The
soft pressure on my lips invaded the darkness I was sleeping in. A warm gentle
brush down the side of my cheek brought a smile to my face. I felt the bed
shift, raise, heard fading footsteps. I opened my eyes.
The bed was huge. Crisp white sheets lined
with a ruby red duvet. I stretched up, running my fingers across the rough
fabric of the honeycomb headboard.
Wait, headboard? Duvet? I don’t have anything
like that, where the heck am I?
I pushed myself up, taking in the room in its
entirety. Across from me was a simple wooden desk, a high back felt chair
pushed haphazardly underneath. The desk was a mess, the top was lined with
dirty glasses and empty bottles, all hard liquor. There were several empty pill
bottles. Stacks of crumpled paper littered everywhere and my typewriter was
about to fall off.
The rest of the room looked fine. To the
right, pillows the color of blood resting on a large gold couch, matching butter
walls covered three walls. There was no forth wall, instead a bleached denim
sky shined in through the glass.
I stood, naked, and walked to the glass. I
didn’t recognise the view outside. The city streets below crissed and crossed
in an unfamiliar configuration. Buildings of brick and steel grew from the
ground fading out into the fog rolling in from the foreign sea.
“You look lost.”
I turned towards the silk voice. She walked
barefoot out the bathroom. Her skin, the color of mocha offsetting the white of
the towel that she was running through her short kinked hair.
“I am, and a bit confused. Who are you?”
She looked me up and down, “so you are not
modest.”
“Should I be? I figured we had… had… um… been
intimate, so why bother.”
Her laugh was deep and rich, “No there was no
sex between us, of that I can assure you.”
“Oh,” I looked her up and down again, “damn.”
“I thought I wasn’t your type.”
“I have a type?”
“Men.” She said while pointing at me.
“In the
past my relationships have been with men,” I shrugged, “but sex is sex, and
lately it doesn’t seem to matter?”
“It always matters.”
I looked past her to the small hall and the
door to the bathroom. I was having a sudden desire to clean myself up a little.
She must have seen the look, and stood aside.
“Thanks.”
The cold of the floor tiles sent shivers up to
the top of my spine. I gripped the sink, staring into the swirling waters
below. A distorted reflection looked back at me. It held me for a moment.
Something so twisted and yet it felt right. My fingers reached down, I held my mask
in my hand. I threw the water into my face, over and over again making sure it
was all properly in place.
I dried myself off, noticed my jeans hanging
off the side of the tub. I walked out while doing up the soft brown belt. She
sat now on the sofa looking out window. Attired in a simple sleeveless green dress.
The blue sky, yellow couch, green dress and brown skin all mixed together. No
artist could have captured the beauty of what my eyes beheld.
“Feeling better?”
I ignored her, found a clean glass. There was
one bottle not qutie finished. I poured a glass, looked at her, “What one?”
“Didn’t you have enough last night?”
“I don’t remember last night.”
“Most don’t.”
“Huh?” I poured a second glass, walked across
and sat next to her. “What do you mean?”
She turned to look at me. I stared at the
amber in her eyes, lost myself in them. Again I felt the pressure on my cheek,
only no one was touching it. Warmth filled me again.
Thankfully the cold of the glasses in my hand
snapped me out of my stupor and I pushed myself to the other end of the couch.
I downed one glass, then the other.
“What are you?”
“What do you remember of last night?” She
asked ignoring my question.
“Wha…
What has that got to do with anything?”
“Answer mine and it will answer yours.”
I stood again. Pushed myself up and away. Last
night? What was I doing last night? Images crept back into me, flashes of the
last few days. I tripped, caught the edge of the bed. Slowly I settled myself
down.
“It was my birthday, friends wanted to take me
out to dinner. I live out in the country, didn’t want to go home. I wanted to
have a good time so I got a hotel room. I spent the day walking around the
city, visiting all my favourite places. The harbour, the Chinese gardens, the
markets. Hour after hour I walked I had to make the most of the day.”
She tilted her head slightly to one side, “How
come?”
“I meet them for dinner, a harbour cruise. We
ate and drank, danced for hours. When we got back to land we took a cab up to
the Street. A few more hours clubbing and they had to call it a night. I sent
them off and took another walk. I got back the room sometime around three. I
tried writing. I had letters to write. I drank some more. The words weren’t
coming out right. I had a headache. Cramps as well. I was feeling sick but I
needed to get the letter right. So I kept writing. Kept trying new drafts. I
kept drinking. I kept taking… Taking…”
I stared at the empty pill bottles. Nausea
racked through me. I wanted to throw up but there wasn’t anything there.
“I did it didn’t I? Oh god, I finally did it.”
A knock came from the door. She stood, rested
a hand on my shoulder for only a briefest moment before walking off to answer.
Murmurings played in the background. I ignored
it. I was dead. Truly, finally, dead. So then this was…
“It’s not heaven. Nor hell.” I turned to look
at her, she walked slowly, the green dress flowing around her. “This is a
simple construct. A primitive device we use to ease new souls into this
hereafter. As for your story, mostly right, just very out of order. You had
dinner with friends on the boat, and then you went clubbing. Only at the end
you didn’t go to the hotel. You went to the airport. You took an early flight
to the only place you have ever left like home. You spent the day in the city
before finding a hotel room and ending your life with pills and alcohol.”
“So I was in..?”
She smiled at me, “Yes.”
My smile matched hers, for the first time
since I could remember I felt true happiness.
Her head cocked quizzically, “Your death makes
you happy.”
“This has been a long time coming, something I
should have done decades ago. So yeah I’m happy.”
I stood and walked back to the window. Leaned
against it trying to take in as much of the city below. This was it. I was
here.
“Who was at the door?”
“Waiter. I had ordered coffee and more alcohol
earlier.”
I turned to look at her. “All this,” I
gestured my hand, “its not a hotel. And if this isn’t a hotel then that
couldn’t have been a waiter. So who was at the door?”
She stood, slowly turned to look back at the
door. For a minute she stayed like that, just staring. Then she turned to look
at me, “A colleague, someone wanting an update on us.”
“And what did you tell them?”
She walked to me, wrapped her arms around my
chest. The smooth fabric of her dress slid over my bare skin. I took her in my
arms, nuzzled into her neck.
“What did you tell them?” I mumbled.
“That I needed more time with you.”
Her body slid around, her back to my chest. My
arms slipped down, clasping together around her waist. We both stared out the
window.
After a while I spoke, “What more time do we
need? I took the pills, I’m dead. And I am happy about that.”
I felt her head lay against my collar. “I need
to know why. I don’t understand why? You seemed to have it all and yet you
ended your life?”
It was my turn to look away now. I stared into
that denim sky, watched the clouds play with each other.
“It was for love.” I felt her stiffen in my
arms, but she didn’t say anything. “My childhood wasn’t awful. Many others have
it far worse, But it wasn’t good either.
I had a father disappointed that I was never
the child he expected. A mother that tried her best, but couldn’t warm to her
child. I could talk to you about how I was always the outcast, how there was
something off about me. How men saw that difference. How they saw a young boy
in need of love and took advantage of that. Or should I talk about a young boy
that gave up his body to have someone, anyone, even if for only five minutes, because
they would tell him that he was loved or wanted something he desperately needed
to hear.
I could talk to you about how broken that made
me inside. How as the older I got the more walls and barriers I put up to
protect my heart, my feelings, to hide who I was so I could fit in with the
normal people. How I shielded that very tiny part of myself, buried it so deep
that I can’t even access it anymore. How damaged all that left me.
But the truth? I did this because when I found
someone, finally found someone that saw through those layers, saw that tiny
piece of me. I pushed him away. I had no idea how to handle those feeling. How
to accept a kind of love that I had craved, but never felt before. So I screwed
it up. I screwed him up. So much so that in the end, it killed him.”
She wiped the tears from my cheek. I didn’t
even know I had been crying, “You killed him?”
“I failed him is probably more accurate, when
he needed me the most. I failed him. To me, I killed him.”
“And for that you deserve to die?”
“And because of that, I had nothing left.”
“You have no one that will miss you?” Her
voice raised an octave.
“Friends, but they will be better off without
me. Besides I said goodbye to them at the dinner, even if they aren’t aware of
it yet. My father is still somewhere, but being a penniless carpenter, I am
nothing more than a drain on him. He will mourn, but now I wont be a burden.
People will be sad, but it wont truly effect anybody’s life.”
I didn’t like thinking of my dad. And having
her in my arms felt like a betrayal to the memory of that first love. I
untangled myself, slowly. I went further back into the room, I needed a moment
to breath.
“Life gets better you know. If you had given
it time, I am sure it would of worked out.”
I flopped on the bed, looking up at the
ceiling.
“I mourned him for five years. When I finally
felt ready, I met someone. A wonderful man. A man I fell for. Loved as much and
as strongly as I did that first time. In the end, I messed that up as well. I
showed him all the vulnerable parts of me. I wasn’t going to make the same
mistake with him as I had done before. I bared myself completely and in all the
wrong ways. I terrified him so much that he ran into the arms of another. He
betrayed me, but not after taking all the things I had showed him and using
them against me. I realised this was life. Pain, betrayal, sorrow and madness.”
“So one failed attempt and you give up?”
I pushed myself up to my elbows. She had
righted the chair by the desk and was sitting on it now. I flashed back to many
years of therapy. I had to stifle the laugh.
“I had given up a long time before. He was the
last strand, the last hope. Later, I realised there wasn’t anything left for
me. It wasn’t him leaving. It was the way he did it. The way he treated me
afterwards. I wanted nothing but the best for him, for his new relationship.
Yeah I was hurt at first, but after awhile to anyone that asked I told them the
truth. I miss my friend and I give them my blessing. I hope they are happy
together. Yet they accused me of all sorts of crazy thing. They went around
telling everyone that would listen I was either suicidal or homicidal, so I
thought why not. Only I could never hurt them, never.”
“I still don’t understand. You were alive. You
had a life. Yes there was pain,” She leaned forward now, elbows resting on he
knees, “But you never know what tomorrow my have brought you.”
“Every day is a blessing huh? Sorry, but since
as long as I can remember every day to me is a curse. Every time, every chance
life gave me, any moment to be happy, it took it away again. After my last
relationship it showed me that I was nothing more misery’s plaything. That last
year with him I turned to drugs to feel better. To numb the pain he was causing
me. I knew he was betraying me, only I wasn’t going to give up like I had
before. So I stayed, I fought for a love that only I felt. In the end he left
me more broken than the love of my life.”
I sat up properly now. “That is what life did
to me. And if that is the blessing it bestows on you then I chose this.”
Looking
into her face. Staring once more into her smooth features. She was staring back
into mine.
“Sometimes when you talk about him, you sound
so happy for him, other times you are angry.”
“He hurt me, but that doesn’t mean I stopped
caring for him. Granted he wasn’t the man I thought he was, he had so much
potential in the beginning and how he turned out,” again I shrugged my
shoulders, “I may not like the man he became, but I will always love the man he
was, and for that, I want him to have the best life can offer.”
“And yet you didn’t want that for yourself.”
“Life had nothing to offer me, or more
realistically, I had nothing more to offer life. I was only staying for the
movies and the books.”
She slid off the chair now, knelt in front of
me. She took my hands in hers.
“You had a new interest, a possible new love?”
“It would never have worked out. I liked him,
a lot but in the end it wouldn’t have worked. There were too many things that
in the beginning would have been easy to ignore but the more it went on the
harder it would of become. We so could have loved each other deeply which would
of only made the end worse.”
“So you ended it before it began. You chose
not to pursue it.”
I shook my head, “I didn’t lie to him just to
use him as a rebound. I spared him the pain, and I gave him a chance to find
someone that could truly love him.”
“Noble”
“Not really. Every person I get close to, I
just end up damaging their lives, this way they he was spared.”
“And so you opted for this path.”
“Why not. I had given up on relationships, on
love. So I was just waiting to die. I have watched people get sick and waste
away. Watched them grow infirm and beg for death. This way, I save myself that
agony and I save the people in my life any more anguish for knowing me.”
There was another knock at the door. We both
turned to look. I felt her hands tighten on mine. Another knock.
“Are you going to get that?”
She stood. Cupped my chin in her hands. Tilted
my head up and kissed me.
“The door is for you. It’s time.”
“Time?”
“Yes. This isn’t the end, only the beginning
of your journey here.”
I looked look behind me. Back to the window,
remembering the city. Slowly I stood and walked forward. Past the bed, the
desk. Into the small hallway with the door for the bathroom. I reached, my hand
resting on the cold silver handle. I couldn’t push it down. I was frozen. I
looked back into the room. It was clean and empty now. The bed made, the desk tidy,
my typewriter and papers gone. It looked like no one had touched. And she was
gone too. My caramel angel in a green dress. I looked all around but I was
alone. Dammit, I never even got her name.
The knock came a third time. I turned once
more to the door. Whatever came next, maybe I would be able to find my first
love. I heard the click as I twisted the handle, pulled open the door and
stepped out of the room.
