Maybe you wouldn’t expect so, but Mick remembers breathing. He remembers the little noise his lip made when they’d part, and the rise of his chest, and his lungs filling. He remembers the little temperature change in his nostrils when they’d suck in new air, and the baby-turbulence at the roof of his mouth when he’d breathe out.
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fiction
August: notes for an alt. ending
Three things just happened to Riva Cercas.
July: 2:56pm
In the afternoon. Air too still in the house to breathe. Blood stopped in veins, backing up, thickening. Go into motion; push through. Fingers into fist. The muscle doesn’t rise like it used to. Moles slide along skin under which a bicep is now less visible. Push through.
June: Lady into [Urban] Fox
It wasn’t long afterwards that I began to think of myself as apart from other people. I no longer felt part of the mass ebb and flow. I became, perhaps a little too, aware of my own uncontrolled jostling in eddies of circumstance.
Physical signs quickly followed. The first was probably the sharpening of my back teeth. I ran my tongue along them and drew my own blood. The taste of it was exotic and quickening. I cut my tongue a few more times, just lightly. Blood drained down my throat.
May: The Kids Are All Right, All Right?
Boyd managed to get away after tea. Fishfingers, frozen peas and oven chips made a warm lump in his stomach. Johnny and Fraggle were meant to be meeting him on the corner of Main Road and Hill View. Boyd touched the cans of pop he’d stashed in his hoodie’s front pocket. He’d had to walk like a crab to avoid shaking them up. His mam had nearly caught him.
‘Why are you walking like that?’
‘I dunno,’ he’d answered and she just said, ‘I don’t get you kids’ and let it lie. He managed to swipe a packet of rich tea biscuits from the kitchen cupboard before he legged it.
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April: Night Visit
Reenie goes downstairs in the muffled silence of the night. She finds that the glass door into the living room is slightly ajar, and that’s how she knows that Mick has been through. He could never stay in bed; it’s no surprise that now he’s dead he’s a restless spirit.
March: If I told you
People, shivering inside thick coats, bunched in couples and small groups around red formica high tables. The train station café was cold. Cold enough that Melly could see the wetness of her breath. Cold enough that Lou curled her fingers inside her gloves, letting the knitted fingers flap free. She lifted her paper coffee cup with her fists. Melly wore her scarf wrapped three or four times anaconda-like round her neck. Her woollen cap was pulled down over her forehead. Only her eyes and flushed red cheeks were visible to Lou. The rest of the space between Melly’s cap and scarf was filled with frenzied red hair.
Melly watched bursts of steam gather around Lou’s chapped lips as Lou sipped the coffee. Lou didn’t own a hat. She kept her hood up. The hood framed her face with a ring of fake fur.
‘This cold is hellish,’ Lou said, breaking the ice.
‘I wish I were dead,’ Melly said, re-freezing the space between them.
February: Night Bus
Last night winter pressed us onto the night bus. It wasn’t much warmer on board. We took up the back rows of the top deck, pretty much the only people up there. Frosted fingers of February air poked us in the ribs. Sophie’s toes were numb. Lisa slapped her hands together and breathed aggressive blasts of body heat into her gloved fists. Walker put his arms around Kerry and rubbed his hands on her shoulders. Their puffa jackets got crushed together. Hughsie flicked his lighter on and off. It wasn’t effective in warming him or any of the rest of us, but it looked good. Shell and a couple of the others had kebab remains in paper with them. The cold got to the food before we did. The smell of the strips of meat filled the top deck, making unsubstantiated promises of hunger sated, inner warmth attained.
January: Simple
I’ve learned two ways to look at each thing. In this manner I navigate from one breath to another. Sometimes things seem hopeless, and as though there’s nothing I can do. I use the two ways to make the situation turn around. I learned the two ways from some programme on daytime television, whichever programme it was is lost in a purée of memories of listless afternoons.
December: Reenie
In between the privet hedges, imperial green leaves tough and shiny, and the wooden trellises around which wind the sweet-pea flowers, wiry and heavily scented, Mick kissed Reenie for the first time. She will remember this on the day when, coming home from Mick’s cremation to a house with no garden, she decides to plant a tree for him at the allotment. In the Gardens where they first kissed an apple tree was in blossom. A bee swung lazily through the air, drunk on pollen. Reenie screamed in a high pitched voice that said, I’m not really scared but I’d like you to protect me please. Mick was bluster and gallantry, waving the bee away from Reenie, although his bluster said I am scared of bees but I’d really like to kiss you so I’ll try to forget that for now. The bee ignored Mick’s heavy hand and focussed on the daisy chain Mick’d laid over Reenie’s hair like a crown.