Summer Holiday

The thing with being ... someone like me... is that a lot of existence revolves around not getting caught.

There might be some who are brazen enough to hide in plain sight, but the thought makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

If ever They catch up with me, maybe I'll embrace notoriety. Until then, I don't want to go to prison.

So I'm neat. I'm careful. I do my best to get rid of evidence. I blend in. I don't draw attention to myself. I'm pleasant. Likeable. Charming even. But I work on being more forgettable than the symmetry of my face strictly allows for.

Maybe you haven't really thought about this, but, serial killers go on holiday, too, you know. We wear shorts, and flip flops, and shirts we wouldn't be seen dead in back home. We eat ice cream, and hire motorbikes, and we look a bit goofy in our swimming trunks.

We get cranky on long flights when the baby won't stop screaming. Sometimes we don't even fantasise about throwing it out of the window.

Sometimes, we just lean back and wonder idly what business class would cost. Would it be worth it for how much it would make me stand out? It's so much safer to be one of the plebs. There's more of them for one thing. I am a needle; they are a haystack. But, there's this as well, though it sticks in my craw to even think it... It's actually easier to blend in. I might stick out like a sore thumb amongst the wealthy.

We struggle a bit, cramming our hand luggage into the overhead space. We turn on wifi mode when instructed, and fasten our seatbelts. Our eyes widen at the watches and perfumes for sale in that dull little magazine. We're very, very good at pretending to be ordinary.

At some point we don't even realise the brat has quieted. We slump onto our C-shaped neck cushion, and drift off.

We wake, slightly disoriented, looking like our faces have been badly ironed. Sleep crumbs glue our eyelids shut, and make them itchy. We stretch the stiffness from our limbs. Grouchy and thirsty, we shuffle off the plane, and let ourselves be shepherded.

We wait for our luggage, just as impatient as everyone else. We unclick the handle, extend it, and wheel our drab, very much "blending in" case out into the grey carpark.

Gloomily squinting at the drizzle spattering the windows, we remember the heat, the brightness, the carefree smiles... It all feels like a very long dream away.

When we get home, we wheel that boring, black, could-be-anybody's case to our room and flip it open...

It should be filled with shorts and shirts and... souvenirs... from my trip. Instead, I'm looking at several mismatching pairs of dirty knickers, a notebook filled with cramped handwriting, and a dead magpie.

Someone out there has my luggage. They've got the locket I found for my mum. (It cleaned up beautifully.) All those hideous shirts. And, double-wrapped in a pair of socks, a young man's toe.

+

Thank you for reading