Un-cap

Travelled there in my old, falling apart car. Wind pushing me across lanes on the motorway like an invisible bully. No rain though. Yet. For some reason I notice my fingernails. They are dirty and the paint has dried. The metallic taste in my mouth comes back and my stomach leaps. I would eat, but…
I never knew her but she was a friend of the family and, while I was away, had helped them out.
A good woman.
So, out of respect, I un-cap the bottle.
Pour it over the grave.
She would have liked that.
They said.

Still as Death

The mobile buzzes inside my trouser pocket. I check the message.

‘Where R U Bro?’

The light from the pub window throws my shadow onto the pavement. Best place for it.

I can hear the waves and imagine them bashing the quiet, black rocks. The pub will be only half full. She will stand there half smiling in the yellow, rude light of the public bar.

* * *

When I walk in she blushes like I’ve told a blue joke.

“I’m not staying,” I say. There are a few tired men in football shirts with their arms around each other; faces blurred, live’s in tatters; like mine, like hers.

I pinch one of her nipples, secretly, as she leans on the bar in front of me. She says she likes it when I pinch her nipples like that.

She gets me a rum and ginger wine. I watch her body as she prepares the drink.

I drink it quickly, touch the ends of her fingers with mine and leave.

It’s dark outside.

I stare into the lit windows of the estate agents. Cheap properties for sale and no one to buy them.

* * *

The train station is deserted.

I sit on the edge of the platform then heave myself onto the tracks. It starts to rain. I move along the line. Unlikely anything will be coming in either direction. I unscrew a fresh bottle of rum and keep walking; cobbles, wood, cobbles, wood. The rain carves up my face but the rum protects me from disintegrating.

And deep in the Firth, the herring jabber into the darkness while the fisherman’s faces stare, still as death, into the bitter brine.

Our Friend is Dead

His mouth tries to carve the words into the air between us. Though mute, I still understand him. He pushes a peanut around. It looks like a tiny, shiny distorted skull. Salt crystals gather at the end of his fingers; some fall upon the wooden table top.
Behind his eyes, a process of decoding. Working out what has happened.
I take his hand and close my fingers around it. He looks up at me, startled; lost in space and just barely able to recognise my face.
Then, a smile.
Out on the bay, a few boats return from the channel with empty nets.
He covers his eyes with his free hand, and cries quietly and steadily.
The sun doesn’t know. The sea is indifferent.
Our friend is dead.