RaoulDuke
01-14-2011, 07:19 PM
This was originally submitted as an entry into the annual short story competition 2010. I would love some feedback, particularly if you voted in the poll. As always, feel free to tear it apart...
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A cheap plastic wall clock ticks out the seconds of a Friday afternoon, a metronome for the quiet kitchen symphony performed to an audience of one. The sound of the neighbours downstairs conversing permeates through the floorboards but somehow the individual words are filtered out between the plaster, wood and linoleum and only a muted antiphony seeps through. The refrigerator hums softly in the background as anonymous cars pass at the end of the identikit street of tenement houses. The kettle rises to a bubbling, effervescing crescendo and then dies with a click as the switch pops back up.
I steal a look out of the window and stare up at the brilliant blue sky. Today has been just like yesterday, the day before, and as far as I can remember it, the day before that as well; no rain, no clouds, no laughter. I pour the water that has just boiled into a mug with a deep filling of coffee granules in the hope that the caffeine will allay the feelings of inertia and apathy that have suffocated me so totally these last few days. There's something about the beautiful summer weather that makes me feel all the more guilty about sitting at home doing nothing; about not leaving the house to see people, go for a walk, a cycle, a picnic or simply bathe in the glorious sunshine.
It certainly feels strange sitting in the house at this time on a Friday afternoon, and it has done so all week. My boss called me into his office on Monday morning and gave me a week off work, or “a week to start with, but take as long as you need,” as he said himself, in an uncharacteristically sympathetic tone. He called it “compassionate leave”, or something like that. It's odd, I would normally revel in the circumstance of being paid to sit at home doing nothing, but right now the dreariness of the achromatic office full of co-workers on their best behaviour, with all their diverting chitchat and pleasantries, of loading bars, error messages and telephone tones, would be a welcome diversion. All those old things considered tedium would be preferable to sitting in this solitary box listening to the fragments of other people's lives that filter in.
Monday’s paper still sits on the kitchen table with the headline that proclaims “Local man in suspected drug death” and a portrait photograph staring back up at me. I just can't bring myself to throw it in the bin; it seems almost disrespectful to do so, which is mad, of course, it is after all just a newspaper; an insensate jumble of wood pulp and ink. The article describes how Edward Edison, 26, collapsed at around 3.30 am inside the nightclub Analogue and how paramedics were unable to resuscitate him. It then goes on to some details of the family left behind, a statement from a senior(ish) police officer and the all usual guff. The journalist who wrote the piece was right in his suspicion; Eddie Edison overdosed on cocaine whilst I was out around the town with him last Saturday night. The toxicology reports are yet to come back and his parents won't believe it until they do; but that is what happened.
The real kicker is I saw it coming a long way off. He was always trying to push the boundaries, go beyond the limits and to do what his friends and colleagues told him he wouldn't be able and what his government told him he wasn't allowed to do. The newspaper article featured a snippet from the statement made by the family; “Edward finally fell victim to his reckless pursuit of freedom and happiness”. That was Eddie all over – reckless, free and happy.
The feeling that bothers me most, the one that makes me want keep myself occupied and busy enough to avoid facing up to the whirlpool of emotions whipping around inside my head, is this burning admiration I have for him and how he lived his life; without limits or compromise, in total freedom and so completely in the moment. But more than that, my admiration strays into jealousy, and it's for that that I feel guilty, and that somehow discarding his front page obituary would be an act of anger or disdain, an embodiment of the jealousy. I've always envied his carefree, do-or-die approach to life, and it's only now that he's dead that I've really had to confront these feelings. I have always justified my own cautious approach to life by reassuring myself that one day he would pay in some way for his lifestyle and life choices, but now that he has paid the ultimate price for his dauntless pursuit of freedom I can't help but think that he had it right all along.
I am guilty of wasting my life in my half-arsed office job in the pursuit of some untenable marketed dream of happiness through the pay check. I'm guilty of sacrificing my life in the present for the sake of security and comfort in the tomorrow that never comes. I have always been the guy that says “But what if...” and I have always done as my parents, teachers and so-called superiors bid. I have always refused illicit drugs and cigarettes and have never gone over board with any other vices: I sometimes go to pub after work for a couple but never get drunk, and rarely get relaxed enough to really bond with my co-workers. I usually bet on the Grand National and the World Cup but my trips into the bookies so infrequent that I don't feel comfortable there. I occasionally went out with Eddie and his mates on a weekend, and I usually enjoyed myself, but I've never been good at dealing with hangovers. Between Eddie and myself, I always had the thinner waist, the wider chest, the bigger pay packet and the newer, faster, shinier car; and yet it is me who has always been envious of him.
So anyway, here I am in my kitchen almost a week after his death having done nothing to speak of in the interluding time. There hasn't been any milk in the fridge for days and I haven't left the house to get any, so I've taken to drinking my coffee black. I take a sip and it scolds my lips. The most obvious solution would be to leave it to cool, but like I said, I'm tired of just sitting around waiting.
Instead I take out a tray of ice cubes from the freezer and drop a handful in the mug. They swirl around in the darkness, each one gradually getting smaller and losing its opaque white colour and becoming more pellucid. My mind wanders as I lean over and stare into the mug and feel the sultry stream rise up and massage my face. The ice cubes become diamonds floating in molten onyx; tiny, perfect, precious stones swallowed by the crushing, boiling blackness. They all melt in the same curious pattern; a dent appears in the middle, it develops into a hole that permeates all the way through, turning them into little glass-like tubes, little windows into the abyss.
They remind of me of his staring, vacant eyes; gateways to the empty shell slumped on a nightclub floor atop a convulsing body, surrounded by figures frozen in horror. I remember that moment, that whole scene, like a photograph; the girls with their hands clasped to their cheeks in sheer terror, motionless, with their silent mouths wide open; all noise drowned out by the thumping bass and generic dance beat that suffocated the air. Tears were caught suspended halfway down the tracks they were cutting down faces, makeup caught somewhere between heading-out-of-the-house perfection and post-traumatic smudged mess. And then there was the white froth hanging mid-dribble from his mouth and nose, glistening in the strobe light glow like icicles in the winter moonlight.
I've replayed that little snapshot of him lying on the nightclub floor in my mind over and over countless times, but as I picture it now, whilst lost in the swirling, shrinking crystalline shapes, it all becomes much clearer. No matter what happens the music keeps playing, the lights keep flashing and the people who don't witness the tragedy keep on dancing, flirting or fighting completely oblivious. The world keeps turning and entropy keeps marching on down its one way street.
Our lives pass like ice cubes placed in freshly made black coffee; we deliquesce into our surroundings until nothing remains but the murky darkness that is left visibly unchanged, just that little bit colder for the experience. We are diamonds dropped into molten onyx; created as carbon based forms of astounding, mesmerising, unique beauty, doomed to the fate of anonymous non-existence from our very inception. All we have are the moments in between, the times when the inhibitions that separate and alienate us are overcome and we experience humanity at its most beautiful and reckless. It's the instances when we overstep the line and to do what our heart tells us, especially when it breaks a law or goes against our friends' best advice, that define us as free thinking and courageous human beings.
If Eddie taught me anything in his short time on this earth then it’s that life is too short to sit around moping. The past has been and gone; I have my memories and my regrets but now it’s time for a change. I pour the coffee out into the sink, descend the stairs and stride out of the front door. The wonderful August afternoon sunshine bathes my skin with all its cathartic energy and I feel invigorated. The wall clock back in the kitchen keeps on ticking out the seconds of the rest of my life, but I'm not going to waste it listening to the countdown.
__________________________________________________ __
A cheap plastic wall clock ticks out the seconds of a Friday afternoon, a metronome for the quiet kitchen symphony performed to an audience of one. The sound of the neighbours downstairs conversing permeates through the floorboards but somehow the individual words are filtered out between the plaster, wood and linoleum and only a muted antiphony seeps through. The refrigerator hums softly in the background as anonymous cars pass at the end of the identikit street of tenement houses. The kettle rises to a bubbling, effervescing crescendo and then dies with a click as the switch pops back up.
I steal a look out of the window and stare up at the brilliant blue sky. Today has been just like yesterday, the day before, and as far as I can remember it, the day before that as well; no rain, no clouds, no laughter. I pour the water that has just boiled into a mug with a deep filling of coffee granules in the hope that the caffeine will allay the feelings of inertia and apathy that have suffocated me so totally these last few days. There's something about the beautiful summer weather that makes me feel all the more guilty about sitting at home doing nothing; about not leaving the house to see people, go for a walk, a cycle, a picnic or simply bathe in the glorious sunshine.
It certainly feels strange sitting in the house at this time on a Friday afternoon, and it has done so all week. My boss called me into his office on Monday morning and gave me a week off work, or “a week to start with, but take as long as you need,” as he said himself, in an uncharacteristically sympathetic tone. He called it “compassionate leave”, or something like that. It's odd, I would normally revel in the circumstance of being paid to sit at home doing nothing, but right now the dreariness of the achromatic office full of co-workers on their best behaviour, with all their diverting chitchat and pleasantries, of loading bars, error messages and telephone tones, would be a welcome diversion. All those old things considered tedium would be preferable to sitting in this solitary box listening to the fragments of other people's lives that filter in.
Monday’s paper still sits on the kitchen table with the headline that proclaims “Local man in suspected drug death” and a portrait photograph staring back up at me. I just can't bring myself to throw it in the bin; it seems almost disrespectful to do so, which is mad, of course, it is after all just a newspaper; an insensate jumble of wood pulp and ink. The article describes how Edward Edison, 26, collapsed at around 3.30 am inside the nightclub Analogue and how paramedics were unable to resuscitate him. It then goes on to some details of the family left behind, a statement from a senior(ish) police officer and the all usual guff. The journalist who wrote the piece was right in his suspicion; Eddie Edison overdosed on cocaine whilst I was out around the town with him last Saturday night. The toxicology reports are yet to come back and his parents won't believe it until they do; but that is what happened.
The real kicker is I saw it coming a long way off. He was always trying to push the boundaries, go beyond the limits and to do what his friends and colleagues told him he wouldn't be able and what his government told him he wasn't allowed to do. The newspaper article featured a snippet from the statement made by the family; “Edward finally fell victim to his reckless pursuit of freedom and happiness”. That was Eddie all over – reckless, free and happy.
The feeling that bothers me most, the one that makes me want keep myself occupied and busy enough to avoid facing up to the whirlpool of emotions whipping around inside my head, is this burning admiration I have for him and how he lived his life; without limits or compromise, in total freedom and so completely in the moment. But more than that, my admiration strays into jealousy, and it's for that that I feel guilty, and that somehow discarding his front page obituary would be an act of anger or disdain, an embodiment of the jealousy. I've always envied his carefree, do-or-die approach to life, and it's only now that he's dead that I've really had to confront these feelings. I have always justified my own cautious approach to life by reassuring myself that one day he would pay in some way for his lifestyle and life choices, but now that he has paid the ultimate price for his dauntless pursuit of freedom I can't help but think that he had it right all along.
I am guilty of wasting my life in my half-arsed office job in the pursuit of some untenable marketed dream of happiness through the pay check. I'm guilty of sacrificing my life in the present for the sake of security and comfort in the tomorrow that never comes. I have always been the guy that says “But what if...” and I have always done as my parents, teachers and so-called superiors bid. I have always refused illicit drugs and cigarettes and have never gone over board with any other vices: I sometimes go to pub after work for a couple but never get drunk, and rarely get relaxed enough to really bond with my co-workers. I usually bet on the Grand National and the World Cup but my trips into the bookies so infrequent that I don't feel comfortable there. I occasionally went out with Eddie and his mates on a weekend, and I usually enjoyed myself, but I've never been good at dealing with hangovers. Between Eddie and myself, I always had the thinner waist, the wider chest, the bigger pay packet and the newer, faster, shinier car; and yet it is me who has always been envious of him.
So anyway, here I am in my kitchen almost a week after his death having done nothing to speak of in the interluding time. There hasn't been any milk in the fridge for days and I haven't left the house to get any, so I've taken to drinking my coffee black. I take a sip and it scolds my lips. The most obvious solution would be to leave it to cool, but like I said, I'm tired of just sitting around waiting.
Instead I take out a tray of ice cubes from the freezer and drop a handful in the mug. They swirl around in the darkness, each one gradually getting smaller and losing its opaque white colour and becoming more pellucid. My mind wanders as I lean over and stare into the mug and feel the sultry stream rise up and massage my face. The ice cubes become diamonds floating in molten onyx; tiny, perfect, precious stones swallowed by the crushing, boiling blackness. They all melt in the same curious pattern; a dent appears in the middle, it develops into a hole that permeates all the way through, turning them into little glass-like tubes, little windows into the abyss.
They remind of me of his staring, vacant eyes; gateways to the empty shell slumped on a nightclub floor atop a convulsing body, surrounded by figures frozen in horror. I remember that moment, that whole scene, like a photograph; the girls with their hands clasped to their cheeks in sheer terror, motionless, with their silent mouths wide open; all noise drowned out by the thumping bass and generic dance beat that suffocated the air. Tears were caught suspended halfway down the tracks they were cutting down faces, makeup caught somewhere between heading-out-of-the-house perfection and post-traumatic smudged mess. And then there was the white froth hanging mid-dribble from his mouth and nose, glistening in the strobe light glow like icicles in the winter moonlight.
I've replayed that little snapshot of him lying on the nightclub floor in my mind over and over countless times, but as I picture it now, whilst lost in the swirling, shrinking crystalline shapes, it all becomes much clearer. No matter what happens the music keeps playing, the lights keep flashing and the people who don't witness the tragedy keep on dancing, flirting or fighting completely oblivious. The world keeps turning and entropy keeps marching on down its one way street.
Our lives pass like ice cubes placed in freshly made black coffee; we deliquesce into our surroundings until nothing remains but the murky darkness that is left visibly unchanged, just that little bit colder for the experience. We are diamonds dropped into molten onyx; created as carbon based forms of astounding, mesmerising, unique beauty, doomed to the fate of anonymous non-existence from our very inception. All we have are the moments in between, the times when the inhibitions that separate and alienate us are overcome and we experience humanity at its most beautiful and reckless. It's the instances when we overstep the line and to do what our heart tells us, especially when it breaks a law or goes against our friends' best advice, that define us as free thinking and courageous human beings.
If Eddie taught me anything in his short time on this earth then it’s that life is too short to sit around moping. The past has been and gone; I have my memories and my regrets but now it’s time for a change. I pour the coffee out into the sink, descend the stairs and stride out of the front door. The wonderful August afternoon sunshine bathes my skin with all its cathartic energy and I feel invigorated. The wall clock back in the kitchen keeps on ticking out the seconds of the rest of my life, but I'm not going to waste it listening to the countdown.