by Jason Purdy
“Only if you promise to show me that trick in private,” he said.
Paul was suddenly very self-conscious about his sausage eating habits. The three of them sat down on the picnic blanket. Paul passed the sauce to Kate, who passed it back to him. He drew a smiley face on his bacon with the ketchup, and squeezed a sizeable puddle of brown sauce in beside his beans. He started to mix them, like an artist mixing paint on his pallete.
“Do you want a plate?” Stephen said, poking Alex, who was still lying prone with his eyes closed.
“Not hungry,” Alex said.
“You can still eat though, if you want a last supper of sorts,” Stephen said.
“I don’t really feel like it,” Alex said, sighing.
“Come on Alex,” Paul said. “Don’t be like that.”
Stephen shook his head.
“It’s not like that,” he said. “Alex is just… well look at him.”
They all looked at him. He looked like he had spent the last eighteen years chained up in a dark cellar.
“He’s almost dead. He doesn’t need to eat, he doesn’t need any more earthly pleasures,” Stephen said. “He’s just about gone.”
“You told me I would be fine,” Alex said. “Right up until the moment I die.”
“Yeah,” Stephen said. “In the same way that a car with the check engine light lit is fine.”
Paul and Kate both shovel their food into their faces. Kate isn’t usually a big fan of the greasy fry up, but today it feels oddly appropriate. It’s a day to start fresh.
Stephen looked up at the sky, and pulled an umbrella from the bag.
“Hope I don’t need this,” he said. “It might stay clear…”
The three of them looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in it. It was a pale blue, mixed with streaks of red and orange, like a puddle of spilled paint.
“I think we’ll be alright,” Paul said.
Alex let out a long, loud groan.
“My stomach hurts,” he said.
He lifted up his hoody and t-shirt, to reveal that he was basically absent from just below the nipples, to just above the belt on his jeans.
Kate and Paul could both see right through him, like he’d been erased by some prankster with a cosmic rubber.
They both set their food to the side.
“You’ve just discovered the best diet in the universe,” Stephen said. “You don’t even have a stomach anymore. You could eat, but it’d just dribble out of that big old hole.”
Without even looking at him, Stephen pulled an airplane style sick bag from his shirt, and passed it to Paul, who promptly deposited what little of the fry he had eaten, into it.
“Dying is awful,” Alex said, lying down again.
“It ain’t no picnic,” Stephen said.
He glanced down at the blanket they were lying on.
“Well, usually it isn’t,” he added. “Do me a favour, Alex?”
Alex groaned in response.
“Lift some signs out of that bag,” he said. “We need to close off this roof before the riff raff start rolling in and parking before their day of mindless monotony.”
Alex rolled over onto his stomach, and gave Stephen a flat look.
“I’m not going anywhere near that bag,” he said. “God knows what’s in there.”
“Nothing in there can hurt you,” Stephen said, “though I would steer clear of anything with tentacles, just to be safe.”
Alex sighed, and trudged over to the back, dragging his heels like a man walking the green mile to the electric chair.
Stephen resisted the urge to shout dead man walking. Alex opened the back, and gingerly looked inside it.
“Just get in there nice and deep,” Stephen said.
“How do I find them?” Alex said.
“They’ll find you,” followed Stephen’s suitably cryptic reply.
“What else will find him?” Paul said, pulling his face away from the bag, and looking pale.
“Ssh,” said Stephen. “Let’s just watch.”
Paul tied up the puke bag and threw it in a sailing arc off the rooftop.
“You dickhead,” Kate said. “You probably just ruined someone’s day.”
“I’d rather be covered in half digested sausages than see you splatter on the pavement in front of me,” Paul said.
Kate gave him a sour look.
“Too soon?” he said.
She started to laugh. “No, that’s actually pretty good.”
He beamed at her. He had half-digested bits of bacon in his teeth.
“I think I might puke too,” she said.
Stephen passed her a bag without taking his eyes off Alex, who was now up to his elbow in the bag. He went in even further, until they could only see his now skinny arse peeking over the top of his suddenly too baggy jeans.
“I don’t see them,” he said.
His voice echoed as if he was trapped down a well. In the confines of the bag, he can see nothing but darkness. If he wasn’t gripping the edge of the opening, he wouldn’t be sure what was up and what was down.
He saw a shape moving in the endless ink.
“What’s that?” he said.
“If it’s mossy and has purple peepers,” Stephen said. “I would advise you not to make eye contact.”
“Too late!” Alex howled.
Something else within the bag howled, too.
“Just grab the signs and get out,” Stephen said.
Alex falls out of the bag, holding a stack of wet floor style signs against his chest. He’s shaken, and somehow looks paler than he did before.
“Oh Christ,” he said.
“What’s in there?” Kate said, approaching the bag as Stephen pulled it shut.
“Have you ever ready anything by Lovecraft?” he asked her.
“No,” Kate said. “I don’t think so? He’s the Cthulhu guy, right?”
Stephen resisted the urge to get all literary on their asses, considering there wasn’t that long left in the day, and explaining that The Colour out of Space was the best of Lovecraft would take more energy than he had right now.
“If you do nothing before you try to kill yourself again,” he said to Kate, “pick up a book.”
“Fuck you,” Kate said, but without a whole lot of conviction. Stephen was a dick; they had done this dance before.
Paul lifted one of the signs.
“Radiation leak?” he said, reading from it. “I don’t think this will work. Not in London.”
“Trust me,” Stephen said. “People always obey signs, no matter what they say. Just like they always make small talk about the weather, or try to eat beans with a knife. It’s just the way you’re all wired up.”
He helped load the signs into Alex’s arms, and shoves him away.
“Go on,” Stephen said. “Go set these up so we don’t get bothered when you get raptured up to the skies.”
Alex’s eyes are wide.
“Raptured?” Alex said. “I don’t want to go to heaven, I won’t get in!”
Stephen sighed. “There’s no heaven Alex, don’t shit your pants.”
“I feel so much better now,” he replied, sarcastically. “I can’t believe I’m spending the last couple hours of my last day on earth doing busy work for a prick like you,” Alex said, stomping off, struggling to balance the signs in his skinny arms.
“You’ve spent your whole life doing busy work for pricks like me,” Stephen said. “Suck it up.”
Alex placed the signs around the entrance ramp to the car park roof, effectively blocking the this way in and this way out ramps with little yellow signs. He had his doubts that it would keep anyone in London from coming up here. Londoners valued a cheap parking spot much more than they cared about obeying some poxy sign.
Even still, the car park stayed abandoned. It didn’t even sound like the few floors below them had visitors. Alex had the strangest suspicion that Stephen might have something to do with that. That the signs were noth
ing more than a prop for their sake.
He wondered what other tomfoolery Stephen could perform. He wondered if when he went over to the other side, would he be able to do the same thing? He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to say goodbye to Kate and Paul and shuffle off from his mortal coil.
But if he could come back like Stephen had, would it really be that bad? He could crack wise and help people to go right where he went wrong. Death sucked but being alive wasn’t a picnic either.
He glanced down at the picnic blanket. Well, not usually.
00:45:03
Time was slipping away from Alex, in a strange way. The seconds seemed to move faster. When Kate, Paul and Stephen spoke, their mouths seemed to move too quickly. Their words were a blur, a string of nonsense chopped together from guttural sounds.
The words meant very little to him. He couldn’t feel the concrete beneath the blanket. When he tangled his fingers in the loose threads of the Technicolor material, he felt nothing.
The colour was starting to drain from the world too. To stare at the sun didn’t hurt his eyes. He couldn’t feel the heat from it beating down on his face. There was no sweat prickling his forehead, no scent of the traffic of London drifting up to him.
All was nothing.
“I’m scared,” Alex said.
“You’d be stupid not to be,” Stephen said.
“Paul,” Alex said.
Kate elbowed him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, waking from the nap he was sneakily having.
“What’s up?” he said.
“I’ll miss you,” Alex said.
“I’ll miss you too,” Paul said. “How will I get anyone to rent your room? It’ll take years for the smell to go away.”
He slid across the blanket and clapped Alex on the shoulder. Then he thought better of it, and wrapped his arms around him, in a rough, full bodied hug.
When he pulled away, there were tears in his eyes.
“Ah, fuck,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
Kate gently eased him out of the way, shuffling over to Alex on her knees.
“I owe you,” she said, squeezing his arm.
They looked at her like she had two heads.
“You’ve given me a second chance,” Kate said. “Maybe I’ve had too many of them, but like I promised, I’ll make this one count. I’ll do my best to get the help I need.”
Alex smiled at her, and put his hand on hers, squeezing it.
“I’m here for you,” Paul said, putting his hand on top of Alex’s. “Whatever you need, I’ll be there.”
“You don’t have to…” she started.
“Oh come on,” Paul said. “Enough with the pity party. I want to help. You need a friend, I’m your guy.”
She turns to him. They give each other a long look. Something passed between them. Maybe they could be more than friends. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea.
Alex cleared his throat.
“Can we bring this back to me?” he said. “I’m dying here.”
Paul gave Alex a shove, and then wiped his eyes.
“Boo-hoo,” he said.
Stephen stood up, and set up the umbrella. It was a large golf one, branded with a company that none of them had heard of before. It was big enough to shelter them all beneath it.
“Why do we…?” Kate started, but then they all looked up at the sky.
Colossal rain clouds had rolled in from nowhere. The kind that made the air feel heavy practically bogged down with the promise of rain. They were a tumultuous rolling grey, like the story sea.
“Where did those clouds come from?” Paul said.
“Every time,” Stephen said, sighing. “Ah well.”
“Can we stop talking about the weather?” Alex said. “Let’s talk about me. Where’s the lamenting? Where’s the wailing and the gnashing of teeth? I want someone to lament on my behalf. That’s my dying wish. Lament me.”
Stephen pulled a prop for the umbrella from his shirt, and set it up in the middle of the blanket, ignoring Alex. They shuffled closer to the centre of the umbrella.
“We’re going to get soaked,” Paul said. “Great.”
“Not until it’s time,” Stephen said. “It always rains in the end.”
“It always rains in London, full stop,” Kate said.
“You all deserve your misery,” Stephen said.
00:10:07
The rain started to fall.
It began as just a few scant drops, plinking onto the concrete like fingers onto piano keys. It began to increase in intensity, pounding off the roof of the car park mercilessly. It was the kind of rain that soaked to the skin in seconds. The type of rain that made the air smell fresh and new. In a hot, muggy summer, it gave that feeling of rebirth. A release of trapped heat and sweat. So cold and powerful that you wanted to run outside and dance in it, letting it wash you away.
The umbrella didn’t fare well against such a torrent. It covered them to some extent, but the force of it hitting the ground sprayed onto the blanket, soaking them anyway.
Stephen had moved the bag out into the deluge, and Paul watched the rain pour into it, disappearing from sight. It should have filled up, but it kept going. He saw the briefest glance of a tentacle flicker out of the depths, and catch a few drops of rain, cupped in its suckers.
It disappeared, and he began to wonder if he had really seen it at all. Everything felt strange and dream like. The day felt like a memory of a hazy night out. Where you tried to piece together what had been said and to who. When you tried to remember if the breathless kiss by the living room window was real, or just a flight of fancy.
Stephen glanced at his watch. The face of it was blank, but he didn’t need to see it to know the time. He could feel the end approaching as sure as you feel an orgasm coming on.
“Five minutes,” Stephen said.
“Do I have to do anything?” Alex asked.
Paul and Kate both reached out to him, putting their hands in his. They made a c-shape, sitting across from Stephen like patient yogi’s, drenched by the rain.
“Just relax,” Stephen said.
Kate reached out for Stephen’s hand. At first, hers passed through his, but then she tried again, and he allowed his long fingers to be squeezed. Paul did the same.
He looked at the two of them. The warmth of their hands brought back a flood of feeling that he had been trying to forget. It made him think of the kiss during the moon landing. Of the coffee and cake, and holding her hand across the table while she told him all about her hopes and dreams.
He smiled, looking down at the blanket below them. They were all sodden now, soaked by the pounding London rain.
00.01.04
“Should we sing Kumbaya?” Paul asked.
They were still linked by their hands, squeezing each other’s fingers. Alex’s hand felt somehow light and far away, like holding a clutch of feathers in a powerful breeze.
Kate found herself squeezing his fingers tighter and tighter. Stephen’s hands felt as though they were moulded from clay, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
“Forty five seconds,” he said, quietly.
The rain poured on them. They were soaked to the skin now, sitting in a puddle of cold water.
“Shit,” Alex said. “I’m so scared guys. I’m so fucking scared.”
“Christ,” Paul said, and he started to cry. The rain hid his tears, but not his blubbering face.
“We’re here,” Kate said. “Hold on tight Alex, we’re not going anywhere.”
“Thirty seconds,” Stephen said, staring at his lap.
“I love you Paul,” Alex said.
“Shut up,” Paul said, blubbering.
“You’re the best friend I ever had,” Alex said.
Kate began to cry too. She felt it rise in her throat. She didn’t want it. She had cried too much lately, but she couldn’t control it, her face contorted, and her tears began to mix with the rain.
“Kate,” Alex said. “I don’t know much about
life or love or even how to do my own washing, but that I know that you’re special. I could have loved you. Maybe I do.”
Alex glanced from Kate to Paul.
“Take care of each other,” he said quietly.
“We will,” Paul said.
“Promise me,” Alex said.
“We promise!” Kate shouted, with her eyes closed.
“Thanks for everything,” Alex said, turning his attention to Stephen, shouting to be heard over the rain. “You’re an arse hole, but you made my last day a little less of a shit show.”
“You’re welcome,” Stephen said. “Five seconds.”
Paul had the strangest feeling that time was moving just a little slower than it should. He glanced at Stephen, who seemed to be concentrating intently on something, and was uncharacteristically short on wisecracks.
“Bye everyone,” Alex said.
“Bye Alex,” Kate said. “Take care.”
“Go into the light,” Paul said.
Alex laughed, and the sound caught in his throat. The smile on his face faded, and his eyes seemed to empty, as if the life had drained out of them.
He slowly fell backwards, slumping onto the concrete. His head hit the ground with a wet smack.
Alex was dead, just like that.
“Alex!” Paul shouted.
He grabbed him, shaking his limp body. Kate scrambled over, cradling his head in her arms.
“Come on, Alex,” she said, slapping his face. “Wake up!”
Paul buried his head in Alex’s chest, sobbing.
The rain continued to pour.
“It’s real,” Kate said, shaking Alex. “It’s all real.”
Stephen approached. He pushed them both gently away from Alex. They let themselves be moved, their eyes wide and vacant, as if they were hypnotised.
“You don’t want your fingerprints all over him now,” Stephen said. “The rain will wash away the worst of it, but things are about to get very weird for both of you. Best not to leave any loose ends.”
Paul looked at him blankly, but a look of horrific realisation crossed Kate’s pale and pallid face.
“Just remember,” Stephen said. “He just dropped dead. You don’t know what happened. He didn’t mention feeling ill.”