This story is part of TN2’s ongoing flash fiction series, which aims to give a platform to exciting new writers from Trinity. If you would like your fiction to be considered for publication, simply submit it to literature@tn2magazine.ie along with your name and a one-sentence bio.

 

I set the candle beside the laptop on my desk, momentarily hypnotised by the way the flame morphs itself, continually shaping and reshaping to the currents of air I can’t feel. It casts a different sort of light to that of my desk lamp: it is softer and plummy, as it glows through its burgundy cup. I find the smell of Autumn Fruits soothing.

‘For God’s sake, Daithí,’ Callum says from outside my room, ‘can you stop lighting those f**king candles? I can smell them in my room. They make me feel sick.’

I have an essay to start writing so I ignore him.

He bangs his fist on the door. I’ve kept it bolted since this whole lockdown began. ‘Seriously! At least light one that doesn’t smell so f**king rancid.’

  ‘Can you shut up?’ I snap back, but not too loud. Otherwise Mum will come barging up to tell us to quiet down. Isn’t it enough that I can’t feckin’ go out anywhere? Now I have to listen to you two!

  ‘Not until you stop lighting the candle!’

I grit my teeth. ‘Callum. Go. Away.’

  ‘Blow out the candle!’

  ‘NO!’ I shout back, slamming my laptop closed. The force of the shutting screen blows the flame down, shrinking it to almost a stub before it bounces back, brighter than before.

  ‘What is going on?’ Mum’s voice travels up from downstairs, faint but irritated.

  ‘Daithí’s lighting his scented candles again,’ Callum says.

I hunch my shoulders, anticipating the response. At first Mum was pleasantly surprised by the newfound obsession I’d brought back with me from my year-long tryst abroad. But, now, she’s started to complain about the candles too.

  They continue to argue while I stare at the candle-flame. The flight-or-fight feeling builds up inside of my body. It stretches out from the tightness in my chest. It wraps itself taut around my brain. It constricts me. I have – to – get – out –

 

This time last year, life was the total opposite. I was over a month into my year in Utrecht, a cobblestone, postcard town, where bicycle lanes predominated and the canals flowed through the city like green capillaries. The newness of it all was still fresh. Every day felt like unfolding another page of a student brochure: many of the peppy academics I met and the tavern-like bars we went to held the quality, in my mind, of enamel-paper.

At this point, most of my international cast of housemates had become my fast friends, as I enjoyed the laissez-faire attitudes of the southern Europeans and dauntless antics of the Australians. Some had thought I’d been shy when I first arrived; and I still remember now, arriving in the hazy intermediary of August and September, excited to the point of nervousness at the prospect of living away from home. The Afghan taxi driver who had delivered me from the station had been delighted to find I was Irish, despite my distractedness: You are such a friendly people! I’d lingered behind Hans, the housekeeper, when he’d first introduced me to the common area full of smiling strangers, quiet when I had to state my name and origins. It took a few beers to open me up, then once I had, I was among the loudest of them.

I remember that same first night when I staggered out to use the bathroom by the foot of the staircase, I bumped into a late arrival who instantly jerked himself backwards, his glasses slipping down his nose. I laughed at him, a little drunk, slurring an apology. He didn’t smile back at me. Sweat was dripping down his forehead, his whole body strained under the weight of the two bulging rucksacks he was carrying.

Embarrassed by my obvious inebriation, I offered to help him, reaching out to take one of his bags, but he ducked away from me. The movement was feral: like that of a vulnerable animal. He mumbled something to me, his eyes cast down, before he turned to trudge up the narrow stairwell, a circle of sweat printed on his back.

There were only twelve of us, but he managed to evade any real introductions. I saw him try sometimes; when he did, he stared at people in the kitchen, his dark eyes twitching uncomfortably behind his glasses. The girls found him creepy. He stuttered when he talked.

We threw parties in our accommodation regularly enough, different groups of friends appeared each time from our various courses. Every time they told us what a fun group we were, and it was true. On weekends we rented pedal-boats on the canal or took day trips to Amsterdam; on nights we created a ruckus on the streets, cycling haphazard into park bushes after we stumbled from bars and clubs after close.   

‘I wish I could be here instead, I honestly can’t stand most of my housemates,’ one girl I was angling to score was saying to me, nuzzling into the crook of my arm. ‘Is there anyone here you don’t like?’

‘Nah, I like all of them. Baram’s a little uptight but she’s nice. And there’s one guy who’s a little off but he keeps to himself.’

 

By the time I came back home for Christmas, I realised that life in Utrecht felt familiar to me. My bike, my little room, my friends, it was a second home. It was the morning in January before I was to fly back, that Baram, who’d stayed in the house over the break, had put in another message into the group chat: Guys seriously clean the food out of your rooms! The top corridor smells SO BAD!!! I nudged Callum, who was sitting on the couch next to me, ‘See? There’s always something wrong.’

‘D’you think it could be your room?’

‘Probably,’ I said, laughing it off.

When I arrived back, though, I wasn’t laughing. ‘Fuuuck, who left their food rotting?’ I remember saying loudly as I stepped into the top floor corridor. The hallway was narrow and densely carpeted, with no natural lighting. It was as though the smell had been condensed: growing warmer and fustier by the day. It got so bad the third night back that I couldn’t go to sleep. One of my aunties had sent me over a scented Jesus candle for Christmas, and, after lying with my nose smushed against my pillow, I lit it as a last resort, letting the artificial smell of cranberry infuse the room instead. That night, my phone was alive with the rapid-fire messages of the top-floor members of the group chat. Daithí is it your room?

No clue whose it is, I replied. Honestly about to vomit.

  That morning, I woke to the sound of wailing.

I thrust myself from the bed, scrambling in the grey half-light for a t-shirt and jeans. My heart was starting to beat harder against my chest as the sound continued, louder. ‘Did you know his name?’ a Dutch accent asked.

‘No,’ was the reply.   

No name? I burst out of my room, my jeans still unzipped, to see a lumpy white blanket being pulled out on a stretcher. Two policewomen were talking to each other in low voices. The ambulance staff were stone-faced, their eyes set down on their task. Four of my housemates stood, holding each other, frozen. It only took me a few seconds to realise. It was him. It was his room.

I stood, immobile, staring into the empty space of where he’d slept. They’d had to force the door open; I could see from the way the misshapen hole sat where the lock once had. A whole section of his carpet was stained black. Empty junk food packets lay strewn all over the desk, the bed. His blinds were closed.

Later, we found out he’d been dead a whole ten days before anyone realised.   

 

I stare at the flame a moment longer as it moves to the elements I cannot control. Then I suck the scented air deep into my chest, and I blow it out.

 

Almha Murphy is a fourth-year History and English student who likes to do a bit of writing the odd time.