[Matt Q]

The Woods

Wednesday, and there’s nothing on TV. There never is. They walk the woods for hours. His grey mongrel bitch is Benjy, like his first dog, like every dog he’s ever had. It’s dusk. He thinks she’s scared a rabbit, then glimpses a blouse the colour of moss, a face behind a fern, a mouth of blood and lipstick, half-open eyes. He stops to tie the dog, squats to touch a cheek as cold as evening woods, rolls a cigarette, sits and smokes, watches an ant crawl haphazard across her lips. Takes out a grimy handkerchief and spits – begins to clean her face, mumbles. Leaves her his coat -- an afterthought against the frosting of the coming night.

Home is how it always is. A forked path of carpet through an undergrowth of pizza boxes, unopened mail, empty bottles of cut-price coke. Left to kitchen, right to couch, the only roads he takes – bedroom long since stolen by the woods. He sleeps wrapped in TV static, a blanket of grease and semi-darkness, wakes to banging. At the door it’s her: cleaned-up face, blouse open a button lower than before. She holds him on the couch, cradles head to ice-cold bosom, like his mother might once have done, but never did. He wakes. His room is how it’s always been.

Thursday morning. The woods again. Leaves the dog at home, gathers stitchwort, bluebells, pink purslane. She’s waiting, wears his coat, but it’s not the welcome of his dream: her face grown darker, a thundercloud of bruises spread across a winter sky. He doesn’t stay. He leaves the flowers and lets the trail take him back to couch and dog and the nothing that’s always on T.V. He finds a plate that’s almost clean, spreads sliced white bread with margarine, crams sandwiches with budget crisps, sinks two foaming litres of plastic coke.

That night she’s at the door again, crashes in – one eye gone, worms all over, woodlice in her hair. She rips back her blouse, exposes perfect breasts, bright mushroom white, starts towards him, tongue caressing scabbing lips. He screams himself awake, breaks the stillness of an almost Friday dawn, goes straight out. Stops at the allotments, steals a spade. Buries her rolled up in his coat, throws in the faded bouquet, staggers back, spade still gripped in muddy hands. Stays in for a quiet TV day, a silent dreamless night.

The next night, another dream. Bluebottles in their millions, emerging iridescent from her grave, buzzing insistent as a doorbell – wakes to banging, dogs barking, grabs the spade, stumbles half-awake toward the door, freezes, can’t go further. The door bursts in. It’s Sunday morning, and the dawn swarms with the busyness of police.
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