Just a little burn, it's nothing.

Have you ever found yourself reading a book and suddenly realise you haven't been paying attention for the past 3 pages? Then, when you flip back the pages, you find that the character's world has been falling apart...

The moon arrives, as promised, at 7. Slowly, he dresses into his glorious velvet coat adorned with diamond stars. He smiles at me. One eye covered by his grand top-hat - woven by the fibres of the earth's shadow. Tonight brings the same comforting darkness to me as it always has. Some believe that the night carries thieves, murderers and supernatural phenomena ready to rob, kill and haunt them at any moment. I feel safest at night. When no-one can see me, I seem to exist to no-one but myself and no-one exists to me. In the dark, where touch is your only sight, you're -more often than not- seen only by those hands that love you, and that breath most relaxed in the company of yours.
As I lay down to sleep by the low, steel-grey light, I send a silent telepathic request to whoever receives such messages asking to spare me a night full of dreams of him.

As the weeks roll in and out, my nocturnal desires are overcome by the evening's seductive charm and my body clock urges me spend my waking hours in the patronisingly cheerful daylight. Some days, I'm spared the sight of an ever moving, growing and changing cycle outside my window by an overcast, stormy day. The rest of the world retreats to their homes to warm and cheer themselves in spite of the miserable weather, while I take much comfort in the company of a sympathetic sky who'll weep with me.
These heavy clouds bring fresh water to revive the stagnant city air. Walking is supposed to clear the head... sometimes I have to remember how to walk. I hate the constant reminder that my lungs are getting smaller and smaller by the cigarette as I try to breathe this perfect air.
He and I used to go for walks right after the rain on days just like this. There's a river close to my house where we'd go and walk either side of it. We'd each light a cigarette and throw them to eachother. With each throw, I promised I'd never drop it. He promised he'd never let the airborne cigarette burn me, even though he knew he had no control of it's path. One afternoon, we emptied two decks. We dropped one and a half of them, and inhaled three cigarettes between us. Our hands collected seven small burns. Our clothes, four small holes and our feet - eight hundred and fifty-five dirt-trodden steps. On cloudy days, he'd look like a doll on a mantle, or a perfect renaissance figure. My beautiful friend had the skin of an English rose. In the Winter, his arms and legs looked like street maps of persistent veins under naked skin. I liked to trace them with a pen, like a child with a maze. Every path I chose, no matter how wayward from the last, always led me directly to his heart. The hours always escaped us on those days by the river. We'd take the long way home and trace the one thousand, three hundred and six steps back through the dusk.
It was a bright, vibrant day when it ended. I don't remember a word he said as I counted the seconds of my breathing patterns. I could see his love had wilted like a flower in the heat. His skin reflected blinding rays of midday light into my eyes and in that flash, I lost my street map. Lost my way...
In the torturous, dueling dialogue between our eyes, I challenged him to the death.
He said no, to the pain.
Before this moment, I'd fought to be free of many things, and not once in all my most irrational fears had I thought he'd be one of them.
I cursed and fought against the very sun, that day.
 

Reviews

[gcp]

An interesting read - I like the throwing cigarettes and the impossible promises made about the act - seems nicely symbolic - a snapshot almost

I like the last line too - good one to end on - we all fight against the odds now and then ;)