Shortlisted: ‘Red’ by Aoife Hargadon

Red.
Red is everywhere.
There’s probably a reason why red is the colour of lust and love, but I don’t get it. When I see red, I think of inflammation, swelling, and period blood.
I think of death and bloody slabs of meat.
Animals that were once running around are now staining the butcher’s knife.
I see red roses scattered on a coffin.
I see FINAL NOTICE for eviction in bold on an envelope.
Nowhere, in this sea of red on Valentine’s Day, do I see love.
That’s just my humble opinion and no one cares for my humble opinion.
It’s a world of opinions and theories, deconstructions, and analysis.
All for what?
A betterment of our world. Do you see a better world?
Enough already, I hear you.
I’ll get to the point.
Remember the colour red, won’t you?

*

Staying up late was my new mode of survival. These were such beautiful hours where I had the world to myself: the stars and the moon; a cup of tea and the kettle; the couch and the bed. Then, after watching an unhealthy amount of Netflix and researching the lead actress’s history of substance abuse, I drifted off to sleep. Most times I’d hear the morning traffic on the road outside as I nodded, praying for sleep to overtake me and keep me as long as it could. But I woke the same way, almost every single morning, to my dad shouting and roaring. As a child, I remember innocently asking, “Daddy, what are you angry about? You just woke up”. I had barely finished speaking before I felt a heavy clap on my back, and I threw up my breakfast. My mum moved me out of the way to take his bowl off the table, my brothers and sister keeping their eyes fixed on the floor.

The initial shock kept the tears from streaming as I watched the dog lick my Ready Brek off the floor.

So now, at twenty years old, I wasn’t going to partake in the same old charade. As I heard him shout and spit, I stared at the withered roses beside my bed and wondered what it would be like to draw blood. As he hammered on the kitchen table, I wondered what it would be like to fire one gunshot through his heart. As he smashed yet another cereal bowl, I wondered what it would be like to smash his skull, over and over. A strange energy pulsated through my body when I started to think about physically killing the old man. I rolled over on my back, slowly parting my thighs and slipped two fingers inside myself. The increased shouting only intensified the waves of energy that coursed through every vein in my body, and I thrust harder while stroking myself, lifting off the bed in pleasure at the thought of wielding death over the decrepit old fool. I picture taking out the carving knife my mother uses to slice the Sunday roast and holding it up to the light, right before I plunge it into his heart.

A sensation emanates from between my legs, and I feel a warm liquid trickle between my fingertips. No sooner have I orgasmed than I hear a loud crash coming from the kitchen and my mother screaming. I pull up my knickers and pyjama bottoms and rush into the kitchen to see my mum kneeling on the floor, picking up shards of glass from the broken sugar bowl on the ground: a wedding present.

“Fucking shut up, will you?”, he roars as my mum kneels amongst the broken glass, half sobbing and muttering to herself.

I see her pressing the glass in the palm of her hand and piercing her skin, the blood staining the clear crystal, looking almost iridescent in the morning light. I look up and her eyes are closed; I wonder if she is imagining her own death or his. I turn and see the light flickering in front of the sacred heart picture; the flaming heart encircled by a crown of thorns, surmounted by a cross, and bleeding. I spit in its direction and shout “Fool!”. I close my eyes and imagine the soldier thrusting the lance into Jesus's side and feel another sexual impulse.

“How dare you!”
I see my father charging at me.

I hate even calling him that: father. He’s neither father, man nor human. I don’t know what he is, but I guess I’ll figure this detail out the moment I take his life.

Here he comes, charging, as if I’m the red cloth and he’s the bull. He takes a swipe at me, but I swerve to the right and he ends up punching the chair behind me. I smile as I stand up and face him, ready to take whatever violence he has in reserve. Just as he takes a step, the doorbell rings and I freeze. The same thoughts run through my mind as they always do when the doorbell rings: How long were they there? How much did they hear? Will they think we’re all mad?

My mum wipes her face and straightens herself out, mock smiling and straightening her hair: the same thing she has done a million times before. She leaves the room and I follow after, glancing back at the red cushion on the couch.

No-one would even notice the blood if he bled out right there, I thought to myself.

Of course it’s the priest at the door, another man I’ve to call ‘Father’, another man I’ve to pretend to pay reverence to. Father at home, father in church and father in heaven; all demanding worship at the foot of the cross. A man who dies for our sins and demands people to kneel in worship at his feet in return and proclaim him as King.

I could see his black through the glass in the door, this priest, our ‘Father’. “Fool”, I whisper as my mum opens the door.

I divert into my bedroom and lie on my bed, my fists clenched and my breathing heavy. I replay the images in my head: the broken glass, my mum’s bloody hands and my father standing over her, snarling and gnashing his teeth.

“If this was the Bible, he would have been struck down by now”.

God knows the old goat was afraid of dying. When he had a minor brush with death in a farming accident last year, he wept like a baby and cried that he would have suffered for years in purgatory had he died that time. One morning, he wasn’t paying attention when driving the tractor and veered across the main road, almost sacrificing a father and son. This was a problem of his, never watching where he was going. But his resolve to amend his past transgressions was short-lived and, if anything, he felt more untouchable after surviving it. He felt like he was some sort of chosen one, chosen to survive for a greater purpose.

I tossed over and back on the bed in frustration as I heard my mum discuss the parish notices for the week ahead and who was on the rota for reading this weekend.

The whole subservience and ‘Yes, Father’ made me roll my eyes so far back in my head, that anyone would walk in and think I was possessed by the devil.

“There are plenty of people possessed by the devil alright”, I mused, “but I’m not one of them. I’m possessed by myself, and that’s something much worse”.

*

Nothing appealed on Netflix tonight. Nothing appealed anymore. My headphones lay unused for over a month, and my appetite for listening to anyone’s voice was waning each day. I lay there, still as a corpse, breathing in the peace and silence that my father afforded me through his need to sleep over twelve hours. As I stared at the ceiling, I noticed a spider in her web in the corner and a helpless fly caught in her trap. Normally I would run to grab the sweeping brush and free the innocent fly before the spider could make a meal of her prey, her movements so clinical and terrifying. But on this occasion, I found this truer to life and more entertaining than anything Netflix could proffer. I writhed on the bed with excitement as I imagined the fly struggling in vain, knowing it couldn’t free itself from the sticky residue of the web. I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs in pleasure as I watched the spider move in on the fly, terrifyingly slow at first, then suddenly attacking the helpless housefly. The fly is subdued and killed with one deadly bite and within seconds, the spider has had her victim mummified. I held out my hands and slowly moved my fingers across the desk, singing with a sly grin.

“Incy Wincy spider climbed up the waterspout, Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
And Incy Wincy spider climbed up the spout again”.

“You’re going to dry up all the rain around here very soon; no more waiting”. *

I was first up the next morning. The early shift at work is my favourite; it means I get out of the house before the fireworks go off. I love this time: early morning, late night. Everything is so still and quiet. The only people on the road are nurses on their way home from the night shift or early morning commuters who couldn’t get a job closer to home. The birds are up rehearsing their dawn chorus; the lambs still nuzzling into their mum’s side. For a brief moment, you forget that any badness exists in the world. Before I close out the door, the mirage is spoiled. I hear his loud snoring coming from the bedroom and the rustling and kicking of the bedpost. If such a man can be so violent when awake, it’s of no surprise that he exposes it even in slumber. I turn the key in the car and set off before anyone awakes. On my journey, I see a dead cat on the road, a fresh carcass for the more powerful to swoop down on. Two crows are already feasting on the belly. I slow down and watch as these two black surgeons meticulously dissect the remains of this once fearless and skilled predator. I think of the black spider from the night before, now feasting on the remains of her victim. In this instant, a wave of lustful energy flows through my body, and I feel to get down on my hands and knees myself and feast on death. But alas, a car comes along and beeps incessantly. I stare at them for a few seconds, wondering. I think the better of it, get into my car and run over the two feeding birds.

Work is mundane at the best of times. The only thrill you experience working on a deli counter comes from using sharp knives to break through the crust of bread and chicken fillet that people count as nutrition these days. I often peer out over the top of the counter and coldly eye up the men I see who resemble my father; helpless, greedy, useless excuses, the only thing qualifying them as men was their genitalia.

The ones who decline to use manners and swipe their food from me like I was invisible are the ones I fantasise about maiming and killing the most; carving open their stomach and leaving them on a clifftop like a sacrifice: a poor sacrifice and watching the birds of the air make a meal of their wretched organs.

“Anna, snap out of it. We need two trays of rolls and a tray of rashers on. Pronto!”.

This was starting to happen more often, this daydreaming. I used to be really good at my job, the best in fact. But in recent weeks I realised there was no point in being good at something you hated. Spending your days feeding the overweight and the obese; the people who were too lazy and too unimaginative to create even a simple sandwich.

No.

I didn’t care about this anymore. As soon as three o ‘clock struck, I was on my way out the door. As I grabbed the door handle, I felt a stinging pain in my hand and looked down to see blood coming from a cut across the palm of my right hand. There was a red stain on the handle. I squeezed harder and let the blood leave its mark. The next time blood would be spilt, it would not be my own.

*
The door was already open when I arrived home; clothes pegs scattered all over the hall floor.

“Mum”, I shouted out, as I crept towards the sitting room door. I touched the radiator, and it was ice cold. Mum always had the fire on before eight every morning; the smoke could be seen rising from the chimney before anyone else’s in the parish.

But not today.

I sidled towards the sitting room, squeezing on the palm of my hand as I moved closer to the door.

The first thing I noticed was the red on the walls. I glanced to my right and saw him lying on the floor. He was still breathing, but only just. I screamed for my mother, fearing a madman had entered the home and was still at large. She walked in, draped in bloody threads and smiling.

“I left the final one for you”, she said as she nodded towards the knife. “I felt you deserved it more than me”.

I looked at the carving knife lying on the side counter, completely covered in dark blood, dripping down the front of the presses and onto the floor. As I looked at my father, barely able to breathe, let alone ask for help, I tried to muster some pity for him. Then I thought of the spider as it poisoned the fly and the crows feasting on the lifeless cat and I thought: this is what happens when you don’t watch where you’re going.

With that, I lifted the knife and plunged it into his heart, the blood squelching as I drove it in. I watched as his eyes widened and his face fell to one side. I have never felt anything close to the power I felt at that moment. l dipped my hands into his blood and watched it mingle with mine.

There he was: lifeless, bloodless, and soulless.

Both of us worked in silence, smearing the walls from top to bottom in his blood, never looking at each other once.

No more broken glass, I thought, as I licked my fingers.