Four stories from Andy Vickers

The Crayon Heart

In the footwell between his feet Nigel sees the wrapper with the crayon heart he’d drawn.

They stop outside school.

“Out!” barks his father, residue of the row.

“Where were you last night?” his mother had asked, “With that slut in the pub, again?

I know her smell.”

The police called early.

Had Nigel seen Mandy?

“Yesterday after lessons.

We played on the swings.

She went home over the fields.

It’s quicker that way.

I gave her my chocolate.”

Mum will know what to do.

So he nudges it under the seat as he gets out.

Breaking the ice

“Morning!” the lonely man says in the lift on his way to work.

“Evening!” on the way back.

They nod, murmur sometimes, look away.

As most do not meet his eye and look at the floor, he decides to put on one brown shoe and one black.

“Morning!”.

The woman looks up.

“Morning,” she replies. “Do you know you’ve got a different coloured shoe on each foot?”

“No….how does it go?” he asks.

At first she looks perplexed, then guffaws.

“The old ones are the best!”

Already he feels less alone, and so does she.

Keep On Running

He runs. He always has. Even though now in his eighties he likes to do so everyday, partly because he had been one of the best, famous for it. But mainly he runs from the past, a catastrophic, vicious past he never acknowledges.

Bolting from hell he was found by a family to call his own.

Recently a curious grandchild has done a DNA test. She hopes for answers. The questions will need to catch him first but running days are nearly done.

Subconsciously he rubs a strip of discoloured skin on his wrist and, for now, runs on.

Unbearable.

A searing sun stung his eyes even after he shut them tight. He knew if he didn’t drink soon he’d be in serious trouble. Sweat came quickly, evaporating faster. The oven heat drying his mouth was being drawn down into struggling lungs. He felt a husk of the man that had woken that morning and the reddening skin would blister and peel if he didn’t find shade. He tried swallowing and felt sand rasping his throat.

Then, as the woman stood, he pushed himself off the hotel towel hurling himself towards the shaded sun lounger beside the pool bar.