Foreword — This short story is based on the radio episode ‘Conscientious Objector’ in the Radio Three series ‘Our Fathers’ War’ written and performed by Michael Goldfarb about his professor Meredith Dallas. The scene which makes up most of this story and information about his professor all come from that episode and I borrow a few phrases from it as well. So if you enjoy this, give it a listen!
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I’ve been burdened with a terrible secret, and someone must know.
I was with her again last night, getting drinks, discussing Mary Queen of Scots. I guess I didn’t notice how many drinks she’d had, until she leaned over and grabbed my shoulders, and began whispering in my ear. “I have a secret.”
I steadied her and laughed, sure she was about to admit to sympathising with Henry Stuart, when she began the tale which now utterly haunts me.
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Arpita thought she saw some fishing boats in the distance where the seawater met the gulls and breeze. The boats didn’t wander off, staying at the same speed. She thought of her friends she had known from way back. They would want to see her again, had told her, even in dream-messages. The winds crackled between the palm-fronds and the gulls squawked a fiery message, not on deaf ears. Arpita was on the whitest sands of the long beaches, stuck in a trance made by her brain's galloping thoughts.
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The man is sitting down. He leans against the doorway of a shop long gone. He wears all his clothes, clothes that have not been washed since the person before him. The clothes are growing too big for him, they are falling off his bones.
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The Lords of Doom mobilise their first rank, but they haven’t lined up the next ones – it’s like they know they’ve already won.
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“Hug?” Maisie held out her arms. Manrika accepted the hug and asked if I did hugs as well, to which I quivered a ‘yes’. When she hugged me, it was like a rush of euphoria to the head - and other places which I will spare the details of. Emulsify me, please. Let me rest in your scent and just aimlessly melt. God, her scent. Is she even aware of how nice she smells? Then my mind snapped out of it and I convinced myself of the possibility she might just like men. Seeing the drabness of some of the guys in the nightclub, Fever, I can’t sympathize with people who get the appeal of them.
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“Look, I get that you appreciate her very much and she’s a lovely girl,” Nick reasoned, again trying to accuse me of crushing on her, “You just need to let yourself feel.”
“What? The last time I let myself feel I ended up caring so much for a piece of shit,” I riposted before melting into a smile, “She’s really pretty, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she’s pretty, but are you sure you’re straight?”
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He examined the ash trees, inspecting for withered and sickly leaves, and came away satisfied to find none. He checked for broken sticks and impressions of boot prints in the mud but only the usual residents presided there, the snails and ants navigating through their miniature dwellings.
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I fell on one of the final days of the third month. It didn’t hurt, no one said anything, not even the trees. I wasn’t expecting them to. I was a bit sad but not scared. I could be part of the trees now, of the soil and the earth. But I would miss my friends regardless.
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To say Graham was elated not to be a father was an understatement. Sure, it was a solitary life, living alone at his age, but he figured some men weren’t built for fatherhood. He was one of them. He’d have frustrated his kid too much, and vice versa. His house would’ve been filled with slamming doors and stomping footsteps, like his own childhood home had been.
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