Half-Past Tomorrow by Chris McGeorge

Author:Chris McGeorge [McGeorge, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409187608
Published: 2021-08-04T22:00:00+00:00

02.00

The Present, Retold

00.00 (Redux)

Colm MacArthur

Monday 15 February 2021

4.48 p.m.

He slammed the door to Route One, backing himself up against it and having to fight not to collapse with relief. He had run all the way. Must have been miles.

His favourite Chester-Le-Street bar was starting to warm up for the evening, with the music a little louder than usual, and the place a little more occupied. However, Colm’s sudden and loud appearance was still enough to get everyone to stop their conversations and look around at him.

Every soul in this bar would know he had just arrived. It would be ingrained in their memory. Ol’ Colm making his grand entrance. Even the faces he didn’t know (of which there actually were a few) would recall the grizzled, hairy, sweaty brute barrelling in.

He wasn’t exactly being smart about this. But the bar called to him – it always did. And he needed a drink. Hell, if there was anyone in the universe who needed a drink right now, it was him. He took off his outer layers and hung them up by the door.

He was physically shaking. His skin was simultaneously burning hot and icy cold – it was odd how those two states felt the same. His lungs were pulling in air and unable to expel it fast enough, giving him the feeling that he was constantly in motion while being completely still. He existed between everything.

The rabble of faces in the dark bar soon lost interest, going back to their gossip, and their drinks, and their floaty worries, and Colm did his best to casually sidle up to the bright red bar he knew so well. He found his home, and his balance, on the same stool he had sat on ever since he had first found this place.

‘Rough day, Colm?’ Margaret said, coming over. She was the proprietor of the place and was older than the décor suggested. Sometimes he thought of her as his mother figure, even though his mother was still very much alive.

Colm was surprised to find out that he could speak, even if the noises he made did come out in thick chunky rasps. ‘I need my usual.’

‘Usual classy or usual cheap?’

Colm got out his wallet and opened it. He already knew he wouldn’t find much in there. How had all that money gone already? ‘Cheap.’

Margaret pulled him a pint, regarding him all the time she did with the cold judgemental eye of a matriarch. Colm found himself shrinking under her gaze; could she see what was troubling him? What he’d just run away from?

He tried to act casual – running his hand across his scraggly beard, which had seemed to grow since he had last checked. When had he last checked? He couldn’t remember.

Margaret placed the pint in front of him. ‘Didn’t think you’d be in so early today. Thought you might be drinking up at Caliente’s place.’

‘What?’ Colm said, shaking so much he couldn’t pick up his glass. ‘No. I haven’t seen him all day.

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