By: Harrison Abbott

Gerry used to have a son called Saul. One day when Saul was cycling in the local street, a Land Rover failed to see him coming the other direction at the junction. The Land Rover hit Saul from the front and sent him flying up in the air. And though he was wearing a helmet, Saul landed on his head and broke his neck.

Saul was eight years old.

A month or so after the funeral, Gerry’s wife, Saul’s mother, came to speak to him in the house one time. Her eyes were red and her fingers trembled.

“Gerry?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I need you to do something.”

“Okay?”

“It’s about Saul’s bedroom.”

“What about it?”

“I can’t stand his bedroom being like that anymore. It has all of Saul’s things in it. Still. It’s like he’ll be home any moment. And I don’t want his stuff in there. I can’t bare to pass his room: even when the door’s shut.”

“Right. I see.”

“But I also can’t move his things out. I can’t do it. Can you please do it? For me? I don’t think I can go in there without breaking apart. Could you do this for me, please?”

Gerry said he would.

Going into his son’s bedroom was, indeed, as if an alive boy would be coming back soon. Very little had moved since that final time Saul had left to go and take the bike for a ride. Gerry gulped. The whole house was silent. He began to group together Gerry’s things, armed with cardboard boxes and bin bags.

Gerry started with the easier items. Saul had had a PlayStation and some games. This didn’t have any emotional pang on Gerry. He’d found the sounds of those videogames annoying, and always told Saul he was ‘wasting his time playing that thing.’ He put the console and games in a box. Those could go to the charity shop.

Then there were some school jotters and textbooks which were of no use anymore. They didn’t upset Gerry – because he remembered having hated school himself – and had pitied Saul whenever he had to go there. He thrust them in a bin bag, for the paper recycling.

But then Gerry moved to Saul’s chest of drawers, where the boy had kept his clothes. And as soon as he saw the clothes, there formed a thickness in Gerry’s throat. Because they sent all kinds of memories through him. And Gerry had to stop, and go through to the kitchen next door, and make a cup of coffee and try and think of other things. When he was self assured he wouldn’t cry, he headed back to the bedroom.

Where he shoved Saul’s clothes into bin bags as quickly as possible and sealed the ends of the bags.

Gerry opened the doors of Saul’s dresser. He stopped. This was where Saul had kept all of his soccer gear. Gerry used to take the boy to the football games on Saturdays. Saul played for the school team. And he wasn’t particularly good, but Gerry went along anyway and watched him because he thought that the important thing to do.

He believed that kids should be allowed to daydream about trivial themes like sport. Daydreaming is different when you are little. You can realistically imagine yourself scoring in the World Cup final; and you see the roaring crowds, and your surname being hollered by the commentator. At least, that’s what Gerry used to do. When he was a boy. And he had been a bit crap at soccer, too, but he wasn’t going to tell Saul to give up and focus on something attainable instead.

Gerry would miss those cold Saturday mornings spent on the touchline, watching his boy run around, with his team losing most games.  

He collected all of these soccer jerseys together, along with the boy’s boots and his shin pads and put these in a special bag. With an idea in mind with where to put them. It was a nice collection of stuff.

Gerry looked at the time. He’d been clearing the room out for nearly two hours, and was doing okay. He moved the boxes and bags he had thus far and took them outside and put them in his car.

It was a merry day. Sunny. Not too warm, not too cold. Gerry thought he would lock the house up for just now, and take these boxes and bags into town.

He had an idea of what to do with the special soccer bag. So he put that up front in the passenger seat. And drove off into the city.

Gerry’s house was in a middle class neighbourhood. Saul had gone to a ‘normal’ school not far from here. Everybody knew about what had happened to Saul. And when people recognised Gerry these days, there was often an awkwardness in their expressions. They waved at Gerry grimly and didn’t smile.

What Gerry wanted to do with the special bag was give it away somewhere: but not around here. Gerry knew that there was a boy’s soccer club, a few miles away in a different district. He’d rather give the things away there, where nobody knew about Saul.

So he drove over there. The club was situated at the end of several acres of tired, stud-worn fields. The club HQ was in a rickety shack-like building. Gerry parked outside.

He was glad to find that the front door was open. Gerry carried the bag over, and knocked on the door, peering in. A bald, chubby man appeared shortly after, and grinned curiously at Gerry.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi there, sir. This is the boy’s football club?”

“Yes it is.”

“Are you the coach?”

“Yep. I am.”

“Good. I have some things here, that I was wanting to pass on. In case your kids wanted them. They belonged to my son. He doesn’t need them anymore. So I thought you might like them?”

Gerry handed the coach the bag and the coach opened it and his eyes expanded at all of the colourful material.

“I remember,” Gerry continued, “when I played footie when I was a lad. And there were often boys who didn’t have all the kit they needed. So it helped to have ‘extras’ at hand. Would you like them?”

“Mate, this is really great of you. Thank you so much!”

The coach shook hands with him. And there was proper merit in the handshake. You know how some men only shake your hand in a flabby way? Whereas others properly embrace your hand, with handsome worth, even though they don’t know you well. It was the latter.

“My kids will be chuffed with these,” the coach said, “thanks again.”

“No problem.”

“You said these are your son’s?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t want to keep these tops?”

“Oh … he … It’s just that he’s gotten bigger. Grown out of them. They don’t fit him anymore.”

“Well that’s super generous of him. What’s your son’s name?”

“Saul.”

“Pass on the thanks to Saul for me.”

“I will.”

Gerry had to leave. Because his eyes began to sting and his lips quivered. He was able to say bye to the coach without seeming abrupt. When Gerry got back to his car he stayed in his seat for a long while and steadied his breathing. His pulse hammered in his ears. Gradually, as time relayed, the pulse eased.

There were still all of those other bags in his trunk.

But instead of doing further work at the moment, Gerry decided to go and see Saul’s grave. He wanted to be near his boy. For now, the only person he wanted to be around was Saul.

The cemetery was on one of the hillier parts of the city. A quiet, forgotten place, with a lonely church. Gerry drove up there.

He left the car and walked through the kirkyard. He was the only person here. The big red door of the church was shut. From here he could see out across the city, the location being so high up. A big city. Half a million people lived here.

Saul’s tombstone was shiny and new. And his name gleamed in poignant lettering, fresh as glass. When Gerry saw the grave he had to sit down, there on the path – a profound weight making him drop. It had been raining last night and the grass was still a bit damp and his backside got wet. His son’s body was buried underneath him. Very close. There was a brilliant finality about this fact. As if it couldn’t be real.

Back when Saul was three, Gerry had been hanging out with him in the garden at home. This was in the summer. Saul noticed something in the grass.

“Butterfly!” he said.

Gerry came over to look. At this pretty butterfly that had landed on the lawn. It was very beautiful but it wasn’t moving. Gerry and Saul watched it. It was clear, to Gerry, that the butterfly wasn’t going to get up again and fly away.

“What’s wrong with it, Dad?” Saul asked.

“I think he died, Saul.”

“Oh.”

“What will happen to him now?”

“He belongs to the garden. Just like he did before. He can stay here.”

“But he’s not alive.”

“No. He died.”

Gerry tried to read his son’s face. Afraid that the kid might be too distraught. But Saul was struggling to understand. Then he looked up at Gerry.

“Dad?”

“Uh hu?”

“Will you ever die?”

What could Gerry say to the three year old boy? How could he not be blunt with him? It took several moments for him to come up with an answer. Until he responded softly,

“I’ll never die on you, Saul.”

Saul nodded. Gerry had lied to his boy. But not in a harsh way.

Gerry remembered that moment from five years earlier.

Dotted around the kirkyard were old trees. They were in bloom and blossom. And birds darted between the branches, singing. Blackbirds and magpies. Woodpigeons and crows. Gerry believed that people ignore birdsong, and birds, way too often. He did it himself. If you actually took a break, and observed the birds and listened to their melodies, there was something astonishing in their simple existence.  

As people, we get way too blocked up with words and fears and stress. All the birds do, by comparison, is fly around the trees and sing. And they were all in motion above Gerry right now. They had warm blood, and bulging lungs that breathed in the oxygen. Saul no longer had a pulse or breathing lungs.

But Gerry told Saul that he’d see him again someday. Not for a while. But eventually.

And he also knew that he technically hadn’t lied to Saul, that day in the garden with the butterfly. Gerry had never died on Saul. His son would never see him die.

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Harrison Abbott is a published poet, short fiction writer and novelist from Edinburgh, Scotland. He has various books, available here: Amazon.co.uk: Harrison Abbott: books, biography, latest update