Short Story: Mean Picking

Short Story: Mean Picking

Howard stopped aging when he was thirty-five. He’d been this way for a while, yet his condition disturbed him, and he would often sneak up into the loft, get out his wedding pictures, and imagine what the pictures would look like if he really was thirty-five. His wedding would have taken place in the eighties. The mile-wide collar of Howard’s suit would be slim and punky. His shirt, its penny-round tips lunging out of the picture at urgent angles, would be tidier, neater. Flapping trouser flares would be replaced with drainpipes. His shoulder length feather-cut would shrink to a buzz-clipped back and sides with a gelled spiky top. And Maureen’s dress, now hippy-gingham, floaty, would be close-fitted, vampish. A steroid-pumped hairstyle would jut out in every direction as if flushed with static. The sexy Mia-Farrow bowl cut Howard had loved would be gone. If Howard was really thirty-five years old then his wedding couldn’t have looked as it did. But every time he looked at the pictures it was still nineteen seventy-two.

The condition. People assumed it was like Groundhog Day, each twenty-four period repeating over and over. But it wasn’t like that. It was like this; you stayed the same age and the world got older. Howard was thirty five, had been for twenty years and, according to a dozen specialists, would remain so for the foreseeable future. The condition was shared with his wife Maureen, and their unaging kids - Janny, Toby and little Floss. Maureen and Howard’s friends stayed the same age too, as did everyone they saw regularly. And when they made a new friend, that person stopped aging also. Everyone stayed the same and watched the world decay. New technologies arrived, prime ministers came and went, buildings were demolished and replaced, new films and new bands were replaced by more new films and more new bands. No one from the community questioned their condition, even those with whom they had no contact, the aging people with their cracked voices and chewed faces. Over the years, if you can call them years, they got used to it. But still, he would creep up into the loft to look at the photo albums and reassure himself. Here was proof that time had passed, leaving its mark upon these mortal, human beings.

He heard Maureen coming up the stairs and shut the photo album, preparing a suitable expression for his face. But she had something more important to tell him.

‘It’s Councillor Leathley,’ she said.

Councillor Leathley was the chair of the parish council. Howard came down the ladders and met him in the hall. Leathley was carrying a banjo. He followed Howard’s eyes. “I was presented with this earlier tonight at the council meeting.” He didn’t smile “You know how I love country and western.”

“I know. I’ve heard you play.”

“It was receiving this banjo that got me thinking, I can’t play this stuff properly, not really. My heart’s not in it, and you know why? Because I can’t feel the pain, can’t understand what the country singers are singing about. You know why Howard, Maureen? It’s because I never get old. I met you and your family and I stopped aging. Like all the others. And now, everything’s too perfect. We discussed it at the council meeting. The split between agers and non-agers has damaged us. So we passed a motion. We are happy for you to stay in the community, but we’d like to limit contact. You and your family will develop separately.” He coughed and averted his eyes, which were clouded with tears. “I mean, who’s to say what’s natural? I don’t know. I just know that I can’t feel the blues in my heart unless I can grow old. I don’t even cry at films any more.”

Howard pulled a face. He had not chosen to be this way.

“I’m so sorry. Maybe one day they will find a cure.”

Howard and Maureen watched Councillor Leathley’s retreating figure going down the path. They sat on the sofa for a time, digesting the news. Maureen went over to the stereo and put on the xylophone album, the one where the musicians play really fast. Later, they watched some patterns on the TV, new patterns, ones they’d never seen before. They liked the colours and the shapes. Maureen fed and bathed little floss, put her to bed. Howard played football with Toby, told stories to them all upstairs. Then it was supper from paper plates, more TV patterns, rapid glockenspiel music, each evening the same as the last, the next, and the one beyond that.

Councillor Leathley had left his banjo behind and Howard picked it up, plucking at the strings. The fret board was worn in certain places, from the frequent fingering of the more common chords; even this insensible length of wood experienced a life-cycle of sorts - birth, decay, renewal. He tried to form a chord, forcing the steel strings hard against the frets. His fingertips burned with pain, but he pressed harder. It hurt. This was what it was like.