The Sofa
By Alex Blake
I watch my toast triangle float above the plate and then spin towards the floor, smearing a chocolate spread island on the linoleum. Around it, an orange juice dam has broken and there’s a flood. There are mug pieces like ancient city walls. The table tips back and I eat the last bite of the toast still in my hand. They’re all shouting out there on the street. It’s the same every day. Although usually dad runs into the road later in the afternoon. I watch them hurry him back in and sit him down on the sofa. They’re careful with his head. The weather lady is talking about a yellow storm warning. I pick the crumbs from my top and arrange them on the table. I make a path from one wood knot to the next. They’re twin ponds, and I am a city planner. My mother pulls me up from the chair and tells me to go get ready for school. She brushes away the crumbs despite my protests. I reluctantly leave the room, careful to only step on the black tiles. I pass the back of the sofa, and crane my neck to look at dad’s balding scalp. No new marks. Just that old dark one from a few weeks back. I jump up each step on the staircase. My socks are spongy on the carpet like I’m wearing springs. If I could only get a little higher I could reach for the banister and swing from it like a monkey. Although I wouldn’t like to be a monkey because I like being able to draw and read and eat crisps. Sarah is at the top of the stairs. She tells me that she saw me looking at dad’s head and that I shouldn’t do that. I ask her why and she just says “it’s rude and it will make him self-conscious.” I say that dad always used to let me look at his head. I try to tell her about the time he let me draw a face on it with an icing pen. She doesn’t listen. She just scowls and walks away. I pull on my school uniform and sneak a few plastic dinosaurs into my bag so that I can hold or think about them when I’m on the bus. Downstairs there are loud noises again and lots of shouting. I walk downstairs and dad calls me from the sofa. I say, “Mum and Sarah told me not to talk to you.” He says that’s a load of rubbish and I tell him that I think Sarah is rubbish. He says “don’t be rude” but he’s smiling when he says it. His head looks better but his eyes look sleepy. I ask him why he always runs into the road. He puts his arms out to hug me and I think about drawing a better face on his head, maybe using glitter glue and googly eyes. A pipe cleaner moustache that curls at the ends. He says “do you see that river down there?” I say yes. The carpet has a big blue swirl that spreads between the sofa and the door. He says that all rivers lead to the sea and I say “No dad, that’s not true. Sometimes there are in-land basins that form lakes and rivers from precipitation, ground water, or sometimes even glaciers that melt.” He smiles at me and says I’m a clever sausage and that I shouldn’t ever stop reading. They’re shouting out there again. I can hear Sarah making a really loud noise like an ape. I kneel on the carpet and trace the river with my finger, my fingernail disappearing into the threads. I think about the first people building farms along the water’s edge. It looks like the river ahead has burst its banks.
Alex Blake (He/Him) is a fiction writer and artist based in Sheffield, UK. His short fiction has appeared in Chthonic Lit and is forthcoming in Table Salt Press and Pfielstorch.
