Peter Butler
London, England

The Chair

The lifts to the top deck are good. She’s better by the day at manoeuvering his chair. A young man, big-bodied, he’s learned to adjust his knees as the doors close. She steers him to the tea room. A pretty girl, quite tiny with strong arms, and a floral dress she wore on honeymoon.

He pours tea, arranges plates, offers sandwiches, anything involving upper-body movement. They split a newspaper, she the family pages, he the sport. Occasionally he catches her expression as it strays from the radar, focusing on a void.

Then he remembers how the terraces used to explode as he wrestled the ball over the line.

voices
cheering him on
then the blackness.