by Rory Murphy
“Eat up, Garrett. You’re not a bitch, are you?”
The locker room erupted in cries of shock, players turning to one another with their fists over their gaping mouths. Derek kept his cool though, standing in front of Garrett and wafting the plate in front of Garrett’s face. Then the shouts and cries died down, and the team returned to silence.
“I don’t know man… this just seems wrong.”
Garrett looked at his fellow players, his mates, his friends, hoping for some sort of support. Instead, his eyes met a group of cold, unflinching boys waiting to welcome their brother into the fold.
“You’re overthinking things, mate.” Derek sat down across from Garrett, still holding the plate to Garrett’s face. “Just eat it, and we’ll all be good.”
Derek’s face was messy; the whole team had already eaten before Garrett arrived. Maybe his friends would be more receptive if Garrett hadn’t spent nearly an hour sitting in the car and breathing into a paper bag, watching his friends walk into the locker room without him. The nerves never got to Garrett; he was cool under pressure. That’s why he was such a good player. But this, this was something else entirely. Garrett had spent the whole drive to the AFL field with his hands shaking the steering wheel.
Callum appeared beside Garrett, wearing his Falcons jersey, as if nothing was wrong.
“Look, Garrett, I get it. It’s weird, it’s uncomfortable. But it’s what Brayden wanted. Surely you understand that, right?”
“I mean I guess…” Garrett let his voice trail off and looked up at the shrine the team had made up for Brayden in the corner of the locker room.
Brayden’s still-form lying in bed that morning kept appearing in Garrett’s mind. The whole team had spent the weekend at a holiday home out of town, where they drank and smoked to their hearts’ content. That was when Brayden revealed to everyone the cancer diagnosis that he’d told Garrett years ago and showed the team the diary explaining Brayden’s plan for when he died. It was convenient that Brayden overdosed that night. But the team was good, and immediately got to work with Brayden’s plan, following each step no matter how weird. Earlier that afternoon, they drove back to the Falcons’ home ground with the body, prepared for the final send-off. That was when the team made the shrine, collating photos and trophies and medals to form a single monument, with Brayden’s diary at the centre.
Callum followed Garrett’s gaze to the shrine.
“He was the best of us.”
Callum was right. Brayden had been the best of them. It was Brayden who’d convinced Garrett to try out for the Falcons those years ago, at the beginning of the school year.
“Surely you come and try out, Garrett,” Brayden had said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
It was fun; Garrett had smashed his try-out out of the park, and what followed were the best years of his life. The Falcons won year after year, and that group of players became Garrett’s second family, with Brayden at the centre of it all. He had this undeniable charm that made it impossible to not like him, even when he was giving you shit. Everyone was friends with Brayden, yet he chose to hang out with Garrett. As the years passed, the two of them saw each other nearly every day, and became best friends. And, in those few months before Brayden’s untimely death, they became something even more.
As the team surrounded him, Garrett felt hot, stupid tears well up in his eyes. He swore he wouldn’t cry, especially not in front of the entire team. They were all just doing what Brayden had asked of them; that was nothing to be sad about. But as those stupid tears dribbled down his cheeks and fell onto the floor, the team was silent. No jeering, no shouting. Not even Derek perked up to make a comment. Minutes went by, and the locker room stayed silent. Then Garrett felt Callum’s hand on his shoulder.
“It’s all good man. We know he was your best friend.”
Garrett nodded, the tears slowly subsiding.
“Brayden was our friend too, you know. He brought all of us to this team.” Callum gestured to the team around them, who all nodded in agreement.
“It doesn’t feel right without him.”
Garrett chuckled slightly, wiping the final tears from his eyes. “That’s for sure.”
“But he’ll be with us again, mate. We just need to do this one thing for him now that he’s passed.”
The team around Garrett murmured in agreement, and Derek leaned in again with the plate.
“We’ve all done it already, Garrett. We’re just waiting on you. Then Brayden’s spirit can be with all of us again, and we can start to rebuild.”
Derek moved the plate closer to Garrett, and Garrett took it from Derek and rested it on his lap.
“There you go mate. Now just eat up.” Derek smiled a sickly smile. “It’s what Brayden wanted.”
Slowly, with the team watching silently in anticipation, Garrett brought the braised, severed hand of his best friend to his mouth and bit into its palm.
He tore a chunk of flesh from the bone, chewed, and swallowed. It tasted like pork. Garrett took another bite, then another. Once the palm’s meat was gone, he moved to the fingers, treating each like a chicken wing. As the team watched Garrett clean the meat from Brayden’s hand, they began to chant, softly at first, then getting louder and louder as Garrett finished eating the final piece of Brayden not already consumed.
They chanted a single word: “Brayden”.
When Garrett was done, the chant was now a roar. Garrett stood up, and the team embraced, char and meat juice smear across their faces. They chanted and chanted, a violent cry into the night, the body of their friend finally consumed.
–
Rory Murphy is an emerging writer currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring Creative Writing here at QUT. His favourite genres to write in are that of horror and the gothic, where he can create weird and unsettling stories that evoke strong feelings of unease and terror within readers. This approach to creating pieces that generate strong emotions within readers also informs his poetry, where he aims to create poems that detail as specific an emotion as he can transcribe into words.
