John was on the run, mud-splashed and wild and when he kicked in the front door Lucy went and locked herself in the bathroom.
He showed us the sunshine he’d stolen and smushed into an empty pasta sauce jar and James immediately sped out into the darkness of two weeks thus far to pick up some marshmallows.
For a while there was pleading but Lucy wouldn’t open the door, not even when John claimed he’d stolen it for her. She knew it wasn’t the truth because she’d been sober and straight the night two years ago when he’d come home from his bullshit callcentre job angry, furious really, at being the end result so far of millions of successful ancestors and there he was draining away every day, animate but not alive, moving but staying dead still.
John had rushed in the door and told us about the moment of clarity, the cusp of a grand idea which had hit six minutes after he got on the train to come home.
We were drunk and high, except Lucy who was sober and low and so while Andrew was quite willing to go along with the pretense of John doing it for her, she knew the shiny steel truth.
James was back with the marshmallows soon enough and we clicked off the lid and started roasting. Words words words wrapped together and thrown against Lucy’s knowledge with no result but then the scent of burnt sugar slid under the door and out came Lucy and no one moved or even pretended to notice when she hugged John from behind and pressed her face against his back.
