We Only Need One
First published in Storgy Magazine 2019 Flash Fiction Competition chapbook
Arm extended, canted phone in hand, you searched for the right angle, the correct pose. With a thumb, you swiped through the catalogue of the different versions of yourself until you selected the perfect one to unveil in the galleries of Instagram and Twitter — every anticipated Heart or Like, professing ‘we see you’.
***
The pictures were fanned out on our kitchen table like cards at a Tarot reading. That was where you existed, in 10x13 windows of memories etched on photographic paper, the toothy grin from graduation day, squinty eyes in Malaga, the white phantom of a scar peeking from under an eyebrow, body parts which told stories.
We only need one, love, Gavin said, his hand stroking my back. It went slowly in circles, before he shuffled away to fill the kettle. Everything he did was slightly slower these days.
Only need one. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy. So went the song as the weight of your small body had pressed on my lap as we sat at the kitchen table, watching the scatter of birds in the garden. Chimes of giggles as you clapped your hands at them, the scent of fresh biscuit as I’d kissed the top of your head. We only need one, love, Gavin had said.
The choice made, I wanted to fold the rest of them until they shrank into neat little squares which I could swallow to be full with you again, regress to the time when your curved spine pressed against my belly, and you kicked my bladder several times a night.
Your face was everywhere you weren’t, even at the corner shop, amid the magazines you used to read or the sweets you begged for. Standing in front of the copy machine, I counted the additional versions of you with ever sliver of light running across the glass as I fingered the small crucifix around my neck, pressed the sharp edges into the swell of my fingertips, the way you had pushed your little elbows into my ribs.
Whispers in familiar voices gathered around, but those same mouths didn’t know which words to say to me, eyes avoided mine worried they might catch what happened to us. When Mr Simmons noticed the purse in my hand, he shook his head. Managing a weak smile, I left cradling the bundle of paper still warm against my skin, the rest of the supplies in my bag weighed my shoulder down. Outside, the blank canvas of the avenue waited for us.
***
Frozen, you looked at the row of trees hemming the other side of the street, the line of parked cars, the few Saturday morning passersby. Your best face forward tilted towards the screen of a canted mobile phone, on display for all of them. No Likes or Hearts to collect, instead you had a question for them in Helvetica thirty-six font, bolded:
Have you seen me?
