Issue 28 January 2016 Flash Fiction Online January 2016

The Monday after Jackie died, they organized a memorial service down at St. Martin’s, and we got the whole morning off school. I didn’t want to go to the memorial but Mam said I had to, and she made me put one of Dad’s old suits on.

We hadn’t really spoken much about what happened, and I’d only told Mam and Dad the bare details: we were on the school trip, and Jackie fell into the river, and he drowned. What else was there to say?

So anyway, there I was, sat in the kitchen arguing with Mam, when Dad walked in and asked what all the fuss was about.

“He’s saying he’s not going to the memorial service,” Mam replied.

“Why not?”

“He says he doesn’t want to.”

Dad turned towards me. “Why not?”

“I just don’t. I don’t see the point.” I didn’t like the idea of watching Jackie’s mam bawling her eyes out, but I didn’t want to say that.

“Well you haven’t got a choice,” Dad said. “You’re going, and that’s that.”

The doorbell rang. Mam went to get it, and I listened for who it was. “Hello Jamie,” she said. “You here for our David?”

I jumped up and went over to the door. “Alright Smithy,” I said.

“Alright, Dave. Thought you might want to walk down to the church together?”

I looked at Mam, and she nodded. “We’ll see you down there,” she said.

Once we got to the end of the road, I took my tie off. “We’re not actually going, are we?” I said.

“Nah,” Smithy said. “Waste of time.”

* * *

We went down to the den, which was basically just some planks of wood and canvas, all stacked up by a couple of trees in the woods down by the allotments. It was a bit weird having a den at our age, but the three of us had built it when we were bairns, and what had originally been a good place to meet up and play had become a good place to meet up and get pissed.

It had been drizzling all morning, but the trees gave us a decent amount of cover. Smithy had already been down there to drop off a six pack, and I found half a packet of tabs in the inside pocket of Dad’s suit jacket, ones he’d probably been hiding from Mam.

We sat for a while with our backs up against one of the trees, tin in one hand and smoke in the other. The ground was a bit damp, but it was alright. Better than the alternative.

“We should do something with Jackie’s stuff,” Smithy said.

“Aye.”

For a while we’d kept a stash of odds and ends in the den, things we’d collected over the years, just pieces of tat really. But some of it belonged to Jackie, and now he wasn’t there anymore.

“We should burn it,” I said.

We found some twigs and sticks to build a fire and tried to use Smithy’s lighter for the flame, but they were all a bit too damp, and we couldn’t get anything going. Dad had some petrol canisters in the shed, so I nipped back home to get one. Everyone else was gone by then, packed into the pews at St Martin’s.

By the time I got back, it was pissing it down, but Smithy was standing at the edge of the woods, out in the open.

“You’re getting soaked, dickhead,” I said, but he didn’t say anything back. There was water running down his face.

We dug out a little trench for Jackie’s stuff and piled it up, then sloshed a load of petrol on. Smithy managed to light a twig, and when he threw it on the pile it all burst out into a big plume of flame. I nearly shat myself.

“Fuck me,” said Smithy. “That was class.”

We settled down in front of the fire. I like watching them, the way the flames jump about, back and forth, always twisting into something new.

“Smithy?” I said.

“Aye?”

“Would you live forever if you could choose to?”

“Like being invincible?”

“More like, you’re just lucky and really healthy, and you never get cancer or heart disease or owt.”

“So I could smoke all I like and not gunge my lungs up?”

“Well, aye, I suppose so.”

Smithy took a long drag and let the smoke escape slowly. “Nah,” he said. “Be boring as shite.”

* * *

I walked back through the allotments on the way home. Mrs. Appleby, who’d lived on our street since before time began, was working on her vegetable patch. It was still pissing down, but I stood there for a while watching her, wishing I had a waterproof like the one she was wearing.

When she saw me, she waved. “Hello, David.”

“Hi.” I looked over at the pile of courgettes she had collected. “You eat them?” I said.

“Yes, of course. They’re lovely.”

She walked over to the other end of the allotment to pick up a sack of something or other.

“Do you not get bored of this?” I said. “Working the same patch every year?”

“No, not really. It keeps me good and busy.”

“You know, you can get courgettes down at the supermarket dirt cheap.”

She smiled. “No, you can’t. Not like these.” She picked one up, the fattest one of the lot. “I tell you what, why don’t you give this to your mam and tell her I said hello.”

“I will do,” I said.

When I got back home, Mam and Dad were waiting for me.

“Where the bloody hell have you been, young man?” Dad said.

“And what on earth have you got in your hands?” Mam added.

I put the courgette on the side. It was a daft-looking thing, all rough green skin, and bits of stuck-on mud.

“Jackie’s dead,” I said, and I went up to my room.

First Course

Rathwan’s in Kur district is a study in white on white, the floor tile and tables arranged in a tessellation of rectangles whose sides matched the holy ratio of seven to three. Rathwan’s is empty today, save for one table, one lone guest — the Gedt general whose soldiers now pillage and loot the silk strewn arbors of the district.     

Rathwan himself serves the dish to the general. The first course, serving to awaken memory, served on a square of carved bone. The conflict of square and rectangle is played out in the arrangement of paper thin shavings of smoked river fen. The delicate pink flesh of the fish is accompanied by thin curls of plum rind, their astringency balancing the inherent sweetness of the fillet.

The general’s arm is swift as a sword thrust, scattering the plate and the subtle shavings of fen into the air. One of them lands on Rathwan’s lips, hanging open in surprise. The general gets up and leaves, a smirk on his lips. At the door, he turns his head slightly toward Rathwan.

“So much effort for a plate of food, and so little when our swords clashed. That is why you have lost your city.”

Rathwan watches the general melt into the sea of soldiers outside, and shudders.

Second Course

While the first course awakened a wash of memory, the second course was always of the now, living in the extremity of experience. Few Mahaali attend tonight’s meal. Once the soldiers slipped away, the rats came, the rabble of Gedt nobility, hungry for property. They purchased the stacked quarters and marble tiled avenues of the district, famed for its brightly colored pennants and exquisite cuisine.

Rathwan serves Rakh es Fatai to a quizzical Gedt. Small orbs of seared rabbit skin filled with garlic smoke, tied by an aromatic twist of herbs. The textural transition when the orb bursts inside one’s mouth is intended to signify moments in one’s life when shifts and changes happen on the instant, like Kur district the day after the general left. So soon were the old banners and pendants hidden away. So quickly were the ceremonial candles of the great temple snuffed.

The Gedt customer complains to his friend as Rathwan walks away.

“I was told this was the finest establishment in the city, but it’s so tired, so traditional. A little Gedt touch couldn’t hurt, perhaps even more than a little.”

Wine addled laughter follows.  Rathwan watches the disappearing flower of Mahaali tradition, its petals peeling off into the wind.

Third Course

The Mahaali citizen is dressed in the Gedt style, but the cut of his hair and the tattoos along his wrist signify his cultural heritage. He seems nervous. All of the old Mahaali are in these times. They disappear, slowly, with no cause. There is talk of a pogrom. But it is a quiet pogrom, a silent ghostly pogrom. The third course is always a pause, a place to breathe before the weight of the next.

Rathwan serves him a rendition of Mahaali rice, stewed with smoked nettles. Rathwan has altered it to serve the tastes of his clientele, now mostly Gedt. He replaced the artistry of structure and form with a striving for essence, attempting to adopt the Gedt philosophies of cuisine while retaining the origins that belied the dish.

The citizen looks at the dish, and then looks into Rathwan’s eyes. There is judgement there, anger as well, but the hardest of all for Rathwan to stomach, is the pity. The citizen bends down again, his brief flaring of passion over. He whispers almost impercetibly,

“And yet more is lost.”

Intermezzo

Rathwan sits in his empty kitchen. A plate of gelled tuber sits before him, lightly salted translucent cubes mirroring the color of spring moss. It is a Mahaali dish in color, in form and in its historical allegory, touching back to the time when Mahaal was occupied by neighboring Sahwat. The dish had been served in back rooms and passageways, created to remind the Mahaali of their own history with the most simplest of preparations. There are none but him to eat it in Kur district today. None but Rathwan to appreciate the weight of the dish’s long past. Tomorrow the Gedt general would come again to Rathwan’s.

Fourth Course

Puffer fish has always been a stalwart of the fourth course. The poison sacs of the fish are a deadly toxin, prized in dilute quantities in rougher districts as a mild hallucinogen. Cleaned of the poison, the fish is quite sublime, a subtle balance of texture and flavor.       

Rathwan looks at the flayed fish on the wood board before him. There is no one to assist him anymore — it is he alone who prepares the fish. It is Rathwan alone who cuts the poisonous sac instead of lifting it, who lets the colorless and odorless death wash over the meat.

The fish is served raw, in the purest Gedt style, accompanied by little more than a mild puree of tubers. A true fourth course would have presented the fish in riotous constructions of color and form, but the new Gedt nobility have subsumed the old ways. The Gedt do not see the roots of the dish, the tension of life against death. They see merely fish, blind to history.

Rathwan walks out of the kitchen and hands the dish to a servant. He watches the little death wander its way between the patrons before finding purchase on the general’s table. The general does not look at him, their first encounter long forgotten.  The general has gone to fat, descended into complacency, no longer concerned of the thought of Mahaali around him. Rathwan returns to the kitchen and puts on his coat. He walks through the back alley, between the crates of imported fruits, across cobbled stone long worn down. The roots of his city are fading, and like a ghost, Rathwan slips away.

Previously published in Daily Science Fiction, 2015. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

I

The night before I leave Onitsha for Lagos, I tell Mama that I now live with a man. Full-time. As a married couple, as man-and-man. We sit on the faded red and black chequered cushion, in the spacious parlour that is home to chirping crickets at night, and geckoes and spiders by daytime. With her face as gloomy as a faithful at a funeral mass, Mama wraps her arms around her, pressing her fists into her sides. Like she did when the news of Papa’s death swept in through our front door.

“A man. You. Live with a man. Isi gini?” Her words emerge one after the other like a four-year-old counting numbers.

Perhaps, I should also tell her that she owes me a certain kind of gratitude for coming out the way I just did—boldly, without mincing my words, without having to send revelatory letters from across the Nigerian border. Doesn’t she know that her son could spend fourteen years in prison for this? I may never get to see the four walls of a Nigerian prison or even get close as to smelling the foul stench of that sort of place. What if I am stoned to death or burnt at a stake for committing the crime of loving a man? But Mama shifts in her seat as if shifting will make what I had said settle well in her stomach. She kisses her teeth and then bites her lip. Her face loses its glow sigh by sigh, breath by breath, to the moonlit room. Somehow, I can feel her shock. Even the tremor in her last words had lisped pain. The pain of robbed grandmother-hood?

“I love him, Mama. Oh, I really do. I only wish I had told you this earlier when Papa was still with us.”

A long silence falls between us. I watch her eyes roll deep into their sockets, deep into thoughts. They seem to peer into blank nothingness, drooping upon the formless shadows hanging on the walls. Our breaths grow louder, louder than the insects scraping about us. I look away. Then, again, I let my gaze rest on her. Pretense, false life, is not my thing. She deserves to know. Everyone deserves to know. Even Papa in his grave.

“Bode and I plan to adopt a child. But, given the Nigerian condition, it won’t be possible. So we will be moving to America next month. There will still be grandchildren, you know. You can always visit us in America.”

“America.”

“Mama, what about America?”

“It is America.”

“Mama.”

“It is America. Yes. America. You have been infected with their disease. Nwa’m, ifugo ihe ndi ocha n’eme? They give you not only their education, but also their disease.”

“Mama, I’m not infected with any disease.” I also want to tell her that I never had a thing for girls. My eyes and heart have always been for boys.

“Look. Your father and I made a mistake. You should never have gone to America. Eish! America! Ndi ahu ocha egbuolam o.”

She sinks to the floor, outstretches her legs, and lets tears stream down her aging cheeks.

II

Sleep refuses to come. Restless, with my thoughts flying off in many tangential directions, I roll from one edge of my bed to the other. I try to summon my father just long enough to hear whatever he has to say. I see only his head. Not at once. His hair, gleaming with gray wisps, comes first. Then his brown, half-open eyes. And his nose, aquiline and pinched by the corners, appears before his quivering lips do. Finally, flesh comes—wrinkled, furrowed, lined. But no ears.

“My son, why do you bring us shame?” Papa’s voice is still the way I remember it—gentle, full of emotion, but firm.

“I love him, Papa. I love Bode.”

Papa talks while I talk. He seems not to listen.

“You bring me grief. More grief. My body turns in my coffin, in that sad, lonely grave. Where can my spirit wander to for joy? You have brought this illness from America. Now, you must return it.”

“Papa, wait. Hold on a second. Let me tell you about Bode, the love of my life.”

“Return it, I say.”

Papa disappears feature by feature, exactly the same way he came. I clutch my pillow to my chest, fighting back threatening tears, and shutting my eyes tight as if shutting them will make the hurt of rejection light and bearable. At last, sleep takes me away. In my sleep, I find myself wide-awake, and Bode sprawls naked by my side, crying. I promise him everything will be alright, that I will leave home much early before sunrise and when I get to Lagos, I will take the soonest available flight to America before news circulates. Bode does not stop crying. I take him into my arms and love him the only way I know how to.

There wasn’t much left to pack. The final box, only half full, had the last of the comics and journals from Jeremiah’s childhood. There was the inventory, of course, but he’d hired movers for that.

So many dreams being stored away. Jeremiah stroked the cover of a Conan comic, and it ripped under his touch. The greens and browns poured onto his skin, wrapping his forearm in a patchwork of jungle vines, while the letters clustered at his wrist. He could hear birds and the tinny music of his cell phone.

He pulled away from the comic, and the colors spilled out between his fingers, the letters splashing back into place like tiny stones.

The phone’s screen flashed his daughter’s number. “Tanya?”

“Hi, Dad. So, you’re signing today, right?” she asked, in that breathless, exhausted way she had. With two daughters, and a third on the way, she had no time for an old man’s foolish grief.

“I said I would.” Even still, the words tasted bitter. “You used to love this place.”

“When I was eight. When you’re eight, it’s fun to have a dad who pretends to be Gollum.”

Not so amusing, when you’re twelve. And she’d never had the knack of it; the books didn’t wake to her touch.

“It wasn’t–. Never mind. You don’t understand.”

“Don’t I? You’ve been failing for years. They’re offering a lot of money. You need to think of your future.”

He needed to think of her future. Of his grandchildren’s future.

“I was thinking of coming down for Christmas.” He picked up his pen from where it rested on the first of his journals and wrote “Tanya” on the box. His granddaughters liked comics.

“Not this year,” Tanya said. “With the new baby, I just won’t have the energy.”

He believed her. But there was always a reason. He’d tried after her mother left them. But she’d wanted him, and he’d wanted to be anyone else. He’d been, at best, a distracted parent.

He heard distant shouting from her end. “You have to go?”

“Another disaster.” She sighed heavily, and he pictured the face she’d made as a child while arguing for more dessert. “Dad–“

“I know. I’ll sign it today.”

“You’ll be glad you did.” She was smiling. He could hear it. “Maybe we’ll come visit next summer.”

“Of course.”

They said their goodbyes, and Jeremiah turned his attention back to the empty bookstore. Most days, he only got one or two customers. When he’d first opened the store, it’d been different. He’d taken joy in matching the books to his clients. This one for a dirt-smudged child, that one for a lonely businessman, another for a heart-hurt teen. Books knew how to reach those hurts.

But he’d collected his own pain. Margaret, who’d grown tired of a husband who was always half-caught by some other world. Jacob, who’d enjoyed having a lover who spoke of Mars and Middle Earth like real places. Jacob, in a hospital gown. The long years of treatment, remission, return. Goodbyes.

And Tanya? Well. Children were meant to move on.

Which left the books. He walked down the aisles, saying his goodbyes. He touched a worn red paperback, tracing the B in Bradbury. The spine rippled, and the words crawled up his index finger, pooled in his palm, then looped themselves around his wrist.

They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea…

His hands took on a golden warmth. A sixth finger extended itself as his broad wrists slimmed. He smelled dust and wine trees.

He remembered what it meant to be a woman of Mars. The long empty days. The husband who no longer cared. The dreams of blue-eyed strangers. Gently, so not to break subject from predicate or interrupt the flow of adjective to noun, he pulled himself free of the magic. His fingers grew plump as the smell of dust became the smell of old books.

He could not afford to drift, yet. The contract needed signing. He thought of the woman’s husband, hunting earth men in the green valley of Mars. Jeremiah understood. Tall, blue-eyed white men, with their ships, with their money, with their talk of opportunity.

He returned to his desk, where the contract waited. He was careful not to touch it, all too aware of the story it told. So many words to say so little. You can’t stop us, it’s over, take this and be grateful. But Tanya was right. It was a lot of money. She had the girls to care for.

He signed, dated, initialed by the x until it was done. The pen, he fiddled with, testing its weight. One left a note, for journeys and suicides both. It was the polite thing to do. But there were stories that couldn’t be told, only experienced. She wouldn’t forgive him, not in this narrative. He accepted that.

He walked to the door and flipped the sign from Open to Closed. As he made his way back to his desk, he traced the spines of his books. Fragments of selves left inky kisses on his fingertips and faded away. He had dreamed so many lives.

He picked up the journal on his desk and touched the first page.

Today, Aunt Grace showed me what we could make the books do.

His fingers shortened, thinned. The words climbed with a child’s eagerness, carrying the smells of asphalt and sunlight. They poured across his chest, encircled his shoulders, touched his neck. There was a knack to holding them there. To visiting a story, without inhabiting it.

Could you change a story from the inside? Be more attentive? Catch cancer in time? Show a young girl that she meant more to you than a universe of other selves?

Jeremiah let the words climb, filling his senses with the smog and humidity of a Chicago summer. His mother was calling his name.