Flash Fiction


THE UNWANTED COMPANION by Elle Matheuse

I can’t believe I have to make friends with you. I hate you! You come into my life uninvited and start dictating what I can and can’t do - who the fuck are you? I didn’t ask for your presence. I don’t remember begging the universe for a torturous companion to haunt my waking hours, to never again be truly alone in peace and without torment. I’m sick of parasites like you, troublesome lodgers with an indeterminate lease. I know things could be worse, but I just want a quiet life!

Despite their considerable attempts to make me understand, I still don’t really know how or why you came to be here. Nothing they’ve said explains where you came from but I’d quite like you to fuck off back there if you wouldn’t mind, to wither away and die, to just leave me alone. If I had the courage or could stand the consequences, I’d kill you. I would! I’d cut you right out of my life and be rid of you forever. Knowing my luck, another you would instantly emerge from the ether to replace the current you. The universe clearly insists that I live life free from misery for no more than moments at a time. Thanks. That makes me feel really special.

As to their advice that I’ll just have to accept you and get used to you being around, well I’m not sure I can do that. I hate you too much and I resent your very existence. I do! You keep reminding me of what I can and can’t do and I hate that. I hate you. But it’s been a while now and I know that if we never make friends then you’ll always be my unwitting captor, my oppressor. I’ll constantly be on edge, waiting for you to hurt me again. I mean, it’s not as if you asked for this either; you’re not being malevolent or malicious. You’re just doing what you do I guess, just being. I hate that.

Ok then, I still hate you but I’ll work on it. Let’s make friends. Here’s the plan: I’ll try to stop inadvertently whacking you on the head, which by the way, causes me far more pain than it does you and I’ll also try to stop screaming when you tell me in your very special way that I shouldn’t be doing something or other. But you have to promise not to get any bigger or split open and to fuck off eventually, that’s the least you can do. Eurgh. I hate you. I really hate you. Still, if they say you’re too hard and impenetrable to drain and too likely to recur if they cut you out, then there’s nothing I can do but live with you and your stabby, achy, burny pain. Some friend you are! And what the hell is a ganglion anyway?

ganglion n. (pl. ganglia or ganglions) 1 an enlargement or knot on a nerve etc. containing an assemblage of nerve cells. 2 Med. a cyst, esp. on a tendon sheath. 3 a protruding bone-hard lump of varying size, often found in deeply inconvenient areas of the body, origin unfathomable, duration unknown, usually causing stabby, achy, burny pain, minor but regular incapacity, bitterness and resentment.

By Elle Matheuse, copyright 2008. All rights reserved.





Flash Fiction