'The Horatio Law' by Matt Kendrick

The day we pass the Horatio law is the happiest day of our lives. We are all Horatio now. I am Horatio. You are Horatio. The jackdaw lady who knits Christmas balaclavas in a rocking chair on her front porch is also Horatio.

Each morning, we knock on the identical mustard-coloured doors of our neighbour’s identical houses to say hi, Horatio! How are you, Horatio? I’ve never been happier, Horatio! There is no more chattering with jackdaws.

We are dog people now. The dogs are specifically chocolate Labradors with cherry cola eyes.

Sometimes when we pass our empty fishtanks or our empty hamster wheels or our empty Tamagotchi stands, we feel a poppy seed of longing for the pets we had before. But then we stop ourselves. Just like that.

We are all Horatio now. We are no longer an orchid whisperer or a knitter of Christmas balaclavas. Now, our activities are yoga, watercolour painting and non-competitive quizzes. Our clothes are sky-blue corduroy trousers and lemon-yellow shirts. Some of us try to customise our clothes with jewellery or sprigs of lavender. But we soon remind ourselves how a brooch might lead to a breach of happiness and we take the ornaments off.

A breach of happiness means returning to the chaos from before when a guy with a tangerine suntan in a ketchup-coloured cap was always yelling at a guy with a false halo about his giant-eraser hands.

But those guys are Horatio now. We are all Horatio.

Except in our dreams where we still whisper to orchids and play with our hamsters and knit Christmas balaclavas on our jackdaw-feathered porch. 

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Matt Kendrick is a writer, editor and teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His work has been featured in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, Cheap Pop, Craft Literary, Fractured Lit, trampset, and the Wigleaf Top 50. Website: www.mattkendrick.co.uk