Page 26, Line 26 by Leah Royden
Inspired by Line 26, Page 26 of ‘Aue’ by Becky Manawatu.
Under the house on moving day
On the table there was a dirty cup, a plate with a spiderweb clinging to it. Red plastic faded to mottled pink, choked with a film of sickly yellow dust.
Death had claimed this place. The kind of death that grows and blooms in a hideous parody of life. I tasted mildew spores, felt wet decay creeping in my lungs. Even the spider was dead, a ball of wispy limbs trembling in the silence.
Did we really used to play under here? I wondered.
Was it different then, or were we different?
Your ashes were in the moving truck already, packed in with clothes and Christmas lights and cutlery. But long ago, in this place of death, we were so very alive together.
I saw you in the base of a firework, paper tube long since rotted away. I saw you in a battered mixing bowl, upside-down and crawling with unmentionables. Once, we made magic potions in that bowl, mud and crabapples, cicada shells and rice, cornflakes and grass clippings and our own spit mixed up with water from the garden hose. Take a sip and make a wish.
I couldn’t remember what I wished for, back then, but I could guess. A Tamagotchi. A kitten. A million dollars. Infinity million billion dollars times infinity. For Alexa Lewis to get incurable itchy bum disease.
Under the house on moving day, I wished so much that I could talk to you. You weren’t there, and I don’t know where else to look for you.
The magic never did work for us.
Leah Royden