This popped out of my head one day in 2001 when I was living in Japan. I was frustrated by my inability to stop smoking, and how in the grand scheme of things whether or not someone smokes is not really that big a deal.
"Okay, fine!" I said, and grabbed my jacket.
As the door slammed behind me, I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and lit up, pausing only to shove open the gate on my way out the garden.
“Manipulative bitch,” I mumbled to myself while striding down the empty street. She had a nerve, she really did. Talking to me that way. I couldn’t believe it! After all we’d been through together. After all I’d sacrificed for her. I shook my head in disbelief.
“The world is a dark, dark place,” I spat, to no-one in range.
As luck would have it, it was dark, the time being a little before 11 pm. And here was I, yet again, scouring the streets like vermin, searching for scraps, leftovers, of respect. Because that was all it seemed I was worth.
I puffed and raged, raged and puffed, and it wasn’t long before I could feel my anger begin to subside.
At last I came to rest, sitting on the low wall of a churchyard.
It could be worse, I mused, gazing round at the headstones before the church building. I could have croaked. I could have been born in the nineteenth century, kicked the kettle nigh on fifty years ago and now be fodder for maggots and beetles buried six feet under in an old, wet, rot-bitten coffin, grinning through lipless, nicotine-stained teeth.
I blew smoke through my nose. I knew my method of obtaining optimism wasn’t the same as other folk’s, but it seemed to help me feel a little better when I was down.
Then it occurred to me she might have a point. Had I not gotten rat-faced last night I probably wouldn’t have slobbered all over the nearest bit of cream puff I could lay my saliva glands on. Still, one night of debauchery is no excuse for giving up alcohol entirely, now, is it? That’s just ridiculous. Where did she get that Jekyll and Hyde syndrome bollocks from? Hello? She spends too much time reading those magazines, and watching those goddam afternoon TV shows for the dead, or mentally dead, or at least some part of their brain must be dead to sit in all day glued to that fucking box watching people in tall hats show them how to spice their sardines and juice their lemons.
I flicked the stub into the graveyard where it bounced off a headstone sending a satisfying shower of sparks out into the grass.
Then I sighed and sat with my head in my hands.
Perhaps she was right. Maybe I do drink too much. I’m no spring chicken any more, that’s for sure. I patted my paunch. More like a Christmas turkey. All right then, I decided, for the sake of my wife, and my liver, I will give up alcohol for ever. No more nights out with the lads — more quality time at home playing scrabble with her indoors and expanding my intelligence reading, what were those things again, oh yeah, books. And no more hangovers. Thank God! Those are some things I will never miss.
This is it. No more beer. Here begins my NEW LIFE!
That’s when I heard a noise behind me.
It sounded like a sandcastle being kicked over by an old man coughing up his insides.
I turned round. And there, dragging itself out of its grave — the one I’d flicked the cigarette butt at — was a corpse.
I watched it make its progress, myself unable to move a muscle, as the cadaver laid one knee, and then another, on the ground next to its grave, before rising shakily to its feet. Dressed in what had no doubt been its favourite red dress during life, the corpse staggered in my direction. It — she — no, it — was perhaps three years gone. It was hard to gauge, having never actually seen a dead body before, least of all one walking around the land of the living like it owned the place. As she approached me, I saw my unfinished cigarette butt between her teeth.
She stopped just short of the wall, placed one semi-skeletal hand on the small of her back, used the other to remove the cigarette from her mouth, leaned back and disgorged a terrible, lung-rattling cough up into the starlit sky. Then she looked at me.
I tried to think of something to say, but could not.
“Fancy a drink, deary?” she spluttered.
“A-All right,” I replied, clearing my throat. “Think I could use one.”
We went to the Ship and Anchor pub, just down from the church and on the left.
It crossed my mind how churches and pubs had been common features of towns and cities throughout the ages, but failed to make any other connection. Perhaps people needed God and beer.
She was slow at walking. Bits of her kept dropping off as we made our way downhill. As we passed the opening to the park, a couple of stray dogs threatened to take her leg off. A few people stopped and stared. One woman screamed. Someone, amusingly, shouted that we should call for an ambulance.
We sat at the bar, which had quickly emptied when we’d opened the door.
“What’ll it be?” asked Mick, glancing sideways at the woman-corpse-thing.
“I’ll have a large whatever comes to hand first,” I said.
“And for the,” he paused, “lady?”
“A G and T, my darling,” the corpse said, grinning. “Ice but no lemon, thank you.”
We consumed our drinks. I drank mine, she spilt hers everywhere. Mick wiped the bar.
Suddenly the door burst open. I turned round and saw my wife standing there, her face full of love and forgiveness. “Danny!” she cried, and ran towards me. “I’m sorry! I should never have told you how to live your life. Please come home, I hate it when we fight. I’ve got something for you.”
She smiled that smile, and gave me a huge hug.
I'd tried to block her view, but she saw over my shoulder.
“Who’s THAT!” she yelled, jumping back, her face drained of blood.
I swallowed and shrugged. “I dunno. Just some broad I gave a cigarette.”
This and other daft stories and poems will appear in the anthology 'Hidden In The Old Stone Wall' coming soon (hopefully).
© Chris R Young 2021
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