Graham zips up the Gola bag, grabs his windcheater and without looking back, leaves the pokey council flat. He takes the stairs two at a time then skips across the courtyard towards the Green Line coach stop. He will never return.
It’s early afternoon on a dull autumnal day, but there are no red and orange leaves falling because there are no trees. He dodges dog shit and newspapers blowing in the wind. His mind is blank; his life will never be the same, but he doesn’t know this yet.
He is leaving home. Getting away from his dad. His dumb, stupid, thick-as-shit dad. The man who reads the Daily Mail back pages and thinks he is an intellectual because his mates read the Sun.
The man who works all his life at a factory making cardboard boxes; the man who drinks all his wages on a Friday then comes home and creates mayhem. The man who is too handy with his belt until Graham stands up to him and breaks his nose.
The stinking socks hanging in the kitchen, the gob dribbling from his dad’s chin when he eats dinner, the total loser who dares offer Graham advice about living his life.
The bus comes, Graham climbs onboard, pays his fare, and takes an empty double-seat near the back. The Green Line pulls away and only now does Graham think about the broken body, full of booze, he has left at the bottom of the canal behind the flats.
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 