worried frown. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m so tired these days!” Miriam had complained to her best friend, Lucille Ball. “I just don’t have any energy, everything takes so long, and I’m just ready to go to bed as soon as I come home. Last night I didn’t even want to go to the party. I went, of course, but I really had to make myself!”
Lucille had sympathised, and listened to Miriam, her eyes looking worried as she listened. This was not the friend she had come to know and enjoy! They used to have such good times together, and now Miriam looked all sad and dejected. What was going on? Of course, Lucille managed to draw Miriam out of whatever mood it was that she was struggling with at the moment, and soon the two of them are laughing again. Miriam’s dancing always makes Lucille double up with laughter, and soon Miriam seems the old Miriam again.
Miriam knows better though, and that evening in bed, she thinks about it, a big frown which changes her whole face, very unlike her! “Something is wrong with me, I just know it. Maybe it’s llama flu, or something else, but I’m not myself at the moment. I am just so tired, my legs won’t move. My job at the Club is driving me nuts, it’s getting boring now. It’s mainly elderly people who come to dance, and only when Lucille turns up is it great to be there. Zahra is will be a toddler soon…” and suddenly Miriam finds tears dripping on her pillow! “My life is just so empty, and it used to be so much fun! I don’t know what has happened!”
Samuel has noticed as well, and he is worried. “Are you alright?” he asks one evening, when it’s just the two of them in the house. They are sitting in the lounge of the Granny Annexe, where it is a lot quieter. A lot of their children are grown up, so they help keep an eye on the little ones. “I just noticed that you seem a bit quieter, so I was wondering about you,” he explains, “I just thought of it, as you looked really tired coming in here.” Miriam snuggles up, elbowing him at the same time, causing Samuel to groan and protest, and soon they’re both laughing, poking and tickling. When they finally stop, both completely out of breath, Miriam sits up, brushes her wild black hair out of her face, and sighs. This sobers up Samuel Vince quicker than anything else!
Miriam leans against him, and both are very quiet for a moment, rather unheard of with them! Then Miriam starts, sounding tired now, “Yes, I have been so tired. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s Llama Flu, who knows. Lots of our friends have had relatives affected by it. It just seemed to have come suddenly, and I don’t feel like anything at the moment.” Samuel doesn’t know what to say to this, so they sit together for a while. Miriam suddenly continues, “It started just before we had that talk with Magnus and Esther. In fact, just before Lucille told me she was going to accept retirement after the next Gems.”
This makes Samuel sit up, and hug her tightly, “Oh my dear, crazy darling,” he gushes, big grin back in it’s usual place. “You’re just feeling down, that’s all! It’s a case of the blues, and not surprising either! You get on with Lucille really well, so her retirement would be very sad. Then we decided to retire soon after her announcement and after the meeting with Magnus and Esther. That meeting was a bit upsetting too, as we had sort of hoped to have another string of babies… We agreed to just one more, so that probably didn’t help your mood!”
Miriam laughs, suddenly, her loud, wild laugh, filling the Annexe with it’s rich sound. “You know, you could be right! How silly of me… I do feel very sad about so many things, and I think all the bad news has drained me. I will miss Lucille dreadfully, which is why I’m actually happy to retire after we get our Gems. I just never realised how boring the job in the Club was going to be! It looked so exciting, you know, the lights and music, people coming in to dance…turns out it’s mostly retired people, some of them still trying to trick others into giving them stickers! I think they should be banned from the club if they do that! There is not much to do either, just play the music, or talk to people. I thought I’d be partying all the time!”
Miriam feels the grey, heavy cloud lifting a little for the first time. Yes, she thinks, it’s just the blues, but soon I will be retired! I’m quite excited about that actually, I’m just too tired and down at the moment. She thinks about the bassinet and their wild scheme, and before she knows it, giggles are bubbling up. She turns to Samuel and says, “You know, when we were thinking of ways to Restore Justice to your ancestor, what’s his name again? Thomas? No…Chris! That’s it, Chris, well, remember we were thinking of lots of plans. I still think we had the best plan! I mean, that guy Gregory at the Club, he’s absolutely ancient. All he does is scrubbing that table. He really is hopeless, and so are some of the other ones staggering round town. The Government would never have allowed an old people’s home though, would they. After your final birthday cake they frown on relatives contacting their elders that have moved out.”
This is true, and it’s the one thing that all retired people dread. It’s not so much the grey hair, the stooped shoulders and the aimless wandering; it’s the fact that after some time, a birthday cake will be presented, which is when you have to leave the home. Your family cannot contact you again, although some friends and relations still can. The Government obviously wants families to be forward looking, not stuck in the past, but surely a family should be allowed to keep in touch! Miriam feels the grey cloud descending again, thinking about never seeing her family again. Never seeing her best friend Lucille again…or maybe she will actually, and the sun comes out again. In fact, they might even be in the same apartment block. If so… and Miriam’s overactive party mind sets to work straight away. Samuel groans, he knows that look…!
“I still think our plan was best,” he says, trying to get Miriam out of crazy planning mode, “I love our children, and I’m sure they’ll make a difference. I’m sure it really was a fitting way of restoring Chris, and of course Vincent as well. I had to repair past injustices for two, which we did!” They laugh, and Samuel says, more dreamily, “Twenty six children would have been amazing though, imagine the impact! They would have had to move out of course whilst they were still quite young…”
Miriam looks at him, and she feels the ground sinking beneath her, as the reality of that statement sinks in. Somehow it had never entered her head; she just thought it was a bit of a laugh having children in alphabetical order, sending them into SiMobile to replace the NPCs there… The consequences of the scheme never registered with her. Until now, that is. Her precious children will need to move out. She will never see them again, unless she bumps into them by accident. They will leave, she will retire, so she has no way of communicating with any of them! She can feel panic starting to wriggle in her stomach, and actually lies her hands on her stomach to keep the fear under control. “My children!” she gasps to Samuel “My children, and I will have to say goodbye to them forever! Where will they go, what will they do now?”
Samuel Vince realises that Miriam is really upset, and he hugs her, and tries to comfort her. “I’m sure some of them will be married off. How about your sister’s children, they will need spouses won’t they? And how about my cousin Eva, she has got at least one child, hasn’t she? So maybe some could marry their children? There might be some friends who will need spouses. Anyway, there are plenty of flats available, and they’re all very good in landing on their feet!”
Miriam stares ahead, thinking about the coming days, and how she will need to say goodbye to her children. “What about the Dynasty?” she suddenly asks Samuel, and he looks surprised. “Will any of our children be eligible for the Dynasty at all? Or do they just take siblings? Maybe one of the girls could be nominated, or whatever you do to stay in the house…”
Samuel agrees, and explains about the family meeting they usually have. “When the Gems are out, or almost out, we have a large Family Meeting, and we decide on the future of the Dynasty. Two people can take over the house. That could be brother and sister, or cousins. What we did in Eva’s case was that she was promoted, she got married to Paul, and moved in with your parents. Once she left, I was promoted, and I then got to know you!” Another wild interlude follows, and when they’re all calm and trying to catch their breath again, Samuel says, “I think one of the girls should be promoted, really. Maybe Zahra; as she is the youngest, she won’t have much time to prepare herself for an independent life. Camilla is so pretty, and energetic, maybe she ought to marry into your family? Does your sister have a boy? Maybe Eva has a boy… We could do the same thing, promote Camilla, till she has moved in with your relatives, and then promote Zahra… She will need a good husband though. We’ll have a look round…”
Miriam feels a little better, it is helpful to make plans, she finds; the future doesn’t look so bleak when you plan ahead. The idea of Camilla marrying one of her relatives pleases her as well. That way, she will feel her little girl will be looked after. Zahra is special, as she is the last of her children. As she was the last, Miriam took more pains over the name. It had to be a ‘Z’ of course, but she wanted a name with meaning. The other children’s names had been rather random, but this last baby had to be special. It felt so final, and Miriam spent a long time studying names, feeling them on her tongue, checking them for meaning. When she came across ‘Zahra’ she fell in love with the name. Zahra, meaning Dawn in Hebrew…just perfect! The Dawn of another phase, another sphere in SiMobile. Dawn, bringing light, and hope and a new day. She felt sad about closing the chapter, but this last special baby reminded her constantly, that ‘weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning’; yes, she would cling to that, whenever the grey clouds suppressed her. She would cling to that thought, rather than the thought that she had missed out on another eighteen children…
Miriam manages, but still finds it hard to be as upbeat as she always was. She still meets up with Lucille whenever she can though, but some days she feels too tired and down to even talk to anybody. It is on days like that, when she doesn’t even fancy a party, that Esther goes to the parties. Esther doesn’t mind, she isn’t much of a party goer, but she doesn’t shy away from them either. As the bassinet will be free any moment now, Esther feels like partying anyway! They will finally have their family, finally have a child!
So Esther gets dressed up, goes to the parties, meets and makes friend; eventually Miriam decides to go, as she hears the last party is at Lucille’s house, a Special Ball. Both girls dress up in smart outfits, and Miriam is relieved when she finally makes it to Lucille’s house. She gasps, as the house has got a huge ballroom, and Lucille is there, waiting, smiling… Miriam rushes over to her friend, and they chat, and plan, and together they are determined to shake up all the old people around town.. Just wait till the Gems arrive, then trouble will begin, they both smile, looking like the conspirators that they are… SiMobile beware!