Michael Nieling is a writer and literary editor based in Bristol, England, the author of one unpublished novel, several short stories, and hundreds of vitriolic emails and text messages.  He currently lives amongst students, an experience not unlike that of Robert Neville in "I Am Legend," only with more terrible music. www.diagonalproof.com

Cherries (March 20, 2011. Issue 26. The SLAM & FLASH Issue!)

I was already recounting the episode to friends in my head: “So I’m round Lydia’s Saturday night, and she’s bought these cherries she wants to eat in bed. Of course I fucking hate cherries, but I can’t really say no, I mean she’s gone to the trouble, right? So anyway, she’s feeding me these cherries, and she puts one in her mouth to pass across to me – “ (My friends are all grinning suggestively at this) “ – Yeah I know, very original, but you know, I’ve never tried it before, and it seemed kind of hot. And then, I say: ‘Let me have a go!’ – “ (I’m grinning myself now, signifying the momentous faux pas I’m about to perpetrate) “ – So I put a cherry in my mouth, and she presses her lips against mine for the kiss; I push the cherry into her mouth, right, only I’m getting so carried away with it, and my tongue is so rigid, that I just pot the thing straight into her windpipe, corner pocket – “ (Stu lets out a tremendous guffaw at this, actually throwing back his head, his eyes closed) “ – So she starts grabbing at her throat, her eyes are bugging out of her head; she’s flailing her arms around, she almost rips my cock off - “ (My tone is becoming more casually sardonic as the laughter increases, before my friends begin to wipe the tears from their faces as they gradually run out of steam) “ – Anyway, I thump her on the back a few times, and she fires it out the window. After that, the moment had sort of dissipated - “ (This starts another low rumble of merriment, before I slowly raise my pint to my lips, and with an ironic wink in Stu’s direction, I deliver the punch-line: ) “ – It was pretty cool, though…”

I always do this: straight away, I start thinking out, planning this shit in my head before anything can really be certain. It’s not like I’m assuming anything, I just automatically imagine what I want to happen, and sure enough, it almost always goes the other way. Don’t think I went into this much detail at the time, drafting out the narrative in my head as I watched her change from red to purple, then with horrifying swiftness to blue; the whole thing just kind of rushed into my head in its vague entirety, like a non-stop train tearing through an unwanted station.

So far I’ve only told the story to the people at the hospital, though not in the way I just laid out. They did write me up in the report as ‘the boyfriend’, but it was too administrative, not really genuine. I won’t be telling the story to anybody else; it’ll just be shut away in a metal drawer somewhere: like Lydia. Her parents are probably still outside somewhere; I’m hoping somebody has already told them the story...