Remaining – Open Pen magazine issue 27

Short story

Synopsis

‘Remaining’ follows the inhabitants of a small, typically banal street, who have become enmeshed in the scene of a hit-and-run accident involving a local boy.

“Remaining by Krystian Morgan. A child is knocked down by a car for all the residents of a village to witness. Our narrator reflects on the tragic spectacle of death and society’s magnetism towards the morbid, away from abstractions, and yet beyond any tangible grip. Morgan plays with the notion of memory and experience with a stark emotional twist, leaving the reader with the revelation that human beings are duplicitous creatures, and that it isn’t always a bad thing in this troubled world.” – Open Pen

Excerpt:

A mobile phone rings out somewhere in the crowd and five or so people start fumbling hands over their pockets to silence it.

Shucked from out of his shell suit, Joshua has been retrofitted with a head immobiliser amongst other various appendages, bandages and embrasures; he is quickly becoming more accessory than boy. Skin remaining exposed is reserved ground for the submersion of syringes and of stethoscopes listening deeply to the body’s inner monologues and espousing the presence of unseen maladies.

Some woman is stood discreetly sobbing, adopting a part of the tragedy for her own, moistening her tissue with surrogate tears. Looking further into the crowd I espy the surreptitious glance at watches. People are already weary and hoping for a resolution that’s not too drawn out.

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