ISSN 1758-6488
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Quasimodo Fiction |
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We park facing London; the planes that pass overhead are very big in the sky. They have their lights on, and the sky is turning through a mirage of reds. On the drive here I kept glancing at Sinusoid, trying to work out what she was thinking. We haven’t spoken since the roundabout; she has just sat with her hands held in her lap, looking out of the side window. Sometimes though I would look at her and she would be looking at me, and we would both look away.
“So,” I say.
“So.”
“Winsdor Great Park.”
“Good spot,” she says.
“Yes, it’s beautiful.”
“Quiet,” she adds.
As if to appreciate this we are also quiet, but at some point it becomes another awkward silence. I wish I had planned it word by word. I could have come up with what I would say, and then written down all the possible answers she could give, then my responses to her answers, and all the possible responses to those. On a large piece of paper it would look like a family tree as I mapped each potential future as each new thing was said. I wonder if it would all lead to the same point. I could do it in reverse; how far back would I have to trace to find a decision that wouldn’t lead me to Windsor Great Park, sitting in a hire car with Sinusoid, and two charcoal barbeques in my bag?
“You have the easy-grill?” She makes it sound like a question, but it feels like a cattle prod.
“We call them disposable barbeques.” Do I sound annoyed? “But yes, I have them.”
“Them? You have more than one?”
Her criticism makes me angry. I am British; I do not let it show. I bury it.
“The website only talked about one person in the car, I didn’t know how more people would affect it so I bought two to be safe.”
I look at her and she smiles at me as though it was a sweet thing to think about. My anger is gone, replaced by an urge to put my hand on her thigh, to twist forward and kiss her. We hold that stare and then she looks away.
“Two’s better then one,” she says.
I turn around on my seat and lean over into the back. I pull the disposable barbeques out of my bag, unwrap the plastic, remove the cardboard, and fold out the thin metal legs. I sit them side-by-side on the back seat.
“You said you wanted to use your lighter?”
She nods her head and rummages in her pocket.
“This was my sign,” she says. “If they took it off me at security I wasn’t going to get on the plane.”
She hands me a Zippo. I take it and turn back to the barbeques. The charcoal has been soaked in lighter fuel and catches easily. I notice the words Nathan and Kimberley inscribed on the side of the lighter. I pause over the burning coals, my pulse thumps in the side of my head; Nathan is my name.
“The letters,” she says.
I pull mine out of my bag and turn back round.
How does she know my name?
We both place our letters on the dashboard in front of us and stare at them. I can feel the fumes filling the car, the flames stealing the oxygen. The Internet said it would be painless, like going to sleep, but I don’t like the way it tastes. Oily.
I look at my hands and expect them to be black and stained. They’re not. I close my eyes to think; I want to ask her about the lighter. I want to call her Kimberly or maybe Kim. I like the feel of her name in my mouth; it takes away the poisonous taste. I turn to look at her again, I should grab her hand and intertwine our fingers, I should kiss her, but her eyes are closed and she’s smiling.
The London sky has turned from red to black and I can see the lights of the planes going to all the destinations that flash on all the electronic boards. I watch the clock in the car morph from 19:59 to 20:00; everything changed and yet nothing feels different. No last words, but it’s not important because I died a long time ago. I lay my head on Sinusoid’s soft shoulder, on Kimberley’s shoulder. There is a gentle groan from her throat, and then everything is blank, like the spaces between words.
