The Day Of The Dead

Ice clings more willingly to the dead xylem of a tree ring. She knew this by looking through the kitchen window at the tree stump where the kitsch plaster frogs sat.

She held the phone to her ear, loosely balanced between middle finger and thumb, and worked out how much longer before she could take the next dose. Her left arm ached, her hand tingling.

Apparently, having a migraine was like having a mini stroke. But less dangerous, obviously. The doctor who told her this was in love with knowledge, and oblivious to the effect those words might have on someone.

Twenty minutes. She could take some more in twenty minutes.

He'd rung out of the blue. Wanting to catch up, he'd said. Her head was floating, her arm tingling, her mouth thick with the numbness of the codeine.

Maybe she was having a stroke, but she didn't know it.

"I get out plenty, thanks," he was saying. "Wish I was in more. You?"

She realised she was supposed to say something in response. She had, after all, asked the question in the first place. Asking questions usually led to trouble like this. The asking of questions in reply. Resultant conversation.

Her arm ached, and she couldn't be bothered. She moved the phone away from her ear and pressed the red button. Then she dropped the phone into the bowl of washing up.

She'd regret that later, but then, what was life for if not to have regrets about dropping your phone into the washing up?

Under the camellia bush, the ugly black cat from two doors down was scratching at the soil. They stared at each other through the pane of glass that separated them. She knew what she was thinking. The cat was probably thinking the same.

She thought about ringing work, telling them she wouldn't be in, then remembered that the phone was in the washing up bowl.

She fished it out. It had switched itself off. She laid a teatowel on the worksurface by the sink and clicked off the phone cover. Gently and methodically, she took the phone apart and placed each separate item onto the teatowel. Covers, keypad, sim card, battery. She patted at them with another teatowel, then left them to dry out.

She could always take it to the phone shop and claim it as an accident on the insurance.

She stopped in her movement from kitchen to living room and smiled.

He had been good for something, then.

Nobody normal took out phone insurance.

The other one had rung to catch up. His sense of guilt would wear him down if he wasn't careful.

She sat on the sofa and pulled the blister pack from her bag. She popped out two of the yellow ones. Pink ones, yellow ones. The yellow ones were a con, but she liked the way the boxes matched.

Sitting back on the sofa, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to think.

He'd had it coming for a long time.

That's what the other one didn't understand.

©J R Hargreaves 2006

Civility Has Its Limits

He stood up. All six lanky plus feet of him.

“Would anyone like a drink?” he slurred, three sheets to the wind and sailing off into his own personal oblivion.

The chat and hubbub of the rest of us swallowed his words whole. I was close enough to hear, though, I said yes, please. Somehow the altitude affected his hearing, or his ignorance did, something. He wasn’t looking at me. He had spent the whole night pretending I occupied a vacuum.

He asked again, and still nobody responded. Other than me, I responded again. Yes, please. He waved his hands, trying to gain the attention of the others seated around the table. Radiohead blared out of the speakers behind his head. I fixed him with my stare.

“YES!”

He turned his attention on me, the vacuum dissipated.

“VODKA AND COKE!”

“Oh,” he said, the words inching from his mouth like a glacier, “it’s like that, is it?”

“What?” I said. “What?” Exasperation building, confusion mixed in as well.

He turned away.

“Rachel, would you like something to drink?” His body, his voice, his whole being unctuous like Fagin, making some ridiculous point about how I was the one being rude.

“Vodka and tonic, please, Jim,” she said, sweet girl that she is.

He looked back at me.

“That’s more like it,” he said.

Three days of niggling, three days of clinging to civility, finally came to a head.

“I asked you nicely twice already, and you ignored me. I only shouted so that you could hear me,” I said above the misery of Thom Yorke.

He waved a hand dismissively in my direction, and continued asking around the table, who would like a drink, who would like a drink, would you like a drink, so very politely.

“Forget it, then,” I said. “Just forget it.”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” said his idiot friend, laughing and clapping his hands.

Fight, fight, fight. Somehow it had become a fight. Still, I managed to turn away and pretend he hadn’t spoken.

Conversation turned back to work, and life, and what do you really want out of it all? He returned from the bar. A drink was put on the table in front of me. He sat back down next to me. The drink, unacknowledged and untouched, sat on.

© J R Hargreaves 2006