Hollow

5 / Elephants and Aliens

The memory is a fickle fish that swims through your mind as if on a daytime television Supermarket Sweep show. It pushes its trolley as fast as it can, grabbing any thoughts off the shelves of your mind and moving on without pause. Often, the things it takes are half formed, as if, in its haste, it left some part behind on the shelf. The fragments try their best to show the full picture, but they fill in the blanks, rebuilding themselves, without the proper tools or information, leaving them askew. Deformed. Broken.

The fish devours these experiences and they become a part of it. They, themselves, become memories and, because of the way they were taken, they can fade quickly or be misinterpreted. Even the strongest and most fully formed is prone to be cast aside in favour of a shiny new interlude.

So it was with my own. I had killed someone. I slit their throat and cast both them and the implement of their demise aside. But, with the promise of an all-star, all action blockbuster to think about, the memory quickly faded. It struggled to even linger on. Anticipation became my shield against the forces of regret and guilt.

Or not. I didn't actually regret anything. She was the one who hadn't given me what I needed, surely!

Meet you at 8 instead. We'll have a pint before it starts.

And, just like that, the memory was washed away. I went about my day as usual. I exchanged a couple of texts with my wife. I did some work even though I was on a short holiday to use my entitlement up before I lost it. I took my dog, a lovely, fussy little King Charles/Chihuahua mix called Newt for a walk. I drove to a small café and had some lunch and wandered around the town centre looking for things I didn't really need to buy, and didn't buy them.

After losing myself in a game on my Nintendo Switch, something I'd never really got the chance to go on so often had forgotten where I was in the game I was playing and how to actually play it, I nodded. I woke suddenly with only half an hour to go before I was meant to be meeting my father in law. A quick splash of water and spray of deodorant, coupled with a change of t-shirt, meant I made it to the cinema with only moments to spare. Edward was already seated and had a half-finished pint of lager with another waiting for me.

"I thought I'd be drinking that for you," Edward said, smiling broadly. "I wouldn't want it to get warm."

"You're too kind," I replied, taking a long swig from the glass.

"It's a curse, as you know."

I laughed and sat down opposite him. Our drinks were finished quickly and we thought about getting fresh ones, but Edward decided against it. He didn't want to be running to the toilet at a critical point of the action. He knew I wouldn't fill him in on the details – both because I didn't want to miss anything by having to tell him what had happened while things where still happening, and because it was his own fault. I could hold my bodily fluids with no problems. If he couldn't, it was his problem.

For the next two and a bit hours, I was lost in explosions, CGI and flashy costumes. The good guys won and the bad guys were obliterated by ancient technology that had no place on Earth. I always found it odd that, of all the billions of planets in the universe, Earth seemed to be the one where alien junk, powerful enough to wipe out a planet and that really should have been looked after better, ended up. There were a good few planets further out than ours for them to land on, but no. They swung past them, avoiding gravitational pulls and asteroid belts, and slammed down into corn fields or forests next to campers or someone's bedroom. I wondered if any elephants, dolphins or ants had chanced across such artefacts that had crashed into African savannahs or oceans and were rocking about in super-powered exoskeletons, wiping out half their friends with a sneeze.

Edward and I had chatted about it at length and both agreed that we didn't care. Such films were fun. We turned off our brains and enjoyed the ride.

When it was done, the two of us said our goodbyes and went to our respective cars. Edward's was parked closer to the cinema than mine, so I saw him drive off, and heard the extra loud 80's rock anthems that he loved so much, before I'd reached my own.

"Sugartits!"

I didn't know when my curse words were replaced, but I'd been swearing with 'sugartits' for a while. It must have been a TV show or something, but I couldn't place it. Both Amanda and Edward laughed every time, my wife thinking it cute and my father in law thinking it just weird. My mother in law simply frowned. I was used to that. It was OK. I'd tried to revert to 'shit' or 'fuck', in the hope that they might be more acceptable but I always seemed to slide back.

The object of my dismay was my tyre. It was completely flat. For all I knew, it could have been on its way to ultimate deflation for some time and I just hadn't noticed. I very rarely checked the health of my car. If it went, it was fine. At that moment, it wasn't going anywhere.

I had a spare in the boot. It was, so far, unused. I'd tried, previously, the repairs-in-a-tin aerosols you could buy, and would never go near one again. It told me to remove the cause of the puncture, a nail, and connect through the tyre valve. Except, instead of the tyre inflating nicely, sealing the hole as it went, the foam pissed out all over the road. I then had to get covered in it by needing to change the tyre and lifting the deceased one into my boot.

So, I could change a flat tyre. The alloy locking nuts were in the glove box. The tools were in under the spare. Easy. But, at gone 11 at night, when I was wearing decent clothes and in a good mood, I really didn't fancy doing it. Edward had not long left, so I could call him to give me a lift home, but he'd insist on putting the new one on, which would spoil his night. I could call Amanda, but she was working, evidenced by my lack of texts when I checked my phone. A taxi, maybe?

No. It was a nice night. Cool rather than warm, but dry. I lived a couple of miles away. It wouldn't take me long to get home and, if I used a taxi, I'd only be pottering about until I heard from my wife. I didn't feel threatened and, thanks to a well-used gym membership and kick boxing lessons a few years back, I could defend myself.

So I walked. I always carried headphones in my coat pocket, wrapped up neatly so they didn't tangle up with my keys, though I didn't use them very often. I had plenty of data to stream my favourite playlist, so I was sorted. I was in a good place as I set off, with Snow Patrol filling my ears.