capercaillie's strange friend

It vanished the moment I clicked the bathroom light on. I hadn’t imagined it, had I? No, I’d put down the drink a few months back. It never did me good drinking on my own. Conjuring up false entities to entertain my lonely mind made sense. I didn’t do much else apart from serve drinks all day. It had become normality to oversleep all afternoon, making me feel like a statue rotting away in my sheets. If I felt like moving, I’d open my blinds. Usually, I saw no daylight. Nothing here but rain and mud. I saw no other people apart from the Hooded Crow’s customers. Eilidh was our regular, he’d gone hiking with Errol and I a few years back. He was an odd man, who stank of cigar smoke and oil, but I had learnt to be comfortable in his company. His order consisted of two ham pasties and two pints of McEwan’s. Then he would spend his time on the darts, or pool on Fridays, where he boggled other pub-goers with his strange techniques. Most people ignored Eilidh but paid him attention when he was hitting 8 balls. I hadn’t watched a game of pool in some time. It took me a while to close up on my own, and I wouldn’t think of letting someone help me. The Hooded Crow was my father’s. It was mine. I couldn’t let anybody near it. It blew my mind how people kept coming. With Errol gone, leaving nothing but his bag to be handed over by a policewoman with a faraway look in her eyes…how was anything to ever be normal again? No, I did not care for Eilidh’s games. Even with him leaning over the counter and saying:

‘Join me for a game, Thistle. How long’s it been since you played pool with this old man?’

And I’d glance back at him, and say: ‘Maybe later, El, you know I have crates to move up from the cellar…’

And he knew I was lying, but he’d give me a wink and return to his pasty. Did he miss Errol as much as me? My father’s name on other people’s tongues, I could not bear it. I could not bear the Hooded Crow’s and all of its shadows. I would let my eyes drift upwards and think of a bath after closing. But the smell had hardly gone, and I wanted nothing more than my bed, lights off. I wanted to stay there until they tried to knock the door down. Until I disappeared too. Why didn’t Errol let me come with him? Why did he have to go?

Later, shivering with the coldness of the flat, I would find myself unable to move from my sofa. A dull light glinted from the hallway. No ghoulies tonight. Warded off by a moth-eaten, charity-shop lamp. I lay there like a marionette, collecting dust. There was a metallic odour in the air, and I could hear the tap dripping from another room. I faintly thought about making a cup of tea, but I had no milk. There was an internal battle of thought. I should get up and do something, but really what was the point? What must I do? I had been behind the bar all night, and was starting to feel bad for not playing pool with Eilidh but he must understand what I feel like each day. I do not have the energy to be Thistle, 'Errol the Finder's' fun daughter who owned a hoard of books, and could tell you everything there is to know about birds in Britain, but I cannot find her energy anymore. She can hardly look at the bag the policewoman handed to her. There was a dark shadow in the corner of the living room. The lamplight ought to chase it away. I do not know why I can't be nicer to Eilidh, he was Errol's friend. There are eyes looking at me from the corner of the living room. And this time, they flickered away from me, and the dark figure walked away, down the long hallway.

'Hello? Hello?' I half-whispered, half squeaked.

I followed the thing down the hallway, and creaked open the bathroom door. But apart from the smell of bleach and a bathroom window that couldn't properly lock, nothing was there.