Six Spring Shorts

SIX SPRING SHORTS BY

SUZANNE CONBOY-HILL Published April 2019

Bellows Copied Right Five Things That Are True and Six That Are Not Hole of Heart The Empty New Phone Sydney’s Solution

Bellows Mercifully, the music stops. She is fond of Bob Marley but you can have too much of a good thing. The boom-cha boom is replaced by different sensations - the smell of smoky coffee, evocative of deep arms, warm breath and a rough chin; scraping sounds and charcoal - burned toast? They bring mornings to mind; the scrambling and rushing of bodies jostling in the bedroom, the bathroom, then the bus and the tube. She thinks of breath: his, hers, other people’s too close for comfort.

Suddenly a lighthouse startles her, its brilliance flickering side to side in her eyes, and she tastes salt instead, and oily fish, and winkles sweating in bags at a harbour stall with only one pin between the two of them to get them out. The light passes but she has been washed up on rocks and one assaults her repeatedly atop her eyebrows, another in her chest just below the notch where the two collar bones emerge and where air rushes by as if pushed and pulled by a train in a tunnel. Like the Piccadilly line with its hot noise, flashing dark, and smell of … Cold water fills her ears, first one then the other; ice and a slice but no slice, unless she is it. She thinks she feels the slicing and the cutting and the screeching it’s wrapped in, and she tries to hold the thought to consider its meaning. But it slips sideways as a sea mist crawls over her; in and out, back and forth, whooshing and wheezing and pulling her down with the deep sucking sound of bellows in mud.

Marley starts up again: No Woman No Cry, but she does.

***

1

Copied Right Something odd was happening. The air had been tingling for days; fizzing when he wafted his hand across his face, and just lately leaving a faint after-glow in its trail. He’d taken to drawing out equations in the air to see how long the effect persisted, and if he could get a whole one up there before the first terms disappeared.

‘What’s with all the semaphore, Jeff?’ his pal Don asked from under a cocked eyebrow. He leaned in the doorway and watched as Jeff flailed his arms, like he was landing a jumbo jet in his kitchen.

‘Nothing,’ Jeff said, eyeing the last vestiges of a square root as they drifted off the visible spectrum. Were they gone gone or just shifted along to the next level? Did the faint oranges go to red and then infra-red? Did blue eventually graduate to ultra violet? But if so, why didn’t yellow …?’

‘Jeff!’ Don was holding two beers, a can in each hand. ‘You available to earthlings, by any chance?’

‘Oh, yes. Cheers, Don.’ He took one of the cans and an orange glow travelled with him to Don’s hand and back. But what was that? Jeff peered at Don’s wrist – a tiny tendril of light was winding itself around Don’s thumb and sliding up his sleeve.

‘Jeff, for crap’s sake, where are you, man?’

‘Did you see that?’ Jeff said, pointing. ‘Did you feel it? It’s gone right up your sleeve!’

‘What did?’

‘The light, it followed my hand to yours. Take your shirt off!’ Jeff made a dive for Don’s shirt buttons and Don stepped smartly sideways. Or at least one of him did. The other several, popping along behind like colourful after-images, trailed right to left across the kitchen and Jeff lunged straight through the crimson one.

‘You must have seen that!’ Jeff was hopping up and down, staring at the space where the crimson Don had been, and stabbing his fingers at the nothingness that remained.

‘I don’t know what you saw, but I had a whole parade of Jeffs from monochrome to glorious technicolour over there.’ Don was pointing and gaping, neither of which seemed likely to be constructive.

‘How many? I saw about seven of you and just in rainbow colours – like a spectral split.’

‘Dozens, like those cardboard cut-outs they put in front of shops.’

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Jeff let his arm make a slow sweep in front of them both. ‘What do you see?’

‘Movie frames – faded to monochrome to colour.’

‘Me too. Now you do it.’ Don mimicked the sweep. ‘Spectral – why the difference?’

‘Maybe mine was spectral until just now, I wasn’t really looking. Actually, what I saw was just one colour at a time.’ He advanced a finger in illustration, and this time a small regiment of them marched behind.

‘It’s like being in a photocopier,’ Don said, his eyebrows diverging in a look that said this-is-bonkers-what-a-laugh. But the rest of Don didn’t seem convinced. Jeff made another lunge across the room and swivelled, like the dancer he wasn’t, to catch his iterations shuttering along in sequence – faded/monochrome/sepia/tint/full-colour, cher-chunk cherchunk cher-chunk – then muting out. He started on a comment, but it stalled like an old car on a hill because the last of his clones was still there, and it was looking at him. Then it pulled out of its pocket a gadget that wasn’t a copy of anything Jeff ever owned, and blew a light show into it. Jeff vanished.

Don dropped his beer, rounded up his wits, and made a dash for the door; another trail of copies flicking after him. He got as far as the hall.

Here, Jeff’s neighbour was sitting on the stairs, drifting her hand in front of pupils deep as starlit wells and marvelling at the awesomeness, Man, of the spliff she’d just smoked.

In the street, a child was gazing wide-eyed at her gran, ‘You’re turning into an angel!’ she said, splashing her own colours into the air with her teddy bear.

In Jeff’s kitchen, the copy of Jeff said, in a sunburst of photons, ‘Full integrity achieved, deleting indigenous population job.’

***

3

Five things that are true and six that are not.

1. You said I would never want for anything. This is untrue – I want for a great deal.

2. You said I would never have to ask for anything - you would give me everything I need. You forget that you made asking impossible so this is not true either.

3. You said you could not imagine being without me. This is true. You have not had to imagine this for some time.

4. You took my silence as consent but this is another untruth. [See #2 above].

5. You made a vessel of my body and told me it was worship but you are an atheist.

6. You hid me from the world and told the world I had left. Another untruth.

7. I would give something back but you have cleaned me thoroughly, and anyway I only had what you gave me in the first place.

8. Because of #7 above I must be more inventive.

9. I have a lot of time between your visits and I have found the device you used to teach me how to demonstrate my devotion. Items #7, #8, and #9 are all true, as is item #10 below.

10. I have charged the device and adjusted its settings for maximum effect and I have placed it somewhere especially private for the next time you come down here to show your love for me.

11. You said we would be together forever. This is not true yet but see #10 above.

***

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Hole of Heart Head ached, there was too much incoming and it was annoyingly uncoordinated. Shoulders ached too from hunching up under Ears, which themselves had become somewhat selective about what they would listen to. Head had tried to introduce a different theme, but Ears were having none of it and went back every time to the thing that made Eyes wet. For their part, Eyes almost exclusively focussed on the middle distance, paying no attention to such matters as where the cigarette ash fell or the aesthetic condition of Face.

Stomach was empty but did not complain and told Head it was fine. Head thought it was not because there were knock-on effects for which Stomach seemed to have no concern like the reports from Legs and Arms about weakness. Head itself felt dizzy and thought Stomach was being mightily selfish, but then there was Heart’s contribution to take into account.

Heart had, despite Head’s protestations, abandoned its responsibilities and given itself away without once considering the unlikelihood of a reciprocal arrangement. Since then Teeth gnawed incessantly on Fingernails, and Chest forgot how to breathe properly, instead heaving great sighs, coughing frequently and complaining to Head about the large Hole it could feel in there.

Chest was right about Hole, it was where Heart used to be. Head considered this and formed a plan: restoration, especially of Chest and Stomach, was imperative. Face could wait, aesthetics would not matter much anyway once Hole was sealed and stowed away behind Guts. ***

5

The Empty New Phone Sissy whirled a finger around the shiny knot in the polished lid of Trevor’s coffin and the little gaggle of women nearby inclined sympathetic heads towards her, pursing tight pink lips dotted with cake crumbs. Sissy pursed hers back but it was hard keeping the brave face and she turned away from them. A kiss, she thought, and leaned down to leave her print in deep cerise on the brass nameplate. ‘Speak later,’ she whispered and patted the lid as she rose.

Sissy had written Trevor a note and placed it, along with some photos and a few other bits and bobs that epitomised their life together, in a cream envelope. She sprayed it with the Dior she found in Trevor’s attaché case and handed it to the undertaker, ‘Thank you for giving us so much private time,’ she said. The undertaker oozed a smile and gently rested the package on Trevor’s chest. ‘A lovely gesture,’ he said. Sissy nodded and made sorrowful eyes at the coffin lid, which the undertaker quickly lowered.

The strictly timed service nevertheless seemed interminable but finally reached the point where Trevor, wearing his expensive mahogany suit, was lowered to rest. A select band of mourners each threw a gloved handful of dirt in after him while the rest click-clacked off into the November gloom.

Sissy returned a few hours later wearing the coat meant for her successor and perched on a bench near the muddy mound. She took out her phone with the app on it that tracked her movements and reported them to Trevor’s app, and punched in the number of the new phone she had given him that had nothing at all on it, not even credit. He was already yelling.

‘Slow it down, Sweetie’ she said, ‘Let’s make it last.’

***

6

Sydney’s Solution Sydney leaned back on the door of his converted garage and shook his head. The thudding and hammering from within was beginning to irritate him but it was in a good cause because it would be short-lived, and it would put an end to the screeching and whining noises he had tolerated in this house for as long as he could remember. He had thought about it carefully: some solutions were fast and furious; like race horses or dogs, they were out of the starting gate and galloping away full pelt to the finish line with no time to consider anything or draw pleasure from the process. These he thought too hasty and liable to unexpected error as a result. He dismissed them. Others meandered along slowly like ancient rivers in flood plains with oxbow lakes and soggy marshes at their edges. This was attractive in the sense that there was time for adjustments to be made – little course changes along the way. But there was always the risk of getting washed into a minor tributary and running aground before the job was done, and this would not do.

Some though, were like snakes; ribs undulating in silence while large shapes made their way along the body with nothing but a flickering tongue to acknowledge their transition.

This was a pleasing metaphor to Sydney because he rather liked snakes; at first for entirely aesthetic reasons, but latterly due to both the conceptual and practical utility of them. When a snake took its prey, it did so in a way Sydney thought of as almost religious, Buddhist perhaps, often swallowing it feet first, allowing it to witness its own progress from individual entity to becoming an integral part of another. Should the victim be capable of such, there was plenty of time for reflection on past sins - before the juices got to work on it. Realisation and regret, Sydney believed - albeit without the actual capacity to make amends - was important. It was also important that no mess be left behind.

Sydney’s mother, with her shrill attention to cleanliness and hygiene and whether or not even the fifty-three year old Sydney had changed his vest today, would appreciate that eventually, once she was done banging on the reinforced glass of the terrarium. He waved to her and smiled.

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Suzanne Conboy-Hill is a British writer and artist, author of Fat Mo and Not Being First Fish, and editor/contributor of Let Me Tell You a Story.

Website: conboy-hill.co.uk Blogs: Conboy-Hill Finding Fiction; Strayfish Arts Instagram: Fishbits Twitter: Strayficshion

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