The Silence of Consequences

The Silence of Consequence

Three

A pool of black blood gathered at the crook of her neck. Her face, lined with a diary of age, stared up at him with unseeing eyes. A tuft of her white hair clung to his fingers. Somewhere in the street a dog barked with frenzied enthusiasm. He glanced around the dim kitchen, its faded brown wallpaper a distant memory of its original floral print. Three brass ducks hung on the wall in various stages of flight, china gathered dust on the shelves. There was nothing on value here, no material wealth. The stench of fish assaulted his senses, scratched the back of his throat and made his eyes water. An old tin kettle on the gas stove began to scream, as if trying to alert passers by. He stepped over her still body reached out and switched off the gas.

Silence.

He bent down and looked at her. Her eyes, milky with cataracts, were a pale shade of grey. She wore a long pleated skirt and a vest that barely concealed her sagging breasts. Withered balloons attached to a frail body. Her wrinkled, translucent skin was like aged rose petals, frayed and soft with a forgotten beauty. He prodded a finger into her chest, daring her to move. But she lay motionless. There is no stillness like that of the dead.

He stood up and kicked the saucepan out of her closed fingers. It hit the oven with a loud accusing clang. This was supposed to be simple. How had this happened? How? His thought were muddled, events fragmented like a scattered jigsaw puzzle. He scraped his hand through his greasy hair and scowled at his reflection in the glass of a photo hanging on the wall. A young brunette with an atrocious perm sprouting from her head smiled blankly; completely oblivious to what had happened to her mother/ aunt/ granny. ‘Fuck this,’ he muttered, watching his reflection murmur the words. ‘There’s no way I’m going back. No fucking way.’ He turned back to the body on the ground and kicked it mercilessly. Again and again and again. It was her fault. Her own fucking fault. Eventually he began to tire. Sweat beaded on his tattooed face and trickled down like tears. He walked over to the kitchen table and rummaged through her bag. Keys, tissues, mints, toffees, pills, lip stick and a purse. He pocketed the pills with one hand whilst he opened the purse deftly with the other. Twenty three pounds and forty four pence. Not even enough to score. He shoved the money in his pocket and checked around the room. Time to finish the job.

Inside the cupboard under the sink he found what he was looking for. Oven cleaner: flammable, poisonous and erosive. He flipped the lid and squirted it around the kitchen. Long piss stains of green clung to the yellowed net curtains, the table cloth, the wallpaper. He spun round ensuring that every corner had been soiled and smeared. A bitter chemical smell enveloped him. His head spun. He bent down opened the lady’s hands and placed the now empty bottle within her frozen fingers. He walked to the door and pulled out his bag of ‘baccie. The plastic lighter was weightless in his hands. A spark. Thrown onto the volatile chemical. And all his worries were enclosed in flames.

One

The body in the mirror was no longer her own. A stranger stood before her, wrapped in the tissue paper of time. She still saw herself as the twenty two year old who used to dance, fly like an angel in the Glidadrome Hall all those years ago. She could still feel the cotton skirt swaying by her ankles, hear the laughter of her friends and smell the colone that the men used to wear. Now her body had betrayed her. Withered and bent, she had shrunk at least a foot, and her hope had shrunk with her. When had her ears grown so large? Her shoulders so hunched and her ankles so fat? Her wilted skin hung round her face in folds. Her hands displayed the marks of time like a trophy. When had youth escaped her? It had happened so gradually she’d had no chance to protest. She closed her eyes and remembered all the people she used to be closed to, all the men she turned down as she stubbornly waited for ‘the one.’ But the proposals had been as fleeting as her youth, and eventually she’d ended up alone. She opened her eyes and stared at the lines that decorated her body. The mirror clouded with condensation and her face faded into mist.

She pulled on her tights, her skirt and sprinkled talc on her bare breasts. The powder settled inside the wrinkles like dust. She then slipped on a light cotton vest and opened the bathroom door. Steam escaped the room rapidly. She would not be seeing anyone today, so saw no point in wearing a brassiere. Visitors were a rarity now days, scared away by her limited conversation focused on her various ailments. ‘Well if people don’t visit me what else am I meant to talk about?’ She had snapped when her daughter had laughed at her once. ‘The weather?’

She shuffled into the kitchen and lit the stove. Aches prickled her body and she flexed her fingers slowly to ease off the pain. A saucepan of defrosting fish sat next to the kettle, its thick stench heavy in the air. She placed the kettle on the blue flame, her lips sucking in and out on her gums. Her head trembled as she shuffled back into the bathroom and picked up her nighty, folding meticulously it in her hands. ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness,’ her mother had drummed in to her, time and time again. Proverbs are hard to forget. She walked back into the kitchen and picked up the saucepan of fish. It was then that a movement to her right tickled her vision. She turned, saucepan still in her hand, and saw a young man with a shaved head and a tear tattooed on his face approaching her.

Two

Three and a half weeks out of prison and he was at it again. A leopard can’t change its spots, not when you’ve got a habit to feed, a hunger to soothe. So here he was again; a hunter on the search for some meat. He turned down C¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ecil Street and came upon an alcove of small, quiet bungalows. A black cat ran across his path, its tail high in the air. On impulse he arched his own back, crouched down and hissed. A rain of spittle escaped from his mouth. The cat ran under a car and was gone. He smiled. Today was going to be a good day.

The first two houses were occupied, their TV’s on, conversations loud. The third was as quiet as a corpse. He licked his lips and gave his crotch a brief, reassuring scratch. This was the one. He jumped over the fence and landed in the back garden. Weeds intermingled with flowers, a urban symphony of colour and neglect. He crouched on all fours and pushed his way through the growth, ignoring the sting of nettles and the angry buzz of insects. He pulled his body up and glanced through a window, an old kitchen and no sign of life. The window was hooked open on the latch. He moved his finger easily through the space, pulled open the glass and slid his body through. He landed with a soft thud, jumped up and glanced around. No one. On the table ahead of him sat an old leather hand bag, its gaping mouth open. He stood up and stretched. It was then that an old lady walked in.

Her lips moved to some ancient rhythm, sucked in and out, as she inspected some fish. He held his breath. Maybe she would leave the room without seeing him. As if sensing something was amiss she turned slowly around. They looked at each other, niether one able to move, to speak. Her eyes wide, she let out a wailing croak from the back of her throat and swung the saucepan at him. Left, right, left. The fish flew out of the pan and came to a sickening thud at the other end of the room. This lady could be quick when she wanted to be.

He jumped back, avoiding the pan once, twice and then narrowly a third time. Led by some intrinsic instinct of survival he swung his right hand high in the air. There was a moment, a moment where she could have backed away if she wanted to, a moment where she could have stopped him. And then the hand cascaded down, thundered onto her head. She wobbled and staggered back. Her feet gave way and she fell. The corner of the table broke her fall, for only a second, and a sickening crack echoed around the room, then she slid, still and staring, to a stop at his feet. The silence of consequences hung thick in the air.