Getting the messages in by Adam Parry

What do I need? Ray’s coat half on as he checked the fridge. Threw out the out-of-date microwave dinners feeling a transient guilt. What do I need? Milk. Cat food, Ray food, Fags, Meds. Coat on he took the front door keys out the inside lock finding time in his evident rush to check all the lights were off as he often forgot, then went out the back door. The road goes forever on and on out through the door you once belonged, he said under his breath as he walked the path, passed the diversity of his neighbours’ gardens the old mannie and wifie with his green shed were he potted plants to put on the front round the border of his front lawn, then the unkempt bus driver’s garden, then the new wifie with pristine silver, high backed garden furniture with a great view of the whirligigs the wind lifting drying washing spinning erratically and the garages like waiting pebble-dashed ogres over the road. He turned onto School Street a long sloping road that led down to the village, the expensive, village shops. Halfway down the hill by the post box he realized he hadn’t brought the letter he intended to post. Fuck me with frozen trout.

Stamping on ignoring the old folk with their Nazi comics. Come on, he told himself, stop getting angry singing to himself. Love. Love. Love anyone can see there was love, love, love, love all over me. He’d silenced his nippy head with the song at least until he got to the chemist.

Leslie was on the counter, she looked too young to be a grandmother, they mainly talked about the weather, she loved the sun, sometimes she put his pills all in separate small plastic pockets ceremoniously into a paper bag, a bag she insisted on using to put the meds he got each and every day, a bit of the sun he thought of her, but on this particular day she seemed to take a geological epoch before she handed over the bag. Come on, come on, he wanted to scream, but guiltily put a £2 coin in the RSPB tin and took a dark godwit stood outside the closed Library clumsily pinning to the bird to his coat. A frail man in mobility scooter floated by in the dark mirror of the library windows. He envisioned how this sudden startle would set him off.

-You should have bells on that-I’m sorry-too late you’ve already done it. Get a fucking bell I nearly died of a heart attack.

Then the argument blossomed out of all proportions and then there was an audience and centaur weeping stopped in his tracks, turned to face Ray.

-Well your still alive-leave him alone (an audience member told Ray). And as he walked quick down the pavement in rational mode he told himself that didn’t happen, but he was ashamed of the argument of his argument even though it was one that hadn’t happened. Ray told himself he would never do that really, how he would have regretted it if he’d taken his true colours out into the real world in seconds he pushed the train of thoughts behind halfway up the hill and thought he had pushed away that kernel of surprise and anger. He never used to think like this. In the Coop the hunched centaur was at the paper rack blocking the aisle of people waiting to get served. Thankfully by the time Ray got to the start of the queue centaur had bought his Nazi comics and was probably halfway home by now.

Suddenly out on the street after mentally cursing the two workmen who had walked right at him and Ray had to get out of their way, his body was hot and he was sweating. He got out of the way of the old lady with the rat sized dog with dreadlocks trying to get all his receipts and loyalty card into the wallet as he stood at the edge of the curb judging the traffic. He wondered if he were an old lady one of the vehicles would have stopped for me to cross, no, he thought, once they’d run her over they’d probably reverse over her and reach out and take her handbag. Unhappily he went toward to the crossing stabbed at the wait button and to his surprise a car stopped pulled up by Ray’s red light. He crossed swiftly but by the time he got to the pub over from the Coop the dread he felt going up that hill devoured him as if he could already feel the heaviness and breathless, the pain in his hips that by the time he got to the top would feel like he needed them replaced. As he turned the corner to the first steep rise having no other choice he stepped up, twice he stopped to catch his breath before he got to the shallower bending road, reluctantly he stepped to the grass as vehicles came at him or past him as Ray came to the sign Private Road use at own risk. It came to a stop at some bollards, but before that under the abundancy of two intermingled sycamore trees was his rock. It had probably been here since before he moved to the village, but of late he had taken possession and would gently rest, his heart beat hurting his chest that heaved as if he’d run for the bus. He counted, as he mostly did on his rock, to one hundred and he was ready to brave the road once more. The nice old woman with the young black Labrador said hello, perhaps a little surprised by the figure of Ray emerging from the stage curtain of leaves, up head the jumpy giant poodle was giving its owner trouble the poor thing was so skittish pulling the woman on towards Ray, at the sight of Ray the dog went a bit loopy jumped up and the bolted for Ray but only getting a leads length anywhere near him, then the poodle escaped back to the woman whose eyes looked as panicked as the dog.

‘I’ll just walk by and let you get on.’

She smiled. He sauntered along the only downwards part of the hill leaving the dog to sort itself out, feeling a little good about himself, but the hill bent round onto a narrower path, that was almost as steep as the first rise of Heart Attack Hill, that was when his hips started. And the anger rose thinking as usual he’d never get home his head screamed with expletives that sunk him into hypothetical situations. He took the bend up Towerview stoically, imagining being a Grand Prix motor racer and got to the three steps to the path that led behind the houses on Towerview all the way up to the green that led to the back door of his house, but by the time he got there he was Adolf on his soapbox, so hot and he thought his hip might snap if he’d walked any further. Leaving his bag in the kitchen he ripped of his coat and dragged off his t-shirt and he angrily shouted at a bit of plastic packaging stuck to his boot, he could not shake the fucking thing off eventually he picked it off with fingers, he grabbed a bottle of coke from his bag and sat at his table pulling his pills out of his trouser pocket, got a smoke ready and necked the pills all five down with his first sip of coke. Almost instantly as he lit up told to Adolf shut up and he began to forget the pain, in a few minutes his rational mind told him.

At least you got up the hill without killing anyone. Again.