Spirits of treachery, place down your lance and stab me not with your dispersions!
Vile castigations cast with wyvern talon and ruinous slander shall be levelled not at me, but at the very roots of my familial line that affixes me to the ground.
We are out of milk AGAIN!
My cereal must be dry again.
Barren fields, both salted and unturned, may have a noble chance of bearing fruit, but this apartment be hallowed beyond compassion. Lacksome we scratch and scrabble in the dirt for empathy, broken we lay beside the door of the communal bin room.
Verily I trudged from my chambers, and wearily I knew of my fate before the fridge was reached. As if destined for the gallows, I shuffled across our unvacuumed carpet, and with lamentation I reached for the fridge.
Yes, your nine-to-five cyclical servitude to taxation must deem you awake before noon, and yes, the chore wheel has left off grocery shopping as an oversight. But upon the dry crunch of that first muckless weet-bix, upon the desolation of breakfastial rumination that I must now embark upon, I would gladly weep, I would gladly wail and bawl, as if only to dampen that bar of compacted wheat.
What ire have I drawn that encompasses me so. What aspersion filled hatred have you so welled within yourself, bottling it more firmly than your precious marmalade?
There is a deamon of misdeed within this act, a forked tonged creature that twists your words, that begs for me to do the washing even if there are none of my plates, which warps the reality of sight and sound around you
It is a plague, an expanse of unvaulted ideal. I bought the butter for communal use, and I bought the last punnet of strawberries. I did the dusting—and I hasten to add that I wasn’t going through your draws to find where you had hidden your cigarettes—and I alone keep our bookshelves in order.
We must unite against the cracks of dissolution. We must cast away this selfish creature, plundering our kitchen, and then we shall name our shield in veritas. Push forward, stride forward into that good future. Take comradery by its lapels and shake it with impassioned pride.
So where for art thine bottle of milk?
On what corner must I beg so that my fast may be broken gently?
I make coffee as I pen this note and I know that the bitter black of injustice awaits me as the kettle begins its gentle boil.
But I endure.
I refuse to accept disheart and shall purchase a carton with a portion of what I had set aside for rent.
For although I may work no job—and although I had my name removed from the lease, thus causing the landlord to increase the rent as they thought we were considering moving out and wanted to recoup some money while searching for another tenant—I live here too.
Your flat mate,
-Grady
P.S
I’ve taken the last roll toilet paper out with me. The pub has switched to a single ply and I’ll not suffer the squalor of their wrath.
Catch you on Monday.
J. McCray
2023
Sunday Short Stories 