Dreams and Nightmares by Ash Fitzsimmons

Author:Ash Fitzsimmons [Fitzsimmons, Ash]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949861136
Publisher: Ash Fitzsimmons
Published: 2019-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

Friday came and went much as the previous days had passed: Amy in the shop, solving problems with a smile; Kip beside her, the devoted apprentice; Arnold at the kitchen table, holding vigil on the old Fringe network; and Seamus lifting the bedroom door to keep it from squealing as he cracked it open every few hours to check on me. With Rigby short on the customary comfort foods like sausage rolls, he brought me an overstuffed bagel sandwich from the bakery down the street, sat beside me on our rumpled bed, and ate with me, all the while suggesting that I at least step onto the landing outside the kitchen door and get a long breath of sea air. “It’s not too hot,” he assured me as he picked our crumbs off the duvet. “Lovely breeze. And if you’re up for a walk, the bakery has these massive cheesecake slices that I’m fairly confident will trigger diabetes if consumed by only one person. For the sake of my continued health, I’m going to need assistance in this endeavor. Interested?”

I smiled but begged off, promising him I’d leave the room eventually. Unconvinced, he tidied up the rubbish and the leavings, kissed my forehead, and left me to my thoughts with a last worried glance.

The light faded toward evening. From behind my closed door, I could hear the rising voices as my companions talked and laughed over each other, the indistinct mumbling of the television, the clatter and banging from the kitchen as someone tried to cook, the blatting of the smoke alarm as the attempt hit a snag. Perhaps they weren’t at peace yet—would we ever be truly at peace, knowing what was out there?—but they had found a comfortable rhythm.

Dinner ended, the voices slowly hushed, and I stared at the ceiling in the pitch blackness as Seamus slipped into the room to crawl into bed beside me. “Hungry?” he asked as he spooned against my back. “There’s loads left to eat, and it’s not all charred.”

I murmured a demurral to the implied suggestion that I leave the room, and soon, Seamus’s breathing slowed behind me, a steady pulse of air on the nape of my neck. Still, I lay awake in the darkness of the bedroom until I was certain that Arnold had retired and the kids had retreated to the ground floor, and then, ever so carefully, I slid out of Seamus’s grasp, plucked my bathrobe from its hook and my wand from the dresser, and tiptoed into the quiet flat.

I felt my way down the corridor with one hand on the wall to guide me, then blinked in the den as my eyes adjusted to the faint yellow light from the streetlamp outside the curtained window. The flickering green indicators of Amy’s cable box and router showed me approximately where the television was, and through the cutout window into the kitchen, I could see the red numbers of the microwave clock. Nearly midnight, and all was still.

Standing

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