I will restore your true form. Let me shed your wretched skin.
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Draft 1
“You damned fool. Can’t you do a single thing right?”
Spittle flies to his cheek, a secondary source of perspiration tainted by the stench of alcohol. A sharp kick of the polished leather shoe to his shin forces out a pained hiss, the cowering victim shrinking into a crouch at the feet of the perpetrator and the wavering surveyors that border the periphery. Hot iron singes the tip of his tongue, as do the claws of bile threatening to pounce at the back of his throat.
“Useless, useless, utterly unbearably useless.”
A kick to the stomach. The air escapes his lungs in a long wheeze. The abuser ventilates with heavy burden.
“No better than street crud. I’m sick of your whining… Are you even listening to me here?”
Consecutive blows land to his side just below the ribs. His trembling, heaving figure slumps against the grainy flooring, the debris embedding itself into his cheek.
“Stay down there crawling in the dirt, will you?”
He inhales. Exhales.
A stream of warm liquor pours down onto his head.
The audience dance in undulating rhythm around his personal stage, toeing the tape that circles his glorious performance. They tower overhead, looming above his shivering corpse, their feverish thieving breaths stealing the air from under his gasp, leaving behind no leftover remains for the grovelling vermin.
He’s drowning, suffocating, he’s dying once more— no, that’s not quite right. He has been dying.
And SHE is the one bearing the weight of this rotting carcass.
“Eudeir?”
The matrix of reality snaps back into its proper state. He is attending company dinner at a rather rundown restaurant, the dim light failing to illuminate the decade old stains patterning the carpet. His raging superior is snuffed into containment at the warning of an intercepting officer, the indifferent gazes of onlookers pass by with brief interest, and the unbothered clamour of the seated customers resumes.
On unsteady limbs, Eudeir props himself upward and raises his sodden head to link eyes with a familiar white haired bystander poised at the entryway. Vidurna. He knows their name, he recalls it from a distant memory. Two peculiar feathers protrude from their head, one on either side and curved back as though mimicking a goat's horns. Draped across their shoulders is a sterile white lab coat. A gaze of thinly veiled abhorrence is returned, although he cannot tell if it's directed towards his plight or he himself. Hot shame flushes across his face in recognition of his ugly display of weakness, ineffectively attempting to hide himself with a quick aversion of his eyes.
He feels as though he might throw up.
A gloved hand reaches out to intercept his escaping sight. It's a foreign protrusion that doesn’t belong in this setting, an anomaly which disobeys the fixed congruity of the world.
“Get up.”
It’s cold.
To succumb to this temptation would be to rescind the foothold that he has established in this plane. Does he have the right to take that hand? A hand he had once considered within arm’s length was in this moment, too distant for him to grasp, a figment of fantasy that he is not permitted to fancy, an implausibility which—
The hand moves to grip his shoulder with it’s biting maw, fishing him from the depths of delusion, pulling him to bay. A gasp is jolted from his deprived lungs, clumsily stumbling to the soles of his feet which almost refuse to remain planted on the ground. A half-concealed glare assesses his hide.
“Let’s go. You look terrible.”
Without a chance for protest he is lurched forward, pulled over the worn tape and weaved through the waves of audience members. Fleeting eyes rove over his faltering form as he is forced towards the doorway, his head turning downwards to stare at the hand clutching his wrist and the white strands of hair flicking to and fro.
Bursting out the door he can finally inhale, the cold evening air venting away the moist heat clinging to his skin as he nearly collides with his saviour who comes to an abrupt stop. Looking up, he finds himself unable to mutter a word of the numerable questions which swarm his mind.
“What are you doing here in such a sorry state?”
A side glare bores into his wide-eyed gaze. His mouth goes dry.
“Never mind. I'll bring you to your place.”
About to retort, he stops himself short. The weight of exhaustion bears down on his limbs, drowsiness cascading through his mind. Perhaps it would be okay to give in, SHE wills.
In a weak voice, he murmurs an address. They lead him to a car, he feels him body be seated. He smells the scent of leather, feels the same cold leather. An arm reaches over to buckle him in. The engine rumbles to life. His eyes close.
He doesn't remember how they rummage through his pockets to grab the keys to his shoebox apartment. Nor their grumbling as they lead his half conscious form inside. At a command he half-heartedly washes himself, dries. Damp hair meets the pillow sheet. A number is scrawled onto a dull yellow sticky note and left to sleep on the barren kitchen counter, dormant, awaiting the attention of a sober mind. A hand, a farewell, a click.
SHE finds herself in a familiar dream.
The cold air nips at her freezing fingertips, biting her flushed cheeks. Snow falls from the obscured night sky, illuminated only by the flickering street light. Her joints ache, the movement of her body sluggish as she trudges forward towards the pole, her boots displacing a fine layer of untouched snow. Yet her mind is as clear as the air she breathes.
Approaching, she nears the small mound which lies on the ground before her — a stray cat's carcass. She turns around to peer at the pitch black which surrounds her; there's no sound, spare for the crunch of snow under her hesitant foot. Returning to her original position, she catches sight of a butterfly — no, a moth — perched on the carcass. It twitches its wings to shake off a few flakes of snow, the white scales of its translucent wings shimmering in tandem.
Despite her body being rooted in place, her field of vision narrows in closer to focus on the moth. Her limbs refuse to move, struggling against the invisible hold which clutches her, a coil of dread tightening in her gut. A moment too late she realises that the moth is her: her legs which rest on cold hair, her wings which remain folded, her feeble form that trembles in the cold.
Unable to resist, her tongue extends to the matted fur, piercing into the hide to take in the decayed sweetness which lies underneath, a thick stew of flesh filling her mouth and it drips into her throat, its warmth sliding down and—
He lurches out of bed and staggers to the washroom before vomiting.
To rid himself of this sickly sensation that claws at him from underneath his skin, expel the vile toxins that poison his body, he retches into the pristine porcelain bowel. The violent expulsion of his inner self paints an unflattering mural that violates the status quo.
A few strands of hair stick to his face, slick with vomit. The putrid stench rises to penetrate his nose, layered with an almost indiscernibly sweet undertone. Struggling for breath, he looks down to glance at his handiwork.
His stomach churns once more. He heaves again.
His eyes burn, but he cannot tell if it’s a product of his physical strain or HER buried sentiments.
—
The same monotonous cycle repeats itself once more.
An empty stomach, a stagnant shower, an absent mind.
The prickling of fabric, the burden of limbs, the cacophony of traffic.
Another performance to appease the audience.
The funeral procession begins.
—
The door lock clicks open.
His body is dragged indoors on sluggish feet. The light switch is flicked on and a dull light illuminates the individual dust particles that begin their skittish descent in stale air. A single mattress rests on the bare floor, a wrinkled pillow and blanket sprawled on top of it. Next to it, an unmoved suitcase harbours a few articles of folded clothes and an expired passport, its hems worn from longing caresses. In the corner hides a frail excuse of a desk, only mounted by a neat stack of untouched papers, scattered mint wrappers, and a lamp whose mottled fabric cage tilts at rest. At its foot, an old cardboard box seals away his wistful wishes. The kitchen counter and its neighbouring cabinets remain scarcely adorned, save for the unnoticed sticky note that patiently sits in expectation. Unused kitchenware are patterned by dried blemishes, stored for tomorrow’s elusive meal. On the wall, a creased certificate hangs alone without even a clock or calendar to accompany its presentation.
The door creaks shut and the rusted lock seals his confinement.
The main actor has retreated behind the curtains as per usual, welcomed to nothing but the sight of a skeleton masquerading as his home.
Unpolished leather shoes slide off, gently paired together with a pinch and moved aside to rest their heels against the cracked drywall. Dropping the faded black laptop briefcase to the ground at the entryway, he begins to peel away the delicate layers of his costume. From one button to the next, in methodological rhythm, barely restraining a submerged desperation that yearns to tear away the thin threads that tie them together. The skin that is gradually unveiled reveals the shape of a fraud; a representation that is in diametric opposition of the root it derived itself from.
Without sparing a glance to the embodiment of his flesh, he leaves his fleeting gaze no chance and buries his body beneath the obscurity of a baggy shirt and sweatpants. The weight dispersed throughout his limbs coalesces and solidifies, dragging his body downward into cold sheets and pinning him to the board once more. Awash with fatigue, heavy eyelashes descend to drown his world into unconscious bliss, leaving only the buzz of a vacant refrigerator to whisper him farewell.
—
A distant memory.
A paragon.
Despite the hierarchy seemingly depicted by an arbitrary one and two, there was an unconquerable distance that stretched beyond achievable measure.
Then they were gone, leaving behind a vacancy that remained reserved for its rightful owner.
An empty one.
Scattered wishes disperse without significance.
—
The veil of nightfall is broken by the piercing gaze of dawn, releasing the weight of unperturbed morning upon the restlessness of a restful mind. The world greets him through blurred vision, the clamour of the waking seeping through the fissures of his enclosure, probing him in expectancy to return to their collective cycle. As though in a hypnotic trance, the stages of return begin. Step, by step. Until feet toe the line between reality and illusory abode.
A brief moment of clarity hits the moment his eyes rest on the faded yellow square, halting in his tracks at the counter.
Threads fray.
Hesitant, he outstretches his hand. Pinched in a weak grasp, he relieves the note of its message through the reception of his sight.
A phone number.
Faintly, he recalls the foreign nature of courage. Hesitation is succeeded by action. Numbers are delicately punched into the line. The dial rings once, twice, silenced before the anticipated third.
Muffled noises resound beyond the speaker. Rustling, clamour, a muted dismissal before a familiar voice resounds to greet his gesture.
“Hello?”
—
Farewell, and good tidings.
—
“We should talk again.”
—
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