by Chris Buchanan
Flash fiction, 2014

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The hand comes up on my shoulder and grips with a purpose. That purpose. He’s not trying to get my attention, or remind me he’s behind me, or make some point about intimacy; he’s gripping my shoulder. He presses with every segment of his fingers, in sequence. No deeper meaning here, no code: he just wants me to know he’s gripped my shoulder. All right. No doubts about it.

And he says, “It’s what she would have wanted.”

Oh is it? Oh, well, glad you let me in on that. So now not only is she dead but it turns out my brother knew her better than I did. Awesome, thank you for that. What else would she have wanted, Jay? Maybe I would have done it.

He says “It’s okay” and I can picture him making a face. I don’t spend the energy to tell him that it’s not actually okay and that she is in fact dead. I might get mad, get teary, start running, anything. And he could do whatever he wanted with any of those things. I feel like I’m trying to argue with the designated driver at the end of a long night out. I know I’m right, I know he’s being a dick, I know none of this is really my fault and in the morning I’ll still suspect it, but I can’t say anything in case I throw up.

He takes my hand and pulls the cables I’m holding, forces my knuckles. So he’s doing it, but we can pretend I’m doing it. That certainly is the ideal solution right there, Jay. It’s kind of conspiratorial, yeah? Good then. You do it.

The house lights up. He’s done a good job arranging them into a little scene. It looks like the Santa in his weird little yellow car – we loved that one – is about to fall off the blue gingerbread house onto the ski slope. The reindeer are scattered about the house at various points, as though chasing each other. Good work. It all blinks right – no piece of wall stays dark for too long. Silent. He doesn’t click for the ‘ho ho ho’.

I say something I’d rather not repeat, he says something I didn’t even understand, and he hits me on the back with a careful aim.

He’s out of there very quickly after the lights go up, when the headlamps of their car jump in and we turn away from the colours. Annie’s bobble hat is behind the light and it looks like she sees me looking at her. She must be proud. Jay certainly is. He swivels halfway back to me and nods at something he didn’t share with me, then slowly spins back away.

The decorations blinking to one side, to distract me from his exit and the awkward scene change. APPLAUSE.

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