Red

A short story written for Glimpse.

This publication was a joint effort, made up of contributions from students of the Royal College of Art.

Red 

I’ve been standing behind this counter, bored, forever. I’ve gotten used to the box of imminent danger behind me. The box is filled with discarded batteries ready for recycling. In my mind, it has become a large caustic box of alkaline-filled weak metal that could leak at any minute. In the time that I’ve worked here, I came to accept that this danger would always be in that corner.

Not a lot of people come to recycle their batteries here, but they do bring back any number of faulty household knickknacks and décor; stopped clocks, cracked aroma diffusers, automatic pepper grinders that no longer grind and such. All these household items require batteries, portable vessels of energy that hold the contents of a fluid that would fatally upset the stomach lining. I think about this often, but fear isn’t the word I would use to describe the emotion roused by this contemplation.

Someone’s here. I saw a hand on the escalator gliding up to my floor. Quickly I placed my phone into a small crevice behind the counter and ready myself for customer service.

The hand becomes an arm and then something red. A shirt? It looks metal. The person is standing up straight, almost as if they were holding an invisible plank threaded between their back and both biceps. They turn rigidly, facing the counter and make their way towards me.

“I’m done here”.

“I’m sorry?”

“Everything you sell is crap, do you know that?”

I know but I need the money.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Every time I buy one of these things it breaks in less than a week”.

The man pulls a bag he had been holding up to reach the other hand and pulled out a vintage-style radio. The man stood so carefully upright that he looked like the possibility of him tipping would cause a catastrophe.

“Do you have your receipt? I can offer you a refund or exchange.” I ask, so mechanically it hurts.

“I don’t have a receipt, but I brought it here from someone you work with. Someone blonde, dead behind the eyes.”

I search my mind, but the filters don’t narrow the search enough.

“Okay, does it still have the barcode?”

The man raises an eyebrow and tosses the radio onto the counter with no care. I pick it up and inspect it. The man finally bends. He hinges his body to look at the radio when suddenly I feel an intense burning sensation on my hand, it tingles unpleasantly. The battery had leaked.

I looked up at the man whose closeness revealed drool leaking from his mouth. His eyes were red, he was red and reflective.

I felt my skin peeling back, curling into rolls of flaky leather, as if attempting to leave the scene of the pain. I look down, my hands appear to still be intact. The man adjusts himself, creaking, clicking into place and steps back.

“Well?”

I look up the product number and issue the refund. I wish him a good day and hope, no, pray that he leaves.

He doesn’t leave. He stands staring. I still feel the burning, this time it feels more like ripping than peeling. I look down and I see the varying red layers of skin, each more glistening and redder than the last. I stand there watching my hands crack at the fine lines and weep with light blood. I feel the chill of air conditioning hit the sore, aching layers of skin barely holding on to tissue. I try to move my feet, but they feel as though my shoes have filled with thick warm liquid, heavy enough to keep me in place.

I choke in jagged breaths of worry, trying to think of a plan in which to prevent my sudden and rapid deterioration. My wrists are red and throbbing. I’d rather pass out than stand here. I’m alert. It’s his fault. His eyes, densely packed with burst capillaries, his expression has gone. He holds still, indifferent. The pain subsides but I’m red, swollen and my skin is expanding in horrifying grandeur. I’m panicking. Struggling to breathe. I want to peel the skin from my neck in a delusion to allow air into my lungs. He’s watching me. I dissolve. Fall apart, physically, and mentally. I don’t know what he feels.

You can find more from the publication here @glimpsepublication