Even now as I fight to bring these words to paper, I know I am losing. The overwhelming need for fresh air rattles in my lung with the regularity and rhythm of my hand scrawling across the page. Vapors and solid columns of stale air shifted solely by inhalation are sucked down and coughed back up. I have to get out of here.
Same day_____________________________Time: Much Later
Sometimes in my dreams, when I dream at all, I glimpse a shard or two, of my past. Or as accurate a representation of a past a man who remembers nothing of a life before can have. I leave it up to brain chemicals, firing synapses, and lazy neurons to warp and alter a thin strand of memories and spin them out at will. A thread pulled taunter and tighter with each failing. It breaks, and I am left with nothing but broken strands and a puppeteers bitter frustration. So far, I have determined two things in absolution: I live in the crux of hell; and secondly, am destined to remain here until I remember a life to go back to. Lately, in the twilight of night, I am haunted by the thought that perhaps I am not forgotten at all, but that this is really my life and subconsciously I am rationalizing it by pretending to be stuck here due to an absence of memory. That really my memories have not locked themselves away from me, but I from them. It is the darkest part of the night, and the despair pierces through any chance of sleep. Numb and cold I fight myself doubtfully, faithfully,crazily. Is it so sane to rationalize that I am insane?
The hours between dusk and dawn here are sacred. The bustle of the apartment building is nearly silent, for if anyone else is awake they creep quietly, silently alongside the night. Entrenched in silence, it is now that I can mull over the day clearly, sorting out the disjointed events as I make my way up to the roof. Leaning against the door jam, I face the outline of the city, never really looking at it too lost in myself. Sometimes I bring my journal up, thumbing through the various pages and entries, always searching; never finding.
Earlier, I left the building hurriedly, brushing past the hunched figure of a girl with rich, dark hair crouched over on the top of the landing of the third floor. Hiding her face against knees pulled up to her chest, hair flowing on all sides of her like a river darkened by a moonless night. But I couldn't stop, not even by the mailboxes where an elderly man with graying hair and deep crows feet etched around kind, intelligent eyes paused and turned expectantly, a half bemused smile on his absent face, lost in the recess of his own thoughts. Closer, closer. I reached the door, shoved through it and strode out into the street exhaling deeply; exchanging the musty, dank air of Thallow Flats with the polluted, grubby air that passes for clean in a city.
I turned down the street, walking toward nothing: dim, hunched buildings shadowed in the afternoon's weak rays or hidden behind a thick paint of grimy film line both sides of the street. RAGE caught my eye, the GAR faded and reduced to a dull outline, washed away by filth, rain, and a fresh layer of smog.
I anticipated walking miles, to the outskirts, with nothing to hold me back, to leave, to truly disappear, but the irony was too much. Who would miss me, but myself, which begs the question: who am I really? A neon, blinking Rare Books sign threatening to sputter out at any moment, caught my eye before I reached the end of the block.
I ducked under the dusty overhanging and stepped inside. As my eyes adjusted, filtering in heaps of books piled haphazardly on shelves and tables. Dingy yellowed light from a few tarnished lamps cast mellow circles around a few crumbling corners. A tattered red velvet arm chair sagged against the end of a book shelf, its hackneyed foot stool missing one leg, sloping awkwardly toward the floor but still manging to hoist up a few bounded covers and flimsy manuscripts from the growing stacks on the floor. I let my fingers follow the bumps of old, thick spines as I ran my hand along a shelf leading towards the back with a skinny, winding staircase. I turned the corner abruptly, running into a youngish, girl with a stack of books piled heavily in her arms. She gasped as the pile crashed on the floor between our feet, furtively reaching into the pocket of her sheepskin coat, as a beady head poked out. A rat? She patted it reassuringly, watching me as I bent down to pick up the scattered pile. I apologized, and a terse smile flitted across her face, she seemed distracted. Crouching down, I reached under the shelf for the last thin book , lowering my head to peer under the shelf as my fingers found nothing but plush carpeting, stirring up little pockets of dust with their probing. And that's when I saw it...
5 comments:
ok by the way I love what you have done with this character so far... he is so complex and interesting... and his short encounters with the other people have been woven through your words beautifully.
i like it. if your character and my character ever meet, they would have a good time. in their own insane, brooding sort of way.
As she arrived at her dingy apartment building from her night excursion to the Tavern, Alana stood and stared at the lit windows and the bland door, remembering how she arrived there four years ago.
She was merely a child with no first-hand experience in a world of dark and dangerous people. The second daughter in a family of five children, Alana was the youngest. She grew up in the deserts of Arabia. In her secluded desert, Alana was considered beautiful and mysterious. Her eyes were all that were seen by anyone other than her family, but they had a piercing thoughtfulness about them. Alana was well-educated and sent to school as a young girl, one of the few women in her tribe to be sent to school ever. Alana's father doted on her and called her "أعين غامضة" or "mysterious eyes." Surrounded by warm sand and fiery eyes, it was a paradise not meant to last.
Upon her arrival in a new complicated place, where her English was far from perfect, Alana wondered how Allah could do this to her. A place where she was expected to live on her father's money that had been left to her after the ferocious fire.
Alana gazed for a moment longer and then ushered the thought from her mind. As she climbed the stairs to the third floor she heard a bottle crash and listened to the unseen man in 300b pace in his room. Alana wondered what the man was doing up at three in the morning and then realized she was up at three am. She made her way to the fifteenth room where she found her keys and entered the calm rustle of voices.
Inside her quaint apartment, where there were little piles of manuscripts, she gazed at the pastel walls and paintings of her youth. The black flowing tail and deep dark portals to a soul that saved her life brought tears to her eyes. She turned away from the portrait and slipped into her bedroom. She let her clothes fall from her slight frame and her thick dark hair fall down her long tanned back. She meandered into her kitchen clad in her pajamas, the thought of her father's expression if he could see her now created a perfect curve in Alana's lips that hadn't been there in days. Her pale yellow kitchen brought warmth to her small apartment, although the food in it was scarce. She did not need much to live off of and she saved most of what she had. The piles of native manuscripts that she had managed to save were a constant comfort for her tormented mind.
The Tavern had become a frequent place for her to visit at night, not to "hit the bottle" as the men did, but to write in her journal and watch the people float through their obviously meaningless lives. She could not blame them for their addictions though. One face always stood out to her when she arrived and she watched him the most. She couldn't help but notice his soft blue eyes and the way he moved inside the Tavern, he seemed to float like the spirits in her room. He lived in her building but Alana did not know where. Her curiosity kept her from ever approaching him, she could not stand to ruin this image she had of him. He was an unknown character in her life as was the man down the hall. The man from room 300b only came out at night to stand on the roof. She saw him leave his room sometimes, but he scared her and she would not look him in the eye. But the man in the Tavern had this air about him that Alana could not resist.
yeh, they would either be friends, or they would huddle in seperate corners distrusting each other, or they would kill each other. but i like to think they would be friends
Post a Comment