A Message From The Other Side

Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.

That guy is just a waste of space.

It was one of the things Joe said. When he left, Catherine told Helen she should be glad, he had been a walking cliché. That’s a cliché too, Helen protested. Catherine was angry on Helen’s behalf, but Helen herself had not thought of these sayings of Joe’s as cliché, perhaps taking them too literally. She used to picture the ‘waste of space’ guy being hustled out of the space he occupied because he was wasting it, and hadn’t earned the right to continue to occupy a tiny patch within a tiny part of a tiny universe. What would they put in his place – a biscuit tin perhaps, a lawn mower, something enjoyed or useful, the space more profitably occupied than by the man. She wondered where he might go, displaced like that. Perhaps he would die, so that he no longer occupied any literal space. She knew as she drifted on like this, standing by the hedge at the bottom of the garden, not weeding, that it was all nonsense, yet her mind persisted with it.

She hadn’t particularly been thinking of Joe – or no more than usual. It was because of Catherine. ‘The oddest thing,’ Catherine had said on the phone last night, ‘I thought I saw Hugh, speaking to our janitor.’

‘Did your janitor know Hugh?’ Helen had asked, surprised, then realised this was not the right question. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to tell you.’ ‘Did you think I’d be upset that Hugh had come back? Or wasn’t really dead?’

‘Oh, Helen, stop it. Of course it wasn’t Hugh – I just imagined him. He must have been in my mind. I’m sorry.’

Helen wasn’t sorry, as it was quite an interesting start to a conversation, much more so than the usual call with Catherine. ■