The Death of Me

‘Will that be all?’ She asked. Her eyes stealing a glance at the book open in front of me.
‘Oh, and a flat white would be great, thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ She gave me a wide smile before dancing back into the steam and heat of the kitchen. I just sat and stared after her. It’s funny sometimes, you can spend most of your twenties enjoying the quiet solitude life can offer for those who want to find it. Find a balance between connections, friendships, lovers, while all the while avoid getting caught up too deeply, ensnared in other people’s lives and business. Move along at the surface level of everything. I was the type who generally stayed around the periphery, looking in; watching, learning. I liked to think I made things happen that needed to happen, stopped things that shouldn’t be happening, and on top of all that, I liked to think I was exclusively a master of my own destiny. I smiled at the thought, and went back to my book.
This girl though, she was different. Not in any way that I could put my finger on, but just different. The way she looked at me and smiled, the way she walked, the way she had her hair; the way I’d been going back to this café now for three weeks in a row, and would come again next week; that kind of different. Special. And somehow I knew that this girl would be the death of me.

Image sourced from: http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/activity/g/glb-coffee/cup.jpg

The Mists of Chaos

The thing that made it so difficult for him, was that it was the same job, day in day out. A recurring sample, a reel flicking over and over again. Continuous loop. Cycling. The same reality swirling around his neck like buzzards on a hook.
The walls dripped with a blood-red glistening ooze. Its malevolent beginnings cast a reminder of horrible deeds gone bad in its seeping spread as it reached the edge of the carpet.

Image sourced from: http://www.wright.edu/wrightway/workstation.gif

The Last Time

The last time I saw Rachel seemed enshrouded in the mist I now realised had been encapsulating me at the time. The images were hazy, incomplete; the emotional connection felt hollowed out, empty of any true weight. I remember I had been in the grippe of a malaise that had essentially threatened my spiritual health since I had left school all those many years prior. I was lying naked and fearful upon my wrinkled and worn bed linen, writhing and fighting with my consciousness for an answer to it all, this life that we all must lead on our own. The doorbell had chimed once, fitful and furtive, echoing down my hallway and greeting me with a baleful jabbing of knowledge that it must be answered. I groaned and found myself gripping my pillow against my chest, hugging so tightly as though were I to let go I would set adrift from the security of my deep maroon-upholstered and lacquered IKEA-inspired surroundings. I prayed that the caller would go, prayed to all and sundry that would listen… ‘please god, please let this person go now and leave me’, ‘please god, let the person at my door realise they are wanted elsewhere’, ‘let them realise that they know not what they do, but that they must go and leave me be, thus it is done by the power of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’; make them presume no one was home, perhaps call back at another time; but they did not. The doorbell chimed again, longer this time – an incessant calling of attention, someone is here, you must answer the door, society bids this convention be followed. A deep moan and then I’m languidly rolling to the edge of my bed and then dropping, flummoxed to the floor, the brittle cold of the bare polished floorboards clanging against my bones with a dull, thudding pain that took time to subside. Pulling my bathrobe around my nakedness, I lurch up towards the door to greet a ghost from my memory.