Flash fiction: The chap-stick

The chap-stick slipped from between Tallas’ fingers and fell, clattering on the tile of the grocery aisle’s pale green floor and rolling into the dust beneath aluminum shelving. Tallas looked down and slowly lowered himself to retrieve it. So careless. He extended his hand into the shadow beneath the shelf. Grasping the fallen tube, his delicate fingers slipped out of the harsh fluorescent lighting and into the pale glow of a memory.

Aaron had carried balm with him that night, deep in the left pocket of his low-rise jeans. Tallas saw the scene clearly: Aaron, grabbing the chap-stick and car keys from the nightstand, his lips glistening and full and sensual, his figure stretched by moonlight into a lanky shadow beside the doorway. Tallas had watched from the bedroom as Aaron stepped through the threshold of the shoddy wooden house, his body shivering profoundly beneath the nightshirt’s thick fabric. Aaron took a long, silent glance over his broad shoulder, and then left for the drugstore: the sound of an engine pierced the small hours of the night.

Tallas remembered the police station, the frantic call to come right away, the mention of a drunk driver, the severe blue room. Tallas remembered the beige tray of personal effects, and the chap-stick rolling slowly back and forth.

The scene ended. Tallas picked up the tube and stood, replacing it on the cold aluminum shelf and withdrawing his hand slowly. It was always some long-forgotten detail that sent the grief snarling back. Drawing closer into the folds of his heavy woolen coat, Tallas inhaled the store’s cold air and shuddered. He would not return here.