Blackbird

The evening was bleak and drizzly, and my boots slipped slightly on the damp pavement as I began my walk home. My aching eyes took a moment to adjust from the harsh fluorescent strip lights of the office to the fading daylight outside. It was only just gone five, but already the November sun had fallen to the horizon, taking with it what little afternoon warmth it had provided and casting the world in shades of muted grey. I shivered inside my coat, scrunching my hands up inside my sleeves to hide them from the cold that was gripping my fingers in its embrace. I hated the thought of the long, dreary winter stretching ahead of me, swollen with rainwater, dripping and seeping, dampening everything in its path.

The air was still, stagnant, heavy with fumes from the evening traffic, and it carried a wet chill that clung to my exposed face and neck as I walked. The rows of cars choking the main road threw out a heavy red glow from their brake lights that illuminated the fine drops of rain misting the air. The effect was dazzling, painfully bright against the dullness of the day, and I was relieved when I could turn off the main road and onto a quieter side street, putting my back to the streams of traffic. Being near busy roads always put me on edge, even when they were slow-moving like today. Something about the feeling of proximity to the vehicles always brought back a sliver of distress, the remnants of a fear I had never quite managed to shake off. This stretch through the back of town made me feel calmer, the cars passing by me more infrequently, the view in front of me open and bare save for the run-down industrial estates flanking either side of the road, and the handful of other lonely figures dotted along the path ahead of me, making their way home.

The pavement was cracked here, cradling small fistfuls of stringy weeds in its crevices, creating puddles where it was pitted with age. Its condition became worse as I carried on, past the last of the warehouses, until I was free of the mottled silver palisade fencing that ran alongside the loading bays, its spiked top finishing just above my head. As I turned the corner, in the distance I could almost see my house nestled within the rows of mournful terraces as they came into view.

“Jess!”

I frowned at the sound of my name, called from further up the street by a voice I didn’t recognise. I just wanted to get home, get warm again, and I prayed that this conversation would be short. That was until I turned to greet the voice, and froze, my fake smile dying on my lips. The man ambling towards me was grinning widely, his eyebrows raised in disbelief at the sight of his old childhood friend. Marcus. His voice was different to when we last spoke, almost twenty years ago now, but his face was barely changed. The same smooth brown skin, straight teeth, and mischievous expression. His jaw was stronger, with a coating of stubble that he hadn’t had back when we were friends at secondary school, and there were now fine laughter lines forming at the corners of his eyes. The same dark brown eyes that had last stared at me glassy, empty, as he lay broken on the tarmac of the road.

I shook my head, watching his expression change from happiness to concern as the blood drained from my cheeks. “But you’re dead,” I wanted to say, unable to get the words out past the bile rising into my mouth. “I watched you die”. Marcus was stood in front of me now; his lips were forming the shape of my name but I couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears. I swallowed hard, throat burning, trying to see his face but seeing only the accident instead. It was cold that day too, our breath misting in front of us as we walked to school, wearing blazers underneath our winter coats. We used to chat about everything, despite having little in common but the ennui we both felt at thirteen. We were listless and bored and careless. I could see the moment of his death in perfect clarity; the blackbird that skittered out of his path as he stepped off the curb; the furrow in his brow as he turned to look at me instead of the road; the way the winter sunlight glinted off the bonnet of the car as it hit his body; the crack as his head hit the ground, his blood already pooling beneath him before I had a chance to look away.

Marcus’ face - alive, grown up, creased with worry - swam before me as I blinked the water out of my eyes. He was really here. I took a deep, shuddering breath and smeared away my tears with shaking fingers, trying to regain my composure.

“I’m okay, really, I’m okay,” I said, clearing my throat and giving him what I hoped was a reassuring, if somewhat weak, smile. “I’m sorry, you just took me by surprise.”

“Well you gave me quite a fright as well, going all pale like that,” he replied, still looking at me with concern. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you since the move.”

“The move…?” I asked, only really half listening, too busy trying to figure out how he could be here, how I could have been wrong about his death when I saw it.

“Yeah, you remember don’t you? We moved away to Scotland when I was thirteen, been there ever since. I’m just back to visit some family, on my way over there now actually.”

I thought about his story as he spoke, just now registering the faint Scottish accent that wasn’t there when we were kids. I wanted to ask him about the accident, but I didn’t know how. More importantly, I didn’t know if I could trust my memory of it. It was something I had never thought to question before, but with him stood in front of me now, nothing seemed certain. Could I have been wrong? If Marcus had died, shouldn’t there have been a funeral to attend? Even if he had recovered from the accident, shouldn’t there have been some mention of it at school? I realised I couldn’t remember any of the events surrounding his death, only the moment itself. I couldn’t recall paramedics arriving, or giving a statement to the police, or telling my parents, and slowly I began to wonder if the memory of his death that had haunted me since childhood was a complete fabrication.

Marcus was still talking, saying something about being late, and I smiled and nodded and said goodbye without really paying attention. I felt numb as I watched him walk away, my head spinning with the knowledge that a moment that I remembered with such burning lucidity could never have happened; that a friend that I had mourned for so long was still alive. Underneath my shock and confusion, I felt a tentative sense of hope begin to glow in my chest. He was alive.

“We’ll have to catch up while I’m back,” Marcus said, turning to flash a quick grin at me over his shoulder, scaring a blackbird off the path ahead of him as he neared the crumbling curb. My reply lodged in my throat and a sickening sense of déjà vu washed over me. He frowned, distressed by my sudden look of horror, that familiar furrow forming between his eyebrows. It wasn’t a memory at all. It was happening.

“Stop!” I shouted, my voice high and cracking with fear, a fraction too late, as he stepped out into the road.