Sitting over the words of the past, a cigarette smoked itself in the ashtray that cradled the filter. The complicated text had been delivered to me that morning from a land that was my birthright but I had never stepped foot on. I contemplate the words before me. My brain exasperated from the cryptic messages left to me from some man I never knew, a land I had never visited, and an incite of a dream that never transformed for me in my own life.
Boggled by the complexity of the thoughts presented, a belief system of the past compared to the cookie-cutter mold of men that now existed. The difference of survival then and now were exploited as bold as a lion rising from his den to hunt his nightly prey. I put the the manuscript down. The pages worn but not torn, crumpled as if they had traveled throughout many hands and lands of so many different men and lifestyles.
I should have been thrilled to receive such a gift, being a proofreader an all. I had read so much and discovered so little in the wealth of men as a whole. I smelled the leather binding even after it was placed down, so fresh, so pure, like fresh snow on the morning after the first rays of winter. That warmth of the calf that was born and then taken in the spring for the gift of life to whom needed it. That calf that died would now live forever in each persons’ life it touched, for with every new reader, came new life.
Lighting a cigarette, since the last one had extinguished itself. I smelt the smoke that was inhaled into the lungs, filling them with toxic breath that brought me closer to death every time I inhaled, but it was now a part of me. A part of my very being that I would never be rid of. My mind wandered free if only for but a moment in time before that manuscript would wake my curiosity once again.
I looked about the room, the smell of the smoke that I survived in on a daily basis hung around me like a thick fog. It hung in the air, the existence that I lived in, that I lied in, this dormitory I called home. It had dust particles clinging to every corner. A musty damp smell, that smell that you know something is lurking somewhere, but you’re afraid to ask what lies within the domicile that you are visiting. It was intensified by the smell of smoke. For one whom did not live here, the smell alone would drive them to a slow insanity. The dust would slowly creep into the open pores of a person, inching slowly, suffocating the pores. Closing them one by one until you no longer had a clean pore on your body, no matter how much you washed. And it would slowly suffocate e very inch of life in your very being. Making your life dysfunctional in its very own plane of existence.
I debated about what lay before me. I had a task at hand that I did not wish to do. Much like most, I did what I had to do to survive. When I was asked to improve anything that required me to do more than what I wished to do, I would grumble and complain. Yet I knew in the end I would do it. I dreaded what was coming, but knew that I was the one who had to do it.
‘So much for complaining,’ I thought to myself. I lit another cigarette. I never questioned why this existence smelled as it did for me, I knew.
Turning back to the book, I glanced at the smoke filling the air, as the pages flipped and continued on. The smell of rose petals wafted over the smoke-filled air as if to give it a fresh spritz. Taking out the stench, even if just for a moment in time, it was there, the pores in my body opened for the moment to take in the fresh petals that covered my skin. The aromatic peace, even if only for a moment. The aromatic peace, even if only for a moment. It was an intoxicating smell, my reaction could have been from the new smell that filled my nose and covered my thoughts and mind.
My eyes cast forth, I took in the essence of the new intoxicating scent. So sweet, as if a forgotten memory on the mind, soothing and comforting, it could lull you int a blissful sleep, if only it would last. The smell was almost sickening sweet. I put the cigarette to my mouth and took in the toxin again as I placed the filter on the ashtray, they definitely complimented one another. I moved, looking to the glass that was on my table, the perspiration dripped down the side. Leaving a puddle around its own cool bath to soak in. The puddle merged with the wood beneath it. Leaving more of a marking than not. Looking at the vodka sitting upon the table, the glass was empty, much like my own being I felt. I sighed and somberly shook my head.
I noticed a mouse in the corner. It sat there in perfect silence, cleaning its head as it watched me through his eyes. As if he knew that I was alone. At least he had a home to go home to. Perhaps a female for companionship and free food if he looked hard enough. The manuscript came to mind again. It floated in and out of my head as I watched my life pass before me up to this moment. I held the manuscript in my hand and it fit like a glove that was well-worn with time, much like my surroundings. As I passed in life, so did they. The manuscript called to me, as would the melancholy of my mother’s sweet sounding voice in my minds’ eye.
Turning back to the written word that survived centuries, yet never had a life itself, except the soft cover that bound it, and the writer’s words so well-written that he had to have had much of his life invested within it. I sat it on the only prized possession I owned. A desk from a land of my ancestors; solid oak, with a sheen that would make the modern desk of new fabrications hide in shame.
Hand-crafted, with love or anger, depending upon the passion of the maker. The corners were well-formed, and the surfaced showed much hard work behind it. It was hand-carved with such detail, I could not find any mistakes or breaks in the intricate carvings that were within the wood. The weight alone of this desks would make and elephant groan.
I remember the day I found it, it was one of my few days out and about the town for the small thing I needed to find. I passed by a window and desk called to me. Not in the normal sense, but it drew me to it, called to me. When I saw the desk, it was full of dust, just sitting there. No one had bothered to notice it behind the glass as it sat there neglected. Even in the front window in which it was displayed for one to take home with them. The desk seemed alone, very much like me, alone.
Upon further examination of the desk as I looked upon it, I noticed the ring on its face. I am sure that was the reason why no one wanted it. My mind traveled to the day I found my friend, this desk. I am sure no one could understand exactly why i called it a friend. I tend to believe a friend helps and listens, does not judge or betray you. A friend is there to comfort you, to hold you, to listen when all you can do is complain. That to me is a friend.
I looked at it behind the glass and examined it, then I chose to enter the portal of the store. The desk almost called out to me to claim it. The desk, unlike me, only had one imperfection. I shuddered at the thought of the beauty of the unity he and I would make and knew at that time the desk was a part of me. The ring of my purity within my impure world. That world that I so longed for, to belong with or to. Just like the ring that longed to be part of the desk.
The imperfect part of the desk still blended in and joyfully became one, a union, a need. The desk became a part of me from that moment, it gave me life. Or perhaps it was I that gave it a gift in return. A home with someone who understood it, comprehended it, empathized with the furnishings around him. I needed him as he needed me. That make made him almost unsalable. I was intolerable to society’s standards. I decided I would take him home; where we would survive.
The only imperfection I accepted without qualm, I paid extra for the desk to be delivered to the oblivious hole that I claimed as my dwelling space of my own perfection. The history alone survived in me. With it, I knew that it was meant to be mine. The ring suited me well. No beginning, no end. We simply were. We coexisted together, this desk and I.
My books were scattered like the passing thought on a windy day. Somewhere in there, the mixture of losing one’s thoughts and the wind mixing caused a cyclone around us. This was my existence with my books, desperately trying to gather my thoughts; and the wind coming in and scattering them, as if there was no space to move or continue without the questioning of what was meant to be. The drive to reclaim those thoughts is what kept me alive. The drive to learn the fleeting thoughts that engulfed me; of choices, why we make them, what we did in that moment, the thought, the breath of what was the memory. Slowly disappearing, only to become a thought in one’s mind. Then one day without realizing it, you have lost even that thought, as desperately you try to find it, it eludes you in the wind.
The books read and reread until there was nothing left to be digested. Until you were so full, you could do nothing but purge what you had read and put it to memory, as you sought what was there. I was ready to purge what lay before me. Vomit up the traps within the very words on the pages of a hypocrisy to a man’s life. I searched for more. Thrived, hungered, longed for, yet I was never filled by anything I read or digested. I accepted what was before me, only to be disappointed in what I found, thus purging it was the way to get it out of my system.
Not knowing what to expect, I opened the book, only to be distracted by the ringing of the phone. I tried to concentrate on the book, only to hear the constant buzzing of the electrical lines that made my very being cringe. Reluctantly, knowing that if I did not answer it, the ringing of the phone would not stop. It would continue until it drove me to a quiet insanity.
“What?” I barked into the receiver. The answer came over the lines of the air. Responding to them, my answers were short and abrupt to one who may not know me.
“Fine. No, I didn’t. No I haven’t.” I paused looking at the bottle before me. “Yes, I could. Fifteen minutes, that will be fine. You know where to leave it.” I placed the smooth handle of the phone into its cradle.
Sighing, I placed the manuscript I held in my hand in the bottom drawer of the desk to be read upon at another moment in time, to be devoured and desired. To allow the words to once again intoxicate me, to entice me as all the rest of the books did. The drawer shut the smell gone, but not the memory of what it contained. The desk was so much like the book, what it was meant to be, what it did, and how it affected me.
Leaning back in the chair, I waited for the fifteen minutes to pass. The silence became a deafening rage, a rush filled my nostrils. The clock played its melody as I leaned back, only to hear the door open.
Looking, I saw her, simple, beautiful, pale skin, hair of ebony. She held in her hand a bottle. As she placed it upon the table, she allowed a view that would make any man turn his head. Her skin, smooth as silk, passion in her eyes, life in her red lips, hair that fell over her shoulders as if it were a veil. Her voice carried like a whisper upon the wind.
“You should get out more.” She simply stated.
Taking the bottle in my hand, feeling the smoothness. Like an old lover that you know every caress to allow them to sigh. The spots that were touched, the ability to know that your lover will be there for you in the night, to have comfort in, to hold and caress and love, to be free.
Opening it, there was a whoosh, as that of an old friend who understands and knows not to criticize what is true of you. Comfort in a bottle, to drown in the nothingness I felt from within. The rim brought to my lips I looked upon her, as her eyes lowered.
‘I must be hideous,’ I thought to myself, ‘She can’t even look me in the eye’
Responding in a voice barely audible, “When you can’t even look at me? No.”
“I lower my eyes out of respect.” She uttered as her body pulled back in fear. Without a word she left me sitting there with my drink in my hand in my apartment; alone.
With my only two friends that I could find comfort in, she left me to my own demise. To see the beauty again of what I so desired, needed, longed for, that allowed me to live. To anguish my needs; her scent was left behind like flowers upon a gentle breeze. The excellence she held within the pal of her hand, of her grace, to look at her would calm the raging beast within. To see that, long for that, allow that to grow and become a part of your life, only to know that eventually you have to let it go. Shaking my head, I pondered my thoughts of the drink that would be in my glass and soon coating my nearly parched throat. The bottle placed beside the next empty bottle, fitting, belonging, for as much as it was full, it would soon be empty as well, just as my mind longed to escape, to breath, to live.
Until next week my friends…
Donations accepted at paypal.me/ladyaingealicia
AingealiciaWrites 