Gunner by Beach T.J

Author:Beach, T.J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: T.J. Beach Writes
Published: 2022-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Hollins experimented with four different remote controls until he managed to get pictures on the TV.

He fixed his eyes on the screen.

Debbie came out fifteen minutes later and flopped onto the other end of the couch, red in the face but with none of the usual after-phone-love serenity. “What are we watching?”

Hollins had nothing to offer.

It might have been a mystery, superheroes or a chick flick for all he’d taken in.

She got up. “I can’t watch telly. I can’t concentrate.”

Precisely Hollins’ assessment.

“Let’s drink Matt’s scotch.” She went to the liquor cabinet, pulled out a bottle and two shot glasses, plonked herself on the settee, but bounced straight up. “I can’t sit here. Too stuffy. We’ll wake up the kids. Outside.”

“Flies?” Hollins protested.

“They’re better at night. It’s the mozzies you have to worry about and the March Flies.”

“The what?”

Debbie deposited the bottle on the dining table for a moment while she made a gap between her thumb and fingers a couple of inches wide. “About that size. They look like regular flies. You’ll know about it if one bites you, but they’re really slow. You can usually get them when they land on you.”

Terrific.

Opening the sliding door to the deck set off a blast of bird calls that rattled the roof tiles. Another reminder he wasn’t in Essex anymore. No melodic chorus of chirrups and warbles from wrens and robins wishing each other goodnight — a full-on bar brawl. A raucous exchange of squawks that set off a strident siren like the teacher restoring order co-co-co-ka-ka-ka rising to an emphatic KAR-KAR-KAR.

“What the hell was that?” Hollins asked.

“A kookaburra.”

“I thought they were supposed to sit in the old gum tree and laugh?”

“Whatever.” Debbie slapped her neck. “I’ll get the bug spray.”

Hollins stretched himself on his lounger and took in the night, deliciously cool after the heat of the day with a zephyr wafting the spicy eucalyptus fragrance of the Australian bush.

Debbie sprayed every inch of her body not covered in fabric and handed the can to Hollins while she filled both shot glasses.

When Hollins had sprayed himself, surrounding them both in clouds of acrid chemical fumes, they clinked glasses and drank.

Debbie looked at her phone.

“Too soon,” Hollins said. “You can’t call them every five minutes.”

“Once an hour?”

“Okay.”

They drank some more.

Until Hollins couldn’t take any more thoughts about families near and far.

“So,” he said. “I stuck it for a couple of days before I decided I couldn’t sit on my ass waiting for shoes to drop.”

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