When the lights went out, I decided to change the bulb for you, because I didn’t want you to hurt your hands. I didn’t mind if I burnt my hands or strained my legs on the ladder. Do you still have that ladder? Will it hurt you now? Sorry, I’m walking at the moment (doesn’t really matter where) and there’s pigeons on the pavement. You still scared of them? I kind of think they’re everything, right? So soft and sad looking. They move a bit like you too. Like, unsure and unplaced. Unpigeoned. Like in the living room that time, with the lights out and darkness everywhere on top of you. I came in and, usually you’d say something. My keys. They’d hit the shelf, and you’d say heyyyy. Or you’d say, hiiii, hellooo or, well, I don’t know. But you didn’t that time is the point.
You gave me some distant muttering, which I eventually figured out. You were upset because you’d lost something. What was it? Your ring, or a spoon, or the sofa? Yeah, that was it. The sofa. God, you were so, like, distressed, like, suddenly your body wasn’t yours and it was just this big bag you had to find a place for, and you couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it other than the sofa. But there was no sofa. So, I came up with a game. I knelt to my knees and stretched out on all fours, flattened my back for you to sit on. You did; you sat down! I couldn’t really see much, but there was a bit of light from the window making a shadow out of your hair. I remember, I thought I looked just like the kitchen counter. And then I started thinking about what was different between me and the kitchen counter, or me and the sofa, or the bedroom floor that you brushed your hair onto in brown stringy clumps. I didn’t come up with much. Maybe I was a bit more round, more tired.
Well, you didn’t find our game funny anymore, so I just got up. I was looking for the ladder in the garden. You were sitting on the floor. I changed the lightbulb, and you looked at me. Looked like I was anything but the counter, and instead, everything inside the sink that needed washing, all wet and waiting. Once the light came back on, I thought everything would be okay again, but I think you closed your eyes. Or I did. And then I heard the tap run, or we did, and all our dishes drowned in a ruthless mass murder.
Jo Farrant is a UK artist and writer in their fourth year studying Art and Creative writing. Their work invites an intimacy into the digital and the absurd. Pieces can be found in Cringe mag, and Reading poets: a new anthology