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LITERARY FICTIOn
It’s Only Me
“Two mugs on the draining board, ring D underlined twice, and a voicemail saying nothing important, I just wanted to hear you.”
The key was under the geraniums where I told her a hundred times not to leave it because anyone could come up those stairs anyone at all and lift the pot and let themselves in and take the telly and the good cups and her purse and her and she said who would want me Daniel who on earth would want any of it and laughed that laugh of hers that went down at the end like a stair you miss in the dark and the geraniums are dead now brown and gone to paper and the key was still there cold and a bit wet from the rain and I stood on the landing holding it longer than anyone needs to hold a key because once it went in the door I would be in the flat and once I was in the flat she would not be and those are two different things I found out two completely different things the knowing and the being in it the heating was on nobody had thought to turn the heating off and the radiator under the window was ticking the way it always ticked like something small trying to get out and the flat was warm warm like she had just gone down to the shop for milk and would be back up the stairs any second huffing and saying those stairs those bloody stairs Daniel theyll be the death of me…
