YSJ Anthology 2015

TAP TAP
Brittany Williams
‘Who’s there?’ The words seem so feeble as they start to escape my
lips, yet so was the strength I had, feeble, that’s it, nothing more. I
don’t know what awaits me behind the door; truthfully I don’t want
to know. I don’t think that is a decision which is mine to make.
Fingers are starting to tap the door. Tap, after tap, after tap. I don’t
know if I am as scared any more, not about what will happen to me
at least.
When I was eight I used to hide behind the back gate in my garden
and watch a man out of a peephole. He was such a peculiar chap but
he was a gentleman, I remember that bit, clear as day. No one could
take that title away from him. He dressed in suits every day, no
matter whether it was pouring with rain or so sunny the sky scorched
with colour.
He never really spoke to anyone, I guess that is why I can only label
him as ‘he’. Nevertheless, I remember watching him, watching him
buy milk every third morning of the week. More sadly, I remember
him placing gathered flowers at his wife’s grave.
He lost his wife when he was young, too young for it not to be
labelled purely as a tragedy. He was so weak yet so strong, I think
he was just too strong to let heartbreak kill him. His muscles kept
him upright, whilst underneath he crumbled. He was nothing more
than a framed existence, a hollow death.
He never believed in God, not the day he said goodbye to his parents
in flower-valley church, never-ever. Yet the day he said goodbye to
her, you could tell in his eyes he willed God to take him too. His
desire to live always with her, challenged the absolution of science.
However, as he was forced to live on, his body took on the persona
of death. Worse still, this extended to his clothes, his eyes, and most
troubling, his smile. Long gone were the days of tweed suits and a
bright orange hanky. No, he dressed only in a black suit, more a
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