Someone To Watch Over Me
by Andrew Burdon
Michael heard the low sharp echo of fireworks outside the house. The bedroom was dark but for the light of the TV and his laptop screen. He muted the program he was half watching and tossed the remote beside him on the bed. Putting aside the laptop, he got up and went to the window.
There were no colourful flashes in the sky. No sparkles exploding and falling, fading. Not from this view. Only stars, and over the rooftops, the faint orange glow of a bonfire somewhere.
He could’ve been out there. Work had arranged its annual firework display, but he hadn’t gone out with the people from work for years, to the point he was rarely asked any more.
Michael liked it that way. Being around people was too much effort. There were few people in whose company he felt comfortable being himself. Kate had been one, but she was gone now, of course.
The boom of unseen fireworks became a lure to go outside. There was no need to turn on the house lights. The small two-bed semi was one of four or five locations he’d reduced the world down to, and he could walk every inch in his sleep.
Michael grabbed his coat on his way past the sofa and shrugged it on in the dim kitchen as he kicked on his shoes. He stepped out the back door to the smell of fire and sulphur.
A half dozen steps took him to the bottom of the garden near the row of leylandii grown monstrously tall. From his coat pocked Michael lit a cigarette and peered up at the sky. Rockets boomed somewhere, their crackling patter reaching his ears. But the sky held nothing. Only stars.
From his coat pocket he withdrew a flat packet, and stared at it until the high-contrast writing became clear in the dark; Warning: For outdoor use only. Use only under adult supervision. Keep away from eyes and skin. Keep away from clothing etc.
He’d bought the sparklers because on special nights of the year, when everybody was doing the same thing, he liked to feel included—connected on some meta level. A single anonymous dab of paint on a vast canvas of figures and faces.
When Kate was in the picture, he was there there too. Hands, body, face. Smile. Complete, despite their age gap. But that had ended.
He lit the sparkler and held it arms length. The silver sparks flared along the thin wire, incandescent. Quickly—inevitably—the sparks sputtered and died, their chemistry spent.
Michael went back inside.
#
He woke with a physical start, disoriented by the body-jerk feeling of tripping and falling, only he was laying in bed. His heart calmed and he closed his eyes against the TV’s light. But something wasn’t right.
“I could never get used to that.”
She was here.
Michael didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t move. “It helps me fall asleep,” he said.
“I could never get used to it. How are you, Mike?”
How are you? Like they were just two exes bumping into each other at the movies?
Michael turned over and sat up, pushing further away the laptop beside him. Kate stood at the corner of the bed, watching the television. She was wearing one of her sundresses, and looked so young and pretty.
“You know, Halloween was five nights ago,” he said.
Without diverting her attention from the TV, Kate smiled. “When was I ever here on time?”
It all seemed so normal. So normal, it felt like old times. Here she was, come to his house, still a little shy of getting to the point.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
Kate’s eyes remained fixed on the soundless TV. She stood motionless, illuminated by the shifting colours on the screen.
“My parents,” she said, “Have you seen them?”
Michael looked away. “Once or twice. In the street. Why are you here, Kate?”
“You were the one thinking of me.”
That was true. He usually didn’t like to dwell on the past. For him what was done, was done. But Kate…he hadn’t realised how much she’d meant to him till she was gone.
“What’s it like?” he said.
“The other side?”
Michael looked at her and nodded.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m waiting.”
“Waiting? There must be something.”
“There’s plastic and dirt and rot and waiting.”
He stared at her, unable to figure this out. Why was she here? To punish him? To absolve him?
“Where did you put me?”
Her question gave him pins and needles.
“The woods by the canal,” he said. It had been one of their special places.
The ghost of a smile touched her mouth.
He asked the question always at the back of his mind. “Am I going to hell?”
“I don’t know.”
Long seconds passed before she spoke again.
“I don’t think I ever loved you.”
It was a spiteful thing to say, and he responded in kind. “That’s why you’re in the ground.”
Her head whipped in his direction. “Like the others,” said Kate.
Michael closed his eyes.
Laura. And Becky. She knew?
“Like the others,” he said, trying meeting her gaze. “Have you…met them?”
Kate’s attention returned to the television. “No. We know of each other. I’m not sure how.”
He didn’t like this. He didn’t like that the three might think they weren’t special. And he didn’t like it because deep down, Michael expected there’d be a fourth. It would be exciting for a while, but it would only—could only—end the same. Then she’d end up in the ground too.
“She doesn’t have to,” said Kate. She looked once more towards him. “There doesn’t have to be another.”
She was right. He could confess and seek help. It was another thought always ticking over in the background. Live twenty, thirty years behind bars, then hide away in shame. But he was doing…okay. He confined himself away anyway, and he was managing okay. The flesh was weak, but there were sites on the deep web for that. Most of the time he wanted to stop.
Maybe that was why Kate was here. Perhaps knowing someone was always watching him…but Michael rejected the idea as it came to him, the thought repellant. He didn’t want that. Nobody would want that. Besides, evil men didn’t deserve guardian angels.
“Are you evil, Mike?”
The question gave him pause. He didn’t want to be, but he’d always assumed so. Other people would say so. But he’d done good things in his life too. Lots of good things. Was some cosmic gatekeeper keeping score? Putting tally marks in columns labeled good and bad? Did one deed outweigh another?
“I don’t know,” he said.
Her gaze shifted back to the television. “Me either.”
The idea of her looking over his shoulder day and night had taken root, and Michael didn’t want her here. Didn’t want her seeing what he did alone.
“I think you should go,” he said.
“You know, I honestly didn’t know what brought me here, but I think maybe you’re right.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t want you here. Go away Kate.”
“But I think you are right.” Kate’s eyes held his. “I think maybe you do need a guardian angel.” Her face cracked a compassionless smile.
Fine. She could have it her way, if she was going to be bitch about it. It might even help. For a while. But he knew he’d get used to the idea, eventually. Then she could watch as he seduced another girl. Let her follow them into parks, or stand and watch them, right here, in this bed. Let her rattle chains and scold him if she didn’t enjoy the show. Ultimately there was nothing she could do.
The TV switched off, and room went black. Kate’s voice was a cold breath in his ear. “You sure?”
His skin sprang into gooseflesh. Quickly he turned his head and scanned the room. But Kate was gone.
He smelled the hot cloying smell of burnt electronics and thought it was the TV, but his vision was adjusting to the dark and he caught thin wisps of smoke rising from the laptop.
Michael closed his eyes and hung his head, covering his face with a hand. Outside, the boom and crackle of a firework. A sob escaped him.
Kate’s voice came though the dark. “See you, Mike.”