Five Years Later
Monday November 13th 2028 - 08:30
A horn blared - too loud, too old, the kind of thing you’d expect from a 1940s steam engine. In spite of a mostly modern railway system, out in the country there tends to be a strange inability to remove oneself from the aesthetics of the past, and the artificial steam-esque sounds of the local railways was a testament to that.
I had left this part of the world 2 years ago, meeting with friends and my parents every month or so, sometimes in London, sometimes in Essex. Truly it depended on who could be bothered to travel further. Normally me.
I hadn’t particularly enjoyed my last time here, I enjoyed the company I kept but with a lack of interest in minimum range work or agriculture (which wasn’t exactly well-paying itself) within a high-cost world I left at 17 to escape into London, with the hope that a proper city would offer opportunity, only to be quickly put into my proper place, with the realisation that minimum wage is far from a region exclusive reality.
My parents had asked me home. They never explained why - which was reason enough to worry. I presumed it was another meet up, except we had never met at the house, only in local cafés or places around London.
Leaving the train station, I came across a landline post, long since abandoned but still used for advertising of all sorts. Folk don’t care to license out their business, so printing a design on some garbage inkjet and slapping it onto a post in an industrial area is a fair way to get some notoriety for whatever you sell. I remember me and some friends making these posters for a CD filled with our music after forming a band. We sold 4 copies. 2 were from our parents.
What stuck out to me the most, however, was the missing posters. There were two here, a number I had never seen at once. In spite of my late night viewing at 14, generally crime isn’t all too common ‘round these parts.
That was when I got a tap on the shoulder.
“Ahem”
I practically leaped out of my skin, turning around to reveal a slender, young man. I wasn’t quite sure why, until it hit me. Billy, one of my old friends, was standing on the concrete, hands in his pockets and leaning over to one side. I hadn’t spoken to him since 15, and our last conversation was… difficult. But in a strange way, it was so good to see him.
“Remember me?”
He chuckled, as I looked directly towards him, revealing his height. He must have been a full foot above me.
“Can’t say I quite do - not at that height at least!”
I cringed at my own joke in a way I often would, conversations with anyone I wasn’t intimately familiar with would always end up this way.
“Yeah, growth spurt hit me late huh? How’re you?”
“...Good, yeah… haven’t been to this bit of the world in nearly two years now…”
It was as if no time had skipped at all, until he interrupted me. I forgot he did that quite so much, but I would have to get used to it again.
‘Anyhow, was speaking to your parents ‘other day. Ran into them at the Butchers, said you were on your way and thought I’d arrange to meet you. It's… It's been a while J.’
Somehow I had forgotten how those around here talked, my mother wasn’t from the rural parts, being raised within Colchester, coming into the farm patches out of love for my father, and bringing a determination to make me speak accurate English. My teachers joked I spoke like an immigrant for the way I learnt English rather than picking it up. Frankly I think that was a failing on their part.
“Say, these kids…”
“-oh, those? Yeah I don’t quite know what it's about. I come across the train a lot, my girl is up in Cambridge right now, student-ing some English or something, she’s the smart one you see.”
Somehow the revelation that people had relationships I didn’t know of was so strange, let alone Billy of all people.
“Never seen two at once, haven’t even seen one since 2025 when the Jacobs kid ran off.”
For reasons I didn’t understand, we were getting strange looks. Specifically me. One child pointed to the two of us talking and laughed, almost as if they knew something I didn’t. Was Billy well known?
“Jacobs kid?”
“Yeh, ‘member? Couple years ago, Danny Jacobs, kid a few years younger than us, went to Hallsworth Prep. I didn’t know him but he went missing. Wasn’t found but police copped it up to running off. Me? I don’t buy that for a sec”
I briefly remember hearing of it. The idea of a teenager running away is far from unheard of, especially in areas where they’re more free like this one. It's practically what I did, with a bit of foresight to others, at least. Hallsworth was a local Private School, I had gone there. Generally most kids hated us, and I understood why. Most of them were spoiled delinquent kids who thought they could do anything. My going there was the only reason Billy wasn’t in on the hate mob. The fact I had missed such a crime going on regarding my own school was somewhat disturbing to consider, am I really so self centered I didn’t notice a missing child?
“Those two were friends, I saw their ma’s putting those posters up last week. Most of us assume they ran off together, some of the older folk in the pub think one of them's a homo, took one of them off. I don’t know how to feel ‘bout that… if you were wondering.”
Of course. I was three minutes into my trip and had already been hit with the classic scoop of homophobia. One more reason I left.
I was planning on getting a cab to go to my parents, until Billy offered me a ride there. Part of me wanted to decline, but I accepted anyway. A slightly uncomfortable trip would be worth the saved money, at least.
The conversation was unusual. Upon meeting a friend for the first time in nearly half a decade I assumed we’d talk of the past, other friends and how each other was doing. Hell, part of me was interested in this lady friend of his.
But instead we talked of local crime.
The topic came up of the man attacked and killed outside of the bakers in 2023. I chose not to mention my indirect involvement as Billy spoke of it in great detail, clearly assuming I had no clue. In fairness, if I didn’t know of a disappearance that occurred in my own school, I would too.
“Some friend, or boyfriend of his reported it as a hate crime, pinning some local teenager that he attacked. Poor boy ended up dying. They never performed an autopsy as far as I know but he ended up in jail. Police assumed he killed his boyfriend too.”
“What if he was telling the truth?”
“About what?”
“The hate crime… perhaps he attacked him in self defense”
I was walking a thin line with this one, but part of me needed to know what he would think, if this was the same Billy I hadn’t seen for 4 years.
“I mean I would believe it… but the police said it was one way, I gotta assume that's the case. Don’t take this the wrong way Jay, but you may be somewhat biased in his favour. I suppose I am too."
I nodded, it was interesting that he still put his hopes in the establishment. It's certainly the safer thing to do, for your own sake.
For the rest of the car ride there was no more talk. In a strange way he seemed happy, almost content simply being in my presence. The sound of the car was the strangest I’ve ever heard, as though the silence was itself speaking.
...
Monday November 13th 2028 - 9:12
It was certainly a little strange to be back.
I hadn’t been near here in a long time, Billy’s car scraped along the gravel that led to my parent’s house as I attempted to lead him there. For a while it had been the only place in sight, surrounded by multiple acres of empty fields.
“Quiet ride, huh? It's good to have you back either way, huh J?”
It felt weird to be that person again. I hadn’t had anyone call me J in a while. My parents would stick to Jason when meeting up with me. In London I had introduced myself as Jaden, simply because I preferred the name, whilst still being similar enough. I suppose it was a way of detaching myself from the past.
“Yeah. Thanks either way for driving me… Its good to see you Bill.”
“You can call me Billy, mate.”
He was still smiling strangely as I left the car, still thanking him. It was almost melancholic, as if he was going away.
“I’ll see you tonight, ok?”
My stomach tightened, I hadn’t agreed to anything. Before I could ask where he meant, he drove off, so fast I barely saw the car go. Is this why I came back? There must be some kind of party or celebration I didn’t know about. I decided I wouldn’t tell my parents I came with him, probably better they assumed I had a cab and that no secrets were revealed.
...
A strange rush of nostalgic memories burst into me as my hand touched the door knob, in spite of my loathing for this town, most of my memories within the house were pure, untainted. As soon as I went to knock, the door opened beforehand, my mother stood in the doorway.
No words were said before we embraced, a rush of emotion coming over her, and a few tears dropping.
It was strange, I was under the impression that this was a friendly meeting, but she was dead serious. What has happened? Why didn’t Billy allude to what was happening tonight?
I was invited in, without words, she simply used her arm to lead me into the house.
“Is anyone going to clue me in as to what this journey was for?”
It was only after talking that I realised how rude I sounded. Ma sniffled through a smile.
“You start all your conversations like that now?”
“No. But most of my conversations don’t occur after 5 hours of unexplained travelling.”
I expected her to take this all with some humour, but none was offered to me. Her disposition fell, as if I had delivered some kind of blow to her abdomen. Instead I was led through to the living room and offered some tea to drink. Accepting the offer, I sat, pulling out my phone. I had used the same one since I was 13 years old, nowadays it was slow as dirt and covered in cracks that could slice open a finger if you weren’t careful. If I was lucky I might have left Billy’s number in there. I didn’t delete contacts generally, occasionally I would look through the list and run into friends I made on weekend holidays abroad and never spoke to again. I believe a person's phone contacts can tell you a lot about their commitment issues, or strengths.
Ma came back in, passing me the tea.
“Your father is away today, Jason. I don’t know how urgent work is for you but you can stay as long as you want.”
“What is this, Ma? What’s happened?”
I was starting to realise maybe Billy’s allusion wasn’t to that of a party like I expected.
“We have a funeral in two days.”
“A funeral? What’s happened? Is it Papa?”
Papa was the name of our grandfather, gracefully named so by my cousin when she was younger due to her inability to state certain syllables, leading to Papa and Meema being the family grandparent names. When I left, Papa wasn’t doing great.
A while ago he had gotten into a car crash. We’re talking decades, and it seemed no big deal, no injuries, we were told at the time. A couple weeks later some doctors noted concerns regarding internal bleeding within the gut from the brute force. Surely she would have told me over the phone if such a thing had escalated?
“No… no… Its your friend Billy. Do you remember him?”
Mum was aware of our fallout a couple years prior, but I still didn’t feel like revealing I had met him today. She simply was never a big fan. She would jump to the conclusion of “bad vibes” with him, never giving a real reason, although I had suspicions it would be his upbringing. Ma was never fond of a lot of the rural types in the area, which was silly to me considering she married and chose to live with one of them.
“D… d-did something happen to his parents?”
“No. It’s him. Billy killed himself last week. I was told to invite you for the funeral.”