Chocolate Milk for Miles! by Andrew Battershill
Derek was with his friend Annabel, drinking by a river. Annabel was about knee-deep in the water. She tripped slightly and as she righted herself an expanding swirl of silt rose to the surface. Derek was sitting higher up on the hill. He had an umbrella suspended in a tree branch above him. Rain fell heavily into the river but only the occasional drop made it through the canopy of the trees.
Annabel spun her hand around at the wrist. “I had six nightmares last night, and none of them had an arc.” She stepped out of the river, almost slipping on a rock.
“I don’t remember my dreams.”
She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “What’s the last dream you remember?”
Derek let his head droop to his chest.
“It was quite a while ago now. And in the dream I went to the fridge and there were no eggs left. That was the dream. I was out of eggs.”
“You had a fridge dream too!? That’s awesome! Three days ago I had one where I looked in the fridge and there were rows and rows of chocolate milk containers, all lined up. They filled the whole thing.”
“The only other one I remember, I bought shoes and the girl at the counter gave me my change in belt buckles. Three metal tubs full of belt-buckles.”
Annabel was putting on her shoes; she slapped her calf three times. “Chocolate milk for miles!” She laughed, bent forwards, and then moved back sharply, letting her left shoe slip out of her hand and into the water. She pulled it out before anywhere but the toe got wet.
He craned his head around the outside of the umbrella and looked up. It had stopped raining, but a drop of water fell from a leaf and hit him next to his right eye.
They climbed the bank together and when they reached the gravel path Annabel skipped ahead. She spun around to face him, lost her balance and fell into a sitting position. A strand of her bangs fell across her face, and without moving any other part of her body she blew upwards and got the hair out of her eyes.
They walked down the path and reached a house. The house was old and made of brick. Accordion music started rolling out the window, one note at a time, which was both incredible and the only way it could. He looked up at the window and saw that the accordion player had a pet crow (it was an eastern European crow, which meant that it looked like a crow, but covered in grey paint). Annabel bumped into Derek, spinning him around at the shoulder. He heard her say: “I wish each person had a different number of bones.”
***
About the Author
Andrew Battershill
Born: Vancouver, BC
Now resides: Victoria, BC
Online: www.jotcamp.com
Bio: Andrew Battershill is the co-editor of Dragnet Magazine online. He was the winner of the 2010 Irving Layton Award for Fiction, and his winning entry will be featured in the upcoming issue of The Headlight Anthology. His work is currently appearing in issue 2 of Burner Mag.
***
image by nilgunkara.
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