Flash Fiction
You Can Leave Your Helmet On
Flash Fiction by Tehnuka
I heave my basket onto the checkout counter and try to scratch an itch on my scalp with a sweaty finger before I remember that I can’t.
It’s way too hot for this.
“Half price if you remove that helmet,” says the cashier wearing Luke’s nametag, and the rest of his body. Luke ditched his protective gear last month. He said he was sick of helmet hair.
I pass my shopping bag over. “Nah, I’m good, thanks.” We might be down to one income, and I’m beginning to suspect they turn off the air conditioning whenever they see me walk into the supermarket, but I’m still not that desperate. Anyway, carrots are always cheap to ensure they stay well-fed, even if I can’t afford much else. The restricted diet is manageable, though. Marcy always used to joke that I ate like a rabbit.
The cashier shrugs and pushes the laden bag across the counter.
“Sweetheart?”
Ex-Marcy comes to the door. “Carrots? Oh, yum, thanks!” A hungry tentacle twitches in her ear.
I pass the grocery bag over, keeping a couple of carrots for myself, and lock ex-Marcy in the bathroom to have lunch before flopping onto the sofa for a helmet break. I’ll have to brave the hardware store this afternoon to buy a lock for the lounge door, too. Then ex-Marcy won’t have to eat sitting on the toilet lid, and I’ll be able to wash my hair somewhere other than the kitchen sink, and maybe that will help us love each other a few more weeks, a few more months, even a few more years, despite everything.
Because I don’t really know how long the ex- part of ex-Marcy is going to put up with meals in the bathroom, or with my helmet in the bedroom. And it’s hard for both of us, me being the last human around here. One day that might change, but for now…I’m not yet ready to be ex-me.
About the Author
Tehnuka (www.tehnuka.dreamhosters.com) asks you to refuse the genocide and oppression of Palestinian people, and of all people; to stand for justice against the colonisation of Palestine; to draw courage from compassion and, in whatever way you can, to resist, resist, resist.
Interstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” Visit our Patreon to join our fan community on Discord. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
