Moving by GJ Hart

They’re moving me today.

The news bore sour fruit  – he scooped out its flesh and threw it down.

A lovely room.

And stabbed the screen like he was squashing a bug.

Beside the garden.

And when he cried it felt like sciatica, like fibromyalgia, like crawling from bed after a marathon and knowing now was now, he flew, from room to room, avoiding cats and locking locks, juggled a water bowl and throwing clothes into a dusty suitcase liveried with faded stickers – the Eiffel Tower, palm trees, a neon kangaroo – whist he called a local taxi company and argued the price until the controller yawned, capitulated and despatched their least roadworthy car.

The most beautiful pergola, even Razorbills.

Barely through traffic, the taxi damp and hot, enveloping him in reflux and ashtray, aftershave and medication and gripping the arm rest, he screamed into the room he hid his vengeful treatises and diagrams.

As he trembled against the stasis, his phone rang again.

Ice creams from a lime green parlour.

Sounded like a prank, like a joke, like his voice was filtered through a novelty gadget, but any smiles were drifting, always incredulous – at his evolution, at his new anatomy – the valves and tubes, canisters, monitors, pumps and metal doors closing over and over and over.

If I sit up.

On an ancient airbus in a cramped seat between a fuming couple he’d split like an atom. Poor planning – not his fault and so triangled by anger, he remained rigid until the plane’s nose shuddered and dipped through clouds, toward an old country – the strangest place, adorned with that particular otherness of once familiar places.

I can see across the dunes.

The hotel was vast and revivalist, a forest of buttresses and finials surrounded by neurotic gardens and so absurdly expensive, he could only expect more. Admittedly, the internet reached the toilet, the coffee was decent and the TV flat and huge, but the view was a crime – a blank wall, a misted window, a dual carriage.

To the sea.

He dragged a chair to the window, climbed up and balancing a hand against the curtain rail and standing on tiptoes, could just make out the seething tips of waves, breaking and sliding and shrinking down and away into nothing.

GJ Hart currently lives and works in London and has had stories published in The Molotov Cocktail, The Jersey Devil Press, The Harpoon Review and others. He can be found arguing with himself over @gj_hart.