Another place.

A short story I wrote that might seem confusing to some. Any feedback or reaction would be very much appreciated.

                I was feeling low and depressed as I often would feel those days.  I woke up, saddened by my loneliness and encumbered by the trenchant noise the outside world was making, subtly reminding me of the deadening silence within.  I was sleeping till late in the afternoon those days and I would smoke myself to exhaustion and sleep for hours the rest of the day.  That day, I had done as I had many times before; I woke up, smoked till my body collapsed underneath the plush counterpane and drifted off to dreamland where I still existed.  At around 8 o’clock, as the traffic outside was starting to wane and the city was on the brink of somnolence, I awoke, in the excruciating loneliness that was known to me as home.

 

                I lived in the heart of the city, although calling it ‘city’ would be misconstrued.  It wasn’t Manhattan or even Paris, there was no romanticism in the streets, not even the kind of enchantment big cities are supposed to convey. It was just a tiny city in the heart of a tiny island known to only those who inhabited it.  Well, it was the only city on the island, and it boasted its biggest population.  Most people lived there with their families, I was a strange exception to the rule. I grew up in the country and I’d grown tired of the rustic way of life and my family, I wanted to be on my own. The city was alight during the bright days, the sweltering streets were crowded and the commotion endless.  People from around the island came here to work in the early hours and left at dusk, leaving behind them the much awaited quiet. 

 I looked outside the window and I could see tiny beads of light, from the 3^rd floor in my building.  I sat on the window sill, smoking a cigarette, which in those days I likened to a meal, while contemplating the starless sky.  I was overcome with an intense longing, I wanted to go home to my parents and look at the stars and drink a cup of coffee in my childhood bed.  But those days were only worth the nostalgia they brought and although I was lonely, I didn’t want to go back to that life.

 

                I was in my underwear and my long hair was uncombed.  When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I remembered finally who I was.  Spending hours living inside my own head often made me forget I had a physical self.  I was combing my hair when the phone started ringing.  It was the exact hour my parents used to call and I wasn’t in a particular mood to engage in small talk.  So I let it ring until it stopped.  I was smoking a cigarette in the bath when the phone started ringing again and it wouldn’t stop.  Flustered and annoyed, I walked to my bedroom, my damp feet staining the hardwood floor and spoke as abrasively as I could.

‘What?’ 

‘Hey…’  A tiny distant voice replied.

‘Who is this?’ 

‘It’s Amy.’  I was taken aback.  Amy and I had been best friends since high school but we went our separate ways in college.  To hear her voice, miles from home, in the dead of the night was a surprise to say the least.  After high school, I tried countless times to contact her, to keep our relationship and friendship alive but in time, it just died.  The last conversation I had with her was abrupt and superficial and I didn’t want to speak to her again. That was the last I’d seen of her and I had dropped out of college a week after.

‘Oh hi Amy, what a surprise.  What’s up?

‘I’m okay.  Did I disturb you?  I’ve been trying to reach you for some minutes now.  Did you hear the news?

‘What news? It sounded urgent and I was expecting some dreadful news about someone in my past dying.  And somehow, I knew in the back of my mind, who it was going to be.

‘Collin died.  Everyone was at his funerals except you.  I called at your house and your mom gave me your number.  I thought you should know since you guys used to be so close.’  ‘So close’ was an exaggeration, I’d spent 2 years with him in college, and we’d only connected on a superficial level, we had nothing in common and he was my only friend.  I wasn’t the kind of person who was good at making friends.  But still I was shocked.  I always knew he was going to die young, he smoked like a chimney, rarely exercised and he had a s****y temper.  We’d broken up one day when he realized I was apathetic about his existence and he’d found the love that never existed in me in another girl, Lena.  I didn’t hold any grudges; I was a pretty s****y human being.

‘How did he die?’  I said, trying to sound concerned.

‘He was stabbed, it’s a crazy story!,’ Amy continued excitedly, paving the way for a story that would fascinate and frighten me at the same time. ‘Well to be honest we’re not sure yet but Lena is the prime suspect, can you believe it! Don’t you have Facebook? It’s trending, you should look it up.  The police have questioned her although they’ve no evidence against her but she was the last person to be seen leaving his house and some neighbors said they heard fighting and screaming while she was inside.  But the body was only discovered in the late hours yesterday and they’ve not yet established the exact time of death because of the humidity and the varying temperatures.  That’s crazy.’ 

Finally, Amy drew a breath and I seized this opportunity to say goodbye.

‘Well yes, that’s crazy. I hope he’s at peace, he wasn’t a bad fellow.  I hope they find who did this to him.  I’ve to go now…Goodbye Amy, nice to hear from you.’

‘Well goodbye.  I hope to see you soon.’

 

 I could hear the confusion in her voice.  I’d truly lost the little social decorum I possessed and I cut the call, feeling awkward about myself.  I didn’t know what to make of this, I felt little to no connection with anything that happened outside my sphere of existence and even empathy was alien to me.  But I knew what to make of it cerebrally, it was a heinous crime that happened to someone I knew and it filled me with awe and a certain familiarity.  

My body was still damp, I put on my bathrobe and I lay in bed, figuring out where to start with my novel.  I was so depressed and lonely at the time that all I could do was think and the aptitude for writing that I thought I had, would never seem to show.  A writer was what I wanted to be, there was nothing else that I saw fitting for someone like myself.  An urge to go on social media overtook me but I had sold my laptop and my phone was pretty much from the pre-internet era.  I rarely watched the television that was in my living room and as of late I didn’t even know if it worked. 

I was about to start writing on my Hermes 3000 when my phone started off again.  Still feeling awkward from the last conversation, I tried to adopt a more cordial tone.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi, could you let me in?’  She said impetuously.  A million questions popped up in my head, but I tried to remain composed.

‘Sure.  Who is this?

‘It’s Lena, Collin’s girlfriend, you remember me right?’  Do I remember her? Of course I do, I’d just been made aware a few hours ago that she was a suspected killer.  Somehow, I knew this would happen, it was bizarre.

‘Could you?’  I was jolted from my reverie.

‘Yes sure, come up.’ The line went blank and I was on my feet, racing to the door to welcome a potential killer into my demure abode.  In retrospect, I realize I didn’t think much of it at the time, I didn’t know what to think and it never occurred to me that she was dangerous.  I didn’t know Lena personally and I didn’t know what to think of her, but any normal person would have thought twice before letting a potential murderer in their home, I had only thought about it once. And quiet naively, stoically even, I welcomed her in.  We embraced rather awkwardly and she invited herself in, walking in strides towards my couch.  There she was, sitting on my couch, my sole visitor in months, also a potential murder suspect.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’  A large smile flashed on my face.  I looked silly but I was enthralled.  She was much more beautiful than I remembered and quite honestly I was intimidated. 

Everything about her physical demeanor was intimidating.  Her perfectly contoured cheekbones, her lush hair resting on her breasts and her low cut top exposing a very generous cleavage.  She had an air of feminine elegance that most women strive towards, myself included, except in those days, I didn’t even try.  I was thinking all those things at once and I evaded the most obvious questions that came to mind.  Even I wanted the suspense to last.

‘Sure.  Black.  No sugar.  Thanks.’  

I brought her a cup of coffee and some biscuits which might have been stale but she ate them nonetheless.  She was very appreciative and I was actually enjoying the company. 

‘What brings you here?’  She put the cup of the table and she turned to face me.  I could see she was very distressed and that she hadn’t slept in days and I felt for her. 

‘As you probably know, Collin died.’  She looked at me and I nodded emphatically.

‘Hmm, I don’t know where to begin, you must think it’s really weird I would show up at your door, in the city since you don’t even know me.’  I nodded again but I didn’t really think that for some reason.

‘Well I’m eager to know why you’re here.’

‘Collin told me so much about you and he said that although you seem to be phlegmatic and self-centered, you have a good heart and you’d help me, when and if I needed help.’  The way she phrased that sentence struck me as peculiar.  It seemed like she was quoting him verbatim.

‘Well that’s the strangest way to describe me, I never really thought of myself like that.’ 

‘Collin always had a way with people, you know, he always knew people’s true nature, that’s a gift he acquired over time.’  I never really thought of him in those terms despite spending 2 years with him but I assumed she was right, since he was dead.

‘Well I guess I didn’t know him that well.’  I smiled rather awkwardly but she looked at me straight in the eyes, without even flinching.  That suddenly made me nervous.

‘No you did know that version of him, rest assured.  He changed when he met me, you know.  He went through a sort of catharsis, it made him derive a lot of astute observations about his life, his past and his future.’  I didn’t know where this conversation was headed but it was getting eerier by the second.  The fact that she was in my apartment at this hour, that she even knew where I lived was starting to make me feel very uncomfortable but I was wanted to trust my initial instinct, I wanted to think I was in the right.

‘How did he change and what did he say about me that brought you here, in my apartment, I mean this late?  I was fumbling around with words as it was getting eerier.

‘Well, he mastered the art of astral projection.  I helped him with that.  I know it sounds creepy but it just happened to us and we learned to hone the gift.  I wasn’t as good as him but he told me several times that he could see you in life, doing things, in your dreams, you feeling things.  He could feel you.  I used to think he was madly in love with you but he often denied it, he said it was very superficial between you two.’

‘Well it was very superficial.  But really, why me?’

‘You’re a risk taker, you’re not scared and you’re very independent.  As you grew older, you embraced your loneliness but deep inside you know that’s because you’re comfortable with yourself, that’s an incredible trait, to be able to see your own darkness and live within it without fear.’

‘I wouldn’t say I’m living within my own darkness without fear, you know…I’m incredibly bored.  But yes, to some, it might seem uncanny that a young woman should choose to live on her own, miles away from her family, in a city she barely knows so I get that.’

‘No it’s not that…You’re not scared…of anything.  You even let me in, despite knowing I’m probably the killer.’  She didn’t look unfazed at all and I didn’t know what to make of it…She was getting creepier by the second.  The air was suddenly getting colder and the silence was only making me more uncomfortable.  I used to await the silence that night time brought but on the couch, sitting next to her, I only wanted to see signs of life, to hear people on the streets, cars honking, anything…I was actually scared and I could see it in her eyes that she knew it.

‘I don’t know why I did it…’  Of course she did it and I just sat there wondering why.  I was scared but I didn’t think about it much.  I just wanted to know why.

‘I’m sure you know why.  Don’t be scared, tell me.’ I smiled reassuringly to let her know I wasn’t going to judge her.  She was pensive for a moment and when she spoke, it was with a glaring clear mindedness.

‘I think I just lost control.  Things were rocky between us…He cheated on me with Amy.  I had to. He broke my heart.’ Her expression changed from gloomy to angry in the blink on an eye.  My heart was beating faster and I knew I wouldn’t survive this, my heart beats got slower and louder until they were the only things I could hear.  And everything went blank.

 

Suddenly, I was floating away from the living room and the strange girl was looking at me in disbelief. I could feel my head sinking under the foamy water and I awoke from my dream.  I jolted upwards, banging my head on the rim of the bathtub.  I shrieked in pain and it took several seconds for me to register what had just happened.  I knew it wasn’t just a dream, the strange perfume I had smelled throughout the dream wasn’t hers, it was his.  It wasn’t him but it was his aura, I was sure of it, like an instinct.  I ran to fetch my mobile phone and I called my parents.

  They were surprised to hear from me this late in the evening but I had to do it.  After so many months, I had learned to trust my gut and I was desperate.  My mom found his phone number from my old diary and I dialed it in a dreamy frenzy.  It was calling but no one was picking up, my heart was racing and the tears were welling up in my eyes.  And then, we were connected.  I was crying and she was crying too.  It was too late.

Author's Note

Any critique is well appreciated !

Reviews

[LittleSoph]

Hi there. I enjoyed reading this story and I think your really talented! I'd agree to make some adjustments in the lay out and presentation in your paragraphs and there are a few minor spelling and grammar mistakes. I think you painted a very relatable and intriguing character which I think it very important and was what kept me reading. I'd enjoy to read more of your work ☺️

[PurpleHaze]

Thank you !

[hcarson]

i can truely relate to this story..i had a very similar experience except i wasn't in the bath, i was going to bed and had an urge to message my then ex as someting felt off..i had dreampt of his death the last two night running, i messaged on my phone are you ok but before i sent it i heard a car pull up outside and just knew it was going to be the police to say he was dead..and it was...he wasn't murdered although there was an inquest as it was definitely weird death but still...very close to this story so yea...i think its excellent. well done

[PurpleHaze]

Thank you !

[Not here]

Hey, I think the story is pretty good. My main worry for this piece is that the lines are spaced too closely together and the paragraphs aren't indented all the same. You're a talented writer, but even talented writers won't get read by readers if the story isn't appealing to the eye. If you can fix these two problems, I'd be surprised if your reads and reviews don't go up fairly soon. Also, if you get involved in some groups and enter some contests this will be extra exposure. I really enjoyed the story and hope others will too :)

[PurpleHaze]

Thank you!

[Not here]

No problem :)