Title: And we all come crumbling down
Word Count~900
Genre: Speculative Fiction
A/N: Another piece from my NaNoWriMo attempt.
It is a cold day. The sun is almost directly above my head
and the clock shows half past twelve. It is supposed to be the hottest time of
the day and yet it is the biting cold that dominates. If there were any form of
precipitation, it would have been snow, but there wasn't any. It was a cold,
dry day. The icy wind blew strong, forcing the chilly air to engulf the body,
gnawing at any exposed skin. My hands hurt. My face stung. I kept walking
It is almost as though time had stopped. There's not a
living being in sight, not even an insect. No movement. No sounds. It is a dead
city. It is almost ominous, the silence. As if to warn of the coming of the new
age, of the approaching apocalypse that must precede any rebirth. After all, a
phoenix wouldn't exist without a fire. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. And we all
come crumbling down.
He walks down the street. I know he's coming for me. There's
a purpose in that stride. An intention in each step. Each movement is
calculated, the degree at which his head is tilted downwards, the angle to
which he swings his arms. He doesn't look like the biting cold affects him. He
makes me feel like a child. As though each of my movements are spastic, as
though I have no sense of bearing or self respect. As though I ought to crumple
at his feet and beg for forgiveness.
He stops right in front of me. 'Let's go inside.'
I nod numbly.
He walks me to a door. 'Aren't you feeling hot?'
I look up at him, my eyes blank.
'I mean, aren't you dressed a little too warmly for a summer
day?'
The door opens and a blast of warm air hits my face. I'm
greeted by sights, sounds, smells, a little too much to take in at once.
It's a restaurant I used to frequent once, then had stopped
when I got bored. They've renovated, I notice. The curtains were never this
dark, they are now a dark wine red, like the curtains I have at home. The
tables are sleek and made to look like they are made of some fancy wood. The
floors are shiny, there are flowers on each table, surrounded by rose petals
floating in a bowl of water.
The waitress takes us to a table at the back. I hear the
sound of the 'Reserved' card being lifted off the table, of forks and spoons
scraping against breakable plates. Sounds of couples talking, some in heated
arguments, some whispering sweet nothings, some talking about how all they
wanted was to be in the other's pants. I heard the chair scraping against the
floor as he pulled the chair out for me, pretending to be a gentleman. I heard
a scream in my mind as I smiled, pretending I didn't see through his pretences.
I smelled food. I smelled rose petals. I smelled the hair
product on the man sitting on the table at the other end of the room, with his
hand high up on his wife's thigh and his mind on the breasts of the woman at
the next table.
---
I felt fear, I felt pain, I had tears rolling down my face.
The tears stopped, but the pain remained long after he left. He loved me, he
said. I felt spent. I felt used. I felt dirty.
I stood up gingerly, clutching the bloody sheets around my
naked body. I walked up to my mirror and looked. I looked at my bruised eyes,
my torn lips. My arms were marked all over where he held me down while he
rammed into me. My stomach was bright red on the side, where it hit the bedpost
when he threw me on the bed, it would be purple tomorrow. My thighs were
bruised. Fuck.
I limped to the bathroom and turned the shower on. I dropped
the sheet I was holding around myself into the corner and stepped under the
warm water, soothing my sore muscles.
I stepped out, dripping wet. Wrapped a towel around my hair
and pulled on a robe. I went to the kitchen and boiled some water to drink. My
throat was sore. I leaned onto the counter, my body hurt too much to sit or lie
down and sipped my warm water.
I woke up face down on the kitchen floor, the cold tiles
acting as a cold compress on my bruises. I pulled myself up. I stumbled to my
balcony and sat down on the floor, leaning against the metal railing. I reached
over to the table and took the last cigarette from the pack. Lit it, put it to
my lips and inhaled. I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds of the traffic
below rather than the throbbing of my headache, or the pounding hatred in my
mind.
I finished my cigarette. I slowly stood up and walked into
my room. I stripped the bed and rummaged through my cupboard for fresh sheets.
I tossed the ruined sheets to a corner, I'll burn them later. I climbed into my
freshly made bed, smelling of laundry soap and fabric softener and slept.