by Alex Boast
The boy ran to his little dog and held him, accepting licks to the face and eyes, appreciating every effort the little spaniel could give in these final moments. He stared into old white eyes, searching for any kind of communication, but finding only an accepting sadness. The light retreated faster now and the little dog faded away, as swiftly as he had appeared, a long and powerful howl challenging the silence of the night. Left only with the presence behind him, unnoticed until now, and he turned to confront it.
Moments later far below, unseen and unknown, the corpse bride whispered in the broken dead boy’s ear “Honour the Fallen.”
Piss and Wine
“You smell like piss and wine,” she says, “which is it?”
“Both, can I come in?”
“Fine, but this is the last time.” She says, reluctant.
“You’re really here,” she continues. Her eyes look happy but her mouth looks sad.
“I am,”
“I thought, after the letter, that I would never see you again” she chokes on a sob.
“Shit, so I did write it?” I ask, knowing I did, “Good for me,”
“Did you try to kill yourself?” she asks me imploringly.
“No, I wanted to live as much as I wanted to die.”
“Why do you do this!?” she is growing agitated, “Why are you constantly at war?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t stop until I’ve found the balance. Nothing makes sense, but I refuse to be beaten by these feelings.” I remain calm.
“I can’t watch you kill yourself.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then what is it that you ask? For god’s sake…”
“I need you to understand.”
“But what if you die?” the tears come now.
“Everyone dies” I say, meaning it. For the first time I move forwards, leaving behind the dark clouds and the rain.
The sad, empty bungalow is as sodden as I am. Four walls, white. A mattress that looks more exhausted than anyone that might use it. Us. We are standing on opposite sides of the dull room, me by the front door, her by the kitchenette and en-suite single bedroom. I am wearing the appalling weather, she is wearing warm pyjamas and a worried expression. Moonlight through a high window and a single candle on the sill light the room.
In the far corner a plastic bag sits waiting: Whiskey and beer chasers. She knew I was coming.
How long had she been waiting? Three matches left, and the candles running out of wax.
I look at her now, no makeup, ready for bed hair. A spot of red lipstick on straight white teeth. She dressed up and then down again. She is beautiful. As I scrutinise her appearance she shuffles uncomfortably. It occurs to me that I might be frightening her. I take off my drenched overcoat and throw it into the corner opposite the bag. It lands heavily and I cringe at the sound of glass clinking against glass. She would not like that.
Still she remains silent, almost hostile. I light a cigarette and offer her one. She takes it and rolls it between her fingers, doesn’t light. I note the crimson of her fingernails, chipped at the ends.
She always picks at it when she is worried.
Of course she was worried.
She has sat on the floor, back to the wall. The candles flame flickers animating her shadow and making it appear more alive than she.
That is all she wants to be for me now.
I open the whiskey and swallow three fingers, it tastes good. The cigarette accentuates the sharpness of the single malt. She always gets my favourite. I offer it to her, and she ignores me.
“Are you hungry?” she asks quietly.
“I got you some plain rice, I think you could eat that,” Before I can respond she is in the kitchenette, bashing plates together furiously, scraping cutlery against the walls, creating unbelievable noise. A plate is set before me a few moments later, and the smell of warm butter invades my nostrils. Where I am sat smells like home, yet I’ve never been so far from it. I take one mouthful and it is enough.
It is nothing.
A pounds worth of fuel in the engine with a thousand limit.
“Thank you,” I try to sound grateful but the words get caught on my teeth and emerge sounding forced and unpleasant. I move closer to her and she flinches at first, but then warms. How long had it been? When had she received the letter, did I deliver it in person?
We sit with raised knees against the wall, hiding together in the tiny light of the candle. The darkness of the room makes it resemble a vast cavern, full of uncertainty. It takes me a few moments to realise she is holding my hand.
The feeling is coming back.
Frozen and numbed by the arduous journey here they are now thawed by her tiny paw, so delicate and comforting in the grip of something so scarred and broken. Hope. For a time we do not speak and I reflect upon how I can spend time with this woman. I would give every minute, just to share her air. The candle threatens on occasion to blow out and submerge us in black. We don’t move.
Time has stopped. We are together for what could be the first or the last time, for all it mattered. In this moment, I wonder if I loved her. For so long she had demanded my soul and I had clung desperately to what remained of it. Now, at the end, was I finally ready to give it?
Our holding hands evolve into an embrace. I cling to her like a child might clutch its mother’s leg upon the first visit to the supermarket or the underground train station. An explosion of emotion overcomes me and tears shoot from my eyes into her hair, onto soft peach cheeks. I say words I don’t understand, apologise for things I have no knowledge of. Beg forgiveness for future sins. I truly feel I do not deserve this woman’s time.
Do you know how sometimes an event will occur, that makes you realise how truly disgraceful and horrendous you are? Well, I wish that would happen to me.
I wish I could be forced into affirmative action, but people make the mistake of waiting for me to get better on my own.
I am a LEGO labyrinth without the instructions, only an artisan could rebuild me to the recommended specifications, and only a fool would try.
I know she loves me, and I know she hates me. In this world where duality and double standards reign supreme how could she not? I am everything she hates.
The reason she loves her brother, her idols and her psychiatrist. I took everything she had, and in return offered only suspicion, jealousy, and hate. Had I let her know how perfect she was, you see, she might have fled.
Her only flaw, her only imperfection, is her vulnerability: the desire to help, to give and never take but always want to.
She poured all her wasted faith into me.
The candle surrenders. I reach into the darkness and find nothing. How long have I been alone?
As I start to realise the facts, I start to feel something. It’s not love, no, but it’s something. And it scares the shit out of me.
Where are you, and if I find you will you come back? I suppose you could call this my apology.
The wedding was the first of a thousand mistakes, the letter the last. I was a fool to think you would weather that storm. Why would you? Once a CD is scratched you throw it away, once a pet is old and ill you allow it to die.
I remember the smell. It used to live in my pillows. Orange juice and a morning shower. Home.
Where are you? I imagine spaces full of desks and potential. Computers and happiness. Coffee and depression. Everything I don’t have. When you aren’t around the colour drains from the world, and apathy takes over. Why should I care about anything that isn’t you? The only person that has ever made me feel happiness, is the same person who makes me feel true sadness.
Funny, isn’t it? Did I put myself in this position? Was I weak or was I ready? The scary part is, the image of you is slipping away. Soon you will be just a name. Never let me be just a name. I have to be something, something that matters.
Just keep loving me. Don’t stop.
I don’t know where you are, or what you’re doing, bu
t in my mind there’s a picture of you. And you are happy. There isn’t an empty bottle or an ash tray in sight. The only persisting imagine when I think of you is a slight breeze, and a slighter smile. That cheeky one from when we first met. The dogs ran over to meet each other, gone but not forgotten, they were as matched as we were. The same but different. Perfect opposites, we came together like sliding doors.
Standing in silence, words unsaid, but hands clasped. That’s all we were. A handshake.
I’ve never touched anyone else’s hand. I wish you were here, to hold me as I slip into the only thing I’ve ever really been afraid of: a total state of sobriety, I always thought my life was a bit of a Vodka-Dream, that you were too perfect to exist. In a way you were, I was so intimidated by your effortless excellence I hid inside the wine-sea. And now, I don’t know if you’re dead or alive. Or if I am. I can’t be sure of anything anymore, can’t trust my senses. There are just a few things I wanted to say, like thank you.
Somewhere at the end of our rainbow, is a wedding ring, sitting in the bottom of a whiskey glass. It’s yours if you want it. Wherever you are, sleepy eyes dripping morning sex, I hope you know that you aren’t forgotten. A part of me is entirely devoted to you, and no, it isn’t my heart.
It’s my soul.
On its fleshy walls these words are written “must try harder.”
And I would. If only I could find my way out of this dark water. Maybe if I fashion a satellite out of coathangers and hope, and reflect the light of other people’s happiness onto the black horizons of my expectations, I’ll see that beacon, the beacon I know is you. And then I’ll come running, because I can’t swim, or cycle. And when we meet for the first or last time, we won’t need to speak, we can just relive our forgotten history, and if you think I’m crazy, God bless you, cos you will be too by the end of our conversation. This is the letter, isn’t it?
The Tin Can Man
“The birds and the bees are dead,
Soon, nobody will tell the tale,
The cold embrace of the Tin Can Man comes for everyone,
And you don’t even notice, As you surrender your soul,
No amount of liking and sharing,
Drinking and smoking,
Fucking or punching will change that” - Unknown, First published 2014, Re-published by Iz0ne 2028 in ‘Whispers of the dead’
“Cathy! Where’re mum and dad? I want to show them this poem thing,” Jen shouts, carefully flicking ash into her empty can of cider.
“I don’t know,” her sister shouts back,
“Haven’t seen them in a while.”
The Cracks in the Statue:
Funny how the forbidden death is the one we choose for ourselves, isn’t it?
No no, don’t worry, I know what you’re thinking and I lack the constitution for suicide. We’re all going to die sooner or later anyway.
But if you’d ask me what I’m doing to speed up that cold embrace, I’d say you can ask my cigarette.
I kick the depressing, moist newspaper article off my smart shoes with a huff. Bus is here. Those poor students. All that pressure. When they decide enough is enough they’re ridiculed for a few months before being laid to rest in that garden we call nostalgia; where the grass is always greener.
What’s there to be depressed about in London, the greatest city on Earth?
The seat on the bus is somehow damper than the rain splashed newspapers outside. I wonder what its previous occupant might have looked like. This museum trip better be worth it.
It IS worth it.
Hidden deep in the cavernous belly of a British museum I shan’t name for fear of unfairly revealing its secrets, is a vast catacomb of the forgotten; ancient Greek and Roman statues, porticos and family crypts of fine bronze and marble.
These poor souls, unearthed from timeless soil hundreds of miles away, have not been deemed spectacular enough for the eyes of the masses upstairs. In fact, there’s very little to even indicate they exist, aside from a staircase at the end of a hallway around a corner down some stairs. I am probably the only non-member of staff to know about them.
About her.
Yes, we’re here to see a woman.
She’s worth the dark, that dusty old smell. The constant straining of my already poor eyesight.
Even when illuminated by the shining beacon of hope that is my smartphone’s torch app, it is hard to make out her features.
The hooded veil that was so often the style of these family memorial statues makes it difficult for the untrained eye to make out the features: the attention to detail, the cracks in the statue.
I once heard that the Devil lives in the details, but that just isn’t true. As with most things humanity has got it backwards: the Devil is everywhere. Sneering at you from every screen, peering at you through every window and reaching for you from every shadowed corner; no no, he isn’t in the details at all.
The details are where you find hope.
If you look close enough, you can see the beauty in everything.
And this woman - whose name was long ago devoured by that beast called time – was very beautiful indeed.
The polished marble of her face indicates family traits that a scholar of the classical arts such as myself might be able to garner some hidden insights from. A strong chin and cheekbones indicates this is the daughter of an important man, Greek, not Roman. The crown, barely visible under the veil and the few wisps of hair etched into her forehead indicate my initial suspicions of royalty are probably correct.
Her visible arms are not muscular, and therefore she was likely either a princess or a priestess.
But that hood, the veil, it hides so much from me.
“Why hide such a pretty face?” I plead to the space above her head, where I imagine the devil himself watches unseen.
“Why hide such a pretty face?” again.
“She had a lot to hide,” a delicate but knowledgeable voice declares to the space behind my left ear.
Someone’s found me out. I’d thought I was alone down here in the dark. Damn.
I try to pretend I’m not startled, so turn a little slower than I normally would.
She’s gorgeous. Damn.
It’s so dark in here, that I can’t see much apart from the dim light reflected from a thick-framed pair of spectacles, a tangled mane of rusty hair and a university ID card hanging from a chain around her neck.
All I can see is:
Name: Cass-
Department: Classical St-
“She had a lot to hide,” she says to me again, taking a step closer. I don’t hear her feet hit the ground, I’m too distracted by the perfume invading my senses.
“Nobody knows who this woman is, there’s no record of these works and anything you say would be a guess at best,” I say to her, trying to sound confident.
“I know who she is,” She lies.
“You’re lying,” I say, honestly.
“She’s the woman who said no to god,” she says, and moves away from me, rounding one of the darker corners past me and moving further into the labyrinth of haunting statues.
I still can’t hear her feet hit the floor.
I can’t even see the floor.
It’s definitely gotten darker, so I retrace my steps from the entrance. Past the family dedication to the famous discus thrower, and a mural of the Cult of Oedipus, their details all the more clear as the curiosity of the evening streamlines my vision.
I was wrong, there was no beauty here. I am not surprised these malformed horrors are kept away from the public. A marble man with a broken stump of an arm reaches out towards me from the corners, a look of hopeless despair in his cold, grey eyes.
I feel eyes on me. I brought the warmth of life into their death-tomb, and now they’re interested.
I drop my notepad and flee, finally making it up the stairs, down the hallway and around a corner back to normality.
Panic attack. Hate them. Feel better already but can’t go
back now for the notes I didn’t take, don’t want to trigger another one.
Take a pill, no water.
“The woman who said No to god,” her words repeat in my mind.
Easy, Cassandra – sometimes spelled Kassandra – a Trojan priestess who suffered greatly at the hands of both the Greeks and the gods during the sacking of her city. Destined to forever tell the truth, but never be believed.
