SUNBURN — a fiction by ollie francis
SUNBURN — a fiction by ollie francis
Collect what matters and get out
When you came to my door, empty box in hand, wanting to collect your things, I made you tea in your favourite mug. The sun was sweltering, but you had always said hot drinks made you feel cooler. You set to work, picking up everything I had laid out for your, at your request. Tops, underwear, flip-flops, a shawl you had once worn while we walked through Bakewell.
I put the tea on a chair by your side, pointed to it, said your name. I don’t know if you heard me, but I didn’t want to say again for fear of starting another fight. We always loved to fight. I’ll miss that.
You left quickly. No conversation. No casual chatter. You treated *us* as a sticking paster. In, out, gone. Such a event should have taken hours, weeks, years: You took minutes, counted individually on our blue rimmed clock.
Tick…
Tock…
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Tick…
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Tock…
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Tick…
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Tock…
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Tick…
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Tock.
After you left, I went back in and studied the room to see if there was anything you had left behind. You had left spaces on the rack where you had taken your favourite CDs. I didn’t think you would do that. I had always assumed the music was mine. You never seemed to listen to any while I wasn’t there. I would only ever enter the house to silence.
Your books were gone, but the paper you always pushed between the volumes remains, fallen flat on the shelf among the dust marks. I lifted it, set it upright again, watched it slide back down.
The tea was still warm, untouched.
Though we hadn’t spoken in some time, it felt good to have you here. Without the weight of your presence, the flat felt too hollow; as though it could blow away in a strong wind. We had so much time, so much of *us* in this place. I had watched you erase yourself from the flat’s history in a matter of minutes. I had watched you take every reminder and place it in that cardboard box, feeling the rooms getting thinner and thinner, our past getting more and more distant; all the while wondering if you felt it too or if it was nothing but sunburn.
Originally published on Tumblr
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