Sun and Knives

Transitions

Photo by whereslugo on Unsplash

In the horizontal late afternoon sun, glare pinballing off snow and chrome from cars, you really couldn't tell Ashford held a knife.

But you could tell he was shaking, doing a repetitive little dance like an old 16 bit video game glitching.

The dance was nerves, but it wasn't run nerves.

It was excitement, anticipation. 

Yardie folded his arms tight against himself.

Ashford wanted to stab this guy, this dumb guy who didn't know Ashford was going to happily stab him.

The dance was all part of it, Ashford enjoying the moment. 

Yardie wanted to say something, knew what he would say, exactly, like a prepackaged meal waiting to be plucked from a shelf.

That prepackaged meal of words was too much, too fancy, too metaphorical, and Yardie knew it.

Yardie had seen Ashford kill before, twice before, and he didn't want to see it again.

The guy realized for the first time that the black gloved hand wasn't just a fist. 

His own dance slowed, changed, became a slight retreat.

The man's retreat drew Yardie’s words out of his mouth.

“See that sun, Ash?”

Ashford didn't react,he danced forward toward this man, this man who committed this transgression that produced Ashford’s knife.

“That sun doesn't belong to you Ash.” 

Ashford looked at his friend, his friend he met when they weren't far removed from crustless sandwiches and wet beds.

Yardie had Ashford's eyes now, at least one, the other on the man.

“The sun doesn't belong to you Ash. You got no right to take it from this guy's tomorrow.”

“The fuck does that mean, Yar?”

As Ashford said it, the man charged Ashford, ducked his head, tackled. The knife went skittering across cold asphalt.

At eight, or sixteen or twenty-four, Yardie would have been on top of the guy, they'd bloody him up and send him on his way. 

At twenty six years, two months and four days that all changed.

Yardie wheeled over to the knife. He couldn't reach it from his chair, so he rolled over the blade, stopped, and watched the fight.

Ashford would win, and then maybe Yardie could take their discussion a little bit deeper.

Maybe not today, but tomorrow, when everyone had a new sun.

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