Transmissions

by Dominic Lyne

wear a condom. Ah well, she thinks. His funeral.

  ‘You can fuck off bitch,’ he says, trying to be the big old businessman, throwing his cash at her like he has some importance in this world.

  Hotel rooms are lies, little rooms of decadence wiped clean each day. Polished until they look as virginal as the day they were created. If only everything was that simple. If only she could wipe the clients from her memory and be the little girl her mother Emma was so proud of. No, Mary is Babylon. She is corruption and no amount of whitewashing and bleach would change that.

  She scoops up the cash as she pulls on her dress. This room will be wiped clean, but he won’t. He’ll go home and stick his cheating maggot into his wife, blow another load and kill her as if it was a bullet.

  […]

  I asked the sky a question.

  It replied. ‘You’re never truly alone. Within the heavens the lights burn brightly, lost souls looking for understanding, dead and forgotten by the time they reach your eyes. Space isn’t silent; it’s filled with the cries of millions. Silent screams for help, for answers. An infinite void filled with negativity because people never thank for the positives.’

  I:

  The Last Cigarette

  When I was young, I once believed that love could last forever. You know, the kind of love you read about in fairytales, but no, life has proved all too well that that is just a lie. Nothing lasts forever, that’s why I’m sat here, alone, shaking, shivering not with the cold but with the fear of the unknown.

  The cigarette dies slowly between my fingers, two more drags and it reaches its end. I flick it out onto the balcony before me and watch its dying gasps against the solid floor. I smile coldly. How like the past year, ignited with a spark, enjoyed then extinguished, leaving nothing but a taste. Enjoyment and damage all from something so small.

  Behind me the flat rattles with its silent ghosts. Memories. So few arguments existed here, but the laughter has long since been forgotten and only the silence remains in its wake. I sigh. Click, flame, inhale. Another cigarette breathes to life in my shaking hands. Welcome to this moment, sorry for its lack of sunlight.

  It wasn’t always like this; it used to be fun, happy. Two lives filled with laughter. I loved him you know, I really loved him, still do, only now it just feels hollow. I guess he loved me; he said he did but we never truly know for certain do we? That’s where trust comes in. Long story short, our relationship rotted within these four walls in front of a television screen. Conversations gave way to cold silences; entwined sleeps to opposite sides of the bed. When you live with someone, that’s when you realise how different they truly are to the vision in your head. I guess you stop growing as people, and when you stop growing you start rotting.

  The cigarette breathes its last and stumbles to the floor to be next to its brothers. I watch it for a second before getting to my feet and walking into the flat. I let my feet guide me through, they’ve walked this path so many times that now it’s an unthinking movement. Everything is as it always is, in the allotted place, nothing just randomly positioned. That’s the way he likes it, so that’s the way it’s maintained. There is only one difference though, one major difference. The flat is devoid of anything that belongs to me, well when I say that I mean the things that indicated my existence, the personal elements of my part in the relationship. They are somewhere else; these are my final moments.

  I stand in the doorway to the living room. The tear falls down my cheek slowly. I smile. A memory. Melt away all the furniture to the shell that existed when we arrived that first night with the keys held in our eager grips. He opened one door; I opened another. Unlocking the future together. Image, him stood there by the fireplace, voice echoing around the vacant space. ‘So this is it,’ his voice warm.

  ‘Yup, any regrets?’

  ‘No, it couldn’t be more perfect.’

  Cut the scene to a few hours later. Returning from having a cigarette to find him sat there, face covered in coal from his attempts to get the fire working. Us snuggled in front of it on the wooden floor, drinking microwaved tea from glass tumblers. All that mattered was that we were together, that was all we had.

  Ten months later. The same room, the same voice now devoid of warmth. ‘This, whatever it is, is over.’

  Back in the present, I can’t will my feet into the room, it doesn’t belong to me anymore; it belongs to the feet of my ghosts, my memories. I wipe my face. Stupid tears what good will they do? There’s no magic garden under my feet that will be reanimated by a drop of love. There is no fairytale ending here. This is the end of the countdown. Those days, hours, minutes all led to this point.

  I work a cigarette into my mouth and light it. I’m not allowed to smoke inside but I don’t care right now. It’s my final middle finger, a lingering scent of me. Pulling my bag onto my shoulder I open the front door. Tear stained face, hollow soul and drained I take a final look around. This is just the end of a chapter.

  The door closes behind me. Without so much as a ‘goodbye,’ I lock the tomb of my memories.

  About the Author

  Born in Essex in 1983.

  Always one to think outside of the box and speak his mind honestly, Dom Lyne's work takes a no-holds-barred approach. A visual, aural, mental kick in the teeth, a punch in society's guts. Misanthropic, blunt, and opinionated; a style in keeping with Dom's ethos that if you don’t think for yourself, you are not thinking at all, only merely following like livestock. One person might not be able to change the world, but he'll certainly try and leave a scar upon it. Punk ethics for a digital and wasted generation.

  Dom has been diagnosed with Schizotypal Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. He has also suffered from psychosis since the age of four. All of these mental health issues bleed into his work through his creation of claustrophobic landscapes and offer the reader an insight into his world, the world he has created and mutated in his physical reality.

  Dom Lyne currently lives in the heart of London's Camden Town.