Author's Commentary
The title for this is not the title I would actually use but I couldn't think of a different one thats applicable. This wouldn't make much sense alone without reading the short stories I posted here before but thats kinda the point. If you want to know whats going on then the two earlier ones are still on here I think but I'd prefer it to be read alone as a beginning.
The small cat padded its way to the roof edge and looked down, judging its next move. It was a mangy thing but sharp as a knife edge and had the scars to prove it. In a silent, effortless leap it fell onto the shapeless head of a gargoyle that stuck out of the side of the apartment block. It was at least a thirty foot drop to the street below but a cat does not fear heights. The city is its playground. A pigeon cooed nearby and the cat swivelled its ears toward the sound, a knot in its stomach reminding it that it hadn’t fed for a while. No time now though. Another scent craved its attention, the scent of another tom that had sprayed in his territory. It had to be covered immediately before the other cat could claim it for its own. In a deft movement the cat dropped onto a narrow window ledge and quickly kicked out with its back legs, diverting its fall so it landed on a protrusion that ran around the building between two floors. Following this narrow path with careful footsteps, the cat came to a fire escape that led all the way down to ground level.
The air was heavy laden with the heat of the day’s sun, now being slowly fed back into the atmosphere by the tarmac roads that had absorbed it during the roasting summer day. The air felt sticky and charged as if in anticipation of a thunderstorm. The little cat felt its fur begin to cling to it in the humid heat as it broke into a loping run down the grilled stairs. A car whooshed past, its headlights sweeping across the nearby buildings making the cat freeze as the light levels suddenly changed. As the world returned to its usual yellow-grey self the cat started moving again, a little slower now. Its back was tensed up, it didn’t like cars. One had nearly hit it when it was a kitten and had run over part of its tail making it die and drop off. It had taken it weeks to learn how to balance properly again, a feat which it had only just achieved.
Glass shattered somewhere above and little crystal shards tinkled down onto the pavement. The little cat darted behind a trash can. It’s fur raised in a ridge along its back making the bald patches even more obvious. There was the deep, muffled sound of voices shouting above followed by a far louder crash as a figure flew backwards through the broken window, silhouetted for a moment against the pale sky, arms flailing in one last desperate attempt to fly. Then it hammered down onto the pavement with a sickening crunch. A few bits of debris clattered around it, then all was still in the muggy night.
Pausing only to urinate on the trash can, the little cat padded towards the hunched shape on the ground. Thick blood had started to form a pool around its head. The sharp smell filled the cats senses and its stomach twisted again. It delicately lapped up some of the warm, red ooze and felt the richness of it lessen its craving a little. There was a funny smell around the dead thing. Yes there was the smell of human overlaid with the subtle aroma of death, but something else haunted the cat’s nostrils. A greasy, static smell. A siren wailed in the distance and the cat considered wailing back before it remembered that the sound wasn’t another cat but a car. At a quick trot it ran away from the corpse back into the dense shadows behind the trash can, looking on curiously to see what would happen.
The apartment door creaked open timidly. A little line of light revealing a snapshot of the dull interior before the light was flipped on. A colourless carpet surrounded by furniture so generic it was difficult to notice it was there. Strange, considering the pair that walked through the doorway into this grey room. A tall, rangy man draped in a sodden black coat, the entrails of a cigarette dangling from one hand, and next to him a delicate, beautiful woman, her face stained by rain and tears. The man placed a hand on her back to usher her through the door in a way that seemed far less enthusiastic than such a gesture should. She walked through, clutching a soaked handbag to her chest as though it was a security blanket, and stood, blank faced in the centre of the dingy room. Rain hammered on the window, breaking the silence with swathes of water.
“Do you want something to drink?” the man asked in a quiet, uncertain tone. She did not reply for a while as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Alice?”
“No,” she replied shortly, then as an afterthought “thank you.”
“You can sit down you know,” the man hazarded with a nervous chuckle, as he broke into the swing of hospitality “Let me have your coat as well it’s soaked through.”
He moved forwards to take it from her, but as his hand brushed her shoulder he felt her tense and moved his hand away. He paused for a long time, frozen by the impropriety of this situation. No social conditioning existed to tell him what to say, what to do and as he was finding, his powers of intuition where not as great as he had supposed.
“I’m not going to hurt you Alice,” he said, a simple honesty ringing in his voice “I’m not him.”
She half turned, her eyes shining.
“I know,” her voice was clear and light, a perfect vocal counterpart of the woman to whom it belonged “I’m not afraid of that. It’s just so strange being here again. I thought I’d said goodbye to you forever.”
She means “she’d hoped” he thought. With this realisation he remembered himself, jolting back to reality and practicality. He swept out of the room into his bedroom, a tiny box almost entirely filled by the simple double bed. Briskly, he pulled away the bed linen, allowing himself to be absorbed in the routine. Yet, in the back of his mind, he pictured her there, in the middle of his living room, a supermodel ghost of Christmas past. Once the bed was newly made he opened the draws of his bedside cabinet and pulled out the half empty bottle of whiskey that lay under a pile of underwear. This was balled up with the old duvet and sheets. Why did he still feel he had to hide this from her? It was none of her concern. Yet, at the same time he hoped she would care and make a fuss and was afraid that she would simply not notice. She was standing by the small window now, staring at the rain and the meagre view of the street outside. It was a young building by the standards of The City and had, therefore, been simply wedged in where there was still space. Most of the view this afforded was the wall of the building opposite and a smear of the road. This was always saddening as he loved to see the city spread out before him in all its splendour but so rarely was able to view it.
“I’ve made the bed for you,” he almost whispered. She didn’t move. He found his gaze magnetised to the meagre view. The hypnotic waves of rain streaking down the window turning the city lights into a fireworks display. Her breathing echoed in his ears, becoming a deafening temptation. With sudden conviction she turned, her body becoming so close to him in one motion.
“Thank you Michael. I was so afraid of coming to you. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d just turned me away as soon as you saw me.”
He waved a hand dismissively.
“It’s fine.” he mumbled.
“No, no it’s not,” her hand was in his, clutching his fingers with tender desperation “After everything we went through I...I’m so sorry. If I could just...”
“Please. Don’t”
“I didn’t hate you, you know. I loved you. I loved you so much,” she was crying freely now, tears pouring from her eyes , interrupting her words with sobs. Her glittering, beautiful eyes were locked with his, pouring emotion into them so he could scarcely breathe. They were so close now he could feel her warmth against him.
“I loved you to,” he whispered. Then undeniably, his strong mind surrendered to the pounding of his heart “I still do in fact.”
Their bodies touched, hands clasped so tight they were almost crushing. Adrenaline coursed through their veins as horror and passion mixed in equal measure. In a wall of tears, with the momentum of a love denied for so long, they fell together, the lips of tentative lovers meeting with such unrestrained ardour that the entire world was enclosed in the contact. He could taste tears in her mouth and smell a perfume that described all his past.
There was blood on his hands, so thick it was practically dripping from his fingers leaving trails over the floor. Freezing water lashed at his face through the spiked maw of the shattered window in front of him.
“What’s happened?” he whispered to himself hearing a melodic voice he was sure didn’t belong to him. Frantically, he scrabbled for something to wipe his hands off on. Mostly the floor was just empty, dusty floorboards with garbage bags of indeterminate filth scattered here and there. An old mattress was leaning in one corner so he dragged his scarlet hands across it leaving gory hand prints across the dirty fabric. Somewhere close by a siren squealed and his heart stopped mid beat. Desperately his mind plucked at the haze that blocked his memory but to no avail. His name, location and, more importantly, why he was covered in someone else’s blood remained elusive. One thing he was certain of, he had to be long gone before the police arrived. In a frenzy of motion he banged the shrivelled, chipboard door open. Tumbling, blindly, down the damp, infested stairwell as far as it went he reached a room that had once been a lobby before the tenants of this place had abandoned the word. A heavy wooden door was open to the street allowing the chilling night air to fill his desperate lungs. Half weeping, half choking, he tripped through the opening and fell, face down, on the ground. Dirt and litter clung to his face and body as he lay, eyes closed and mind numbed, listening to the sirens grow and grow in his ears. His arms shook as he pushed himself to his knees and where his hands had been an outline of blood was left. A peal of thunder drowned out the screeching of the approaching cars and great drops of rain, thick as tears, first pattered then hammered out of the sky. As his hair and skin were wet by the downpour he raised his face and opened his mouth, drinking the stinging sour water in gulps. His throat welcomed it as if it had never felt water before.
Something brushed his hand and he jumped. A small, starved cat was rubbing its mangy fur back and forth against his hand, mewling softly.
“Hello cat.”
At the sound the cat began to purr. A car pulled up close by and the sound of a door slamming and the crackle of police radios urged him to his feet. The cat grabbed at the stained shirt wrapped over his shoulders and climbed up to nestle in his arms.
“Get off!” he hissed at it. It didn’t notice, instead it’s purring deepened as it fell asleep in the selective and inappropriate way a cat can when it’s found an welcome lap. Toppling and staggering he walked, cradling the little ball of fur, into the night.
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