Rachel came over to my place with bags of food. The food was in plastic bags, I could hear her put them on the kitchen counter. I was lying on my bed, on top of the blanket. I had had a cold for the last couple of days. My legs were together, stretched out on the mattress and crossed at the ankles. There was a box of tissues and a glass of water on my bedside table.

I had washed the sheets the night before and changed them in the morning. The night had been warm, now it was morning and the sun was out and already hot. The sheets were outside, in the sunlight, on the washing line.

‘I brought food,’ she called from the kitchen.

‘I wish you hadn’t,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘I said I wished you hadn’t.’

‘You need to keep your fluids up. Is your mouth dry?’

It hurt to talk. When I’d cough it was something that was both constant and always taking me by surprise. It made me see silver sparks across the surface of my eyes.

‘Come in here so I can talk,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Come in here,’ I said.

She appeared at the door. She always looked like she was happily out of breath, like she had just managed to catch up to you on the street after chasing you down. I hadn’t seen her in a few months, not since we broke up.

She looked good, she had her blonde hair tied up.

‘I brought food,’ she said.

‘You shouldn’t have, I’m not hungry.’

‘Your mother said I should bring you food.’

She went over to my bookcase and picked up a drawing. It was in a silver frame, meant for photographs. I coughed a few times into my hand.

‘This is new,’ she said.

‘You spoke to my mother?’

‘She calls, now and then.’

‘It’s new,’ I said. ‘I drew it. My mother always liked you.’

‘Is it you? It looks like you, this person here looks like you.’

Rachel turned the drawing so I could see it. I had drawn two people standing on the jetty near my parent’s house. The drawing was in charcoal and I’d drawn it on pressed paper. I wasn’t very good at drawing.

‘It’s not supposed to be anyone,’ I said.

‘It’s nice. Your mother’s worried that you haven’t been eating right.’

‘She always is,’ I said. ‘Her doctor’s told her to cut out wheat from her diet.’

‘Yeah, she told me.’

Rachel looked around the room, then at me. She shrugged and put her hands into the front pockets of her jeans.

My mother was always concerned about her health. She tried a new diet each month. The other week she had told me that her excise group had been doing laughing exercises. They all stood together in a room then started laughing, at first just mechanically saying ‘Ha ha’ until the real laughter took over. She said they always ended up laughing, eventually they didn’t have to fake it. She said that I should try it some time.

I would have told Rachel about them, the laughing exercises, but my mother had probably already mentioned it to her.

‘I put soup on,’ she said.

‘I don’t feel like eating,’ I said, and got up out of bed, which was harder than I’d expected. Rachel, thankfully, looked away. I didn’t like how my arms shook. I was wearing jeans and a grey t-shirt and I could feel the back of the shirt was damp with sweat. It was a not uncomfortable feeling.

In my kitchen Rachel had poured the soup into a saucepan and it was sitting on the electric stove. It was bright inside my place, and the door to the veranda was open. I could see my clothes on the clothesline flapping in the wind.

‘I got you chicken noodle,’ Rachel said.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

I stood in my kitchen, with my back against the counter. I felt useless. Rachel had brought me a balloon too, filled with helium. She’d tied it to one of the chairs near my table. It had a crocodile on it, bright green. The balloon was silver and swayed in the breeze. I decided not to mention it at all.

‘Are you staying the night?’ I said.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, looking at the floor.

‘I mean, if you wanted to.’

She shrugged. The soup was starting to boil, the lid was rattling. Rachel took it off the hot plate and lifted the lid off. Steam rose from it.

‘It’s not supposed to boil,’ she said.

I didn’t want Rachel to be there anymore. I felt like going to sleep. I wondered if I could collapse on the ground, right then, and somehow be left alone if I managed to curl myself up into a ball or look peaceful enough. When I was younger I used to take sleeping pills to avoid things. It was easier that way. I could just lie in bed, or on my couch, and drift off. It was a comfort.

‘Are you going to eat this?’ Rachel asked.

‘Probably not,’ I said.

‘So what do you want then?’

I looked at her for the longest time. My throat was dry and my nose was starting to run. I felt like coughing but I was suppressing the urge. I didn’t know what I wanted, I couldn’t think of a thing.

***

BIO

Chris Somerville is a writer who lives in Queensland. His short stories have appeared in Voiceworks magazine and The Lifted Brow. His manuscript of short stories was recently short listed for the Emerging Author category of the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. Chris maintains a modest website at: www.smallroom.com.au

THE JUDGES SAID ...

Young Liars is a collection of 29 short stories that are spare and controlled in style. These brief but assured stories are mostly personal and domestic in their concerns, considering friendships, family and intimate relationships. The storylines deal with subjects such as a missing child, a man dressed in a plastic raincoat selling dogs and two antagonistic brothers crossing a flooded river. 

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