Modern Flash Fiction

His little finger had been lost on one of those nights. Scott didn’t remember the injury, just the blood. He remembered the hospital. Stitches. A tube down the gullet. Stomach pumped for the booze. Head rocking side to side. In and out. Pain. Tired nurses, unimpressed doctors. The stitches were neat and the scarring small, but where his little finger used to be there was now just a rise of flesh that more closely resembled a protuberant bone than anything else. It had been one of those nights. Years ago now. The nubbin of pinkie a reminder. A war wound.

He opened another bottle of Spanish lager. They were light. Refreshing. Didn’t smash you in the face the same way as the harder stuff. He remembered drinking them in Xante with Vicky. All inclusive package. 33 degrees Celsius and cloudless all week. Endless bottles of beer but served ice cold and with a lime wedge in the top. Vicky went a gorgeous golden brown in her bikini. She would read her magazines and he would listen to his music; a decidedly late 90’s UK indie selection of The Stone Roses, Oasis, Suede. He was never really big into Blur but sometimes he would stick on The Great Escape as it felt fitting for a holiday listen. Those were the days. He sniffed and looked at the kitchen of his house in South Norwood. It was opposite Selhurst Park, home of Crystal Palace football club. On the famous Holmesdale Road. A little piece of Palace history.

Xante. What was that, 22 years ago? Scott considered those years. Vicky long gone. Remarried to an estate agent called Christian. Two kids and a Porsche. She was happy so far as Scott could tell from her Facebook feed. He supped the lager. Looked down at the stump of his little finger again. Harder to hold a bottle since the injury. Strange to have had such a significant thing happen but have so little memory of it. Had it been bitten off? He looked at his phone and thought about ordering a gram but then quickly turned his phone onto airplane mode. An embargo. Shut it down. Got to stop the sniff, he thought. Leave it ‘til the weekend. Where are we now? Tuesday. No worries. Three days.

He downed the rest of his beer and grabbed his jacket, a Fred Perry Harrington. He noted that it was already a bit snug. Only bought it a few months ago. Fuck sake. Need to get back down David Lloyd. Do some of that Hiit stuff the young lads all talk about.

The weather was mild for March. South Norwood always felt somewhere between lawless and suburban. He strolled down the High Street and into the renovated Shelverdine Goathouse. Used to be a Weatherspoons. The locals had objected, said it was gentrification. The new pub was decidedly trendy. And the beer was decidedly expensive. Scott didn’t really care either way. Drinking had become solitary for him and he wasn’t short of a bob or two. Plumbing and electrics are recession-proof trades. That’s what his old man had always said to him. He was right. Credit crunch, double dip, economic downturn, whatever you wanted to call it; Scott’s work never let up and he could dictate his own hours.

He sank a pint of something called Hove Hopscotch and meandered in the direction of the fruity. Few quid, plinking and chirping. Couple more quid in, couple of quid out. Best leave it there. Another pint of the same. Bag of cheese and onion. He picked up the paper and scanned the front page. The usual outrage, the usual defamation of some MP or celebrity or footballer. £25 holiday being offered. He thought again of Xante. The warm nights, strolling hand in hand with Vicky. Kids laughing and eating huge ice-creams. Vicky had that look in her eye. He didn’t mind, he knew it was what she wanted. He wasn’t averse to the idea. It’s what a man does, his Dad had said. Settle down. House. Wife. Kids. Car. Straightforward life, nothing wrong with that.

He closed the paper after reading a report of last night’s old firm derby. He had a couple more beers, and then sometime around 10:30 he ordered two grams. He told himself that he needed gear for the weekend. There was a night out planned. The lads had put in an order. If he didn’t get it now then he probably wouldn’t have time before Friday night, he told himself, and by then there was a good chance his dealer would be busy. Better to get it now, he told himself. It was a short-lived self-deception. It was a convenient narrative to get him on the phone to Tony as much as anything. Soon as Scott hung up, he laughed at himself and downed the end of his pint, gesturing to the bartender immediately for another. He looked at his missing little finger again. Ran his other hand over the smooth scar tissue. He wondered what Vicky would say. Would she even care?

His phone beeped. A message from Tony to say that he was waiting in the usual place; a small, quiet, cul-de-sac adjacent to the high street. As he headed for the door, he told himself again that the gear was for the weekend. Not for tonight. He had work tomorrow. He needed to go home, call it a night. But if he was being honest with himself, he knew that he would use the gear tonight. And probably both grams, too.

Jay Taylor is an actor, playwright and screenwriter. He studied acting at RADA and has worked in theatre, film, and television for 18 years. His first play, The Acedian Pirates, was produced by Theatre503 in London, in 2016, and is published by Nick Hern Books. He lives in Hackney, London with his girlfriend and their Shiba Inu, Kylo. He is an avid reader, and tries to read a variety of fiction and non-fiction. He enjoys running, cycling, walking, cooking, and of course…writing!