Chapter 2: Where�s Your Dignity?

Chapter 2 - Protagonist 2 - Ian

Ian has not gone past the counting stage.  He opens his eyes to piss coloured light coming through the yellowing net curtains.   Solitude mocks him as soon as he wakes up.  There’s the sweaty, liquorice smell of weed and a heavy head reminding him of the cheap vodka of the night before.  How is this special?  Thousands rise with the same feeling, go to work this way, wearing their hangovers like badges.  ‘God I was wasted last night.’  Thousands of others don’t, but thousands do.  And yes, I know people get dumped everyday. 

 

Everything outside smells brown and Ian’s eyes feel sandy from staring at the same pictures over and over again until faces distorted and cease to be Magda.  He’s convinced he didn’t sleep but has just woken up so sleep must have stolen him away at some point.  Alone, a body in its space, his head sore, aware of himself and his beauty.  If only Magda knew, everyday he’s prayed for something terrible to happen, anyway hating him would be better, not pity.  He spent hours thinking of ways to hurt her enough to hate him, furious enough to want to seek revenge, an old vendetta that drags on for years.  At least there would be a connection, a reason to say his name, not this nothing, this vacuum.

 

   In the beginning he called at regular five minute intervals, not knowing what else to do.  Thought he might appear heroic, manly, rather than desperate.  He never thought about what he’d say, he never expected her to answer.  She never did.  So why keep redialling, to listen to the smug b***h at the other end telling me she’s not available?  I KNOW THAT.  Was like he had to do it, his heart in his mouth every time, a bit like the first hit of caffeine in his system, and he became addicted to it.  Twenty-fifth of April, that was the last time they spoke, the last time he saw her.    Still counting. The need to know is everything, he can admit that he was somehow aware in some part of him that it was all going tits up, there was too much stacked against the possibility of their happiness, but why on the twenty-fifth of April?  And now he’s a cliché.  And he is bored with his own misery. He cannot use what he is feeling like artists do.  But he has been fantasising, murky, dirty fantasies of accidents and tragedies that will bring them back together again.  He wanted someone close to him to be hurt or even die, he wanted to be hurt himself.  Not self inflicted, because that would be f*****g pathetic, but something serious and dramatic, maybe they caught him on camera, maybe she saw it, the very act, someone booting him in the face.  What a gift, what a beautiful precious thing.  Emotional blackmail.  It’s an atom of hope but that’s all it needs to be.

     Except now there is the face.  From somewhere in his hallway comes a whiff of furniture polish.

‘Smellzlikechurchess’

‘Yeah we’re in a church, don’t talk, you’re heads really messed up.’ 

‘Womanwivlaadvoyse.’

‘ She went off to call an ambulance.  She wouldn’t let us in at first, I’ve promised to make a big donation, she thought you were a drunk.’

 

With what happening, happening, Ian has the excuse he needed to do very little.  The pull of being alone and the push of thoughts.  Thoughts that run, intercept, link.  Asking questions not bearable to answer.

   If one was to map a broken heart, mark it out, what would it look like?  That far off city after the suicide bomb?  Clear, without any feature, apart from one figure as if on a plain?  Looking confused and afraid?  Ian is the falling house, crumbling in slow motion.  He is gripping onto the edge, but he is tired.

   This salad is so good I want to kill myself… Change channel again and again, from home improvement, to advert, to news. To arts programme.  And does Ian’s finger rest?  After he was fooled (for a little while) by beautiful people, friends laughing and shining; does he turn over?  See a face on the video installation?  See a face on CCTV footage?  And while a skinny, white boy-girl artist drones on about dissolution and lack of privacy, and while he does this, is there a face, grey and unclear walking?  And is it Magda?  Is it Magda?

He checks the route to the Tate Modern on a little tube map, he checks himself in the mirror, still some vanity, his face blooming into colours he didn’t think possible on human skin.

Author's Note

If you got past chapter 1 and have moved on to this one that's a good sign - right?

Reviews

[G Garcia]

S**t. I accidentally deleted my comments. S**t.