Sense of Community | Short Story

These flats were quite the thing when they were first built – waiting lists as long as your arm, polite enquiries with people whose cousins’ brothers worked at the council and might be able to put a word in. These flats were the place to be back ten – kids running up and down the hallways and in and out of each other’s houses. Everyone looking out for one another.

Of course, nothing stays the same for ever. People move on and people move out; at least, people moved out around Irene. The folks next door had a family, and once Tommy started working on the rigs, Sheila wanted something to show for looking after the kids herself. Out they went to Clarkston or Eaglesham or some other swanky place on the south side. Raymie and Mags left for the Costa del sol when his retirement money came through. There was talk of letters and twice-yearly visits, but apart from a postcard twice a year nothing came of it. Plenty had dies, of course. Irene had lost count of the funerals she had attended at the church down the road; she was on nodding terms with the minister despite not being a great believer herself, and knew what sandwiches to avoid at the funeral dos afterwards.

People had slowly eased out of the high-rises. More every year, until the blanket of community that seemed to cover them all in the seventies and eighties was threadbare, more hole than material – a reminder of how things used to be. In the months before Irene herself died, the flat had seemed more wall than window, as though each person who had left the scheme had taken a little of the air with them. Irene had felt vacuum packed at the end, her life drawn closer to her skin, like those chestnuts you could get at the new Asian supermarket.

No-one had noticed when Irene died, Just as her life had been free of drama, her death was a non-event when it occurred at eight thirty-five on a January evening. She had felt funny watching the television and had simply keeled over five degrees to her left as though she were her own second hand, calling the hour. The subtitled television had continued to flash and blink at her – a lighthouse signalling for some other soul.

There had been no-one left to ask any questions as the post kept sliding through the letterbox and the rent money kept coming out of the post office account. The people who might once have knocked on her door to check in were living in towns far away, had lost touch or lost interest. Irene’s new neighbours – the cannabis growers, those on the run from the law or from previous partners – they each had their own flat, their own small, dark secret. There was no-one to ask about weans running through the corridors, no-one to check if old Mrs. Miller needed a four-pinter on their way down to the shops, not even anyone to phone the council about the smell or the bluebottles. Even the bluebottles left eventually – same as everyone else.

Irene lays there still, a little more slumped perhaps, but with the same flickering lights playing off ivory. Amidst the sheaves of letters, two postcards showing turquoise waters and off-white sands come slipping through the letterbox twice a year. Hoping she is well. Thinking of her.

*Thanks for reading, folks. Image courtesy of Mic Wernej. My recent short stories include ‘The Young Man from Number Twenty-Seven‘ and ‘Plausible Deniability‘.

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Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.