Dominoes

Sitting on the bench, a cool Wednesday morning. Tony could hear the traffic from there. Up and down Dundonald Road, all day long, the world going about its business.

Here he was, just like every other day.

The smell of flowers and cut grass drifted on the air.

Sandwiches wrapped in cling film beside him, next to his dominoes.

A bottle of Irn Bru by his feet.

The tombstones before him.

And one in particular.

Words like a prisoner, locked inside. But he was here this morning with his notebook, as always. He had pages and pages unwritten.

He had walked along the gravel path, seen dates born on, died on. Some stretched between centuries, some in weeks, days, hours.

He had gone down to the day centre again, but Wally wasn’t there. Just a crowd of unfamiliar faces watching the news. Wally’s seat empty. No one else liked playing dominoes.

The scores were still up on the wall.

Wally 123 — Tony 122.

Fuck’s sake. Cheeky git.

It didn’t feel right being there without him.

So he’d come back here.

In the silence it felt like he was closer to his friend. He reached a hand out in front of him, like it was reaching out across the great divide.

He breathed in deeply and closed his eyes.

He jumped as a school kid raced down the gravel track, disrupting the stones and shouting, “Ehoooooooooooo!”

And in a moment, he was gone.

Tony sighed.

He eyes drifted to the tombstone:

Wallace Douglas

02/03/1984 to 16/05/2024

Beloved son, brother, and husband.

He opened his notebook, held the pen in his hand.

He looked up at the sky as a great cloud rolled in front of the sun. He shivered a little.

He took a domino from the packet.

Just held it.

Or it held him.

He wasn’t sure.

Like an anchor.

A connection.

To a life lived. All those games. Defeats. Triumphs. But mostly,

The chat.

He held the domino in his hand.

They’d played in the pub till he had given up the sauce.

Then, when Wally got ill, the day centre. Then the hospital.

He sat on the bench, in the cemetery with the silence and the stone before him.

He smiled. He knew that there would always be a piece missing from this pack. It had gone with Wally. In his suit pocket. As he lay there in the open casket.

A parting gift from a friend.

He picked up his pen. He wrote:

‘Do the dead see us?

See us in our grief?

Like the other side of a glass partition?

Screaming at us,

“You’ve still got what I’ve lost.

Get up.

Get up.

Get living.

Now.

While you can.

Don’t waste this.”

Or do they place their hand against the glass,

Smile.

Or would it be

You again mate. C’mon to fuck, should you not be playing dominoes ‘

The notebook open, he picked up his bottle of juice, the gas had built up and as he opened the lid it poured out over the top.

He looked up to the sky.

He’d buy a new set of dominoes on the way home today.

(c) Paul Andrew Sneddon