And we all come crumbling down

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.