"Like Owls"
Someone died. That was the whisper
down the line. The line, that stretched, that snaked, that wound. Someone died,
they hissed, pass it on. And we did, we bent towards our neighbour, our hot breath
in their ear. Who, who, who? Like owls, the sounds came back. Who died, who died,
who died? But nothing was returned, and no-one could see, no-one could see the front,
although every day we shuffled some, we moved one foot and maybe the other. We hoped,
we hoped and hoped, we clutched our numbers, shuffling.
Inside our heads we wondered if we
were it, the dead, the expired. Perhaps we had all passed on but why the shuffling
then? If we were dead, we thought, we'd rest. If we were dead we'd lie around all
day, in sunshine if it still existed. Lucky dead, we thought, lucky not to have
to queue, to eat, or breathe, or sigh or sweat, or love or curse. Lucky, lucky,
lucky.
The next day and the next, we stood,
we inched, we stood. And then: a runner. A runner streaking, from behind straight
up, towards the head, the start, the finish! Go go go go, we cried, clutching our
numbers, our shuffling feet thrilled to the chase, thrilled to the bravery. Go go
go go go! The runner vanished, far far ahead, and we strained to hear, to hear some
cheers, some acts, some violence, some thing. But no, the runner's run was done.
Bones broken, came the whisper, hissed from one ear to the next. Truncheons, batons,
zappers, chains and stern commands. The runner won't be running now, or ever, and
we giggled, laughed and cackled, foolish runner, stupid stupid stupid, no not brave,
not brave. Queue we must and queue we did, no breaking free, no gaining ground.
Someone died. That was the whisper down the line.
Who who who? Like owls, the sound came back.
Tania Hershman is the author of two story collections: My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions (Tangent Books, 2012), a collection of 56 very short fictions, and The White Road and Other Stories (Salt, 2008; commended, 2009 Orange Award for New Writers). Tania's short stories and poetry are published or forthcoming in, among others, Five Dials, Stinging Fly, Tears in the Fence, PANK magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, the London Magazine, and New Scientist, and on BBC Radio. She is writer-in-residence in Bristol University's Science Faculty and editor of The Short Review.
