Edinburgh Triptych

Edinburgh Arrivals
 

Her flight touched down at eight fifteen. Deceit. It had got her this far, and it had got her here on time. Deceit was an ally, it could be depended on. She loved her family, she loved them all, but she needed this, she needed to be here. She found a toilet and changed into a pair of jeans. For now, the pretence was over. She wasn’t here on business. She was here to spend the day with someone she once knew. He had been a boy back then; she had been a slip of a girl. They had gone off on different tangents, but everything was about to converge, here, now, after half a lifetime. She checked her face in the mirror. It was too early for makeup. In any case, she had been told she didn’t need any, that she was beautiful.

She followed the signs for Arrivals. A man was there, waiting. She looked around, but he was the only one. He mouthed her name, this man with grey hair and fashionably ripped jeans, this old man dressed in the clothes of someone much younger – a man trying to be something he wasn’t.

He had promised her the boy; she was confronted by a stranger.

His arms closed round her and she thought of her children. He kissed her and she thought of her husband. Most of all she thought of herself, of choices and lies, and how she had so willingly been drawn into this huge mistake.


Arthur's Seat

The grass is full of mud. I feel responsible. It was my idea to meet. I know what lengths she has gone to. It can’t have been easy for her.

Arthur’s Seat is directly ahead. The summit is shrouded in mist. The summit is up in the clouds. It was my idea to meet her in Edinburgh, but the suggestion to climb to the top of an extinct volcano was hers. I tried not to read too much into it. I’m still trying. There was a storm last night. Flights were cancelled. I was worried she wouldn’t make it, but she is here.

I want to hear her voice. Her accent is different to what it was. A southern English vowel jars now and again, but it is still her voice. I want to sit down with her, I want to look into her eyes and tell her things. I want to tell her why we are here, but it is hard to find an opening. She talks, and I make silent excuses to myself. I am worried about being clumsy, of saying something she won’t like.

We only have so much time, and it is running out.

The satchel on her back looks heavy. She turns to me. ‘Could you carry this?’ she says.

‘Probably not,’ I say. I am joking, but she does not look pleased. ‘Come on,’ I say, and manage to slide one of the straps down her arm.

‘No, it’s okay,’ she says.

I move behind her and remove the other strap, but she is resisting. I laugh, and pull harder. I think I hear her laugh, too. I think I hear her say my name. It is the first time she has used it since we met. But I can’t be sure. I want her to say it again. I want her to look at me and acknowledge to my face that she knows she is here with me.

We walk slowly round the bottom of the hill. She tells me things about her life, about things that have happened to her. She says something about music. Pianos. We both play. Then something about a man she knows. ‘He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,’ she says. ‘Have you ever heard that?’

I don’t know who she is talking about, my head is somewhere else, but I like the expression.

The ascent – the real ascent – begins. She is a fit woman. She strides into the distance, high and far, almost disappearing into the mist. It is impossible for me to keep up.

‘Come on, old man,’ she laughs. ‘It’s not that steep.’

But it is. It is too steep for me. I have to take it slowly. Time is running out, but I can’t go any faster. Then the rocks begin. The mist catches in my throat. I see wet steps fashioned out of boulders.

She has stopped. She has to be careful. Her boots have no tread, she says.

I take the lead. I have to prove something.

I offer her my hand.

She looks at it and I know she is scared to touch me.

She is looking at my hand as if taking it would be going too far.

She grabs my sleeve. I feel the tug through the material. I want to touch her hand. I want to feel the skin of her hand in my hand. I want this woman, who was once my lover, to touch me. I want her to want to touch me. I want confirmation that I am still a man in her eyes, that I am still in the game. Back then, our relationship was defined by the word ‘control’. I couldn’t control her. I still can’t. I want something she won’t give, something she can’t give.

She lets go.

We are almost there. I step onto the final boulder and I hear her slip. I turn, her right hand skids off a rock and she falls awkwardly on one knee.

‘Jill!’ I reach for her and again she takes my sleeve. It is my fault for not insisting. ‘Give me your hand,’ I say.

But she doesn’t. She can’t. She has tissues in her satchel. She cleans her hand and scrubs the stain on her jeans. Thank God she’s all right.

‘It’s a good job I’ve got a pair of trousers with me,’ she says.

I don’t believe her. ‘What?’ I say.

‘I told everyone I was coming here on business,’ she says. ‘I wore trousers on the flight. I got changed when I arrived.’

I don’t want the details. I don’t want to hear this.

We walk slowly to the cairn. Her phone rings.

‘Can I get this?’ she says.

The phone is in her hand. What am I supposed to say?

‘Hi, Paul,’ she says, and I am consumed by something I haven’t felt in years. ‘Oh...uhuh, yeah...look, Paul, I’m just – what am I doing? I’m just going into a meeting. I’ll see you tonight, okay? Bye.’

She is an excellent liar. There could never be a future in this. But this is not about the future. It never has been. It is about the past, and the things I have to tell her about it.

We have reached the summit, but there is no view of the city. There is no view of anything. All I can see is her, standing in front of me. She is veiled in mist, like an apparition. I imagine that the mist has turned to smoke. Smoke is weeping from the dead rocks. Something has been rekindled and is awakening, coming back to life.

‘I got this for you,’ I say, and give her the envelope I prepared this morning. She opens it. ‘It’s a lucky charm,’ I say. ‘To ward off the evil eye. Do you know what the Greeks say about the evil eye? It’s not as bad as it sounds. If you look at someone and you think they’re beautiful, you can put the evil eye on them. You’re beautiful. I’ve told you that before. It’ll protect you.’

She examines the gift closely, as if it might decipher what I just said.

‘I should have given it to you earlier,’ I say. ‘You might not have...I’ve been falling in love with you for the last three months.’ The words are out, where they have to be. It is too late to take them back. Time is up. ‘I know it sounds...but I can’t think of any other way to describe it. I’ve fallen in love with that girl again, the one I used to know. I wish we hadn’t lost touch. I know you’ve forgotten what...’

‘Stop, please,’ she says. The trinket hangs limp like something useless, like something lifeless, like mist, like something only a fool could believe in. ‘Please don’t say that.’

‘But there’s so much...’

She clenches her fist and the chain snaps. The stones scatter on the ground.

A dozen blue eyes stare up at us from the muck.

I hear something in my throat.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

She doesn’t move. I gather the stones myself. I can’t bear to look at her. ‘Why did you come?’ I say. ‘What’s the point of you being here?’

‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘This is all a mistake. It should never have happened.’

I put the stones in my pocket. She can do what she likes with the chain. ‘All I wanted was to talk to you,’ I say. ‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’

‘Don’t speak to me like this,’ she says.

The mist is getting thicker. It confines us. It is inside us, making it hard to breathe. Our voices. We sound like people who are drowning.

‘Why did you come?’ I say.

She struggles to find the words. The chain is tangled round her fingers. ‘I’m not as stupid as you think,’ she says.

I know she isn’t stupid. I think of the lies she has told. They have a life of their own.

Her hand is outstretched. The skin is grazed. I see blood. Blood and what remains of my gift. The silver has lost its sheen. Parts of it are red. ‘You’d better keep this,’ she says.

‘I got it for you,’ I say.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Give me the stones.’ I watch as she tries to put the charm together again, but it is impossible. She opens the envelope and places the pieces carefully inside.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say, even though it does. I am desperate, tired of being alone. ‘I apologise. It’s all my fault.’

‘You look as if you hate me,’ she says.

‘I don’t hate you,’ I say. I could never hate her. Not the way she means.

We find the way back to the steps. She offers me her hand. I hold her gently – I do not want to hurt her any more than I have. Hurting her was never my intention. We are up in the clouds. Her face is close. I watch her breath dance with mine. We stand here, looking at each other. I am trying to read her eyes, to read her expression, but I don’t understand. I don’t understand her. I don’t understand any of this.

Edinburgh Departures

 

They were dressed in black. Corporate Bohemian. They could have been mistaken for a couple. She talked incessantly, her coffee cup at her lips. She was being herself, he guessed. He had spent the day trying desperately to be something other than what he was, trying to be something she might want, something more Corporate than Bohemian. Her lips were moving, but he couldn't hear. His own voice was loud in his head. Don't leave. Not yet. Please. She placed the cup on its saucer. 'I'd better go through,' she said. He embraced her. It wasn't like the last time, twenty years before, when he was the one who was leaving, when she had begged him to stay as he wiped tears from her eyes. 'I wish I'd had kids with you,' he said, but it was too late. She was gone, turning the corner into Security, the place where they check for things you shouldn't be carrying.

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Edinburgh Arrivals and Edinburgh Departures were first published in Ink Sweat and Tears. Arthur's Seat appeared in New Linear Perspectives.

All three stories are taken from my collection, A Man's Hands, which is available here and here.

from They Made The Effort

The house was already warm. She had adjusted the thermostat the previous evening. It was all in the planning, and she was good at that, at laying plans, she'd made a career out of it. In the bathroom she noticed blood - two days early. It was hard not to feel disappointed, this was something she hadn't expected. Not really. She cleaned herself. She felt cheated, but even without this, there was no way she would have been doing anything, although it would have been nice to at least have that possibility, to have felt like she was in control; to have been able to say no for no's sake. She stepped into the shower and immediately saw a splash of red at her feet. She closed her eyes to it. Life was short. Malcolm was fast asleep, for once it was the way she wanted him. It would probably take him till lunchtime to remember where she was, or, rather, where she had said she would be.

Greek As A Foreign Language published in McStorytellers

Greek As A Foreign Language

Hamish McColl, a teacher of English, was pacing the floor of an eye surgeon’s waiting room. A uniformed police Sergeant was staring at him. He had been staring at him for the last five minutes. Hamish approached the Ouzo 12 barometer that was screwed to the wall. He tapped the glass with a fingernail, then tutted to himself. You only did that when you were interested in air pressure. The dial below it, the thermometer, read 36C.

He turned.

The Sergeant was still watching. ‘It’s hot for April,’ he said.

Hamish took a moment. He wanted to come up with something relaxed, something witty and assured, but he was too slow.

‘What’s wrong?’ said the Sergeant. ‘Did you swallow your tongue?’
 

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You can read the entire story on the McStorytellers site. 

 

Curfew by Andrew McCallum Crawford

 

The sun was going down. Alex laid a bottle of Amstel on the table. ‘That’s fae auld Hector,’ he said, and disappeared back into his cubbyhole. John looked across the room. Hector was crouched over his walking stick, his chin on his hands, watching a game of tavli. He had a glass of lemonade at his elbow. He hadn't drunk much of it.

John opened his jotter and started scratching with his pencil. The joys of 2H. You had to be careful not to tear the paper, but they lasted longer than HB. Such was his philosophy. The summer was at its height. The season was nearly over, but the sweet smell of peaches still hung in the air. The harvest was brought in by the Albanian itinerant workers. Three of them were sitting out the front of the cafeneio. One of them might have been called Sammy – their names were difficult to pronounce. They were living in an abandoned house on the edge of the village. John had been in it, once. The guy who might have been Sammy had wanted to see him about something. John hadn’t found out what – Sammy’s Greek was bad, and his English was non-existent. It looked like the kitchen was the only room they were using. The furniture consisted of sleeping bags and plastic bags. A battered  wood stove squatted in the middle of the room, the door hanging open, plastic plates stacked on top. Flies buzzed around the window, which was no more than iron bars jammed into a hole in the wall.

There was a shout from the corner. Someone was cheating. A double six at this stage of the game! Hector didn’t budge.

Perhaps it had been wrong to leave the city. The bucolic lifestyle was fine for a holiday, but John had grown tired of it. There was nothing to do apart from sit in the caff listening to old men shouting at the telly or each other. Come to think of it, that was the nightly entertainment in the city as well, but at least he had friends there. Or used to. Most of them had had enough and shipped out. There would be no replacements coming in September. Things were changing. People were going further afield after university, as if South Korea would give them a more rounded perspective on Life. What was it with twenty-year-olds being so intent on finding their inner selves? He’d met dozens. Most of them had problems that were only compounded by the grind of trying to survive in a foreign country. There was no enlightenment in teaching English.

He stopped writing.

A group of middle-aged men had gathered outside. Each had a pickaxe handle over his shoulder. One of the men struck the kerb a few times, then checked that the wood hadn't splintered. He came over to Sammy, who turned to his mates.

‘Let’s be havin’ yez,’ said the man. He made a big deal of consulting his watch. ‘Time tae get up the road.’

Silence in the cafeneio. The game of tavli had stalled. Everyone was looking. Even Hector, his chin still on his hands, had turned round. Alex put down the glass he was polishing and went outside. ‘Leave them alone,’ he said. ‘They’re no daein’ anythin’.’

‘Aye, right,’ said the mouthpiece. ‘Come oan, ah’ve telt yez. Up the road.’ He jerked his thumb. ‘Move.’

Sammy said something to his friends. They got up quietly. Alex gathered the coins off the table and put them in his pocket.

John felt himself getting stared at.

‘Who’s he?’ said the man.

‘Never you mind,’ said Alex. ‘Who the hell d’ye think ye are, the polis?’

‘Ye’ve heard aboot the curfew,’ said the man. ‘Well, we’re here tae enforce it.’

‘Away hame,’ said Alex, ‘an’ gie us peace.’

John turned back to his jotter. It is easy to hide amongst words, he wrote, especially if you can bury your face in them. When he looked up, the group of men had left. They were following the Albanians. Hector coughed and tried to push himself out of his chair. He had one hand on his stick and the other on the table. When he was sure of himself, he set off slowly towards the door. He shouted over at John. ‘Good night, Teacher,’ he said. ‘See ye the morra.’

John raised his glass. ‘Thanks, Hector,’ he said.

Hector laughed. ‘You an’ yer jotter,’ he said. ‘Ah think you’re a spy!’

John watched him totter across the road. He stopped under a streetlight and leaned against it. He lit a cigarette. A billow of smoke rose straight up and was lost in the darkness. He moved off carefully, his stick making a hollow sound on the pavement.

© 2011

This story was first published in Drey Magazine (Red Squirrel Press)

Player by Andrew McCallum Crawford

Player

He wrote a book. It was a minor hit. Nothing major. It got a handful of good reviews. It dealt with a defining moment in his life. This defining moment had to do with things falling apart. It was a roman à clef, which was irrelevant in the great scheme of things, seeing as he was a nobody. A minor hit. The names, as they say, had been changed. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, he wasn’t that type of person. In any case, the names weren’t important, it was the facts, the event. He hadn’t written the book to examine other people’s motives. He had written it to understand the past, to understand how the past had affected the way his life had turned out. Ailsa had read it. Of course she had. He’d made sure of that. Ailsa had inspired it. She had reappeared in his life, one of those twists of Internet fate, and he had found himself thinking of her and their relationship, which had lasted a few months and been over for decades. Inevitably, he had found himself thinking of the event. He began to write more and more, which was good, until it became one-track, monotonous; an obsession. He wrote about it till he wrote it out of himself. Catharsis. A fictionalised account. His book. But Ailsa wasn’t fictional. She was real. She existed. She wasn’t a figment of his imagination, like the past, or his version of it.

In the past, they had gone their separate ways. They were just kids. Maybe not kids, but they were young, that was the point. It’s all relative. It was years ago. When he left, he meant it, as far away from Scotland as he could get for a hundred and twenty quid. A one-way ticket, the big gesture, fuck yez, I’m off. It was her idea to meet up after all this time. He would never have suggested it; he had got her to read the book, anything else would have been pushing his luck. Things happen in life, things that define you. Things that make you buy a one-way ticket to the limit of what’s in your pocket. She’d been there at the defining moment. She hadn’t just been there in the sense that she’d been around, that she’d been his girlfriend. She had actually been present when the event took place, the pair of them sitting in his tiny room, a shirt hanging from the atmospheric curtain rail and a box of Bold under the wash hand basin. The minutiae. She was part of it. She had been at the address. That’s what the policemen had said when they showed up, talking into their radios, they were at the address. Okay, he had her on a pedestal. You carry things, you can feel the weight of them slowing you down. That’s the thing about thoughts – you try not to think them, but they follow you around, like shadows, growing darker the more light you shine on them.

He agreed to see her. He had reached the point where he couldn’t help himself. So much for catharsis. He wanted to see her so badly that he lied to his wife, on an international scale, which wasn’t as difficult as he’d imagined. He had business back home, he told her. She didn’t ask for details. They were due a break from each other. The place where he lived had become no less foreign over the years. He had no friends. Apart from his wife. She was his only friend. It was his choice. They shared everything. But this, now, this secret, was something he didn’t want to share. Not with her. It was something between him and Ailsa, no one else. It was as if he was playing a game, scanning the ground ahead, left, right and centre. There was a line that marked a boundary. He imagined it as thick and white, like a line on a tennis court. But this was no game. There were no rules, although there would be losers, eventually. He knew this. He also knew that no matter how hard he looked, he would never find the line, because the line was invisible, and he’d already crossed it.

It took five minutes to book the flights. He found a reasonably priced guest house in the West End, Haymarket. En suite, naturally, he was a man who liked his privacy.

He arrived very late in the evening, almost midnight, but they let him in. Despite the hour, or maybe because of it, he shaved. Staring at himself in the mirror, after he’d finished. He’d always had wrinkles, even as a young man, but now his eyes wore hoods of skin at the sides, as if he had grown tired of something, or someone. He twisted the tap till steam covered the glass.

He woke up sweating. He had dreamed of the mirror, and the face in it. He dressed quickly. He had to get out of the room. Edinburgh, this part of it, smelled of beer. Hops. As it always had. He purchased a bottle of his wife’s favourite perfume in Jenners. He could have got it cheaper on the way back, at Duty Free, but he didn’t mind paying full price. She was worth it. She deserved it.

He walked around the gardens, but knew he was just avoiding things. Back in the room he turned on the Internet. Ailsa hadn’t given him her mobile number. She liked her privacy, too. There was an email from her – the location of their rendezvous. They were to meet in a pub. He didn’t recognise the name, but it was in the Grassmarket. Edinburgh, full of markets, full of people selling things. The years move on, pubs close down and are replaced by other pubs. They were to meet in a pub. She was telling him she wanted to spend the evening getting stewed. Together, getting stewed. He found the idea appealing. Encouraging.

He had been ready for hours. He couldn’t sit still, he ended up fidgeting, pacing the floor. He felt stubble on his face. He braced himself for another shave. He cut himself, quite badly. He looked at his watch. He needed to give the cut time to heal. Balsam – he had forgotten to pack it, he should have got some in Jenners while he was there. It was an oversight, his own fault, like the cut. He checked his email, a towel pressed to his throat. Ailsa was just leaving home.

She was already there, sitting at a small table in the corner. Her eyes were on the door when he walked through it. She hesitated, then smiled. She hadn’t changed at all. He crossed the floor to her, the carpet like water. She reached for him. He would have embraced her, but she kissed him on the mouth. His confusion was already total.

‘Ailsa,’ he said.

‘You’ve gone all grey,’ she said. He felt her fingers stroke his hair.

A mirror was set in the wall behind the table, reflecting light from the fixture in the ceiling. It blinded him for a second. ‘It would have been nice to see you before I turned into an old man,’ he said. ‘A bit late, eh?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It suits you.’

He wanted to ask how much time they had, but thought better of it. At least she had come on her own. He had imagined she might bring her husband along.

She was still smiling. ‘God, I feel nervous,’ she said.

‘That makes two of us,’ he said. ‘What are you drinking?’

She put a hand over her glass. A wedding ring and an engagement ring, he noticed. A double crust of diamonds. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

He ordered a whisky and told the barman to bring it to the table. It was no big deal. The place was empty. He wanted to make the most of his time with her. Standing alone at a bar waiting for someone to pour him a drink would have been

‘Tell me about your wife,’ she said.

The small talk was over quickly. He made sure of that.

‘I’ll have that drink now,’ she said. He gestured to the barman: a glass of wine. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Your book.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘It’s raised lots of questions for me.’

He had been expecting this. He had everything worked out. Every permutation. You can’t put people into stories then invite them to read those stories without getting some kind of reaction.

‘I’ve got a terrible memory,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m beginning to think I’m losing it.’

‘How do you mean, Ailsa?’ he said.

The barman placed a glass on the table.

‘Thank you,’ said Ailsa. She insisted on paying. She waited till he was back behind the bar, till they were alone. ‘It was really sad in parts,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Your book,’ she said. ‘It was really sad in parts.’ She attempted another smile. ‘I’m not much of a literary critic.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘ “Really sad” works for me.’

‘But it’s got me thinking,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a terrible memory.’

He placed a finger under his collar; there was an itch. He decided not to scratch in case he opened the scab.

‘I remember some things,’ she said. ‘Like how you always wore that green sports jacket.’

‘I threw it out years ago,’ he said, but she wasn’t listening.

‘I remember we went to the theatre a couple of times.’

For someone with a bad memory, she could certainly remember some things. Details. Her minutiae. After twenty years. Trivia.

She took a long drink of wine. ‘Forgive me for asking this,’ she said, ‘but is your mother still alive?’

He looked right into her eyes. They were green. He could have sworn they were brown. There were a few wrinkles at the edges, though not as many as there might have been. Not as many as some people had. For a moment he thought she was teasing him, but the smile had disappeared. She was...her lips were trembling.

‘My mother died years ago, Ailsa,’ he said. ‘When...’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s my memory, you see.’

Why was she doing this?

‘There’s these huge gaps...’

Surely she wasn’t serious?

‘Ailsa,’ he said. He wanted to look into her eyes again, but they were fixed on the table.

Why was she doing this?

‘Some things are just a total blank,’ she said.

He had written his book to try to understand his past. Ailsa had inspired it. He had wanted her to read it to show her that he still remembered something they had shared, to thank her for being there when he needed someone, really needed someone. A homage. The result of an obsession.

She wasn’t teasing him, he could see

My God, he thought. What if she doesn’t remember?

Where does that leave me?

Her silence. An invisible line, one he hadn’t crossed yet. It wasn’t a game.

She couldn’t remember being in his room when they came pounding on his door, shouting his name, talking into their radios, saying his mother’s name. How could she not remember? It was part of the reason he had

She had buried it. But how could she do that? She didn’t want to remember. She had buried it, like something dead, like his mother, like something worse than dead, like something dirty, like rubbish. One person’s defining moment is another person’s toxic waste. Her eyes were fixed on the fuck that she was shaking, terrified, he could see it. She had called him a bastard once, all those years ago. He had tasted blood in his mouth, his own blood. He had deserved it. Hurt begets harm. He was a different person then. A boy. He was a man now. He didn’t want to hurt people. He never had. He didn’t want to hurt her. She didn’t want to be reminded. Certain things should...certain things should not...certain things never happened, for some people. He was different now, he wasn’t the person he had been, but some things were the same.

This wasn’t about his book.

It never had been.

This wasn’t fiction, it was poetry. It was real.

It is real.

It is happening now.

A shadow. Someone sits down. It isn’t the barman.

‘Hi, toots. Are you ready?’

‘This is my husband,’ says Ailsa.

‘I’m Michael,’ says the man, her husband, the winner. Testosterone Nemesis in a two-piece suit. ‘You must be...’

I turn to Ailsa. It would have been nice to hear her say my name; she hasn’t used it once since I came in. Maybe that is something else she has forgotten.

‘Ailsa’s told me all about you,’ says Michael.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m sure she has.’ I imagine my wife. She is at my side. I would ask her, my only friend, to sit with us, but there is no room at the table. How did she find me here? How did she know the address? Perhaps she has come to help me, at this moment when I really need someone. We are in Edinburgh, in the Grassmarket, but no one is buying what I want to sell. It is another defining moment. Life is full of them. Her face wears no expression. She deserves better. She deserves better than this. I reach out, but her image fades quickly as she turns away from the failed deceit.

I think of perfume, with hope verging on desperation.

Everyone is standing. Hands are shaken. It is over. Again. Suddenly. Nothing has been said. I feel my mouth being kissed, then Ailsa is gone. She is gone, with her husband, into the future, hand in hand, where they will be happy. I am on my own. Alone with the stained glassware. I have to lean on something. I catch the light reflecting off the mirror. I stand there like that, I don’t know how long, staring into the light till it blinds me, till I feel the heat inside my eyes, inside my head, forcing myself to stare into the light, the exquisite pain, wishing the memories gone, cremated, willing them to burn till they leave no trace, no pain, no shadows at all, till all that’s left is me, the player, the loser, the nobody swaying awkwardly in the corner of this bar, two thousand miles from home, from my real home, from the place where I belong.

© 2012

This story is taken from the collection A Man's Hands - link at the side of the page.

I'm Not Their Dad published in McStorytellers

I'm Not Their Dad

Bubbles. There shouldn’t have been any. He moved the tube slightly in the basin. The patch was okay, but there was another puncture. How come he hadn’t noticed it when he checked, before he did all the work with the French chalk and the sandpaper and the glue? He stood up, water was dripping off the ends of his fingers. He kicked the basin across the floor.

She was in the kitchen, making sandwiches. The kids would be home soon.

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To read the complete story on McStorytellers, click here.