He emptied the sachet of packet soup into the jug of boiled
water. The powdery clumps sunk to the bottom of the Pyrex, where they
maintained their integrity. He jabbed the point of a spoon at one, but it
squirmed away as the spoon thunked against the thickened glass bottom. He began
stirring, the clumps lapping around like an underwater camera capturing the
convolutions of a shoal of fish avoiding a giant predator. Eventually the liquid
was clear, all the granules having dissolved. He removed the spoon and the
solution gradually ceased its eddying.
She raised the tumbler to her lips. The lemon's acidity
stung the chapped skin. She winced, but her interlocutor either hadn't noticed,
or wasn't taking it as her judgement on his interminable prattle. More's the
pity. Damn, now her mouth felt all gritty, as if somehow the dry skin had
flaked off and lodged itself inside. The rum couldn't purge it clean either. It
was only serving to give her a headache, or maybe it was the guy's blether. How
could she break off the conversation? She was wedged between the fridge and the
sink unit, so there was no way of sidling away casually. He was prattling on
about his passion for newts and salamanders. Beam me up Scotty she thought to herself. Her lip was really sore
now. He was rhapsodising about the salamander's ability to cast off its tail to
distract predators and to secrete a toxic liquid over its body when backed into
a corner. She wished for the same gifts. But one thing she did know,
salamanders were reputed to be immune to fire. When she needed to melt away
from this stagnant party.
The sex had been unremarkable. Clumsy, fumbling, faltering.
Pretty much what you expect from two bodies that have never encountered one
another before. Where both topographies are strange continents and remain so
when charted under cover of darkness. Her thigh was throbbing where his
haunches had accidentally landed on her with all his weight. While his ribs had
a swelling contusion where her bony elbow had clipped him hard while trying to
manoeuvre herself clear enough to breathe. Both instinctively knew there was
likely no real future in it. That their mutual need had not engendered being
complimentarily met. They had given it a go, really put their back into it, but
for all the sweat neither had melted into the other. Nobody was to blame and at
least nobody got hurt. A couple of flesh wounds, rather than wounded flesh.
But for now they were each consumed not with the despair of
failure and renewed loneliness, rather both were contemplating the propriety of
how to break their current physical conjunction. He had a hand cupping her
shoulder, though his other was implanted between his own head and pillow, as if
he was concerned with not shedding any forensic trace of himself there. And while
her head was lying on his chest, she too had an intercessional hand between her
cheek and his hairy torso. Her other hand idly curled his follicles, but she
had no sensation of doing so. The lumpish pair were no longer even involved
with themselves, as they maintained a vigil for the first crack of dawn to
crawl under the door jamb and dissolve their clinch.
The man was down, nevertheless his assailant was still
kicking him. Even when his victim's body had stopped recoiling under the blows,
the aggressor was still blinded with furious perspiration running into his eyes
and a wounded sense of pride. "I'm gonna pound you so bad!" Finally
the lack of response penetrated his steaming indignation and he reined in his
jackhammering leg. Blood had started pooling by the man's head. The pugilist
hopped backwards to avoid its tarnish. But the insult was still vorticing
within his clouded mind. So he advanced once again and landed a dropkick. It relieved
none of the roiling in him. He stamped on the sitting duck, bringing down all
his weight. That had felt more cathartic, as his boot plunged into the
receptive flesh of the man. He felt the deep impression of bestowing that blow.
That would do it for now. As he reclaimed his foot, he almost lost his balance
and tipped over. He lurched his body backwards away from this human quicksand.
So irate that his adversary had just seemed to have snatched a last tiny chink
that denied him the claim to being pulverised, he again hurled himself into
another leathery wallop. He was about to turn away for absolutely the last
time, when he decided one more punt for good measure was in order. Then he stepped
back, straightened his rumpled clothes and made to move off. Yet still there
was something unresolved about the foe's pulpy mass. Completeness was all. But
how to define and measure it? He didn't yearn after killing the geezer. Notwithstanding
endangering his own liberty, he wanted the man to come back round and appreciate
who had crystallised this unimpeachable message. He ran full tilt to deliver
another flying kick at the prone form... He suddenly felt very tired. How long
a beating was long enough?
When he had been erect, he had needed to tilt backwards as
he walked. Else his feet sunk into the sand as it gave way beneath his weight
and they ended up travelling further in a downwards direction than actually
impelling him forward. But this had only served to lever his head up towards
the sky, forcing him into a dazzling confrontation with the mocking sun.
Shining like a warder's flashlight, illuminating his open aired captive status
here in the relentless desert. It felt like he was clambering along a ziggurat,
preparing to have his heart ripped out all of a piece. It certainly seemed to
want to escape from the collapsing cavity of his chest.
Now he could no longer stand upright. Crawling on his hands
and knees. It was only muscle memory keeping his arms churning, since the
scorching sand had burned the skin on his fingers and blunted his nerve
receptors there. The sand was abrading his skin, shaping him for one of its
own. His deadweight body felt like the sediment immersed in the liquid sand as
it subsided around him. He really couldn't tell if he was making progress anymore.
His body no longer had the definable compass points of his limbs. There was
nothing to orient him at all. He ceased his motion and flopped over on to his
back. His eyes were watery, but he managed to clear the mist with his bandana,
if only to replace it with fiery grains of sand that scratched the lens of his
eyes. The air to the side of his head was shimmering. It was as if was
dissolving before him. He raised his eyes to the skies. A buzzard was languidly
lapping in and out of his vision. But then the very air melted and wrinkled in
the heat haze and the solidity of the buzzard disappeared beneath the waves. He
shut his eyes, yet the sun illuminated the blood vessels behind their
ineffectual shutters.
Blackout.
Taken from the flash fiction collection available on
Amazon Kindle
