DRECK

ASHLEY MANGTANI

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A grey stone building. Six steps up to a black door. Rain. Nobody on them yet.

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A woman in an off-white dress. Both hands round a bunch of freesias. Correction. There is gypsophila in it too. The voice says that one wrong every time.

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Two people on the top step. My hand on your sleeve. Your face turned to the door.

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A carrier bag on a wall. Confetti in a puddle. Four people at the back, one holding a phone up. Correction. Five.

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The function room. Twelve round tables and nine cloths. The carpet is red and gold, and it keeps the smell of whatever happened in here before us, which was a wake. Your mother stands by the door with her bag still on her arm. She kept it there through the meal and the speeches. She has it now, in the home, on the chair beside her.

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Top table. Six place settings. Five chairs at an angle and one straight in. My father’s name card stands against a pint glass. Correction. It is full, and I poured it. Somebody shifted him down before the speeches, and I put him back.

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Us on the floor. Your hand flat on my back. The DJ behind you with his arms crossed. Correction. He is checking his watch. I have written that last part three times now. The song ran four minutes, and we’d asked for the short edit.

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Outside. A chair holds the fire door open. Your uncle with a cigarette. Through the wired glass, lights over an empty floor. Somebody in there was murdering Robbie Williams with his arm round your mother. You said fuck them and lit two. You put your jacket under me, and the hem went grey anyway. We were happy.

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The flash has ruined the photograph. A shape at the left edge that the light never reached. A white patch where it caught the tablecloth instead, shaped like the thing you describe to me at night when I ask what is left. The voice you chose will read this out in our kitchen.

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Your fingers on the car door. Nothing else in the frame.

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Two people on the top step. My hand on your sleeve. Your face turned to me.

Ashley Mangtani is a slipstream writer whose work explores ecological and social collapse, and the roles people inhabit in moments of crisis. His work appears or is forthcoming in Smokelong Quarterly, Strange Horizons, Litro, Washington Square Review, Boudin, Heavy Feather Review, BULL, Expat Press, Thin Skin, HAWKEYE, Mobius, Third Wednesday, Rock Salt, Neon Dystopia, Apocalypse Confidential, and others.