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She's So Talented

A Short Story by Dan Levey

By Dan LeveyPublished about a year ago 8 min read
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image courtesy of Jr Korpa/Unsplash

She’s So Talented

A short story

by

Dan Levey

At five years old she didn’t realise or understand what talent was. Who does? What she did know was drawing was a joy. So there she sat, right where her Mummy had left her after planting a firm kiss on her cheek.

“I’ll see you later,” Mummy’s eyes glistened with pride, as the four fingers on her right hand gave the smallest of waves. “Love you, baby.”

With the door closed, little Simone had laid out her crayons at the side of her folded legs, all twelve of them, and set to work on that patch of wall. The patch where the thin, cheap paper had been torn away long before she knew.

Simone may have been a small child, but she understood just what it was that filled her with so much joy. It was the window to her soul, opened wide, projected onto the wall through the miracle of her crayons. It was also the brief freedom her drawing allowed.

More than ten minutes passed by before he decided to check up on her.

“Simone!” His booming words bounced off of the walls, punching into the ears of Simone Gary, rattling her young brain.

Antoine stood in the doorway to the living room, the light of the thirty-two-inch TV shining onto his back, silhouetting those wide, heavy shoulders of his.

Simone noted how he squeezed the rolled-up copy of the Racing Post in his hand, the one he always seemed to be carrying, whilst he considered what to do with her. The print from the horse racing pages was, by now staining those thick fingers of his and Simone knew that it would be her, not Antoine blamed for creating the dark smudges on the walls of the flat. It would also be her, not Antoine, cleaning those same walls later.

Antoine stamped towards her along the cold, laminated floor. “Get to your damn room!” With little thought, the big man snatched the red crayon away from the small girl, breaking it into pieces.

His gaze ran over the large drawing, captured from the imagination of this little girl. It wasn’t the stick people Antoine expected to see from a five-year-old. Truth be told, Antoine was impressed as it outshone anything in the way of art he’d ever dared to express. He almost smiled. Almost. That little girl of Veronica’s did show talent. But, even so, he didn’t like what he was seeing.

Simone felt his large hand upon her narrow, twig-like back pulling her to her feet, shoving her back along the hallway, almost taking her from the floor. “Little bitch,” he cursed, as Simone took her tiny feet quickly, quietly into that small box bedroom of hers.

Closing the door behind herself with silent gentleness, Simone tried her hardest not to breathe heavily as she waited for Antoine’s footsteps to pass by.

The laminate gave away his position. Slap, slap, slap.

He’d stopped. If no door were between them she would have felt his warm breath on her face carrying the smell of the twenty cigarettes he smoked every day. Her chest tightened. Her shoulders shook. Placing the flat of her hand upon the door, Simone felt the subtle push-back. One of his hands was resting on the other side of her door, whilst his other gripped the door handle. It rattled.

Please don’t come in.

The excited voice of the TV Commentator grew louder. He was chirping about some crappy horse race that was about to begin. The door contracted, relaxed, creaked, and the slap, slap, slap took Antoine away.

Realising that she had been holding her breath, Simone gasped in the damp, pungent air. She cupped a hand to her mouth whilst taking short steps away from the door, returning to the A4 colouring book waiting on her small, second-hand bed.

A strange, unfamiliar sound brought her back to the door.

The wall to her right shook. Antoine was punching it again? It was something Simone had grown accustomed to. Despite the short time she and her Mummy had been living there, Simone was familiar with Antoine’s complaints, his constant roaring to keep the noise down. Only this time, the thuds on the wall were weaker. Further apart.

Simone felt her body jolt as the noise of breaking glass reached her.

The banging on the wall had ceased.

Against her better judgement, Simone, doubting herself, twisted the door handle. Was Antoine only trying to lure her out of her room? No, she thought, pulling at the handle, it was a bad noise. There was no test. He could just take her out of that room if he wanted her out.

The child tipped her head around the door frame, allowing only one eye, her left, to visit the hallway. The TV was loud, drowning out any possible chance of Simone hearing Antoine breathing or swearing at his chosen horse. She thought about calling out, but she already knew what the back of his hand felt like.

Now both eyes viewed down the hallway towards the living room. She noted how the curtains at the far end of the room were closed, the usual when he had money on the races. On a Saturday afternoon, the outside world could wait. That was why Veronica chose to work the same hours every weekend. It was the same reason little Simone spent most of her time in her room with her colouring books.

The TV went silent. It was only for a moment, but that allowed Simone to listen out for the sound of glass on glass, as he poured himself another rum, lit a cigarette, or exhaled that foul blue poison.

There came no sound.

Until the TV commercials sparked into life.

Simone felt the sting of fear. Antoine was never, ever this quiet, especially when the horses were running. Her imagination began to race alongside those thoroughbreds. Had Antoine dropped the bottle through the glass top of the coffee table? Had he fallen over? Either way, she had to know. So, tempting his wrath, she moved herself out onto that cold laminate floor. Standing there, barefoot in the pyjamas she’d outgrown the last year, Simone shivered.

Her body, especially her thin legs, felt iced. Not in the cold sense, no. She felt that if she moved forward her body would crack like thin ice on a thawing pond. Something was holding her back. It took a journey around her thoughts before she understood. Simone didn’t want to find him. She didn’t want to see something she shouldn’t see.

One step. Two steps.

That dry, white door frame leading to the living room loomed closer.

Reaching out, Simone’s tender hand touched the door. It felt smooth, almost slippery under her fingers. The room before her was dim. Simone drew in a breath. “Antoine?” Her voice was slight, almost not there.

She received no reply.

I have to, she thought, her hand now gripping the door frame. Another deep breath, deeper than the last filled her lungs. I have to know, she thought. I have to see. So little Simone Gary willed herself into that smoke-heavy room.

The first thing her eyes saw was the shards glimmering in the TV light. On the floor, amongst the sharp glass lay a bottle of rum, its white label facing her. Next to the bottle, Antoine’s shot glass, upturned with traces of liquid clinging to the inside.

Antione was sat slumped on the sofa. His left eye was closed. His head lay tipped over towards his right shoulder. And he was still. She watched him for signs of any movement. His chest. His lips. She witnessed nothing from him except his thick blood as it dribbled down his cheek to his chin and dripped onto his white vested chest. The pen, a Bic, seemed rigid in his eye socket. The eye, not two minutes ago, there, was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was dark blood and violence.

Slowly her bare feet crossed the thin threaded carpet, making certain not to step on broken glass. Once more her hand reached out. Only this time it was for Antoine’s closed fist resting on the arm of the sofa. All this time Simone’s eyes stared upon his damaged face. She touched his hand. It still felt warm.

Gently, tenderly, Simone took Antoine’s closed hand in hers. She asked herself why this had happened. Why was Antoine one moment there, the next, not?

He was gone. Gone for good.

Holding on to those large fingertips, Simone’s eyes diverted from his face to a hand twice as large as her own. Taking the tips of his fingers in that closed hand, she lightly peeled them away from his palm.

And there lay a piece of crayon. Her crayon, in all its red glory.

Her eyes found his face once again. He wasn’t faking his demise. She was simply having a good day.

Simone took up the crayon pieces, turned, and without a second thought for the man, made long strides. for her, back to the hallway.

Taking her place back upon the laminate floor, she folded her legs, and after a brief pause to analyse the picture she had been creating, Simone added more blood to the white vest of the dead man slumped lifelessly on the sofa.

The End.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Dan Levey

Blogger, Copy and Ghostwriter. I've written three novels; Glengoric Book One: The Blood of Tremain, Don't Give Up, Tom Drake and Diary of a Knackered Middle-Aged Superhero.

Find me at danleveyghostwriter.com

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