the fuck did it feel like to stop being alive?
7
He kept the TV on all night because every time he turned it off his heart started racing and his breath got tangled in his throat and he felt like he would explode unless he
opened his mouth and shouted, or got out of the house and ran. Plus his mum was up and about again, fussing at the plugs, and the TV covered up the noise enough that he could stop himself going
downstairs to help her.
Morning arrived, lightening his room through the curtains. Stick shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look at anything, and tried to work out if he’d slept or not. Not, he decided. At
some point his mum knocked on his door to say she was going to work; she wished he’d stay in the house, just for the next few days; if he had to go out would he take his phone? Stick lay on
his back and nodded and eventually she left.
The news came on the TV – protests in Greece; protests in Syria; Olympics tickets; pensions crisis. He flicked through channels until he found
The Simpsons
and closed his eyes
again. They should be in France by now, bleary from a night in the car, trying to find a bacon butty for breakfast, unfolding the map to remind themselves which way to go.
You can’t just lie around moping, Mac would say. Stop being pathetic, he’d say. Get up and fucking do something. Stick tried to think of something to do. An episode of
The
Simpsons
later he decided he’d go and buy flowers for Mrs McKinley.
There were two rolls of money sat at the top of his sports bag: fifty pounds, and three hundred euros. He pulled the rubber band off the euros and flicked through them. He and Mac had gone to
the post office on Spring Gardens last week and exchanged grubby English twenties for clean, glossy notes – green, orange, blue, red. ‘Hard-earned cash,’ Mac had said to the woman
at the counter and she’d smiled like she didn’t believe him.
Stick rolled the euros up again and shoved them back into the bag, put the pounds into his pocket and went downstairs. He opened the fridge and stared inside but there was nothing he wanted to
eat – it was as though his stomach had disappeared along with Mac.
He wanted nice flowers, not the sad-looking ones in the newsagent’s or a bunch with a Tesco’s label, so he got the bus into town, walking the long way round so he
didn’t have to go down Paget Street. In a shop filled with buckets of flowers, the air thick with scent, he told the man – man! – at the counter that he wanted a big bunch,
something that looked classy. He hadn’t realised flowers could be so expensive, but he handed over thirty quid and got the bus back. People looked at you different if you were carrying a
bunch of flowers – like you were a good person.
He sat downstairs with them on his lap, careful not to crease the purple tissue paper or squash the petals. With his other hand he flicked through his phone to the photo: Mac and Lainey, Aaron
and Malika, lit up for a second. Mac, fat-faced, red-cheeked, a pair of pink sunglasses propped up on top of his head. Mac squeezing Lainey’s shoulder, his mouth open, top teeth showing.
Stick stared at him. What had he been saying? Probably something stupid, but he wished he knew.
At school, Stick’s art teacher once got them to make a camera out of a shoebox with a tiny hole in one side. A photograph is a physical thing, he kept saying. The film holds the reflected
light from whatever is in the image – it’s a mark, from the world. Stick had rolled his eyes and sniggered with the rest of them, but he remembered it now, and wished that he’d
taken a picture of Mac with a shoebox camera, not his shitty phone. A digital image, the teacher said, was just a collection of pixels, just lots and lots of tiny squares, and if you blew it up
enough then the whole thing would fall apart. It’s not physical, he kept saying, it’s not the same.
Stick took the stairs up to Mac’s flat. To Mrs McKinley’s flat. The
7
He kept the TV on all night because every time he turned it off his heart started racing and his breath got tangled in his throat and he felt like he would explode unless he
opened his mouth and shouted, or got out of the house and ran. Plus his mum was up and about again, fussing at the plugs, and the TV covered up the noise enough that he could stop himself going
downstairs to help her.
Morning arrived, lightening his room through the curtains. Stick shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look at anything, and tried to work out if he’d slept or not. Not, he decided. At
some point his mum knocked on his door to say she was going to work; she wished he’d stay in the house, just for the next few days; if he had to go out would he take his phone? Stick lay on
his back and nodded and eventually she left.
The news came on the TV – protests in Greece; protests in Syria; Olympics tickets; pensions crisis. He flicked through channels until he found
The Simpsons
and closed his eyes
again. They should be in France by now, bleary from a night in the car, trying to find a bacon butty for breakfast, unfolding the map to remind themselves which way to go.
You can’t just lie around moping, Mac would say. Stop being pathetic, he’d say. Get up and fucking do something. Stick tried to think of something to do. An episode of
The
Simpsons
later he decided he’d go and buy flowers for Mrs McKinley.
There were two rolls of money sat at the top of his sports bag: fifty pounds, and three hundred euros. He pulled the rubber band off the euros and flicked through them. He and Mac had gone to
the post office on Spring Gardens last week and exchanged grubby English twenties for clean, glossy notes – green, orange, blue, red. ‘Hard-earned cash,’ Mac had said to the woman
at the counter and she’d smiled like she didn’t believe him.
Stick rolled the euros up again and shoved them back into the bag, put the pounds into his pocket and went downstairs. He opened the fridge and stared inside but there was nothing he wanted to
eat – it was as though his stomach had disappeared along with Mac.
He wanted nice flowers, not the sad-looking ones in the newsagent’s or a bunch with a Tesco’s label, so he got the bus into town, walking the long way round so he
didn’t have to go down Paget Street. In a shop filled with buckets of flowers, the air thick with scent, he told the man – man! – at the counter that he wanted a big bunch,
something that looked classy. He hadn’t realised flowers could be so expensive, but he handed over thirty quid and got the bus back. People looked at you different if you were carrying a
bunch of flowers – like you were a good person.
He sat downstairs with them on his lap, careful not to crease the purple tissue paper or squash the petals. With his other hand he flicked through his phone to the photo: Mac and Lainey, Aaron
and Malika, lit up for a second. Mac, fat-faced, red-cheeked, a pair of pink sunglasses propped up on top of his head. Mac squeezing Lainey’s shoulder, his mouth open, top teeth showing.
Stick stared at him. What had he been saying? Probably something stupid, but he wished he knew.
At school, Stick’s art teacher once got them to make a camera out of a shoebox with a tiny hole in one side. A photograph is a physical thing, he kept saying. The film holds the reflected
light from whatever is in the image – it’s a mark, from the world. Stick had rolled his eyes and sniggered with the rest of them, but he remembered it now, and wished that he’d
taken a picture of Mac with a shoebox camera, not his shitty phone. A digital image, the teacher said, was just a collection of pixels, just lots and lots of tiny squares, and if you blew it up
enough then the whole thing would fall apart. It’s not physical, he kept saying, it’s not the same.
Stick took the stairs up to Mac’s flat. To Mrs McKinley’s flat. The
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