Been A While Since Bad Things Only Happened To Other People - S.A. Greene
We’ve finished our chicken wings, knocked back a few drinks and now we’re play-singing the opener to ‘The Muppet Show’, but Saskia’s lips are pouting the words at me in an exaggerated way that’s making me prickle to kiss her, so I look away, glance towards the door. Outside, civilians are zig-zagging round each other, blurry in the rain, shiny under the searchlights. James, W and Pickering are sitting with their backs to the entrance, but they must smell it - the fear that suddenly cracks off me - because they all stop singing at the same time: right between ‘It’s like a kind of’ and ‘torture’.
The waiters freeze. The other tables fall silent too. I hope for a second that a different group is being targeted, but they head towards us and I’m not that surprised since we’re the only ones who look like us. The Leader is a monkfish-faced male, with round sloping shoulders that undermine his epaulettes. They stop at James’ chair. Not a word is spoken. James rises. Follows them outside.
Hey! Can I get any of you guys more refreshments? The waiter has sprung back to life before James’ narrow back is lost to us. W and I mutter no thanks, but Saskia gamely orders another Cuba Libre. Pickering is silent.
Soon, Saskia and W are impersonating Miss Piggy, and I don’t understand. Why aren’t they wondering who ratted on James? Was it one of them? Both of them together? Nah - too risky. What about Pickering, then? He seems shaken. The lights dim, as if to spare us the sight of one another.
With James taken, they’re less likely to return for another of us. I’m ashamed of the relief this thought brings me. Then I begin to worry: what if it was me who reported him?
Saskia waves to get my attention. She presses her pillowy lips together, out towards me. (James wasn’t perfect, of course). She’s rolling lip-gloss over them, over and back, making them look plump and shiny. (No smoke without fire, so they say.) Saskia’s lip-gloss is peach-flavoured. The smell of peaches curls across the table, climbs inside my head, unfurls, expands, fills the whole world.
Originally published by Sledgehammer Lit, October 2021
S.A. Greene's short fiction has appeared in trampset, New Flash Fiction Review, Mslexia, Maudlin House, Fictive Dream, Flash Flood, Janus, Ellipsis Zine and other fine places. Her work has featured homesick capybaras, duplicitous eels, a right-wing foetus, a musical vagina, a mystery wombat, several tables (kitchen, dining-room, picnic) and a blue sponge.
