MELTED SUN

By Linden Hibbert

Honourable mention in the ORB's MT25 Short Fiction Prize, judged by Laird Hunt.

Photograph by Linden Hibbert

He wanted the dog, his mother always reminds him, so he can fucking walk it. And

he does walk it, though he nips out early so not to give her the satisfaction of seeing

him do as he’s told. This time of year, it’s dark when he leaves, flat light all day at

school and then dark when he gets home. Today he feels like bunking off, him and

the dog. It’s maths results day. If he’s failed again, he’s out.

The stony path pokes his feet through the soles of his trainers. The path is

flinty, and crisscrossed with tree roots, mainly alder this close to the river, or those

spindly birches that barely cast shadows. Under the alder air feels heavier, and

though the light is grey, there’s no sign yet of the sun.

The dog flows ahead of him, tri-colour ears lifting on the wind, tail like a

banner behind. That tail. The way it thumps against the wall as he opens the door

coming home. The sheer hopefulness of that sound makes his throat ache. If there’s

any creature alive more hopeful he hasn’t met it. Expecting the best in people even

the losers his mum brings back. The dog spins to look at him now, hazel eyes

scarcely visible under brows so shaggy they touch his cheek. I’m coming, he thinks,

stretching his stride until they meet. The dog jumps up, keeps jumping. What’s there

to think about beyond that?

The path will start to rise near the embankment. This side, the path is lower

than the river, mankind sticking two fingers up at nature. Go on, it says. try me. He

thinks of the kid who stuck his thumb in the dyke. Imagine that today, out for a run,

only to be stuck with your finger in a hole ‘til some passer by takes over, or more

likely, tells you to wait until he sends someone to fix it. Only people don’t. They

only say they do.

He grins to himself, lungs really burning now, as the incline sets in. Running

on the balls of his feet. Arms going. The dog bounding ahead. The burn leaves

nothing else to feel. The dog bounds like his legs have springs. At the last moment,

near the top of the climb the daft dog runs back to him, past him. Skids to come

back, meaning he, the boy, gets there first. Victory. He thrusts his arms outwards.

He’d like thicker arms. Muscled, like the men on Instagram. I bet they don’t beat

dogs up a hill like that.

There’s a fork in the path at the top of the hill. The right goes on along the

spit and into the marsh, the left runs along the embankment. The dog takes the

marsh path.

He’s far from school but if he followed the dog he’d stretch that distance yet

again. What if he just kept running. He’d have to wade a bit where the tide is high,

but he’s done it many times, back when the dog would sprint after the sniff of bird

on the wind. How many times has he dragged the dog out of the mud, coming

home stinking. Late again, again.

But he senses a shift in the light, an alteration in the wind. Now it’s hitting

him head on, rummaging the trees as though looking for him, trying to string him

along. He jumps a pothole. Gravel slips towards the water, still black, light on the

water, fingers of grey.

The river’s tidal. An estuary. He learned that at school. Lapping at the right

bank as he passes out of the trees. Lately high tide has been biblical, the path

consumed by the water. Everything’s all gone to pot it seems. Everything. He hears

kittiwakes coming at him on; the skitter of a black headed gull. Something black and

white skims the estuary. His feet slap the damp tarmac. His pace picks up; tiredness

making his body burning his anger, which seems constant these days. The dog

stops. He leaps it and turns back, calls to him, come on boy, and that’s when he sees

the sun: a ball of gold melting into the estuary. Gold everywhere. Air and water and

bank and grass. It takes his breath away. Is the sun dying?

He stops running and stares at it, so bright, its dazzling. He shields his eyes,

sees it still, burned on his eyes through the lids, gold and red and fuzzy. The end of

the world is not so bad, he thinks. The dog’s head finding the tips of his fingers, the

dog’s body warm against his leg. The dog sitting on his shoe, the one with the hole.

It’s all right boy, it’s all right.

And it is all right, the two of them together. The dog and him. The dog

whimpers, then gets up and barks at the sun, returns but won’t settle.

He catches his breath. The wind drops. He bathes his face in the dying light.

No wonder has hasn’t met a soul. No wonder the curlews, the Dunlins and Godwits

left the river.

He assumed even at the end of things there would be seagulls to pick things

over. But, surely, then, there are no maths tests? No being asked to explain when he

has no words. The end of the world turns out to be glorious, like that Star Wars

spin-off, a barrelling wall of light, the two of them stood side by side.

He doesn’t think of his mother, or her man of the hour, or his real dad,

wherever he is. The flat too will be gone. The black bathroom mould gone with it.

The stink of piss in the hallways. The out-of-service lift. The noughts and crosses

etched on the radiator Ma still hasn’t found. Maybe that will outlast him and in

years, if anything survives, maybe his radiator will be in some extra-terrestrial

museum, his zeroes and crosses lauded as the language of a lost world. He turns to

face the sun again. But it doesn’t die. He doesn’t die.

Shit.

Shit.

He’s late. Again.

LINDEN HIBBERT believes in dogs and sunrises, wanted to be a poet, but isn't, and eventually found short stories.