ISSN 1758-6488
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American Cigarettes Fiction |
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He left the flat and walked to the girl’s house, normally a twenty minute walk, but he was there in ten minutes.
When he rang the bell there was no answer. He banged on the frosted glass door with his fist and it hurt his knuckles. Still, no-one came to the door. He pressed his nose against the glass and called her name. Then he turned round, walked up to the main road and waited for a bus into town.
Later that morning the young man went into the girl’s work, but was told she was off for a week. He spent the rest of the day drinking on his own in various bars, calling her phone every few minutes, then with lesser frequency as the day went on. When it got dark he got a taxi back to her house. The door was still locked, so he walked down the small crevice in-between the garage and the fence. It was filled with bits of brick to stop trespassers and he caught his shoe on one of them and scratched it. He swore, then carried on to the back garden.
The young man tried the living-room patio door, which the girl often forgot to lock. It was open, and he went in. It was cold inside. He walked over to the light-switch and pressed it. All her pictures were gone from the wall, as was her TV, and books. The room was empty, bar for the couch and coffee table, which were there when she moved in. He sat down on the couch and closed his eyes.
It was morning when the young man woke up, but still grey outside. He stood up and looked out of the window. The garden outside overlooked a cricket ground, but the view was obscured by what he failed to see the previous night; the girl’s bedroom curtains on the washing line, getting wet in the rain.
