Laughter in the Dark
Flash Fiction
Author’s Note: This story was longlisted for Bath Flash Fiction Award, and was subsequently featured in their end-of-year Anthology of 2022.
Kash, a self-confessed agoraphobic, only left his shoebox apartment if his Vitamin D was running low. While I could never be sure, he always seemed to be keeping a stonewalled secret. That July, we suffered the biggest drought of our lives, and there we were, eating a TV dinner on the sidewalk opposite Hollywood Boulevard. The corn—half-frozen—and the rest, mushy and cheesy.
“You good, Kash? No, sorry, not good—nobody is ever good—I mean, are you surviving?”
“Barely. When it gets dark, the walls start closing in.”
We poured out the leftover pieces of beef and shared them equally. No matter the season, Kash always dressed for a snowstorm. Thick boots. Thermals. Everything.
“What’s going on with you? Are you still temping?”
I had been jumping from job to job like a leapfrog. Hairdresser’s assistant. Cashier. PA. You name it, I’d done it.
“Yessir. I ain’t thrown in the towel just yet, but if one more catwalking, salad eating, mirror gazing valley girl chews her gum at me one more time, I’m gonna kill somebody.”
I made a choking gesture. The meat (if it was real meat) sizzled on the sidewalk.
“At night, I hear voices.”
Kash drove his index finger into the concrete.
“They call me names. And, sometimes, they’re right, so goddamn right.”
“You’re just…quirky, that’s all.”
“Look, I have to tell you something. I’ve been putting it off, but before it’s too late…”
He dropped the TV dinner and got right in my face.
“I’m dying, Q.”
We spent five minutes, just staring at each other, until Kash started to laugh. He fell on his back and wriggled around, incapacitated by an uncontrollable fit of giggling. I felt nauseous. Not because he was dying, but because I’d never seen him laugh in all the years I’d known him.