the fluorescent light from the tubes
above. Everything was so still before
the phone rang. Not a zap from
the insect-o-cutor all morning. The
butcher picks up his cleaver and
wanders back to the shop’s window
display to escape the brittle alarm of
his father’s Bakelite phone. Damn
thing’s so well made that he never
had any need to replace it. Customers
seem to like it, too.
Right now, he’s on the verge of
putting his cleaver straight through it.
At least it wouldn’t spatter like meat.
Maybe for once, he could go home
clean, instead of dyed pink with the
remains of dead animals. Tainted with
the stink of death. Consumption.
Human decadence and hubris.
The smell never washes off, either.
He used scalding water and coal tar
soap when he was a kid, but the girls
at school told him he smelled like
a hogroast on a bonfire. When he
hit eighteen, he gave up trying. The
smell and pink taint even leaked into
his dreams, leaving no corner of his
being untouched.
He lifts his cleaver above his head
and the phone stops. He lowers it
again and looks through the window
to see if anyone saw. Hearing footsteps,
he opens the door, chiming the bell.
There’s no-one in the high street. The
light has fizzled out altogether now
and snow is thick on the pavement.
He closes the door with a shudder and
rubs his thick arms through the clean
white cotton of his shirt.
In the meatless window, the tiny
plastic decorations on the empty
windows resemble hedgerows around
an evacuated settlement. He knows all
too well what happened to the villagers.
They were imprisoned. Used for meat.
Maybe that’s all he has ever been:
meat chopping meat, partaking of a
self-perpetuating system of sacrifice
and cruelty. The pain in his chest
grows sharper and his vision blurs. He
looks at the perfect edge of his cleaver
and wonders what they’ll use on himSHORT STORY WINNER
http://www.writers-online.co.uk MARCH 2020^53when he’s dead. Perhaps he could
write a note and pin it to his chest.
USE THE CLEAVER. NO SCALPEL.
Would a coroner honour such
a request? Do those aggrandised
butchers have any honour?
He scans the plastic hedgerows for
any surviving villagers, but none show
up. They are all dead. Probably eaten by
the pigs looming in the forest. As they
lean against the plastic trees, they laugh
and lick their bloody lips, lighting up
cigarettes in the morning mist.
Somewhere in the valleys, a
butcher’s window still has no meat
in it for the first time in thirty years.
And the butcher is not well. He
leans against his spotless chopping
board and sweats on to the cold
steel, each drop almost hot enough
to sizzle. These circumstances are
unprecedented in this tiny, cobbled
corner of the world. Reality itself
threatens to tear asunder with each
passing second.
In the back room, the Bakelite
telephone rings again. He knows he
has no choice. If there is to be meat in
the window by opening time, he must
answer it. If he is to see out the day,
he must answer it. Must be a man.
Man of the house now. Chop-chop.
The butcher storms to the back
room and hovers his hand over the
receiver. He picks it up, listens for
a moment and slams it back down
before scrambling to the fridge.
Somewhere, deep in the valleys,
a sick butcher is wrenching at his
own fridge with all his might. In the
still, cold morning, the empty street
reverberates his desperate struggle,
but there is no-one to help him. An
anguished scream drifts up the road
to the church and its overcrowded
graveyard, but it falls silently to the
cobbles and tombstones with the
snow, unheard. Silence cradles the
street in its soft hands once more.
The butcher sits on the floor of his
back room, his sweaty and bedraggled
head hung between his knees. He isRunner-up in the single character short story competition was Jane Siddiky, Crosby, Liverpool, whose story is published
on http://www.writers-online.co.uk Also shortlisted were: Jeanette Ayton, Barnsley, South Yorkshire; Antony Crossley, Chobham,
Surrey; Jonathan Gurling, Birmingham; Rachael Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire; Andrew Hutchcraft, Peterborough,
Cambridgeshire; Mary Moore, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire; Lolita Parekh, Harrow, Middlesex; Jane Robertson,
Sharpness, Gloucestershire; Jill Trowell, Peacehaven, East Sussex; Simon Yeend, Haywards Heath, Sussex.
turned away from the open fridge,
where his dream had become reality. No
meat to chop. He knows that he did
this. And now he can’t forgive himself.
The cleaver sings its song of
reliable, razor sharp steel from the
chopping board. The butcher listens
closely to every word. The song is
sung in a language like none he has
ever heard, but he understands the
meaning through the melody. It
means something sad. Something he
won’t be able to take back. Something
deeply violent. Against himself.
Against God.
Five minutes to opening time.
The butcher rests his upturned arm
against the board like a side of lamb,
exposing the white, delicate skin
covering his veins. He raises the
cleaver above his head and clenches
his teeth. It’s something he won’t be
able to take back. And it’s the only
thing that’s going to put meat in the
fridge. Food on the table. Sacrifice.
An honest day’s work. Just give ‘em
what they want. Take the money. Job
done. Ye can go home and sleep well.
Chop-chop.
He’s about to chop when he hears a
strange noise above his father’s voice:
a snuffling sound, like a creature
seeking out food. It’s coming from
outside, right by the door. Shadows
crowd the window, their thick, pink
snouts – some moustachioed, some
painted with lipstick – smearing
against the glass. One of them scrapes
at the pane with a trotter. Dressed
in scarves and overcoats, they appear
quite ludicrous. The butcher can’t
help snickering to himself as he hides
the cleaver in his apron and flips the
sign on the door from CLOSED to
OPEN. Gripping the riveted wood of
the cleaver’s handle in one hand and
unlatching the door with the other,
the butcher knows what he must do
to fill his window.
Somewhere in the valleys,
something dreadful is happening.
Chop-chop.