Fiction

The Chimes of Graig Trewyddfa

Then the chimes stop, right in the middle of the verse, and the estate takes on a deathly silence. Jamie thinks of the chapel of rest he visited his grandad in, the way the cushioned walls dampened any sound. Just him and Grandad in the room, his younger brother waiting outside the door for his turn. The way that he felt silly talking to the shrunken, jaundiced man laid out in the coffin, the man who couldn’t talk back. And not wanting his brother to hear what he was saying, so each word coming out quieter than a whisper—so quiet that the words were barely being said at all. He feels it again now, that absence of sound. The whole world on mute.​

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PASSENGERS

It’s when I look back at the house I see him. The curtains in the annex wide open, him standing centred in the window. Alabaster hair. Pale-ash skin. Fat purpled lips. Staring. Staring. Staring. Without thinking I start running, running away from the house into the dark, flat fields as fast as my work brogues will take me. A hazy plan forms to reach the river, follow it down as far as I can, back to bright lights: a new housing estate, a road, a petrol station, the bridge itself. At the edge of the fields I reach an old cycle path, glance back for the first time as I scale a fence. My stomach drops when I see he’s following me—running too, perhaps half a field away. Just aim for the bridge, the red strips upon the water.

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GIVE A DOG A BONE

I wanted the sun to come out, to dry up all the rain so I could go out and play on the hillside, instead of being stuck indoors. That side of the hill was always green and welcoming. Familiar. This side is cold and black, burnt by a forest fire that marched its way to the top before the firefighters smothered it. The sun is disappearing behind it now, turning late afternoon into evening. The drizzle has turned heavy.

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