Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
This morning, I watched a documentary on the making of the movie, The Man Who Fell to Earth. After reflection, I’m the woman who fell to Earth – forever feeling that I’ve been visiting another planet.
Like all of us, I experienced the lockdown of the Covid apocalypse. British born, I lived for years in the United States before returning home and feeling even more alienated than before. Never fitting the mould of either country.
I’ve always thought differently, acted differently, and dressed differently. Working for 40 years in entertainment will do that to you. Living as a happy square peg in a world of round holes, while travelling through time and space. Only now I’ve lost my co-pilot and muse.
My only crew member was my autistic son, who I’ve raised to be all that he can be and more. Always allowing him the freedom to reach for his own galaxy. “Yes, you can dance in the supermarket – especially if they’re playing Coldplay”. And so, we danced.
Like the Bowie movie, my son was removed and locked away in seclusion. We’d only been living in England for a year or so when our worlds fell apart. Since then, he’s been poked, prodded, diagnosed, analysed, and experimented on with drugs in their authoritarian attempts to cure Autism. I tried to tell them, there is no cure.
Why couldn’t they accept him for the amazing variety that he is? Because he doesn’t fit in, he was assigned to a new planet. They called it a ‘living facility’. He’ll never be able to return to his mothership. This was concluded as a failed experiment. He will forever live in a unit where no one understands him, and his daily needs of housing, food, and water are just met.
I may not be the woman that fell to Earth, but I am the woman that fell into reality. We will never return to where our life was. I cannot fly without my co-pilot. My son, who will forever be autistic, will never understand what’s happened to him and why. My accent may waver from British to American and be hard to understand at times, but my son has only limited speech. No one understands his language except me.
As outspoken as I am, it seems no one listens to me either. They do understand him when he asks them to “phone home”, but they don’t listen. He may have learned those words from watching multiple television screens at one time. Or maybe it comes from the multiple confused thoughts in his head.
The few times when I’m allowed to visit him (only if I get a negative Covid test), he tells me, “I love you, Mom”. Those words are clear to understand in any language and no matter what planet you’re from. Even if you just fell to Earth in 2021.
Are you feeling creative? We are proud to have a hugely talented community on Rest Less, which is why we’re so excited to open up a section of the site dedicated to showcasing the wonderful and diverse writing of our members. If you have a piece of creative writing that you’d like to share with the Rest Less community – you can do so here.