His phone pinged, a text from Gemma, this apparently easier than calling down the stairs.
CAN YOU COLLECT MY TBLETS FROM CHMIST?
‘I’ll grab them after work, love,’ he called up towards their bedroom before grabbing his flask and leaving through their front door.
***
Mikey felt a little self-conscious as he stood in the queue for the pharmacy at the back of the chemist. The sweat of his day’s labour clung to his old hoodie, and his trousers were spattered with mud. He spoke to the bloke standing next to him.
‘Are you next, mate?’ He didn’t want to push in, queue jump. He was a man who liked order and manners.
‘No, I’m waiting, already been seen, thanks. You go ahead.’
‘Cheers.’ Stepping forward, he smiled at Liz, the woman who worked in the pharmacy and whose mum lived in the next street over from he and Gemma. Liz had been in the year below them at school.
‘Hiya, mate.’
‘Alight, Liz. Come to collect the prescription for Gem.’ He pushed the slip of paper across the counter.
‘Be a minute, love.’
‘No rush.’
He retook his place further back, next to a man who now smiled at him.
‘It’s Mikey, isn’t it?’
‘Who’s askin’?’ He eyed the fella who now smiled at him.
‘My name is Chen, I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Is that right?’ He didn’t know who the smiling idiot was but, whoever he was, Mikey was in no mood for a chat.
‘I have something to say that will seem strange, but hear me out…’
He stared ahead, as Chen spouted the biggest load of bullshit he’d ever heard! He watched people approach the counter and hand over their slips of paper while Liz and the pharmacist ran around sorting bottles, sachets, blister packs and tubes into small paper bags. He listened intently to what the weirdo said,keeping his cool just, arms folded tightly across his broad chest, heart racing.
‘Here we go, Mikey!’ Liz called and waved the paper bag in his direction. Before he stepped forward to accept the antidepressants that made Gemma feel better, he turned briefly towards Chen and spoke softly.
‘Fuck off and leave me alone! And if we weren’t in the chemist’s and these people weren’t my neighbours, I’d knock your fucking head off your shoulders, d’ya hear me?’
‘I hear you, Mikey, but I wanted to give you the chance. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault!’
With anger now rising in his chest, he shoulder-barged past the bloke, taking the bag from Liz, before walking quickly to his van, where he sat in the driver’s seat, his chest heaving.
Death had a strange effect on people, that much he did know, remembering the dozens of best friends who had sobbed on social media at the loss of Aaron, most of whom neither he nor Gemma had ever heard of. This man, however, with his granting of bloody wishes, took strangeness to a whole other level. He was glad of two things, first that he’d managed to control his anger, and second that it wasn’t Gemma the bloke had cornered, knowing how it would had unnerved her, and, if that had happened, then, inside the chemist or not, Mikey wouldn’t have hesitated to knock his head off.
As his pulse calmed and his breath found a more natural rhythm, he regretted barging into him. I mean, who was he? Someone in need of help probably, someone in need of something. It was, as he was trying to swallow his guilt, that the man walked from the chemist’s.
Mikey got out of the van and walked towards him.
‘Look, I’m sorry for losing it a bit in there.’
'I understand, it’s a lot.’ Chen was not going to pack it in, clearly.
‘I don’t want you to say anything more,’ Mikey spoke softly, ‘but I do want to apologise for barging you like that.’
‘No need to—’
