What follows was a 500 word challenge which had to start with the title phrase.
"Two Months
- Was That All"
Two
months, was that all? It felt like a lifetime. And it was a living hell.
All
roads lead to Rome, he read. "What a pile of shite" thought Hamish.
"I mean the road from Braemar to Spittal goes to Spittal and Braemar,
doesn't go anywhere near fucking Rome. Ok, it goes to Aberdeen and Blairgowrie
but neither of them are anywhere near Rome, are they?"
His
mind was wandering all over the place, well, it would do that after being awake
for 3 days straight. Wasn't the first time recently that this had happened, was
becoming all too familiar, a pattern that had been developing for too long now.
He reached for his bottle and drowned another shot of Macallum.
And
as for all the arty farty brigade saying that this was a path he had to travel,
a journey he had to make, what a load of pyscho babbling twaddle and
platitudes. This was no path, no journey, this was a nightmare, this was pain,
this was hell. This is what his life had become.
"Hell"
he said out loud, staring at the logs spitting flames into the night sky. A sky
dotted with lights suspended in the dark. "Aye, when that bugger freezes
over, maybe it'll be over, maybe it won't" He was burbling again, a man
balanced on the edge of life, all hope gone, left alone in isolation and
desperation. He'd stopped working and started drinking, drinking to remember,
drinking to forget, and all the while lost in a world he thought had abandoned
him.
Well,
not the whole world, there was still Poseidon. Good old Poseidon, great
lumbering beast of a dog, who lay now calmly on the grass on the opposite side
of the fire, doleful eyes reflecting the emptiness that consumed Hamish. Ears
pricking up at the sound of Hamish's voice, he raised himself and dropped his
tired body at his masters feet. He too was alone now.
Hamish
stared at the moon till the logs became nothing more than a pile of smouldering
ash. He shivered. "C'mon ya auld bugger. Let's get in afore we freeze oor
nuts aff" Poseidon trotted behind him as he closed the patio doors,
shutting out the world for another night. Poseidon flopped on the rug as Hamish
moulded himself into his seat by the fire. His seat, the one that had always
been his and his alone. No-one, but no-one had been allowed to sit there. The
man of the house's seat, the father's seat, the husband's seat.
As
he stared at the mantelpiece above him he reflected upon the stark reality as
the picture looked down. In 8 weeks, this house has gone from being full of
life with 5 adults and two dogs. And now there was only him and Poseidon and
Macallum. His life had turned full circle since the accident and it would be
some time before it turned again. He reached for the bottle and drained another
shot of Macallum.
©
Fergus Martin
Sept
2014
