Inconvenient

TW: Violence

I watch mutely as the light suspended from the ceiling flickers. It swings from a long chain, casting a dim glow on the cracked walls of the small dining room. ‘Petite’, my grandmother might have called it. Or ‘cosy’. As if a kinder adjective might lend some warmth to this depressing, windowless box. She had been a master of such understatement: Crossing half the globe to escape Nazis? ‘Inconvenient.’ Presenting a Christmas dinner burnt beyond recognition? ‘Somewhat crispy.’ One of the last things she said to me was she felt ‘a little under the weather’ – she had died two hours later. I suspect, as I glance around the room, that even she would have struggled to paint this room in a positive light.

 Jeremy still stands beneath the globe, rubbing his head, almost in pantomime. His shadow, long and gangly, follows suit splashed against the walls. He looks at me, an apologetic expression on a hangdog face.

What’s an apology worth when the man himself is a walking apology?

It was only two days ago he had walked into that same globe with such unusual vigour that it had shattered, showering him in glass. The abrupt darkness had hidden my glee, but I’m sure he felt it all the same. It had taken nearly 20 minutes, working by candlelight, to remove each shard from his lank hair. It might have seemed romantic, in another life.

He leans against the kitchen bench, his shadow still slow dancing around him. In another man, it might have seemed casual, nonchalant. But a nervous energy oozes out of him, greedily consuming any space he enters. I wonder if this has followed him all his life, or if it’s something he developed. A growth, somewhere deep within him. Somewhere too deep for surgeons to help – ‘No, we’re not sure what it is, but it’s in his liver, his heart… his marrow.’

Does he know when he leaves a room that conversation swells in his absence? That shoulders, previously tensed, drop and relax? Or does he think the entire world lives an anxious, stilted existence: bumbling from one faux pas to the next?

I’m sure if I were to ask, he would insist it is the world at fault, not he. Yes, it’s the other eight billion people who are wrong. That is, of course, if he recognises a problem at all, which seems increasingly unlikely.

I try to imagine what upbringing could have wrought such a man, what parents might have gazed out the window at the child-form of this elongated streak of disappointment boarding a school bus, and thought “Yep, that’s our boy. What pride we feel.”

It is with little surprise that I find I can’t imagine him as a child at all. Rather, my mind’s eye has simply squeezed the man before me into a far-too-small school uniform. I blink repeatedly, but the image of a thickly forested belly button erupting beneath strained shirt buttons proves a difficult one to suppress.

I used to imagine him being grown in a lab, perhaps simmering in a vat, forgotten by scientists. But looking at him now, I suspect he was squeezed from a tube a size too small. Like someone had been trying to get the last little bit of toothpaste, but instead found this stretched out excuse for a human smeared across their vanity.

Over-sized hands hang from the sleeves of a shirt that, despite being slightly too short, hides any physical distinction whatsoever. He swallows loudly, his tongue sticking and audibly popping on the roof of his mouth. His Adam’s apple – more of a tangerine, really – bobs like a greedy bird. It casts a shadow all of its own.

I feel my lip curl and move to distract myself before he notices.

‘How was work?’ I ask, knowing full well he’s not had work in months – years, even.

‘Oh uh,’ he begins, sputtering. He licks lips somehow both too wet and too dry at once, before beginning again.

‘You know ah, that is to say, it was pleasurable.’ His voice is a whispered rasp, looking to bury itself in the musty air of the room.

Usually I would pry no further, but I feel particular distaste today.

‘Pleasurable?’ I say with a mock sincerity I know he will miss.

‘What was so pleasurable about it? What did you do?’

He has always, for obvious reasons, avoided details of his “work.” So far I’ve allowed this, but today I have had enough.

A little spittle flings from his lips as he stutters once more.

‘Oh, well, ah the office, it was just… you know, busy, busy… lots of sales made.’

‘You work in sales? Wow. You know, most people go into sales for the money,’ I pause here, surveying the room. He hasn’t noticed. Once again, he takes my comment at face value. He’s prattling now, digging deeper into this fantasy. Giving me names of imaginary colleagues in an imaginary workplace. I wonder for a moment if these imaginary beings are even more boring than the one before me, but I struggle to picture it.

This is fine, though. He’s distracted, leaning into this nonsense world. He’s approached the table, comically large hands spreading before himself as he illustrates some point. I smile and nod. I slowly close the gap between us, inching my way around the table that separates us.

It’s a small table, like everything else in this room, but it seems to take an age to round it.

I’m sweating now. Not as much as Jeremy, but sweating nonetheless. He has never let me so close before.

 The chair leg in my hand nearly slips loose, but I swing.

The crack as it makes contact reverberates impossibly loud through the tiny room. The whispers of imaginary colleagues die on his lips, although he continues to stare at me as blood rivulets between his eyes.

He doesn’t seem angry. Just a little confused and, perhaps… grateful?

It doesn’t matter.

I hit again.

And again.

Blows rain down.

I’ve seen movies, I know how this goes. You have to make sure of it.

Blood pools around my feet, but the job is done. Almost done. I can feel my hands shake and I begin to panic at the enormity of it, but I’m not done yet. I check his neck, but it’s not there.

Concerning.

I rifle through his pockets hurriedly, the chain around my ankle clinking in the quiet. A rattled breath escapes a broken mouth, and I hit him once more. Looking at what’s left of his head though, I suspect it was his body simply relaxing into death. Perhaps souls make a noise as they find themselves in the cold night air?

Over the months, the chain has worn into my ankle. Infected sores have sprung up where the skin has rubbed raw. The chain itself is so heavy I have developed a slight limp to compensate.

The smell and sight of blood has become almost overpowering. The weight of what I have done is settling on me, but I push it aside.

I need to focus.

It’s no good thinking what might happen if I can’t find this key.

It’s no good imagining the weeks (months?) I might spend, withering away here.

Why wasn’t it around his neck?