All the world's a stage,
And the men and women merely players:
They have their exists and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
Its acts being seven stages…
Act Four
The curtains draw on a lecture. A brunette, sitting in the back row, is staring into the distance. The words of the speaker before her, with beard and seemingly never-ending notes, float straight over her head. She has a card in her hands. It is from Katie. It has been five years since Sara left Harvard. Three years since the two women last met. That is scary for Sara. Not the fact that they have not met. Sara's past is like a muddled jigsaw, full of parts which refuse to fit together no matter how hard she tries to force them. So many people and places are slowly fading into memories. What is most scary to Sara is the fact that she is a woman. She never felt like a child. Yet somehow she has never felt like an adult. She is caught in a world of limbo; laden with the burdens of maturity yet never quite past the confusion of childhood. She has a degree, a job, a home. She lives each day, in and out of work, lectures and seminars; never allowing herself to contemplate what is missing from her apparently perfect and simple life. She slowly reads the card and decides she is not going to write back. She is not keen on kidding herself or others. She and Katie barely know each other anymore. A few niceties on a piece of paper will not change that. Sara might as well save the trees.
IIII
Sara lets herself into her apartment. Home sweet home, the old phrase went. Sara almost laughs out loud as she contemplates it. Her flat smells of damp. The light bulb in the hall flashes and goes out as Sara flicks the switch. She swears out loud remembering that she has no spare bulbs. She makes herself a bowl of soup, stirs it distractedly and then pours it down the sink without eating any. Sinking into the sofa she gets a book out of her bag. It is a forensics textbook. Not riveting reading for most but Sara invests all her hope in learning from texts like these. She no longer can pinpoint the moment where her life failed to mean anything to her but she is aware that she has invested what little hope and dedication she has to her job.
She reads for hours on end. By the time she realises it is long gone midnight she no longer feels the need to sleep. She sits upright on the sofa and surveys her surroundings. There has to be something more to life than this, she thinks.
Epiphany is the word, she later decides: that moment when, in a seemingly ordinary scene, your life changes. Actually, in this case, Sara decides to change her life. But it is equally momentous. She tidies up and forces herself to put on the radio. She buries any negative thoughts from her mind. From that moment onwards Sara is a new woman. She is a woman, full stop. She pulls herself out of limbo. She still cannot look back but she is determined to look forward.
IIII
We are in another lecture. This time the lecturer has no beard and no notes. He is speaking off the top of his head. His audience are not exactly attentive. A boy in the back row looks little more than sixteen, although logic says he must be older than that. He has his headphones in and is tapping his fingers, clasped around a pen which is getting no use, along with the music. A woman sitting to the left of the room is making more use of her pen but the doodled hearts and stars on her piece of paper imply that her full attention is not on the speaker in front of her.
A woman in the front row, however, is listening and watching intently, making careful notes. Her dark hair kinks awkwardly at shoulder length and every now and then she places a strand of it behind her ear. Her eyes focus on the man speaking before her. He has an audience of more than twenty people, at an estimate, yet she feels he is speaking directly to her. Their eyes meet for a second and the woman sees a glimpse of something beyond this lecture; beyond this place. It is a strange moment.
The lecture ends, far too soon for the woman. She packs up her belongings deliberately slowly. The lecturer is also slow but it doesn't seem to be so deliberate; he struggles to fit his folder into his bag.
"Excuse me, Dr Grissom," the woman says as she makes her way out of the room.
"Yes?" he mutters, seemingly not in the mood for a chat. But as he glances up at her his gaze seems to soften. "Can I help you?" he adds.
"I just wanted to say that your lecture was inspiring."
"I think that might be going a bit far."
"No, really, it was fascinating."
"Thank you."
The conversation dries up, leaving an awkward silence in its place.
"So- I better be going," the woman murmurs. "Thank you again."
"Wait-" Dr Grissom says. "What's your name?"
"Sara Sidle." There is silence once again.
"Bye," Doctor Grissom says.
Sara has no reply for this abrupt goodbye so she simply leaves.
IIII
Sara, with her hair straggly and grown longer than usual, is tired. Her slender and fragile frame is draped awkwardly over an armchair, her head on one armrest and her legs dangling over the other. She has found a job she loves although she still finds it perverse that she derives pleasure from examining the places in which others died. But the rest of her life suffers because of it. She works double, triple, once even quadruple, shifts. She does not eat often.
Her eyes are closing slowly but all of a sudden she shakes her head and pulls herself out of the chair. She awkwardly moves her neck, as though she has a crick in it. Wearily she makes her way over to her bathroom. As she turns on the bath taps the phone rings. Sara sighs and turns them off again. It is with no great sense of urgency that she answers.
"Sara Sidle."
But the minute she hears whoever is on the other end of the phone call her face seems to brighten.
"Really - are you sure?" she says down the phone, a glint in her eye and animation in her face that has not been present for a very long time. The conversation goes on. She wanders the house energetically, nodding her head and running her finger along dusty surfaces as though she is finally able to see clearly what needs to be done. After a few minutes the call appears to be over.
"I really appreciate this. You won't regret it, Dr Grissom."
IIII
Sara has had a hair cut. She has started spending ten minutes just putting on make-up in the morning; Sara never wears make up but she feels the need to make the right impression. Las Vegas is everything she thought it would be and a lot more. Whether that is more for the better or the worse she is not sure but the job is definitely living up to expectations.
"Are you paying any attention, Sara?"
"Sorry," she replies. The blonde woman walking beside her looks irritated.
"I'm sure you are, but maybe next time you could try listening in the first place."
Sara resists making a sarcastic retort. The job may be all she could hope for but she does not think that Catherine Willows likes her very much.
IIII
The calendar says 2006. So much time has passed and Sara is not sure where it went. She thinks that Catherine has come round to her a little. She has friends who can even rival Katie in the form of Nick, Warrick and Greg. She has a job she loves.
Sometimes she considers her past and cannot understand how she has got to where she is now. She cannot track the path from family to family, job to job, city to city. She cannot fit together the pieces of her life without something being blurred or something not quite matching up.
"Have you ever loved someone?" asks the woman sitting next to her.
Good question, Sara thinks to herself, but she does not say anything aloud; instead she takes hold of the woman's hand as she sees tears running down her cheeks.
"I really loved him," the lady sobs, her matted hair hanging lank on her cheeks. "And I never told him enough. I can't believe I wasted so much time."
Sara takes the woman into her arms; making a futile attempt to comfort someone who has just lost her husband.
"So much wasted time," she repeats, and the words echo in Sara's head.
IIII
It has been a hard day. Sara lies back on her bed, fully clothed. A lump rises in her throat. Images of death float around in her tired mind. All of a sudden a picture appears that is far too familiar. For a second she cannot pinpoint her recollection of the woman, crying over a man's bloody body. But then her memory realigns with the pictures in her head and she can no longer swallow the lump. Tears begin to flow down her cheeks and she makes no attempt to wipe them away.
"So much wasted time…"
She reaches for the phone and dials a familiar number.
IIII
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I shouldn't have bothered you. It's just- I-"
"Don't be silly. Now, are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
"Where do I begin?"
"I find the beginning's usually quite good."
"How long have you got?"
"As long as it takes."
She stares at her stubby fingernails and plays with them; she says nothing.
"Come on, Sara."
"I can't, Grissom."
"Yes, you can." He moves over to the seat next to her and takes her hand, cautiously in case she does not want his affection.
And then it comes; out pours Sara's story. The story of a little girl, a misfit; a girl who loved her mother very much. A story of birthdays; of trips out with her father; of friends who did not exist. The time when a little girl walked in on her dead father; the foster family who tried their best but never quite worked. The university which was too perfect; the friendship which could never last. The discovery of a passion; the revelations of a present which is haunted by the past.
Are you lost or incomplete?
Do you feel like a puzzle, you can't find your missing piece?
And all of a sudden Sara finds the missing piece of her puzzle.
IIII
"I do."
Two little words slip from her mouth and change her life forever.
The scene is that of a wedding; an intimate gathering of friends to witness the joining of Sara Sidle and Dr Gilbert Grissom. Sara's face is glowing, her hair is thick and glossy and her eyes are shining. She can remember a birthday upon which she had a friend round. She had a cake. She can picture her mother smiling. She believes she has never been as happy as she was on that birthday until now.
A song plays in the distance.
What if I'd been born fifty years before you?
In a house on the street where you live?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike.
Would I know?
Maybe her life is like that; full of possibilities. Things that depend on chance; some work out, some don't.
In a wide sea of eyes I see one pair that I recognize.
And I know that I am the luckiest.
Time has slipped through her fingers but now she feels at peace.
She is the luckiest.
The curtains fall.
IIII
True love's the gift that God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven
Sir Walter Scott
Tempus fugit
Time flies
Ovid