Alors, Et Toi? is a quarterly magazine of the arts, digitally published on the world wide web.
Our Partners
Slamming Every Door
by Sharon Harriot
He’d placed the box of tissues within reach on the nightstand. Cling film carefully wrapped his tuna and crackers, and the TV was muted, sending shadows chasing up the wall behind him. He sat on his rumpled bed with his pants round his ankles, distracted by a sharp pain in his chest.
He fell back and felt the scratch of Digestive crumbs on his left ear. The smell of tuna mingled with the sickly aroma he’d smelt all day. He gazed at the light flickering on the ceiling, the room dimming and brightening.
He’d drawn near everything that was familiar to him, cultivating some semblance of contentment. The Woolworths bag by his feet held snotty tissues, biscuit packets and the remains of meals he couldn’t finish. The bags that lined the stairs contained clothes and empty toilet rolls. He’d been careful with the bags in the bathroom; since the toilet was full to the brim he’d learned to use bags without holes.
He hadn’t been able to keep the sound though, and his memory of it was fading. Each room of the house seemed darker now she’d gone. With her shadow blanketing the house, he wasn’t surprised. She’d always said she’d watch over him, ‘Even in death, boy!’
He woke every morning at six, without the screech of an alarm clock. When his mother was alive, while emptying his bladder he would smell the waft of toast and know that an egg was boiling in a pan. No such thing had greeted his nostrils for a month now, and he’d masked other smells with Haze and Fabreeze on the carpets.
When he’d realized she was dead he’d slammed shut every door in the house; she’d hated noise. He only used three rooms anyway. He took food from the kitchen to eat in his bedroom. Something mother would never have approved of. She’d always made him sit at the wooden table. He’d chew, staring at the green paint. It was cracked with age, just like the chairs. Or, he’d pick out shapes in the grease around cooker.
He actually liked watching TV while he ate. He’d never been able to watch what he wanted before. The remote control was kept in a little basket by her chair. He was never allowed to touch the basket as it had her books and magazines in it.
The only time he used the bathroom was to piss and defecate. She was no longer there to look at his fingernails or behind his ears. She no longer had him vacuuming at three in the morning. ‘No need to live in a hovel!’ He remembered his cheek burning as she left him to stand by his bed.
He lived on small pleasures, sometimes passing whole evenings watching for women walking down the street. It wasn’t a busy road, but there was a 7/11 store on the corner. He watched as some struggled with heavy bags, shifting the weight from hand to hand. His mother had been sensible; she’d always used a shopping trolley. The green and blue tartan bag would disappear up the road every day on some errand or other. She'd called him a freak and never let him out of the house. Not that he wanted to leave anyway. People would look at him.
Crumbs clung to his greasy salt and pepper hair and clumped to his beard. His vacant eyes reflected the light from the noiseless TV set perched on cardboard boxes in the center of the room. He was as silent as his mother downstairs, behind the door slammed shut.
About The Author
Sharon Harriot is London born and bred, and has since written for both Magazines and Newspapers. She’s spent the last ten years in PR writing press releases on technology, gizmos and gadgets. After taking a couple of creative writing courses she discovered EditRed, where short fiction and poetry has been falling out of her ever since! January 2007 saw the launch of her Audiobook Reviews Blog at Audiogeist as well as writing short Blogs on MySpace at myspace.com/cravingaudio.