Drown Your Sorrows

A Story by prettyboy

Name-less man drowns his sorrows. Murder. Quite dark.

It was a wonderful party. He had found a lovely girl and settled down with her in a corner. They were talking about art and they were talking about music. There was food and drink and everything was good. She didn’t have any strong ideas about art or music, but that was alright because she had a lovely little pair or blue eyes. Then she walked in, and everything went to hell.

She had hips that moved independently of the rest of her. She wore black material wrapped around her. Her smoky eyes found him and he looked back. Her red mouth spoke of art and of music, of politics and of life. She was amazing and gorgeous and she ruined everything. She smoked delicately and drank with abandon. The blue �"eyed girl said she was unsavoury and left when he didn’t take her side. The woman let blue smoke twist out of her mouth like ink in water. She crossed a rouged knee and offered him a cigarette. He did not smoke. He took it, only so he could lean in closer to her so she would be able to light it. Thus his life began to disintegrate around him.

He gave her his phone number and told her to call. After he kicked himself and told himself she would never call him. She called the next day at three in the morning. She asked him to pick her up. He picked her up off the side of the road and dragged her into the car. The next day she asked to move in with him and he said yes.

He quit his job because she asked him to. She saw his paintings. They were colour and thick. They were curve and emotion. She loved them, she thought they should be seen. She said he should quit his job and paint full time. She asked him to. He handed in his resignation letter the next day. He painted all day, he painted into the night. He showed his paintings to everyone. Everyone turned him away. She became his muse. She was every painting he created. She was everything. He used two times as much red and black as any other colour.

He ran out of money. He sold three paintings for a little money. She spent the money. She bought chocolate and cigarettes and alcohol and lipstick and books. She filled his house with it. She laid around the house in kimonos and started drinking at three. She didn’t go to work. She laid out of the lounge positioned carefully like a corpse and watched him paint. She ran fingers over the flow of the paint.

No one spoke to him. She hated all his friends. She hated all his family. She hated all the lovely girls that were interested in him. He stopped seeing them to please her. She consumed all his attention, she took up all his free time. She wanted to debate with him, to talk to him, to dance with him and spend every waking moment with him.

Except when she didn’t. There were days, weeks, when she didn’t want him near her. She hated his paintings, she hated his visions. She hated him. She wold love him for a little while, she would be sweet and gorgeous. She would grab him and want him with her always. He was like the new puppy. Then she would want him away from him. She yelled, or worse didn’t yell. She would ignore him pretend he wasn’t there. She wouldn’t acknowledge he spoke or register his presence. She would fix him with cold glares once his back was turned, he could almost feel it sliding into his skin.

Most of the time she hated him. That was fine though, because he loved her. Forever and absolutely. Except when he realised it wasn’t. He had no money. He had no friends or family. He spent all his time bending under her every whim. He was addicted to cigarettes. And he wasn’t sure what for. She had never expressed anything that would give him any indication that she returned his affections, so painfully obvious. There were so many lovely girls, with knees and eyes and hair and lips, he had turned down because of her. She was standing at the bathroom mirror. He stood behind her still. She turned around and smiled.

She had ruined everything.

He grabbed and pushed her under the sink. He heard the bang her skull made as it was hit across the porcelain. She cried out form the dull pain. He fumbled with the plug for a minute, she was still to confused and pained to act. He turned the tap on. It splashed and sprayed his shirt. She pushed her deep red nails into the crooks of his arm and he pushed her further into the onslaught of water. She gagged and he twisted her head into the pooled water. She was ugly now. The beauty he had sought to capture so many times in his paintings, that allure, was gone. He wondered if it had ever been there at all. Her red mouth was ugly, wide open and vulgar. Her eyes were wide open in shock, their heavy-lidded mystique gone. She made little noises.

It was ages later when she stopped struggling. The water had begun to pool on the floor. He dropped her and she slid down onto the tiles and lay there. He turned off the tap. He looked down at her. Her hair was wet and matted falling over her white face. He lipstick was smeared and her eyes were dead. He felt strange. Like he had a cold. Heady and dizzy. He leant down and smoothed the tendrils of hair from her face.

He lit a cigarette, squatting on the floor of the squalid bathroom of a flat he didn’t have enough money to keep. He would have to sell it. Looked upon the love of his life and took another pull on his cigarette. He didn’t know what to do with himself now that the reason for his being was no more.

There was nothing left for him now.

© 2012 prettyboy

Author's Note

First time writing something like this, so I'm not sure if it worked. Quite a bit darker than anything I've put up so far. Quite like it though and might edit if it gets a postive response.
Would love a review!

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Reviews

fajer

I really like the disjointed narrative. I especially like the disconnect during the drowning. But maybe it would be offset by a little more connection in the earlier parts where he loved her and he was ok?