The exercise:
Write about: order.
Working just one day feels weird. But other than a couple minor annoyances (the wind this afternoon being one of them), things went pretty smoothly. So now my final Sunday joins Monday in the rear view. My last Tuesday will be coming up next.
Not that I'm counting days or anything.
Mine:
Outside the lines
Remains colourless -
Don't you dare
Erase them, lest
Randomness take over.
It's kind of interesting that your shift patterns mean that your last days aren't actually in order :) Malta (and Ukraine) both have public holidays on the day they fall on, rather than them being shifted to the nearest Monday (for everything but Christmas) as happens in the UK, so I've had a few Thursday's off as holidays so that Friday is an isolated working day. They're always a bit odd in an office because you can guarantee that about half the office will have taken Friday as a holiday, so they're never very busy days. It sounds like yours was similar!
ReplyDeleteI like the acrostic, though I'm quite a big fan of randomness so I'd be very inclined to erase though lines. After all, at the heart of randomness is order, and vice versa -- they're like Yin and Yang.
Order
The living room was always neat, tidy, ordered. Like your mind, I suppose. Everything was in a place and nothing was allowed out of it; I'm not sure that any of the books were ever taken from the shelves after you came back. I once checked the magazines laid on the glass coffee-table (set square with the couch, aligned with the ivory-coloured arm-chair, its feet nestled in dints that were probably permanent after all the years) and they were over fifteen years old. But dust free, still glossy... you must have polished them every day when you were making sure that everything was in its place.
The blue curtains, the same blue as in the barracks though you never told anyone, were drawn when I came in and the only light on was the one above your ivory-coloured chair. Like a spotlight it illuminated your throne where you would sit, reading the paper or watching the news on television... though your eyes never moved when you held the paper in front of them or when the news informed you about the world. I don't know what you were looking at on those occasions but I'm sure that the paper, the television, were just props so that the rest of us didn't guess you were seeing something else.
There's a little table to the side of your chair, wrought iron legs as delicate as bird-bones supporting a green-marble top. When you smoked there was an ash-tray on it, but only ever with a lit cigarette resting there, waiting for your attention. I never saw it get more full, and I'm sure you must have emptied it and washed it after every one. But you stopped smoking as ruthlessly as you did everything in your life, and the ashtray was replaced by a tumbler of cut-glass that held your drink. You told us it was iced-tea but I checked when you weren't here once. It was close: Long Island Iced-tea.
I asked myself then why you'd lie, but I didn't have any answers.
Your chair was empty but it was just after four, and you were always sat in that chair at four, so I called your name. The word echoed around the house, resounding plaintively and in its solitude declaring that you weren't at home. I should have turned around and left, you hated people being in the house when you weren't there. But... but I was still trying to understand you, so I decided to sneak another look around before I left. Just to open one door, just to see a little more how your mind worked.
You were sprawled on the floor. I had no idea there was a bathroom on the ground floor, and it was as spotlessly clean as the rest of your life, except for you sprawled on the floor and the blood that had run from your nose and pooled under your face and the needle that had escaped your blue-white fingers at the last and rolled centimetres away.
The distance between the tips of your fingers and the needle and the top of your head and the needle, when divided, gave the golden ratio. A pleasing order, you would have approved.
I touched your hand, the skin cold and plastic-like beneath my fingers, and for a moment I heard the rattle of gun-fire, felt the heat of the desert sun, and felt the splatter of someone else's body-hot blood against the side of my face again. It wasn't the doorway I'd wanted to find.
Greg - I suppose that makes the dates easier to remember, and long weekends even longer when one is able to get the in between day off as well. But I bet it's hard to get the extended long weekend when everybody wants the day off though...
ReplyDeleteFantastic details and characterization here. The atmosphere is tense and is carried right through to the end. Really enjoyed this one :)