He was left alone. Denys already back in his apartment. The door slamming shut with not an inconsiderable amount of force. He was upset, but Adam didn’t exactly know what he had done to upset him. Denys had tried to insist on pushing Adam into his living area, precisely where Adam didn’t wish him to go. Adam had rebuked him firmly but, he thought, tactfully, and Denys had still been in reasonably high spirits. As he had turned to go, Adam then took the opportunity to ask the question that he had been trying to ask fro quite some time. For aeons in fact.
“Denys, can I ask you something?”
Whump
A faint noise from the living room.
“Yes?” It was in that one word his mood noticeably soured, as though the very notion that Adam wished to ask him something was an invasion.
“What is that noise, from your place?”
Denys paused, his back to Adam. “Noise?”
“Wait and you might hear it again.
Silence.
Time.
Whump
“There. Did you hear that?”
Denys shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, I did not.”
“It’s against my living room wall. It’s very loud and fairly common. I’m not making a deal of it. It’s just that I do hear it and…well I just wondered if it could be stopped or, quieter.”
“I tell her. I tell her not to.” Denys remained with his back to Adam, so his face and expression was a mystery. “But it’s our children.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head again.
“It does not concern. I tell her.”
With that, he closed the front door and returned to his apartment, leaving Adam in a state of flux.
Ad now he was alone.
The living room was hot and humid. The bright sunlight through the ivy encrusted windows filling the space with green light. He wheeled himself towards the couch, before deciding that he really had to investigate the kitchen, and see if there was any food that he would be able to prepare himself.
The kitchen was even hotter than the living room, and small beads of moisture had appeared on the futon of the cupboards, the fridge and the work surface area. The bin was overflowing with rubbish and there was an acrid stink that radiated out from it, as though whatever food remains were in there had gone aggressively rotten. His belly rumbled regardless, and his mouth felt dry, his tongue tasting like off meat. He checked the cupboards, and found an unopened packet of crackers. The use by date made no difference to him as he had no idea what date it was, so just opened the pack and began to cram them into his mouth. They were slightly soft but palatable, and in a fraction of a moment he had devoured a third of the pack. He ran the tap, but was disconcerted to see the water pour an opaque green. Leaving it to run and see if it would clear, he went to the kettle and poured out what remained in there
from Iris’ visit?
from whenever it was last used. It was clear at least, and he chugged it down, undeterred by how stale it tasted. Ignoring the small buts of solid matter that threatened to catch in his throat. He went back to the packet of crackers and finished them off, throwing the wrapper towards the bin, if not quite managing to make it in the bin. Marginally sated, he opened the fridge and recoiled in disgust. The shelving - once clear glass - was green and putrid, the packets of meat and dairy gross malformed and bruised, liquified and dripping. It had stayed cold but the smell soon hit him, a magnified version of what radiated warmly from the bin. He slammed it shut and recoiled, knowing that he would need to attempt to clean it at some point, but wishing to hold on to his makeshift meal if at all possible. He considered going through some of the other cupboards but held off for the moment, worried about what he might find, and left the kitchen, pushing himself into his bedroom.
His phone was on the floor in the doorway. Not the old strange phone from twenty years ago that he had recently thrown in, but his phone. He bent forward and picked it up, ignoring the pain at his sides probably due to whatever damage he had done to himself falling from his chair in the apartment below. The screen was blank and he pressed the side button, not holding out any hope that it would have charge.
It came on.
The familiar symbol of his network, red on white. A few moments and there was his Home Screen. Only he didn’t recognise the backdrop. It seemed to be
the staircase
a generic AI generated background. It was probably set to display a different one every time he turned it on, and couldn’t recall if the should be anything else anyway.
He went through his contacts. They all seemed to be there. He had about half battery and there was signal.
“Good,” he breathed.
The supermarket first. Well, not exactly a supermarket. A small family owned store. No large faceless chain would do what they had done for him, keep him a regular delivery service going and a direct debit. Not that this particular shout was doing it now either, it seemed. He sighed and decided to call anyway, although he thought he knew what the situation would be. Behind in his rent was one thing (and although he wasn’t exactly afraid of his rather unusual rent collectors, he didn’t relish the thought of meeting them again, something else that was inevitable), but to not have food was - for obvious reasons - going to soon pose a rather serious problem.
He found it in his contacts and dialled.
A few short minutes later he went over to the far side of the kitchen and picked up his phone, regretting throwing it, and hoping that it was unscathed enough to still be functional. As he had expected, the phone call had not gone particularly well. It had begun with a polite conversation to the young lady in the office - a voice he didn’t recognise - but escalated rather quickly when it became apparent that he was not going to be able to have his usual delivery. She had passed him to someone senior, the elderly inflection of the voice indicating that it was the owner, or one of the owners. He didn’t remember any names, nor if he had spoken to this particular sour tongued individual before. He was informed, in clear and unflowery terms, that he was behind in his payments, and they would not be resuming the service, for him or anyone else, on account of his being one of numerous they had yet to receive. He had begged - as best he could without actually reducing himself to begging - that they make an exception this time, that he was about to resume work on something that meant he would be able to settling in full (the same deal he had offered his rather unsettling rent arrears collectors), but it was not going o swap the response into the positive. He had remained civil - not wishing to cut off his nose to spite his face - and upon hanging up had promptly let out an anguished cry and thrown the device agains the wall.
Stupid Adam, he admonished himself after wiping the screen on his clothing. This was his link, newly rediscovered, to the outside world. It would do him no use to render the thing unusable.
He stuffed it into the side pocket of his chair and made his way back to the living room. Taking the box from the hall alcove and dragging it across the floor to the couch, something that took longer, and was more difficult, than he thought it would be. He leant it against the sofa and pushed himself off his chair and on to the soft cushions.
Damp. They were damp. They felt…not good.
He ran his hand across the surface and took it to his nose, taking a tentative sniff and recoiling at the whiff of ammonia. He could already feel it on his backside, soaking through his clothing. He was too tired to push himself back to his chair, not being able to face it after being on it for so long. He would just have to put up with the wetness.
His drawing materials were still setup on the table beside him. The last thing he had drawn - a small anthropomorphised squirrel sitting on the seat of a tractor - for a project he had been paid an absolutely pittance for. It was for a children’s book that hadn’t even gone to print after being pulled by it’s publisher. He couldn’t remember how long ago that was. It was rendered in ink and watercolour, his materials of choice since he gave up the idea of being a “real” artist. It was sitting on the drawing board at a forty-fie degree angle, surrounded by his paints and his pens. He would need to make a few adjustments to his setup but not much.
First was to remove the pieces from the box, unroll them, and see if they were worth continuing with. He was worried about getting them ruined, but then figured that he could always start again once he decided to, and they would be good first runs. He knew he had been happy with them when he had originally painted them, but that was a lifetime ago.
The first thing he pulled out the box was the story itself. Twelve point courier on yellowed and curled sheets of paper. It was also a children’s book, but on the more complex end of the scale, obviously meant for children who were ready to make the transition to more advanced reading material. If he could recall correctly (something which he now doubted) then there was to be one illustration per chapter, twelve in total, with one main one (a more ambitious and detailed work) for the cover.
He flicked through the copy in his hands, figuring it to be around eighty pages in total, then put it to one side, reaching in and pulling out the object that was pressing against the paper.
It was a shoe, and it was covered in blood.
The sound of waves lapping against the shoreline.
is there I scream
His nose was running. He brought the back of his hand up, wiped whatever it was away.
There was something in the shoe. The trainer. He recognised it. He remembered when he bought it. The Enman Centre. One of those expensive sports shops, the one next to the car park lifts. He had snapped at her all day. His head had been pounding. He had work to do. All he needed to do was buy a fucking anniversary present. He had grabbed something from one of the bigger department stores, a scarf that the sales assistant had recommended, and was on his way home. But she wouldn’t stop going on about her feet hurting and her friends at school had these trainers and -
“Okay,” he had said, relenting and taking her in after noticing the large SALE banners in the window. He had directed her to the rescued section, getting her to try each pair on that was in her size, but she hadn’t liked any of them. It was the ones in the window that had caught her eye. The ones her friends had. The ones that had just come out a couple of months earlier.
They had fitted like a charm, and seeing the expression on her face melted what resistance he had left.
One shoe. That was what was here. She had
worn them that day
outgrown them probably. There’s no way she would have left them otherwise.
It must be paint on it. One of his paints had spilled.
There was something inside it too. He tilted it, letting the greenish light wash inside. IT reflected the light back, appearing to be something soft. Glutinous. Something white in the centre. It filled the inside of the shoe. It was heavier than it should be. He took hold of the white thing, a broken branch or something, trying to wiggle it free. He didn’t care for the soft sucking noises it made. Pulling the sides of the shoe down, trying to get at whatever was around it.
That was when he saw the thing nestled amongst the soft matter, tangled around the stick. Plastic. Little moons and stars. He had bought her that too. Some time in the past. She had worn it around her
ankle
He threw the shoe to the floor, a noise half way between a laugh and a sob escaping him. A strange, strangled sort of noise.
I heard you
Blink.
The shoe was empty. There was nothing on it. No paint. None of the other thing. It was just her trainer. The one she had left in amongst the other belongings before she had gone to be with her mother.
That’s where she is…right?
He fumbled for his phone and scrolled until he found Amber’s number. He called it, not caring about the charges.
“We’re sorry, it has not been possible to connect your call, please try again later.”
He disconnected. Pressed dial once more. Waited.
“We’re sorry, it has not been po -”
Disconnect.
Again.
“We’re sorry it h -”
Disconnect.
Again.
“We’re -”
“Fuck!”
When was the last time he had spoken to her?
When she was drowning.
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