No Encores
One night, an old school-friend turns up on your doorstep. Will he become a cockroach? Brand new flash fiction...
I was knee-deep in Kafka when the doorbell rang, causing me to groan inwardly. The idea of getting out of my comfy seat by the fireplace was unappealing to say the least. Aside from that, I had vowed to finish The Metamorphosis in one sitting, and I was only a few pages from completing that goal. But the doorbell rang again, followed by an urgent knock-knock-knock.
Begrudgingly I closed the book on Kafka’s cockroach and answered the door to find a rather large breathless man sweating cobs on my doorstep. I looked him up and down: thinning hair soggy with September’s finest drizzle; his beard practically growling at me; nineties puffer jacket over a blazer on a t-shirt too small for him; baggy grey trousers punctuated by scuffed Converse shoes – those red things we used to wear back in the day – laces hastily stuffed-in rather than done up. At first I was confused, but then it dawned on me: it was Brian Havcourt, an old school-friend I hadn’t seen for decades.
‘What you doing here?’ I said, forgetting my manners.
‘May I come in?’
‘Sure.’
We went to the front room and sat in the armchairs by the fireplace.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I asked while pouring myself a scotch.
‘No,’ he said with a wave of a hand. ‘You remember the last time we met?’
‘I… I don’t recall, but it must’ve been over thirty years ago?’
‘It was at the school reunion.’
‘Shamone!’ I slapped the table. ‘I remember now. That was a great night – we got hammered. Yeah, didn’t we get really hammered?’ I mused.
Brian’s face was deadly serious. ‘Can you remember our conversation?’
Honestly, I racked my brain but the entire night was a blur. All I could remember was Mary Macdonald accidentally splitting my lip while doing her dance impression of Michael Jackson’s Bad.
‘Let me remind you,’ Brian started, ‘we were discussing superpowers and which one we’d choose if we had the option.’
There certainly was a vague tinkling at the back of my mind. But the memory of that evening was filled with Mary, pie-eyed, punching the air, screeching, ‘…You know it / You know…’ – whack!
‘Allow me to refresh your memory,’ he said. ‘You told me you’d choose immortality because it’d allow you to experience everything, including the collapse of the sun and the eventual end of the universe, and then you’d get to see what comes after the universe. Will there be an encore, I think were your exact words.’
‘That tracks,’ I replied, ‘it’s been a lifelong fantasy. I just want to see what happens in the end, you know, finish the book.’ I looked wistfully into my drink. ‘Fat chance, though. We’re destined to never finish the story.’
Brian’s face lit up. ‘Aha! What if I told you that immortality’s within reach?’
‘I would say you’re mad.’
He sucked the sweat and rain from his hairy top lip. ‘No, sir. Not mad. But genius! You got me thinking that night. Ever since then I’ve spent my life working on it, and today I finally cracked it!’ From his inside pocket he pulled out a small vial of weird purple liquid. ‘This, my old mucker, this is our chance to see it all.’
Now obviously I didn’t believe for one second he’d managed to invent an elixir of life. But he kept going on and on, insisting he’d tested it on a cockroach that lived in his cellar, that he’d been all over the world gathering esoteric knowledge, speaking to renowned scientists, thinkers and gurus, and he was so enthusiastic that I allowed myself to take him seriously.
‘So, you’re immortal right now? I could bash you on the head with a pickaxe and you’ll be fine?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t taken it yet. I wanted to tell you first.’
‘Why? Why on earth me after all these years?’
‘Well, you were the inspiration!’
Before I could say anything or even stop him, he pulled the lid off the vial and downed the contents, then threw the empty receptacle into the fireplace like an old-school Russian.
Reading Kafka all evening had put my mind in that liminal space where anything was possible. I could equally envisage him turning into superman or transforming into a cockroach. Honestly, in that moment, I really thought he was immortal.
Then the light went out of his eyes and he slumped forward like a lifeless puppet. ‘Brian?’ No response. I checked his pulse. Dead. Dead as anything. Found myself crashing back to earth with a pitiful groan, splash landing in a puddle of whiskey.
While waiting for the ambulance, both hands trembling – Brian’s slumped corpse miraculously balanced on the armchair – I managed to squeeze in the final pages of The Metamorphosis. At least that’s one story I can finish within my puny lifetime.
Nice read and a twisting end/conclusion.
Slapping the table and crying, “shamone,” made me laugh out loud!