Black and Blue

Charlie looked out of the window and scowled at the scene that lay beyond the confines of his house. This was a habit. All of it was a habit. That was all he had left to him these days. Standing upon the ramparts of his castle and taking stock of the hostile world beyond. If he’d cared, he’d stop this nonsense once and for all. But Charlie was past caring and had been for some while.

The day was a fresh, spring day. A coat on, coat off and coat back on kind of day. Like so much of the world, it couldn’t make its mind up. A half-arsed, intrusive compromise. Charlie despaired at this ridiculous state of affairs. So much undone. There was only one conclusion that made sense.

His breakfast was another habit that he could have done without. Tea. Black due to a lack of milk. Another job half done and he was in two minds as to whether he should buy any more milk. Didn’t see the point. Toast with the last of the butter. The toast was overdone. Charlie left the heat setting where it was. The toaster had a mind of its own. The next slice would be an anaemic travesty whatever the setting.

He wore a shirt under the coat he threw on impatiently. Strode from his house with a sense of purpose that he had lacked since his life took a hard turn for the worst. Another habit he had no interest in changing. Off he went into a world of greys. Seldom were there blacks or white. That certainty would be too much to ask. Everything faded to grey in the end.

Movement in his peripheral vision hinted at an intrusive greeting. Charlie was adept at a weaponised ignorance, but still this did not stop the waving and cheery words. Some people never took the hint.

Although old, Charlie was not ancient. The day was far from cold, but still he huddled against it and in that gesture of tired defiance he was diminished somehow. His incongruity was his shield. Head lowered, but not down, he eyed the pavement. This territory had a familiarity that held something akin to comfort to it. High above, white clouds danced in a blue sky vying for the old man’s attention. He would not look upon them. For Charlie, there was no blue because there was no sky. All the colour in the world had bled out in a hospital room as he held a cold grey alien hand. Stolen. All of it stolen in a moment of malice that Charlie could not comprehend even now, two years after everything was taken from him.

The local shop was convenient only in its proximity. He blew out a hard breath and braced himself for what was to come as he stood in the doorway to one of many personal hells. A young man blustered past, in a rush to nowhere. The rush was all that was important.

“Careful where you’re going!” Charlie barked.

“Whatever!” the boy said as he pulled his hood up and trotted off to make trouble elsewhere.

Charlie bustled into the store before any more calamity could occur. Tugging at a basket, it caught against the baskets under it and Charlie grizzled at the ignominy of being challenged by a simple inanimate object. He’d been a force to be reckoned with once. A colourful character was what they said. Now he was a pale, monochrome imitation of what once was. Spent all the way to an overdraft he had no intention of repaying.

The shelves either side of him were a foreign language that he was too old to learn. Nothing stood out. Somewhere deep down, this amused him. All the efforts of the marketeers had been washed out until all that was left were unremarkable tins of processed food that held little appeal. He was losing weight. He only knew this as he’d had to make another hole in his belt to prevent his trousers falling down. The need for the hole had puzzled him. It made no sense, but little did these days.

A feeling of claustrophobia tickled him coldly. Trapped in a rat run. Avoiding the rats. The off white tiles were scuffed and worn. The shop needed a refit. Replacing like for like as though nothing ever changed. Everything changed like it or not. People rose and then they fell.

The basket was half full when he got to the checkout. He noted shoppers at screens where no assistant dwelt. Didn’t envy them their trip into an unknown that wouldn’t end well. Didn’t envy his own plight as the woman at the till greeted him cheerily.

“Hello!” she said, grinning at him as though he were a toddler.

He nodded and unloaded the basket of his provisions. There was milk there. Changing the list wasn’t something he was prepared to do right now. Didn’t see the point.

“Have you got a bag?” she asked him.

“No,” he replied.

“Oh,” she said, pausing as though this were a problem, “do you want one?”

“Of course I do,” he told her.

She frowned now.

He outfrowned her. Knew she was going to charge him for a bag for life. Another bad idea that needled him. His life was constant pins and needles these days.

He filled the bag.

“That’ll be nine thirty four,” she told him.

There was another frown when he held out a ten pound note.

“Do you have a loyalty card?” she asked him.

He scoffed, “why would I?”

“There’s no need to be rude,” she told him.

He held her gaze then, “this is not me being rude.”

She shrank from the prospect of finding out how rude Charlie could be. He thanked her for the change and left with his bag for life filled with what he hoped would be the last provisions he would need.

The warm spring day eluded Charlie. He carried with him the same scuffed and worn stage set wherever he went and had no desire to see beyond. He felt the presence of the world now though and it made him feel ever so tired. As he walked away from the shop, the respite of the alley at its side was too appealing to deny. He stepped away from the pavement and leant with his back against the wall to get his breath back. He felt dizzied by his time in the shop. All the energy had left him. Getting old was a curse that he would not wish upon anyone, least of all himself.

Closing his eyes he attempted to compose himself. Suddenly, his house felt far away.

“Not here,” he whispered to himself.

Then he heard a sound that made no sense at all. This must be what happens, he thought to himself. Taking leave of his senses. Hearing things that weren’t there. As though in answer, there it was again; a sound that did not belong. Fitting, he thought as he felt his own sense of unbelonging wrapping itself around a heart made redundant.

Distracted from the moment he was having, he pushed himself from the wall and walked further down the alley. There was a rustling sound now. Coming from the large metal bin commercial premises usually had lurking in the background. He turned his ear towards the bin.

More rustling.

He lifted the rubber lid and heard the nonsensical sound that now made a little more sense as he peered into the bin.

Yip! Yip!

There in the bin was a bedraggled pup. Looking up at Charlie with what amounted to a hopeful smile.

“You’re wasting your time, dog.”

Yip! Yip!

Despite himself Charlie lifted the pup from the bin. This was the physical first contact he’d had with another living being since his world was drained of all meaning and he’d begun to suffocate. The puppy fixed him with its big eyes as he examined it. He told himself he was checking it over for injury. The pup allowed this. Relaxed in his hands. When it deemed the visual examination over it licked his nose.

“We’ll have none of that!” Charlie barked, but he didn’t move the little dog away from his face. As it continued to caress the old man’s nose and cheeks it were as though it were attempting to paint a smile on his features. And the idea of a smile was there for a fleeting moment. Charlie didn’t know it yet, but he experienced colour for the first time since it happened as the little dog attempted to make friends. The pup conveyed a feeling that reached out to memories long since buried under this age of sorrow.

Charlie sighed, a decision had been made and it wasn’t entirely of his making. He begrudged the dog its tiny life as he placed it in the folds of his coat and made his way back to the store. Dog would need to eat. The naming of Dog occurred in this acknowledgement of necessity. A silent moment of change that went unremarked as so much of life does.

As he carried out his mission, Charlie moved more swiftly. Here was another change born of purpose. At the till, the same woman eyed him balefully as she swung two tins of dog food over glass to illicit an annoying beep. Her expression softened as Charlie paid. This puzzled him and made him uncomfortable.

As she passed him his change she leant forward and whispered conspiratorially, “we don’t allow dogs in the store, but your secret’s safe with me.”

He nodded in response. Old, unused cogs awakened and ground around dry axles. These unexpected movements hurt. Charlie ached as he left the shop. The warmth of Dog an unheeded salve to a pain he’d carried for far too long.

Outside, the cool spring air greeted Charlie’s face and he felt something else he’d not felt in this solitary life of his. A warmth separating itself from the central glow of Dog.

“You little bugger,” Charlie griped softly.

In response, Dog nuzzled him and let forth a contented sigh. His large eyes seemed to sag and then the lids closed ever so slowly. By the time the lights were out, Dog was soundly asleep. Charlie envied the mite that. Sleep was a sparring partner of the old.

Nearing home, Mrs Williams waved cheerily, “Hello Charlie! What you got there!?”

“Nothing!” his voice betrayed him, going up an octave in unexpected panic. Picking up his step he hurried to the door and was safely ensconced in his house before his neighbour could doorstep him. All the same, he sensed her shadow at the door as he retreated to the kitchen, but had the sense not to linger or look over his shoulder.

Placing his newly purchased bag for life on the kitchen table he opened his coat. The pee was cold now. The sensation was almost welcome. A reminder of how life cooled in its latter years.

The first problem Charlie needed to address was Dog. He looked down at him and didn’t quite know what to do. This would become a familiar feeling. He looked from Dog to the kitchen and saw nothing of use. He plodded into the living room with the express wish of offloading himself of this furry burden. This intent went further than the present. As far as Charlie was concerned, Dog was not staying. He wasn’t even a guest in the house.

On the sofa were propped two cushions. One would do. The other was off limits. Gwyn had embroidered that cushion. The other was just a cushion. Charlie leant over and tipped the cushion over flat and placed Dog upon it with a gentle care that seemed incongruous with the big, craggy man who had seen too much of life and was tired of it all.

As Charlie straightened, Dog awoke and looked up from his makeshift bed. Now the pup was appraising the man. They stayed like that. Dog taking his time. Something passed between them then. A hint of something that might be. Then Dog got up and walked the length of the sofa with solemn purpose. He sniffed at Gwyn’s cushion and then sat before it, lifted his head and howled a tiny howl that spoke more words than language could ever muster.

Something moved within Charlie and for the first time since Gwyn left him, he felt colour. The prism of his heart listened to the light in Dog and opened it out within Charlie. He could not move or speak as Dog nudged the cushion over, climbed onto it and circled three times before laying upon the unembroidered side.

No! This thought was loud and clear within Charlie. He needed to stop this.

Dog looked up at him with his big puppy eyes and it were as though he’d heard that no.

Yip! There was a defiance in the small dog that stopped Charlie in his tracks. A surefootedness that Charlie had only ever encountered in one person in his life.

The truth in that moment was that Charlie did not know what to do. It had been that way once before. Shaking his head, he left the room and headed upstairs to change his wet shirt. He held it to the light, “what am I doing?” he asked himself as he looked at the yellow stain. Miracles came in all shapes and sizes. Charlie’s came in the form of dog pee. This was when he began to see colour in the world again.

Once dressed, Charlie took a moment to look out of the bedroom window. Mrs Williams was still pottering out in her garden. The woman was a nosey menace. Her tending to the garden was cover for her snooping. She’d know what to do though. Right now, she was a necessary evil.

As he headed downstairs, Charlie smelt his next colour before he ever saw it. Entering the living room, he was greeted by a mortified Dog guarding the scene of the crime. Laying before a huge turd that could not possibly have come from the little dog. He was trying to cover his face with his oversized paws to hide his shame. Whimpering in fear as Charlie looked down upon him.

There was a moment when Charlie saw his next colour. Red did not fit here though. However angry he was, it wasn’t Dog’s fault. He scooped the pup up, “my fault, Dog. I’m new to all this…” he paused at the sound of his own voice. Changed tack, “oh no you don’t! You’re not getting me like that. You can’t. This isn’t…”

Leaving words unsaid, he carried Dog to the kitchen. Found newspaper and laid sheets of it by the back door, “you do your business here, OK?”

He shut Dog in the kitchen whilst he cleaned up the mess. Trying not to react to the scratching and whimpering at the door.

“Come on,” he said to Dog as he opened the back door and disposed of the mess. The pup bounded across the grass. Sniffing along the fence and pausing here and there to mark his territory, “that’s right, good dog,” Charlie told Dog as he opened the shed. Barely aware that he was encouraging Dog to make the garden his own.

“This’ll do,” he told Dog as he retrieved a length of rope. He shooed the pup out and took a seat on the garden bench as he fashioned a makeshift lead. Charlie and the bench had been strangers. There were no recriminations as they became reacquainted.

Dog ran around the lawn in figures of eight until he tired of the game. Rolling on his back in front of Charlie he exposed his round little belly. Charlie bent forward and absently stroked Dog for the first time, “hungry?” he asked.

Yip!

“I suppose I’d best feed you before…” again the sentence wasn’t finished.

Dog ate half a tin of dog food from a breakfast bowl Charlie had never cared for. When he was done, Charlie brandished the lead and felt something like betrayal as he placed the loop around the little dog’s neck. A hangman facing innocence but carrying on with the job in hand.

Pausing at the door, man and dog exchanged a look. There was change on the other side of that door. They both knew it. Two beings at opposite ends of their lives. Charlie shuddered, felt Dog looking at him, “someone walked over my grave,” he told the curious pup.

Outside, as he closed the door on his empty house, the old man looked up at a sky he’d resented for far too long and lost himself in an endless blue that matched the colour of his eyes. Eyes wet with a release he did not know possible.

On the other side of the road, Mrs Williams watched Charlie and waited. Somehow she knew he was going to cross that road. Sometimes people know. They know that something is coming and nothing will ever be the same again. As for the outcome of that change. Well, that’s only ever known in the living of it.