High Impact
by
David Milner
I’m catching short breath between my heart’s sinister rhythm.
“Then I remembered you up on the seventeenth floor”.
And these are the first words I have truly registered since I let him in. I wish I lived closer to my mum and dad.
“Perfect”.
He smiles, lowers the gun he’s holding in his right hand to his thigh, slips the strap from his left shoulder, a metallic note resounds from the sports bag as it lands on the carpet. I can’t remember if he has been here before. There is no objective realm for me to process what is happening. Feels like I’m evaporating from the inside.
“This is perfect”.
His voice soft and sensual he moves to the window as though he were the monarch of all he surveys.
“I was once here, remember?”
“I don’t, Michael.”
“You’re nervous. Sit down.”
So confident he doesn’t turn his head toward me.
“That blond chick, front tooth missing”.
“Rebecca.”
“Fuck she was cute though. Doing the splits.”
“Yes”.
“Crackhead”.
I silently nod.
“Your girlfriend, I believe?”
“She was.”
He turns toward me.
“I’ll have your phone, Tommy.”
I’m allowed to make some tea while Michael prepares. He takes sugar. I don’t know him. Worked a while together we did for a market research company doing mystery shopping. Units of flesh in the gig economy. He dressed sharp casual, placed a high premium on personal hygiene. Had girlfriends. Nothing wrong about him.
Snaps his rifle long and deadly. Radiating calm in the aesthetic of a personal force. The tip of his tongue delicately held between the straight white lines of his teeth. His breath so steady it hurts to hear it.
“Am I your witness?”
Words of lesser wisdom fall from my mouth… my mum will turn seventy this year.
There is a municipal park, as I speak women walking dogs among the stillness of trees and longer blades of grass lilting in the breeze. No warning for what is coming.
“Your laptop, boot it – This Is Love, PJ Harvey.”
I’m shaking as he steps onto my cluttered neglected bit of balcony. This Is Love… Let my tears fall unimpeded. I wipe my wet nostrils on the sleeve of my shirt.
“Your witness, Michael?”
He sights on the busy street market – and this makes sense – where my friend, Sally, the flower lady, has a stall.
I remember now when he was here. My birthday and an open invitation at work. Michael was quiet, couldn’t keep his eyes off Rebecca. Didn’t stay long. Wasn’t missed.
“Or a victim?”
I could rush him. Take both of us to certain death. Make something of my life. This Is Love.
“Leave, Tommy. Close the door. Mind how you go.” On the landing it is cold. No shoes on my feet. I think I’m waiting for… the report. The righting of wrongs in this world that only he knows the truth about. The sound of the first shot. There will be no warning.
Bio:
David’s stories have appeared in print and online at Duality Books, Spillwords Press, Impspired Magazine. His plays include, I’m Still Here, performed live on Resonance 104.4FM Radio, and Shinwell: An Extra Break For Breakfast, published by Impspired Books. He adapted and directed his story, Into the Breach, as a short film for the Rise of The Resistance festival, screened at Bloomsbury Theatre and Wellcome Collection. A founder member of the punk band Vee V V (Edils Records), David finds his stories when he’s out and about, or they find him. He lives in South London.
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