Late November

 

Hi Guys,

So here’s something new.  I couldn’t come up with a single short story so I wrote five flash fiction pieces instead.  Enjoy.

– O.O

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Late November, short days and long nights, the rain is deceptively mild, soaking through all three layers of clothing to drive pin pricks of cold into ones shoulders. The wind is a dwarf on your back, pushing you this way and that riding you indoors to your hot water bottle and heater. For people like Shehu, it drove them to the kitchen, his neighbour’s kitchen to be exact. His small one room apartment had one but he had no idea what to do with a kitchen, not like Mrs McGregor could, there was always an aroma floating around in her kitchen, like incense, always a pot boiling and a kettle whistling, and beneath the aroma and sound, an ever-present layer of heat. He went there this evening, too cold to face the wind with his head held high. At home, he got out of his wet clothes and didn’t bother to get dressed again, he would be taking his clothes off again in minutes anyway. He had to pay for his heat and food just like everyone else, and for a young man in a strange land with very little money, all he could pay the lonely widow next door with were the family jewels.

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Late November, she had been waiting for the snow for two weeks. All the while she kept thinking it was winter already wasn’t it? So where was the snow? She had attended the bonfire three and a half weeks ago, oohing and aahing along with everyone else during the choreographed fireworks display but all the while her heart on the snow and her snowman. She remembered all the proportions of the snowman Adam had described to her. Adam was her older brother, he was a teenager when she was learning to walk. She remembered his strong arms and how he smelt, like methylated spirit and soap mixed together, flowery alcohol. She missed that smell. She remembered his voice, reading to her from her book, a present from him ‘How to build a snowman’. In Lagos where they lived there was no snow, just heavy rain and harmattan. Now, fifteen years after the last time she heard his voice, when he promised to be back in year, she had traced his footsteps, all but the fatal plane crash, to this place. When her foot sank into the snow, she squealed with joy and surprise then sat there and started to build her snowman. Half way through, while patting its rotund belly and trying to remember if she had any carrots left, she let herself smile at the thought of what passers-by would think of the blind young woman sitting in the snow, building herself a snowman.

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Late November and nine months left till he saw her again. They would never discuss it but they both hated being tied to each other. Trying to keep up the façade. Trying to preserve a relationship that was dead before he decided to chase an M.Sc and she got her first movie role. Now he struggled with her fame and she struggled with his fury. Neither of them would let go. Neither wanted to be the one to end it. The one to admit that, despite the promises they made to each other in primary school, after the sting of the blade and sharing a glass of wine sweetened by a drop each of their blood, they had given up. It was too difficult to face the members of their families who had waited for five out of the twenty years they had been together for an engagement. It could not be done. So they kept at it. Stubborn as the filth in the socks he tried to wash after masturbating to her movies. Perfunctory as the monthly ‘allowance’ she sent him, because they were a team that supported each other. Her new friends wondering why she bothered with a student. His old friends confused at how he could stay faithful to an adult movie star.

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Late November and Sue didn’t know what to do. A nine year old could not tell her parents to shut up when they started to argue or restrain her father when he stopped using his words and started using his fists. She could not stop her mother from raising her voice, smashing things and brandishing knives when her father started to yell. See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil, that was the only way to be happy. She had learned that at Sunday school. It was what they needed. Her father needed to not hear her mother raising her voice, then his face would not go red and he would not start yelling too. Her mother needed to be quiet, if she did not start talking, there would never be any fights, she would not end up covered in bruises. Sue needed to not see them fight, then she would not cry herself to sleep clutching her fluffy white ‘my little pony’ and she would not flinch away from Tom who lived next door whenever he playfully tackled her. They would be happy. By Christmas she figured it out. She knew there would be a lot of trouble when she woke up but she was not worried. No one would believe that the blonde blue-eyed nine year old set off firecrackers in her father’s ears while he slept, deafening him. Even if they did she couldn’t possibly have scattered marbles on her parents’ bathroom floor causing her mother to shatter her jaw on the enamel of the tub. Even if that could be believed, only a psychopath would then climb into bed and pierce her own eyeballs with a kitchen knife. Cute little girls weren’t psychopaths.

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Late November and the hunger was killing him.  He had his head bowed slightly.  Staring out of the library window while pretending to study the heavy volume he had been flipping through for the past hour or so.  It was cute, how vulnerable he seemed.  He was tall and thin, gangly.  She imagined he was the sort to be teased for his height instead of respected for it.  She felt like a pervert, watching him this way.  Her mind was on the things she could show him.  He was probably a virgin, she could almost see the gratitude that would light up his face when she offered to pop his cherry.  He wouldn’t mind her all pink décor or her collection of strap on dildos.  He would be so grateful that, when she mentioned with a shy look on her face that she wanted to try penetrating him, he wouldn’t offer much resistance.  She giggled at the thought of pinning him to her bed, his surprise at her sudden strength evident, just like all the others.  As she made her way past him, she bent, blew on his earlobe and dropped the folded up piece of paper with her number on his crotch.  He turned to watch her leave then unfolded her note and smiled.  He packed up his books and left the library, already dialling her on the way to his truck.  As he climbed in, his eyes fell on his bag of tools, he had to sterilize them, some of them still had the blood of the last girl on them, she was a fighter and he hoped this one was too.  But it didn’t really matter, either way he was about to get fed.