Thursday Afternoon

(It's a bit long, so please forgive me. I spent the entirety of Sunday morning writing this without being able to stop. It's not perfect, but I thought I'd put it on anyway.)

‘People always ask me how I got this scar on my finger.’ Said the man, pushing up his flat cap with his thumb and placing his other hand directly on top of his knee. His ancient face scrunched into a grin as something flashed behind his eyes. He wore an odd-looking blue cagoule, and his shoes were so close to being slippers I wondered how he could wear them in this kind of weather. The clouds were getting darker. It would rain soon.

I gripped my bag tighter. It was Thursday afternoon, and this was the fifth week that I had seen this man sitting at my bus stop. Whenever I would walk over there his face would crease in a smile. Every time, however, I had pretended I hadn’t seen him and sat wherever else I could. This week, unfortunately, had left me with no choice. The seat next to the man was the only one available.

‘Funny things, scars…’ He held his hand in his other, palm outwards, fingers splayed, to show a long, winding white line that went from the tip of his index finger to the bottom of his palm.

Again, I wasn’t sure of what to say.

‘I remember it well though…’ He sighed, and began to talk in a slow, resonant, slightly gasping voice. ‘I was only a boy. It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon and I wanted to play outdoors. Our back garden gate led out to a small wood, and I would always play out there. ‘He looked at me as though he expected me to add something, but when I did nothing he carried on.

‘The trees were wonderful. I loved the smell of them, the feel of the bark on my hands as I climbed them. It was heaven.’ He paused, and took a wheezing breath. I wondered if that was the end of his story.

I was terribly wrong.

                ‘I remember that on that morning I had stolen my dad’s pen knife. Not for anything bad, of course. I just wanted to carve my name into my favourite tree. The one that lay over a small river. I liked to sit there, and listen to the rushing and thrashing of the water on the rocks. If I’d been able to read back then, I know I would have loved to have taken a book out with me.

                ‘I began to slice my first initial in; T. I carved and carved, but as I finished the spine of the letter, my knife slipped and flew out of my hands.’

                ‘Is that how you got the scar?’ I asked, hoping this was the end of the story.

                ‘No.’ He said, vacantly. ‘That was when I met Ruby.’

                ‘Ruby?’

                ‘Ruby Kenwick. She was my age. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. She caught my knife as I dropped it. She was so fast it was… well, she was… She was a bit different, Ruby. I asked her where she was from and she said a farm in the forest. I said I’d never known there was a farm in there. She asked me to go back with her. Said she was scared.’

                It had begun to rain. Enormous, fat drops splashed on top of the bus shelter, pouring down the sides like some kind of odd, murky waterfall.

                ‘Did you go with her?’ I asked.

                ‘I did.’ He replied with a sigh.

                ‘Why?’

                ‘I have no idea.’ He pushed up his cap again. ‘I ran through the forest with her, trying to figure out which direction we were going so I might be able to find my way back. I was too optimistic choosing to follow her, of course. Within minutes, something horrid happened.’

                ‘What happened?’

                ‘A fox. That is what happened. Not a nice little sneaking common fox that might try and steal your wellingtons from your front steps; this fox was enormous, with claws on its feet and it teeth – I’ve seen dogs with fangs before but never like that. The fox jumped at me – ’

                ‘Is that how you got your scar?’ I asked.

                ‘No.’ He said. ‘Ruby Kenwick jumped in front of me before I could get hurt. Told it I was a friend.’

                ‘She talked to the animal?’

                ‘Yes. But that’s not the strange thing, you see, the fox… it listened.’

                The rain was pouring harder now.

                ‘How could a fox listen?’

                The man ignored my question and carried on. ‘The fox ran away, whimpering, back into the trees, and Ruby and I set off again.’

                ‘Where did she take you?’

                ‘I’m just getting to that! We reached a small clearing, just in the middle of the forest like she’d said. There was a small wooden house that looked… well, a bit dodgy if I’m honest. The walls were mouldy and the chimney crooked. Wasn’t much of a farm, either. She pulled me inside. A fire was burning in a corner, next to a woman who looked as though her own skin had grown too large for her. She was cutting up carrots on a little wooden chopping board with the speed of an old mule.’ He laughed to himself; throaty, sonorous, ending with a coughing fit which brought more than a few others at the bus stop to stare at us.

                I asked quietly if he was okay. He ignored me again.

                ‘The woman… when she saw me…. The woman lifted her knife up.’ He held out his hand as though he was holding a knife himself. ‘And threw it at me.’ He gestured throwing.

                ‘And…’ I was hoping this was the last time I would have to ask this question. ‘Is that how you got that scar?’

                ‘Nope.’ He snorted. ‘Ruby.’

                There was a pause.

                ‘Ruby jumped in front of it. Sliced off part of her cheek. Her face was never the same after that.’

                I gasped. ‘But who was this woman? Why did she have a knife Why did Ruby take you to her?’ My voice as becoming loud and panicky, and more of the bus stop dwellers turned to stare at us.

                ‘She was your great grandmother.’

                He had said this as calmly as though he was telling someone the time.

                ‘What?’ I said. ‘But… what?’ I had begun to shiver from the cold.

                The man let out a chortle. ‘Your grandmother… she was called Ruby Kenwick.’

                A wave of something swept over me. He was wrong. ‘But – but – my grandparents… I have two grandmothers, none called Ruby.’

                The man smiled.

                I opened my mouth to say something else, but quickly closed it. He was just a mad old man, that was all. I wouldn’t take this any further.

                ‘What’s your name?’ He asked.

                I couldn’t ignore a mad old man. ‘Erica Devlin.’

                ‘Erica, Erica.’ Rolling my name around his mouth as though addressing an old friend. ‘My name is Thomas Letterchewt.’

                He held out his hand. I shook it.

                ‘I am your grandfather.’

                Again I ignored him.

                ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to believe me. You see that, woman was a witch.’

                I knew he was completely insane. But I had to listen.

                ‘She was Ruby’s mother – a horrible woman! She made Ruby do everything for her. Too lazy to get her own victims. And on that day she had told Ruby to go and get a boy from the village and bring him to her. I was the boy.  But she didn’t want me. She couldn’t use me for what she wanted. I was terrified.. Ruby’s mother became so angry. I asked why she couldn’t use me. She snorted, glared at Ruby, and that was when she threw the knife. The knife held the curse. It was aimed at me. I was supposed to be the one with a hundred grandsons who couldn’t remember.’

                ‘Remember what?’ I asked. I completely forgot I was supposed to ignore him.

                He ignored me. ‘When that knife hit Ruby in the face, I knew what had happened. I should have known she was a witch form the start, with the listening fox and all. Anyway, there was only one thing a witch could do. Well, could really do. They lie – they say magic can be good. It never can. The day Ruby was cursed was the day I became cursed too.’

                ‘You became cursed?’

                ‘Yes, but not in the same way. I became cursed with Ruby. I loved her at first, but after years… It became unbearable.’

                ‘What did?’

                ‘Some curses are – ’

                ‘Just tell me what the curse was!’ My cheeks overheated and I tried placing my cold hands onto them to cool them down. The other bus stop residents stared at me.

                ‘She was made to live the same day until her death. Every day for her was that Thursday afternoon. Every day, inside her head, she took me from the woods and met her infuriated mother. Every day, I had to listen to the screams.’

                I looked at my lap. Why was he telling me all of this? What did this have to do with me, even if he thought that woman was my grandmother?

                ‘Why are you saying this to me?’

                The man smiled. ‘Because the curse didn’t remain in one body. That’s not how they work. Ruby was cursed to live the same Thursday afternoon forever, and so every girl who would be born from Ruby, or Ruby’s children, or Ruby’s children’s children, they would always live the same Thursday afternoon. You’re cursed too, Erica.’

                I laughed then. I laughed for so loud and so long that I couldn’t care less what the bus stoppers thought of me or who this man was. I laughed until my cheeks hurt with strain, I laughed until my throat dried up and I could laugh no more.

                ‘You know you mother?’ He said. ‘She had fair hair like me, and blue eyes. She didn’t possess the curse. But you, with the same dark hair and eyes as Ruby. I knew what would happen. It knew it as soon as you were born.’

                ‘I’m not cursed!’ I cried with the last laugh I could muster.

                ‘Erica,’ his face had become serious now, ‘do you remember the fifth of November, in 1997?’

                I laughed again. ‘That’s todays date!’

                ‘No. It isn’t. That date was the first Thursday you ever experienced. You weren’t even a year old.’ The old man’s face turned sour.

                ‘What are you talking about? What is all this? Why are you saying all of these things? And you never even told me about the stupid scar on your hand! That’s what all this was about, right?’

                ‘You’ve been living this same Thursday afternoon since you were tiny. When your mother had you I hoped you would be like her. I hoped the curse wouldn’t pass on. It couldn’t have, she didn’t have it in the first place. But Monday came, you were born. Tiny and fragile, but healthy. Tuesday came; you lay in your mother’s arms. Wednesday came, everything was perfect. And Thursday… On the fifth of November 1997, you shivered, coughed, spluttered and ran. You ran from your mother’s arms, away from the house; a child who had never even known how to crawl.’

                I really didn’t know what to say anymore. This man was scaring me now. I wondered why the bus still hadn’t arrived.

                ‘You came here. You realised you wanted to go home, and waited at the bus stop. Alone. A baby. Just a baby. People gave you odd looks. There were people searching for you everywhere.  But that’s when I came. I found you first. I came to take you home.’

                That’s when I noticed the rain wasn’t there anymore. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it had been there in the first place.

                ‘I tried to pick you up at first, but you refused… kicking and biting…’

                I saw that the sky was no longer the murky blue Thursday afternoon that it had been a second ago. It was now pitch black.

                ‘I placed you down on this seat here, next to me, and tried to talk to you. Which was ridiculous. You wouldn’t have been able to understand me.’

                I watched as the people who had been waiting at the bus stop slowly disappeared.

                ‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘Where’s… why’s everything…’

                He smiled.

                As I looked around me now I saw nothing but darkness. Just the man, the bus stop, and myself. ‘When did it get so dark?’

                ‘It is the early hours of the morning. You should expect it to be dark.’ The man smiled weakly.

                ‘But it was afternoon not long ago.’

                ‘Yes. You have been living in that Thursday afternoon since you were a baby. I came to try and get you out again.’

                I stayed silent for a moment. Everything that had happened seemed so completely odd that I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going mad or not.

                ‘You never did tell me how you got that scar.’

                He grinned then, and held it out again as he had before, fingers spread.

                ‘You were a strong baby. It must have a been a lovely Thursday afternoon, because you wouldn’t let me take you out of it.’

                I lost all of my words. They seemed to have tumbled off my tongue with my sanity. I just sat there, stuttering. Trying to make sense of everything that was happening.

                ‘And now you can see.’ He smiled again. ‘That this is the real world.’ He gestured to the dark background surrounding us.

                ‘It’s a bit too dark.’ I said.

                He laughed.

                ‘So what now?’ I asked. ‘Do I go home? Am I cured?’

                The man’s smile faltered. ‘I’m – I’m afraid not.’

                ‘Well what do I do then?’ I stood up. ‘I’m going home. Which way’s home?’

                He just stared at me blankly.

                ‘WHERE DO I GO?’ I cried. ‘TELL ME!’

                He just stared at me with his miserable eyes glinting in moonlight. ‘You can’t.’

                ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T?’ I was breathing quickly now, waiting for him to say something reasonable. Something realistic. Something real. Just one thing would have done. Just something to make some sense of everything that was happening. I ran.

                I ran through the dark streets; passing building after building, not caring where I was or why those buildings were there or who lived in them or what purpose they had. Because I had no purpose. My Thursday Afternoon had never happened. It had all been a long dream that wasn’t even gone long enough for it to become recurring.

                I tripped and fell over something. I don’t even know what. But it made everything turn darker than it already was.

                I awoke, sometime after, to a bright, sunny day in a place bustling with people. I saw a calendar in the window of a shop.

 The fifth of November.

 It was Thursday afternoon, and I was late for my bus. 


R