50 Word Non-Fiction: Friendship – Batch 2

Every week, we publish the latest 50 Word Non-Fiction stories of Friendship. Read this week's pieces below!

Please note: these pieces contain strong language.

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Friends are the ones that you enjoy the bitterest of arguments with. If they were here now they’d say, “You can’t finish that sentence with ‘with’!” “You’re talking shite, man,” I reply. “Anyways you’ve just done the fuckin’ same... twice.” And away we’d go, an hour of savage flyte. Braw.

*

The hottest day of 1951 when Colm brought his banger to the Glen. We need to paint it he shouts, and so, brushes in hand, we get to work with black gloss. We push it up the hill, and it soon roars, attracting every flying insect, sticking fast like glue.

*

Freenship

“I’ve makit ower much soup, cuid ye yaise it?“

We baith ken. Kid oan we dinnae.

“Guid o ye.”

“Nae loss whit a freen gets.”

It’s a sair fecht. Hungry bairns an nae siller. The faither’s wages gae tae the pub.

He wid drink it thru a durty cloot.

*

First day of school, uni, work, always afraid: people won’t like me. Often they didn’t.

Now I am middle aged: less beautiful on the outside, yet surrounded by the most beautiful people, who truly love and connect with me.

What changed? I became my own dear friend, and others followed.

*

I’m recovering from a really bad case of...

... haircut.

I look like Beaker from the Muppets when I wake up and Rod Stewart after I beat the haircut into submission.

In windy conditions it’s all a bit Queen Camilla...

... but only on one side.

My friend said, “It’ll grow back.”

*

Friendship reminds me of baking a cake. Ingredients? The foundation: flour, dependable, for the daily grind. Add eggs, to bind our group. A pinch of salty gossip. Sultanas, spicy fruitful gems. Top with icing, a sugar high. Lemon zest to energise. Wooden spoon. Mix. Tea and cake and endless chatter.

*

Met them at University. One in the bar, the other in meetings, but both departed: alcohol and cancer – the brightest star needed to relax, the pint drinker needed a fag. Both loyal, supportive, good company and constant but now gone.

*

You were my oldest. My steadfast. The one that I thought would always be around, but then you disappeared – vanished – and became vacant from my life. There has been a slow realisation that maybe you meant more to me than I to you, but still, there is an immense tenderness.

*

I see you a thousand times a day. You stick your tongue out at the strong coffee I drink in the morning and flinch at the harsh words I exchange with a colleague. Then you stare, resolute, from the flames that lick my fingers before I drop another match.

*

“I think it’s disgusting you threatening to divorce your husband if he gets the covid jab. I think the things you post on Facebook are despicable. You are a hypocrite for vaccinating your animals but not yourself.”

And with those words, 20 years of friendship died overnight.