Not long now
There’s just one thing Alistair needs to do, one chance to atone. But he’s running out of time - his only hope is to run faster than the past.
Keys jingling, silver and sharp, Alistair stumbled through darkened hallways, ears pricked for the telltale clatter of boots, the click of a gun being cocked. Any moment, the lights might return and with them - soldiers, alarms, the end. The end of everything. There was part of him, not small but a hulking behemoth burning with guilt and shame so hot he could hear it sizzle, that hoped it would happen. At least then he’d stop seeing her eyes..
Be brave. Be strong.
He was neither, the words hollow in his ears, coating his mouth like the ash of a funeral pyre, but her eyes had glowed with such light he hadn’t had the heart to say otherwise. So he’d lied, not knowing it was a lie and yet... a part of him, always, had known. Deep down, he’d known.
Everything he was had been built on lies. Not when he was young, carefree, but later. Always later. Always lying. Grants with empty words, promises he couldn’t keep. Nodding to military brass, saying ‘I understand’, ‘yes, of course’. Incurable - what nonsense, he’d declared; tall, strong and sure of himself, a god among pathetic mortal men.
Dull marble eyes, worn smooth by oceans of time, eroded by pain. *Not long now, almost finished. Nearly there. Be brave.* A spark of hope in the blank depths. More lies added to his pyre.
But there had also been truth in those words, hadn’t there? As he fitted the keys into his car, turned the ignition, heard it rattle to life, he knew there had been the tiniest sliver of truth. Something clunked, bump bump beneath the hood, but all he needed was to get into town.
Not long now.
He stopped first at the post office, morbid parcels piled high in the passenger seat. For a moment their pale shapes hunkered like a baby’s car seat, old memory bleeding through, their contents recalling happier times. Hopefully nothing else would bleed through, but no. He’d sealed them up tight.
This won’t hurt. Just a little prick.
But it had hurt, hurt more than anything. Trusting, beloved eyes dulling at the last, pain smoothed away by chemicals creeping through blood. And there had been so much blood, too much. As if it was his blood, too, his heart pierced and broken pumping pain in crimson waves over the floor. The knife had seemed so bright.
The packages thudded down the chute, each with a different address but the same contents. Pieces of his biggest lie, wrapped in plastic. Papers, true papers, tucked safely away. Addressed to the police.
He didn’t make it to the local station, one package left where his daughter had sat swinging her legs and singing. Headlights in the darkness cut across his path, and he knew. He knew. His lies were ended, everything trussed up in black body bags and vanished, but he hoped his packages of truth would find their way where they needed to go.
It was over.
Author’s Note: this piece was originally written for the Furious Fiction competition, run monthly by the Australian Writer’s Centre. 55 hours to write a story, 500 words maximum. The prompts for that month’s round were:
Your story must include SOMETHING EITHER BEING SENT OR RECEIVED IN THE MAIL.
Your story must include the following words: JINGLE, CLICK, BUMP, SIZZLE (plurals or -ing variants are allowed).
Your story's final sentence must contain exactly THREE words.
