SWITCH

Val Roberts

It’s getting chilly. I’m tightening my Doctor Who scarf you’d knitted. A slight ripple on the lake’s green surface as though there’s something beneath it. Rotting oak leaves on the ground. Not a sound to be heard. They’d found you face down in the water, pulled out your bloated body. Despite what you might think, I do miss you, Ann.  
            I know I’ve been reminding you that I wanted to visit you in the funeral home, hold your cold fingers in mine. Unrecognisable they’d said so I didn’t go. I wish I had. I told people that I’d wanted to remember your face the way it was the last time I’d seen it, even though it hadn’t looked happy. And you weren’t happy. I know that now.
            But we were happy as teens, weren’t we? We’d sit on this bench, swigging bottles of Gordon’s, skimming salty peanuts across the water. Laughing at the ducks making funny quack sounds. Once we’d gotten older, we’d drifted apart. You’d text me now and then saying, ‘Fancy a Chinese?’ and quite often I’d ignore you. Like I did when you’d asked to meet for a cappuccino at Costa in town. The day before you’d slipped off your shoes, right here. The spot where my feet are now. Where they’d found your empty bottle of Gordon’s on the ground.
            It's spitting rain, Ann. The surface of the lake is rippling as though it’s trying to breathe. Earthy leaves beneath my feet are soggy. I’m leaving in a few minutes. You know I can’t handle death, Ann.
            And I know I’ve been reminding you on this day for the past eight years. Of the time I was banging my fists on our dead dad’s chest, trying to push breath through his blue lips. The day you’d found him, lying there, stiff in his bed. I had no idea what to do, but I’d tried. You were fourteen. A year younger than me. You’d ran to the bottom of the stairs, screaming my name. And I shot up the stairs behind you. His eyes were wide open. Dull. Unblinking.
            I’ll never forget those eyes.