#davisflash7

Forever.

He walks away from the woman in the wheelchair.

The woman in the wheelchair refuses to believe he is stood in front of her.

He assures her she’s not dreaming.

She is speechless as he stands before her.

He approaches her and says hello.

She watches nature from the veranda.

He signs in at the retirement home reception.

Fifty years later.

Her words are choked by sadness and disbelief as she cradles his body.

His blood runs from the pavement to the gutter.

She is frozen, eyes wide, and can only watch.

It ends so quickly that he doesn’t even feel it.

She screams up at the sky, refusing to accept it, even though it’s happening.

For just a moment he feels like he’s flying.

People have stopped to see what the commotion is about.

She’s here. The woman who took the stranger, my stranger away from me is kneeling at my feet. The barrel of her own gun is pressing against her head. It’s in my hand. A chill fist wraps around my heart when I remember this is the weapon that killed the stranger.

Emma looks up at me. Her grey eyes are welling with tears now. I want to believe that she’s sorry. I want her to fall apart like I have. But all I can see is hollowness there. How does a person become so empty?

“What are you waiting for?” she asks, almost begging. “Do it.”

Without thinking I’ve pulled back the hammer. The bullet in the chamber will close the circle. Emma is the last crack in the wall now. The last loose end. At least that’s what I believe. She has no business being alive, in this true present, while the stranger is dead.

“I’m not a killer. I’m not you.”

“Olivia please, do it. I’m begging you now. Kill me! All these things, in my head. They hurt. Please!”

“Why should I?”

Somewhere in the deep darkness I see in Emma’s eyes, I see it. A solitary spark, of....something.

“Because he would.”

Maybe I’ll regret it in the future. Years from now when I’m old and grey perhaps I’ll think back and ask myself why. It might hurt me to even think about. One day.

“Happy birthday Becky!” my guests chant to me in unison. 60 years young, and here I am. My friends still around me. My family still close. Even Mum’s here.

I wish you were too, Dad.

“Thank you everyone, I....” and the speech I’ve been practising for the last week takes over. It must have come out okay, since nobody seemed to see anything wrong with it. Maybe they were just smiling out of courtesy. Whatever.

I can’t stop thinking about that boy behind the bar.

I say boy, but he’s not that. Definitely older than 20. God, when did a twenty-something year old become a boy? I think I need another drink. “Want a drink?” someone asks. I say no thanks, I’m going myself. I need to talk to him, even if it’s only to order a glass of wine.

 “Hello,” I say, a little nervous, I hope it didn’t show.

“Hello ma’am, what can I get for you,” he replies in textbook polite barman. I hope his boss pays him well. Wait. Oh my God he even sounds the same.

“Just a, er, small white wine please.”

“Certainly. There you are. Would you like anything else with that?”

“No that’s, that’s all. Thank you.” It's not him. It can't be. He'd be as old as me by now. Besides, he doesn't even recognize me.

“Thank you.”

I walk away from the bar then all of a sudden I’m light headed as hell. When I find my chair Ellie’s arm is around me.

“What’s wrong, big sis? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have.”

I tell Ellie about the boy behind the bar. She goes to ‘get herself a drink’, and after ten minutes she’s back.

37 years ago. Why did I have to kill him?

Ellie’s as white as the tablecloths around the room.

Ellie sits at the metal table, her blue uniform irritating against her unwashed skin. There are bags under her eyes from sleepless nights spent watching, waiting. Bruises and scratches mark a few of many encounters.

Prison changes a girl.

Who’s coming, she can’t help but wonder. It’s visiting hours and she’s been called into the visiting room. For the first time since incarceration. Am I being saved? Were the jury wrong?

He walks from behind her, sits in front of her, and what little hope she’s mustered crumbles into dust.

She’s looking straight into the eyes of the man she murdered. And he shoots her the most cunning smile she’s ever seen.

“You missed,” he manages to utter through his concrete grin.

“But....how? How could you have.....?”

“Did nobody tell you? You’re only in here for attempted murder now. Turns out you have appalling aim.”

“But I saw you....I made you die. I saw you stop breathing.” She’s replaying it in her mind now, the reason she’s inside; she shoots, he falls, he dies.

“Try not to think about it., I can tell things are rough for you in here right now.” His smile is gone, and he’s got a look of genuine concern.

“Like you care. You may have survived, but I still wish you were dead.” She half regrets the words the moment she’s said them.

“Suit yourself.”

He rises to leave. She can’t look at him again; it hurts too much. When he was dead that gave her a cause, to keep going from day to day. Now she knows he’s alive, and it kills her.

“There was just one more thing,” he says as he walks away.

“What’s that?” Ellie asks, holding back torrential sorrow.

“I forgive you.”

I lost all my friends in building the armour.

It wasn’t a direct result of that activity mind you. But I felt vulnerable, I lashed out, and I lost them. I lost them all. That’s why I built the armour; so I wouldn’t have to be vulnerable anymore.

With nobody left to care about, I worked and worked some more. I plundered refuse dumps, beaches, work sites; anywhere that metal could be found. There was a time when my closest friend was my metal detector.

I don’t know what happened to everyone else. Most of them married off, I suspect; some definitely to each other. I hope they’re happy.

-

Now the armour is ready. I lost count of how long it’s taken me, but it....no, she, is finally finished. And she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

But most of all she is clever, my armour. I designed her that way.

Her recognition systems identify me as the only person who can wear her. She rises up from the work bench all by herself; then she unfurls and closes around me. The metal is cool against my skin, soothing, reassuring. I look out at what world I can see once with my own eyes.

Then I’m looking through hers, and somehow everything is just better.

We are not two separate entities anymore. We are no longer machine and creator. We are as one, the armour and I. We walk as one. In the skies we fly as one.