B******s of Yore

A Chapter by dat

(1)

Paul tumbled down the hilly terrain that had just been washed by the rain, the rocks prodded through the poor material of his shirt. He whimpered at the pain in his left wrist and stayed still on the floor, he would not bother to stand up, he knew his punishment had only begun. He shielded his eyes from the sun, it was rather a very hot afternoon, like the rain had ushered it in overnight.

"You pig!" The huge bald man shouted at the top of his lungs, sometimes Paul wished his master's aorta would collapse and he would slum to breathe his last. He struck his palm across Paul's cheek without hesitating, it did not sting as much as he expected. There was only so much a person already in pain could feel.

"Then what happened?" Noah's interest peaked, it was rather interesting knowing he had the attention span of a dog.

"Will you ever let me finish a story?" Paul snarled, Noah hissed at his attitude but gave the bandage on Paul's wrist another roll.

"Anyway, it does not matter much. I am here, alive."

"Barely." Noah snickered and tugged the bandage harder when he caught him off guard.

"Things like this are why people go to hell." Paul cradled his wrist, his eyes shot daggers at Noah but those where as far as they could go.

"Well, I hope they have alcohol" Noah laughed.

"Do you think Danielle is in hell?" Paul looked at Noah, who rinsed his hands in the rusty sink.

His hands rubbing against each other stopped,

"She could be."

"She could still be here." Noah said.

Paul pondered on Noah's words the whole walk home, he chose to believe she was actually still here, dancing in the waves; he imagined she'd become one with the air, with sound and he thought, what a dreadful fate.

The truth was, often times at night he would imagine her in the floor, alone. He would imagine her eyes darting open, in the small box sometimes he believed it was minutes after she had been plastered shut forever, screaming that she still lived and her eyes would scream louder than her mouth ever could and she would cry till she fell asleep only to wake up again.

He wanted to tell his friend Noah that was the kind of hell he was talking about, and he would weep anytime he had those thoughts.

He could not tell anyone the things his mind would conjure up in it's entirely, he had seen her in his dreams shortly a few times, before she died from her illness. He never understood them; He could not tell anyone he mourned a person he barely knew, he thought while she still alive - she rarely saw him, he didn't notice her or maybe he believed she was irrelevant.

Like the huge colourful graffiti painting on the wall of the house he walked through every day on his way to school, until that very day he realized the wall was clean, like the art never existed and all he had been able to do since then was draw scribbles of the painting, and he never once gave it a meaningful appreciative glance.

"I do not feel as though life requires so many tribulations for an inevitable ending."
He had told Noah when he was asked why he suddenly thought about Danielle.

"Oh, please. You're no philosopher." Noah sounded unimpressed, he believed in practicality, numbers and logic. He was one of the smartest people Paul knew, albeit having spent all his life in the small town, he was also the closest to Danielle of them both. She had liked something about him, for whatever reason, they were almost friends although they did not see very often, Paul mostly zoned out during their interactions.

He made a turn into the quiet street across the small market,the small house in the middle of two other small houses was the place Paul had lived since he was born. Sometimes he despised it, his father had been fooled into buying the land. He was made to believe that the land was rich with a resource, he never asked which one, then again he did not need to as the town was known for its very rich soil.

Devastated and ashamed, he decided to build.

'One day you will see stars, so close you can touch them'
Janet, Paul's mother had told him one afternoon after he got back from school.He believed her, only because her eyes sparkled like the stars when she talked about it and somehow it reassured him.

As Paul got older, those words haunted him.

He felt the walls of his house were too familiar and they therefore mocked him. He had failed at everything he had ever tried to learn, his father had called him a lost cause one evening while they were eating, he was in a particularly jocular mood that day.

While his mother had giggled along with his now former master at the table that day, Paul had felt ridiculed, he wanted to prove himself to all of them. He wanted to prove it to himself.