[feltfirefox]

Synopsis: A lonely man tries to forget




His body lay on sweat-slaked sheets, rumpled. Sunrise gasped through the slats. He got up and swung his gown about him. It was big enough for two. Whiskey splashed with two chunks of ice, just how he liked it. The fan swivelled back and forth. Slowly. Her smile tasted of gunpowder. A hair quivered above his right ear.

The shower never looked so welcoming. Each drop of water echoed a cascade burst on the tiles. and wraiths of steam rose to swathe the cubicle, muscles taut slack in the flaming fog.

He brushed at his chin, soft fibres of the towel clinging to his stubble. His face bulged like a bag of spiders. He drained the last of the whiskey, no more than an aroma. The pungent alcohol overwhelmed him for a moment and he grasped at the blushed velvet seat, pawing the nap. He put the glass down clumsily, thumbs for fingers. He needed some air.

On the table, crystal upon crystal fingerprints faded.

He forced the window, synthetic joints bowing under the strain. It was snowing. Damp flakes choked the air as old dirty dust disturbed. Deserted trams screeched on incised steel veins and sturdy boots beat crumpled, pock-marked tarmac. His cheek twitched against the frozen breeze.

Behind him, the fan continued to swirl.

Black night had now covered pale day and ravished her. A cold grey surge soaked the streets, an ashen limbo of splintered cables and tracks and white shadows in the murk. Heat was ice-lined, time inches, drags of breath and sweat. A laugh lifted out of a half-open window, neon-lit. He fumbled his pocket. He couldn't read the face. She wore her lipstick like a lioness after the kill. He felt his eyes empty, the pupils bleed into the dark.

Within the bowels of the block, chrome lifts slid through bare brick shafts.

The rooms were stripped down to the essentials. Paintings, ornaments, he had removed all of them, everything that reminded him of her; everything beautiful. He walked over to the television set as though worked from within. He flicked the switch, turned the knob and hit the button. He could hear the image before he could see it, simmering in the void. At last the scene appeared, minced through a million pixels. He pulled the curtains tight shut, leaving the window open.

He turned up the volume.

He remembered how deep her silences were. The characters circled each other. He remembered the tilt of her head. He looked at her bare calves, curved silver and sheen. She drew close, murmuring tales of hubby and her, using his heart for a scratching post. Her smooth platinum hair was tied back, straining against the pins. He gulped for air. She didn't talk, she exhaled. He saw a hair on the breast of his jacket. It was blonde, limpid on the coarse charcoal thread.

The fan spun and blew but wouldn't work. He turned the TV louder, closing his eyes. His head throbbed, shapes and colours blurred. She whispered a whisper that filled the room, pushing at the walls: “I don't care what you do to me, just do it quick”. It came back to him; the seat was damp, punctured foam leached with scarlet thirst. He opened his mouth to scream and silence. The light-bulb popped. The television went blank, crackled and died. He tried to see through the grainy pitch. The curtain rippled softly. Downtown a car horn honked a call and found a mate. One. Two. Three. He breathed. He breathed and tried to lullaby his restless thoughts to sleep.

His watch ticked, less and less confident.... Then, through his closing eyelids he sensed a glow. It was a dull glow. The far wall was shining from within, the pattern of the wallpaper illuminated, leaves and branches, infused with electric blue. Beyond he saw a silhouette – a silhouette made of light and touched with gold. It was advancing through the foliage. The figure was long and slender and moved mesmeric, as if under water. So steadily. He shuddered and pressed his back into the cushions. The spectre, wan and lithe, came flush with the wall. It waited. It waited with one foot forward and one foot back. In two worlds. It stepped into the room.

He scrambled onto the floor and away, tipping a table over. The ghost turned its head and gazed with its small gaping eyes at a bowl rolling and spiralling to a stop on the frayed carpet. His heart beat in his throat and sickness welled in the pit of his stomach. Panicking, he could see his breath escaping him. The scent was overwhelming, and he felt it strained through his pores. It was not human. Its body, fluorescent and warm, swayed and billowed with the fan-swept air. He wanted to speak. Shadows were cast all around with shards of brilliant white. He wanted to move. He wanted to communicate. Tears drowned his eyes.

It was her. It did not wear her face but it moved and stayed and was.

It stretched out a limb, delicate, diaphanous, fingers probing like antennae. He trembled, his senses aching. In the stairwell outside, two neighbours exchanged pleasantries. Suddenly her hand unfurled and her palm pierced his chest and passed through his soul, quick and easy. He felt alive, torn naked and open. And now... now she hovered there, not one metre away. She was almost featureless, contours visible but buried. Then, from the back of nowhere came a voice, strong and low:

“Why
Why
Why must I die?”

She stood still, floating. He didn't know how to respond. He had forgotten how to speak. His eyes were lost, grasping. He saw her in the mirror, shut in the glass. He fell to his knees.

“I didn't... I wouldn't...”

“Hours. Broken. Shiver. Blood,” she said, her voice trembling. A wave convulsed across her form.

He nodded over and over, dumbly.

“It was her,” he pleaded.

“She was here.”

“It was her,” he repeated.

“She was here.”

She was changing. She was emerging. He could hear the rise and fall of her voice, although clothed in pain.

“Why.” It was a statement, limp and lifeless. The blue halo that shrouded her had grown milky, her robe more defined. He got to his feet, wobbled as if new-born. He could see the line of her cheek.

“Why.” Again she spoke as if sighing. With each word the light was falling away from her.

“Why.”

Then as she spoke again the flame extinguished. It was her. More than ever. Traces of tears marked her skin.

He went to walk towards her, but she backed away. “Here... I was always about to smile or laugh. There...there is nothing”. Through her he could see the blades of the fan, churning.

She pressed the flesh of her arm with her other hand.

“I can feel nothing,” she murmured to herself, the tips of her fingers entering her flesh.

“Only memories.”

He saw that she was fading from view and rushed at her shouting.

Yelping and sobbing, his hands fumbled and floundered, invading her body, unable to hold her. She was now almost gone. Almost gone for good. He rested his forehead near her shoulder and said the last thing he would ever say to her:

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't choose. If I could choose when and how to fall in love I... I would have chosen you.”

With the last of these words, her hand caught his for a split second, and she vanished.

[Ambrose]

Some over-the-top but vivid metaphors/similes there. Some that I like:

"His face bulged like a bag of spiders"

"She wore her lipstick like a lioness after the kill"

Problem is, I really don't know how you mean by these descriptions. It almost seems like your describing for the sake of describing, and not really telling the reader anything.

What I really want to know is, what is the purpose of the protagonist's experience. Why does he awake groggy and disoriented? Why is so sensitive to external noises (the car horn)? And how does this all fit in to his meeting with the girl (which was also really confusing by the way)?

I think obscure writing can have a purpose in that it allows the reader to do some active thinking and make his/her own interpretations. But for me, this was just too impenetrable to figure out.