Flash fiction

I know what you’re thinking. If you find the bones of a human hand in the raised bed of the house you rent, you should…read more

I remember it clearly. I had decided on planting a herb garden in the raised beds on the patio out the back. It was not long after my mother had died. She had always wanted a herb garden. The garden beds had been completely unused since I arrived. I had turned the soil that day and was looking at it from the kitchen window. I could see something snowy white in the blackness of the soil. It pricked my curiosity. Then I ate dinner and forgot about it.

I live alone.

I went to the work the next day and somewhere, somehow that fragment of an idea crossed my mind. So when I went home, I went out to the raised bed and I dug around it. That little piece of white. It was not as white as I remembered, more a cream, perhaps it was how the evening light had caught it.

I rent this place.

It was a bone. How odd? A bone. I dug a bit more. There were more pieces, more fragments. I kept digging and by the end, I had all the bones for a human hand. I had found the skeleton of a whole human hand. I know what you’re thinking. If you find the bones of a human hand in the raised bed of the house you rent, you should…

I didn’t.

I took it inside. I gently washed the dirt off it, just like I had seen on that forensics show on the telly. I even got out an old toothbrush for effect. I felt like an archaeologist. I wished I’d had a white coat. I told myself I had not found a whole body, just a hand and what was the harm in keeping it. The next day I went shopping.

I bought a box.

A glass one, clear on all sides, I searched skeletons and I laid out the bones exactly as they should be in the box and then put it on the shelf. I ate dinner. I watched the telly. I tried not to look at it. But it was like- it was calling me. After all, this hand, hadn’t it stretched up from somewhere deep in the soil below to find me. Hadn’t it sprung through the soil of its own volition into my field of view.

Sometimes.

I took it out and sat it on my knee and stroked it. That hand that belonged to someone else. That elegant fleshless skeletal ornament. It was quite beautiful. Then suddenly the lease finished. What to do, the herb garden was thriving. I pulled up what I could to take with me. I packed my things into boxes. It was late summer, time to move on. All the time, there was the box with the hand, on the shelf. The hand that had given me so many nights of comfort in front of the telly. But it was someone else’s hand.

So I left it.

In the box.

On the shelf.

When I moved out.

Because it wasn’t mine. Because the next person might be lonely too. And I think that’s how I came to be here, people say. They say such bad things.

I see him on the platform as the train pulls into the station. I wished the train didn’t stop here. Still there he is, shaved head caught in the morning lights. It’s still dark outside.  Why this morning? I am tired. He gets on the train, sees me, makes his way this way and not that way. He sits on the seats across the aisle from me.

Tattoos, hair cut so close to the skin it’s barely there, the over done muscles, track pants, the whole package. I make myself smaller. I want to be invisible.  He carries an air of menace with him, as if he’s wearing it as a coat. It pervades the carriage-look at me. Look how tough I am. He might as well be sitting on every seat. Entitlement mixed with resentment and disappointment at life. We all know how that turns out.  And  there is just him and me in this carriage.

I look at my bag-on the seat next to me, my gloves beside it. It’s cold. I pick up my gloves. I do it to soothe myself. I toy with them The gloves are a gift from my mother. They are pastel pink. They aren’t quite proper gloves. They have no fingers, I’m sure that has a name.

He stares. For the first time I think he really notices me. He is looking at my legs. Unnerving.  He looks at my bag. It is expensive. I don’t mind if he takes my bag. It’s everything else I am worried about.  My stomach churns. I feel the soft fur of my gloves. Soothing me. A contrast to the harshness of his eyes, his whole demeanour.

He is much bigger than I am. He is taking up more space than me. He is just staring at me. At my shoes. My legs. I put my gloves on. A further act of reassurance. He looks away. Looks back again.  At  me. I want to scream, stop looking,  you don’t have the right to just look every time you want. I try to look bigger now, more confident.

Oddly then he looks away. A victory for me but also a flash of something else there, something I didn’t get.

I toy with my gloves nervously. They are pale pink, did I say that already?  Fringed with fluffy fur and a tassel to tighten or loosen them. It doesn’t actually do either. They don’t exactly scream-‘martial arts expert who could whip your butt in a fight.’ On the other hand that is not me so they are honest. I have no idea why my mother sent them to me, they are not really ‘me’ in any event. I am somewhere in between the pom-pom lover with scented candles in the bath and the martial arts expert. I’m not exactly sure where on that spectrum though. I let other people judge that by looking at my hand bag. But I do love these gloves.

He is looking out the window now. Having devoured me with his eyes he is now looking away. I hope he is embarrassed. He isn’t. I know he isn’t. There is something else there though. Something I didn’t catch. What is he thinking? He can’t be thinking I could put up much resistance. I tell myself I could, but I know I couldn’t.

I look at my phone, wonder if I should call someone. I go through my bag for my keys. All the time he is taking quick glances back at me. I start to worry even more. I can’t read the situation. There is something else going on. I mustn’t panic. I try and keep my hands still, sit them calmly in my lap.

Its then I clock it. He is not. Not completely looking  at me. His phone rings. He grunts into it, some macho bullshit conversation and all the time he is staring into my lap. But not at me. I move my hands. I move them again. The tassel tie flipping about as I put my hands through my hair. Dear god why did I do that? Am I trying to tell him I am interested? Dear God I am terrified. That was stupid. My hands are just fidgeting now, trying to stop the shake and all the time he is watching them. My hands, but not my hands. 

I am not mistaken.

I am not mistaken.

I repeat the words in my head. It is not me that he is looking at. Not me that he is interested in.

He is looking at the gloves.

He is looking at the gloves.

I repeat the thought, calmly. Panic dissipates. Confusion. I take them off. I put them on the seat beside my bag. He is still looking at them. He is leaning back taking up more space but he keeps glancing at my gloves.

His call ends. Mr ‘he-man’ hang up his phone.  Our eyes catch. Lock. Its momentary. I see it then. The something else. The unspoken something else. I look at the gloves. I love those gloves. I mean my Mum-I love them for that reason alone. Still he looks at them. Then at me. At my eyes, into my eyes. Pleading.

I try and look righteous. I have no idea why. I love these gloves. A man like that, no matter how much he wants them, can never buy these gloves, can never own these gloves. Not even for his girlfriend. He can’t do that. These gloves, these beautiful gloves are out of his reach. I am trying to think it through. It’s my stop next. These are my gloves but those eyes, that plea. He could never wear them, they wouldn’t fit. But he can never own them either. This is his only chance. A world utterly forbidden, pastel pink, fur and tassels.

I stand. I pick up my bag. I leave them. I just leave the gloves there. On the seat. I can see the seat. I can see them on the seat. My mother would understand I tell myself.

I see him reach out. I look away. I look back. They are gone. He has gone to the other end of the carriage to get off.

I don’t look. I get off the train and walk straight ahead.

My hands are cold. I am warmed.

My coffee is talking to me. Its telling me to run. This faceless man across from me. Where did I meet him, a dating app, a friends friend. My recollection has dissipated into my coffee. It is telling me to run. I should run. He does have a face. I am just here being polite. I owe him nothing.

My coffee-its telling me to run. Not obviously. Not out loud. Its just the way I am focussed on finishing it that says-run. I wonder what would happen if I sprang up, jumped over the table, leapt over him and legged it.

He might not notice. He keeps talking. I stare into the murky brown. There is no point disputing it. He is wearing a jumper the same colour as a milky coffee. Run. There is no choice. Run. He keeps talking. He doesn’t even seem aware I am not interested. For a moment I think I will start to pull faces to see if he notices. Is he absorbed in himself? Is he talking because he is nervous?

I see the waitress look at me. She knows. I feel her sympathy oozing out towards me. It’s her job and as soon as I finish this coffee, she will have to offer me a second. I know it, she knows it. She looks distraught. He has barely noticed there is someone else in the room. He just keeps talking about himself. I’m sure he’s wonderful but I am not listening. At least not to him.

I am listening to my coffee and it is saying, ‘Run’.  

I look at my bag. I know I should walk. It would be polite to walk. It will be odd to run. I can feel myself smiling. I have only 30 seconds left on this coffee, otherwise it’s a second one. I can’t do a second one. The waitress looks at me. She is near the door. She knows. She has seen it all before. I have to run. I feel the words form in my head. My  legs. My legs are thinking the deed. I want to run. My coffee says run. He is still talking. I can’t even remember what he is saying.

I grab my bag. Fling a fiver on the table. And I literally-run. I see the waitress ahead of me, our eyes lock as she flings open the door. I run. I fling off my heels.  I keep running.  And it feels good.

Another sentence deleted. No thought’s are coming into my head. It might as well be empty. My brain is heavy. Heavier than usual. I think there’s extra fog. I need a deadline. A deadline would focus my thoughts. Instead I drift across the murky landscape that is my brain. I delve into what I thought were green corners but they are empty at very best, or at worst, they are infested with brambles and nettles. I cut myself on the inside on these corners.

If only I could focus. The words might come tumbling out. A twist? A turn? Another saga worth reading. Instead I drift mindlessly through the cloud. There is no unmined mountain of gold here, only dull grey rock, scree slopes and boulders. No green and grassy track of destiny in sight.

I want to rest my head on the desk. What has happened to my brain, what strange preternatural event has sucked out all my creativity? What dragon of consciousness has eaten my thoughts and left my grey matter to stew in its own inactive juices? How can I write when my head is so bereft of activity? I might as well be filing my nails.

Where is it? Where has it gone. I am like a spider crawling across a painted wall. There is texture there, bumps and grooves but it is invisible to the human eye. Where are those great leaping thoughts? Those sentences that hang together and flow so effortlessly. Would more coffee fix it? A massage? A bath? What will fix this? It is upon me. This nameless creature! It consumes me. The way forward is blocked. Its monstrous. Huge. A wall of grey, aimless words. The path is no longer clear. Blocked I want to yell. Blocked. But words, words, my beautiful precious words, they have failed me. Left me here. With only random letters for company.

Write what you know, they say. I know nothing. I am nearly 50 with a child, a husband and a house. What do I know. How the washing machine works. That’s a manual not a novel. I am less capable with the iron. I don’t ‘know ‘ the iron so you are spared the nuances of it. Lucky you. I can sew a badge on a blazer-hardly likely to grip you for too long. How did I get here? This isn’t what I wanted. Trapped in rigid urban stereotype. Write what you know. The cat needs to be vaccinated in October. The tap in the sink in the kitchen is leaking. Has been for twelve months. The Factory Shop sells cheap coat hangers. Are you impressed yet?

I hate driving in traffic. It makes me nervous-would you like to explore why? No me either. I have a past. I don’t think about it. Unless I want to avoid thinking of the present and the future. Write what you know. My child’s school shoes don’t fit anymore. Her trainers have holes. I am not sure what she is going to eat for lunch next week. Wait- is that something I know or don’t know. At last  a deep philosophical question. Or not. English supermarkets sell Irish potato scones and not Scottish ones-There’s a tidbit for a pub quiz. Are you dazzled by my intellectual contribution yet. 

We are nearly out of butter. The yoghurt in the fridge is out of Code. The water bottle on the table has water from the shop and not from our tap. I haven’t finished it or reused it yet. In the drawer in the dining room is a packet of 100 straws, with about 80 left, because my child reuses them. I hate washing straws. I never dry my hair. The hair dryer is for when I paint my nails. Everyone knows cold water is better, except for me, not me. Write what you know. I tell myself this is living. Because no one I know is doing anything else. I rage at the monotony of it all but there is no escape.

I can’t remember when  first was able to do it. I go into the bookshop.

I look at all the covers, so bright, so beautiful. All those words. All those words on those pages in those books. I think about the money I am saving. I think of those poor starving authors. I think of them but I do it anyway.

I see one I like. I touch the cover. Just two fingers on the cover. I absorb it. It is hard to explain. All those words just seep out. Into my fingertips. They tingle and swell. This must be a wordy tome. I wait a minute, with my fingers on the book. Inhaling it. 

I know the shop assistant thinks I am odd.

 I have been here before to do this. I wonder if one day they will ask me to leave. To stop. Say no. I wonder if there are others like me. Who come here and slide their fingers knowingly over the books. I wonder if the shop assistant knows. I watch how she looks at me. Ours eyes lock. They have locked before. She knows.

But she only knows I have a secret. She doesn’t know what it is. I can feel the words, travelling through me. This book is in my blood now. Every word.  I hold it there. Inside of me.  All those words streaming through me. Travelling around inside me. Liquid words. Like the best champagne you ever had.

My fingers. The words. They connect. I leave.

Hours later. I make a coffee. I sit in the garden. And all those words, they run before my eyes. It is not quite reading. It is like the book has become part of me. I feel it. Every word. In my head. I sense it. I absorb it. Each page passes through my mind. It is a beautiful experience. A secret.

Its 8.02. I slip my legs over the side of the bed. I slide the fibres of the rug between my toes and pull hard. I am alive. Waiting again. But alive.

Waiting for the bathroom. Waiting for someone to be ready. Waiting for them to come back so I can have the car. Waiting to use the shower. Waiting until the washing is done. I am waiting. Waiting. Always waiting.  

I scrunch the fibres of the rug under my toes. Perhaps I am tired of waiting. I really need the bathroom. I could use the one upstairs but it will wake them up. I wait. With the rug pulled between my toes. I could put on my dressing gown and leave. Just leave. No more waiting. Just gone. Free. But I would need to pee before I got to the end of the street. So I wait. For the bathroom to be free. Whilst my freedom slips down to my feet and out the bottom of them. Into the rug. The rug absorbs my freedom.

I look at it. I picture it lifting off. Floating down the hallway. Down the street. Without me. Free. I focus my frustration on my toes. How dare this rug want to be free. I paid for this rug. I placed it here. How dare it want to be free. I tug with my toes on the filaments of rug. It is never enough. I need the bathroom. I need to leave. It is 8.03.

I pull on my dressing gown and I just leave. I leave. I roll up the rug and take it with me. We can be free together. I roll it up. Me and the rug all rolled up, we walk to the end of the street. I still need to pee. I lay it out on the grass. I lay down on it and look at the sky. I am free. I get up. I leave it there. It is free. I am free. I keep walking.  But it was all in my head. In my head I left. The rug came with me. The reality is I wait, I pee, I get the breakfast. I wait some more. I go out. Possibly I am alive but this, this is not living.

There is dark. And there is light. We are in the dark. We can see the light. We are not headed in that direction. We are going somewhere else. I tried the light with all its ‘lightness’. It didn’t work. Some of us are just dark. On the inside. I don’t mean to offend in those words. It’s a ridiculous analogy. As if dark is always bad. Its not. I think the dark is good. I did not enjoy the light.

Its full glow. I felt bare. Naked. Exposed. Here in the dark there is comfort. Like being wrapped in a blanket. I can do things. No one sees. No one needs to know. Do I do things? Perhaps? Maybe. But you can’t know because this is the darkness. You can hear in the dark. Noises. There are noises. It could be me. It could be someone else. The noise. It is acute. You can smell as well. You don’t notice it. Not like you should. But you can. In the darkness, there is noise and smell. And touch. Searing pain? Maybe.

But who is touching? Is that pain? You can’t see it. How do you know it hurts? Because you know pain. You’ve seen pain. But this is the darkness. You can’t see in the darkness. Do you know it hurts? Are you sure? What is the warmth that is covering your hand. Smell it. You know that smell. Is it pain though? You are stumbling. Are you sure it’s pain? In the darkness. You are reaching for the light. I told you, this is not the light. You are here with me in the darkness. I whisper words. You can hear in the darkness. ‘Yes, this is pain.’ I pull out the tiny blade. I walk away. 

It moves as if its mine. I think-it moves. As if its my own. It is my own. I paid for it.

The government is saying ‘Epidemic’. No one is listening. I had it done deliberately. It is bright and shiny and silver. I am super strong. Well at least my left hand is. The whole arm in fact. Titanium.  Only the hand is fully replaced, the rest is a kind of internal circuitry. I have kept my bones and my nerves. It’s just that the bones have been reinforced.

I like the sound it makes as each finger taps on the table. Mechanical. Fascinating.  The man across the way is looking at me. Staring. Fear.

He is afraid. Of me.

I like the way it sounds as it crunches against the glass when I pick it up. It is self defence. I have a weapon. Its also useful for jam jars too..

Technically it is illegal for a woman to have her hand cut off and replaced with a titanium hand. ‘Epidemic’.  It’s illegal because there have been problems??? They haven’t passed a law yet on wielding a hand with menace but I’m sure they will soon.

It’s super advanced. It responds to my command but it has 5, 6 times the strength of a human hand. I need a permit for it. I have a very good forgery.

I love the way it feels. How quickly it responds. I can see the man across the way wants to see the permit.  He won’t ask. I have seen this before. He won’t follow me home anymore either.

I get up to leave. I see the waitress admire my hand. I flex it. It is amazing. I get on my bike. Hassle me on my bike and I can rip the door off your car. I love this hand.

I see the officers ahead of me. They hail me down. I have been here before too. I stop.

They asked to see my papers for this hand. I use ‘this hand’ to do it. To prove to them how dexterous it is. How magnificent. It is a weapon. I hand over the papers. Forged. I had this done deliberately, did I tell you? Wouldn’t you? Even the odds. Well not so much even, as tip them in your favour.  

I can see the female officer admiring my hand. The truth is it just works differently, better when it is attached to the female brain. Something about size or scale or something. There is a science but I haven’t bothered with it too much. It doesn’t work so well, something to do with the male body rejecting it all the time.

They say its like pregnancy. To be pregnant the human body has to accept the foetus on a physiological level. Female bodies can do this. Male bodies can’t. My body is capable of thinking I am pregnant with a titanium hand. I can never actually fall pregnant now but it seems like a small price to pay for safety. Although I think I have gone beyond safety.

I can smell his fear. This officer. He doesn’t know what to do. He senses the papers are a forgery. His partner, she looks unconcerned. This is where the system has fallen apart. She is indifferent. He is scared. He knows I can simply end his life with one single slap from this hand. It’s as simple as that.

He nods. She nods. They let me go. That’s how it is. This hand. It changes everything.