truth.
“Okay, I admit that I'm too tired to feel sorry.” The toll of drinking yourself to sleep for too many nights in a row.
“So are you going to come downstairs and grab lunch or what?”
“Buuuuuh.” I looked outside, the city still buried in a shallow grave of snow. The cold seeped in from the windows and cooled my skin before being snuffed out by the warmth of the radiator. They were all reminders of why I did not want to step outside.
“English. Use your words.”
“Buuuh...”
“You're not going to come downstairs are you?”
Silence.
“You want me to bring food to you, don't you?”
“... Yeah.”
“Asshole.”
“I know.”
She sighed, “what do you want?”
“Just give me a number five.”
“Alright, see you in about fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks.
“Jon?”
“Yeah?”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
I hung up and let the phone drop wherever it pleased. My eyes burned and my eye lids felt heavy.
Cracked tiles, their ceramic shards stabbed into my naked feet. My breath was visible in the cold. I had a smile half cocked as I hover over a metal table. A textured sheet of broken plastic was glued atop the table. The small black and white specs. A single light swung from overhead and illuminated the table. It kept everything from being lost in the all consuming darkness of the unending room. I smashed the table and felt the force of my blow dissipate before even making contact with the table. Looking up I saw the outline of a figure sitting across from me. I clinched my teeth and my teeth began to shatter. Bone was all I tasted as blood flowed freely from my opened mouth. I found myself laughing hysterically. The figure sat forward. A distorted familiar face.
“You're weak,” she said.
There was a knock at my door. A sharp intake of air. I glanced over to the desk drawer. Another knock.
“Open up Jo!”
It burned to open my eyes completely. I opened the door squinting, dressed in boxers and a ragged t-shirt. My hair was a mess, greasy strands standing as they pleased. Rean laughed, almost dropping the Styrofoam containers that were stacked to her chin. I could not help but notice the tiny foot-prints on my door.
“What? I had no hands. Since someone was too lazy to come downstairs.”
I nodded and moved aside to let her in. The door locked with a snap.
“Where should I put these?” she said, slightly lifting the containers.
“Uh...” The old wreckage had been replaced by the new. Empty bottles of vodka, loose change, food crumbs, fliers, and bills covered every surface.
“Sorry,” I said, and cleared the kitchen table. The papers crunched and cracked, and the glass bottles clinked and clanked as they were thrown and jammed into the kitchen waste basket.
Rean placed the containers on the table, methodically placing and opening each one. Roasted meat seasoned with spice, potatoes, cheeses, fresh vegetables. It was almost too much life for me to handle.
“So how have you been holding up?” she said while glancing at the collection of empty vodka bottles that had accumulated in the corner of the room.
She had caught me with this question while I was ripping flesh from a stick.
“I've been alright.” I suddenly became aware of the stench of alcohol that clung to my skin.
“Alright... Just don't make me worry.”
“Then stop worrying.”
“Jack ass.”
The conversation died and the apartment was filled only with sounds of ripping flesh, the piercing and crushing of vegetables, and the low rumblings of the city. Staring down at my plate, I could feel the weight of the bags under my eyes. Every motion was without purpose, just chew, swallow, and reach for more food. It felt like I could eat forever, just lost in the perpetual mindlessness. I wanted to consume everything, destroy it all.
Rean coughed, I looked up to realize she had been staring again.
“Water?”
She shook her head and tore meat off the stick, the muscle fibres pulled apart like pieces of string. Even as she chewed she never stopped staring.
I looked back down at my food.
“So how is work?” I said.
“Meh,” she said. The conversation refused to resuscitate. I was starting to feel myself slowing down, steadily I lost my will to eat.
“How about you?”
“It goes, new kid is still a little stupid bastard.”
“I see.”
I got up and sat on the couch that was next to the kitchen table. Full but not satisfied, there was still something amiss, something I wanted but could not put into words. I sighed, leaned back, closed my eyes, and listened to the old wood creak under my weight. Rean's gaze could be felt on the side of my face, it made me uneasy to be watched so closely. Every movement, twitch and spasm, and blemish was on display.
I reached for a half empty bottle of vodka next to the seat. The cap came off with a twist of the thumb and twirled to the ground. A sweetness coupled with a burning, my breath felt heated as I exhaled. I rattled my beaten pack of cigarettes and pulled out a half I had been saving.
“I wish you wouldn't smoke.” The smoke filled my lungs.
“Yeah I wish for a lot of things too.” I flicked ashes into a nearby empty can of beer. The smoke danced and swirled around the room until finding their place in the walls and fabrics of the house. The smoke and drink failed to satisfy my unnamed craving.
“I'm going to use your washroom.”
“Feel free,” I said as the cigarette died between my fingers.
Her cellphone began to ring and I opened my eyes.
“Rea-” The door to the washroom was already closed. The cellphone continued to ring for a few brief moments before falling silent. My attention became fixed to the phone.
'I wonder'
I flipped open the phone and went through the recent call history:
Inbound call: Eris
Outbound call: Eris
Outbound call: Eris
Traitor! Deceiver! Liar!
I heard the twist of the bathroom doorknob and quickly put her phone back and closed my eyes. The evidence was there but I refused to believe it. The couch stretched, I felt myself less embedded in the ratty cushioning. I opened one eye to see Rean sitting next to me.
“Hi there,” I said, a twitch rang through my right arm.
She slowly tipped over, resting her head on my shoulder.
Traitor! The voices rang throughout my mind.
“Jon?”
“Yeah?”
“I hate you,” she said jokingly.
Yeah, I know,” I faked a smile.
II.VI
“Oy, you drink like a bitch!” Aleksi screamed, blowing smoke into my face. The sun had set hours ago, though the sun was always scarce that time of year. The city's neons and orange lamps blazed into the darkness.
Some sporting event was playing on the television, luring the devout few like moths to a light. The colours of their teams and advertisements filled the room and broke the dim muteness.
Our table was old. The varnish had long worn away. Fragments of wood were missing from the surface, as if someone had made a desperate effort to physically rip apart the table. Names, messages, and phone numbers were etched or painted on the wood.
“Jim loves Sarah,” read one message written in marker.
“And nobody gives a shit,” I muttered to myself.
We were on our second pitcher and I was starting to feel sick. My skin was red and warm, though I constantly shivered. The smell of fried food clogged every bit of air. It became hard to breathe, alcohol hanging on my breath. I never really liked beer, though I was never prepared to let Aleksi beat me.
I lifted the glass mug and titled it back into gullet. Aleksi followed s
uit, beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Aleksi finished his mug and brought it down upon the table with a smack. I choked down what was left in my mug and slammed it on the table. I part of me wanted to break that mug and that table. It was a stupid game but I hated losing almost as much as I hated beer.
“Haha! That's two for me, you're buying the next pitcher!” Aleksi said.
Bloated and cold, I raised my hand to flag down the waiter. Berne sat in silence at the other end of the table, picking at a plate of fried chicken wings and sipping on a glass of water. He watched our stupidity unfold and smiled. I could not remember a single time that Berne touched a drink.
The waiter walked passed our table with a notched baseball bat in his hand. He was a big man, someone you would easily mistaken for a shaved gorilla and not someone you would normally label as a waiter.
“Hey, I told you punks to stop smoking,” he yelled at the table behind Aleksi.
“We did,” one of them said, fear hanging in the back of his throat. The other two men sat and stared, too dumbstruck to respond.
“Yeah? Then why the fuck are there ashes on the floor?” The waiter pointed to the floor with his baseball bat.
“Yeah, idiots!” Aleksi said as he took another puff of his cigarette and ashed on the floor. Berne's face turned red as I bit my lower lip. We could not help but smile.
“Look, I don't know how that got there but it wasn't us. We stopped when you told us to, it was just a misunderstanding,” one of them said as he raised his hands up in surrender. The waiter smashed the bat onto the table.
“I'll show you a misunderstanding,” he yelled.
“Yeah! Fucking idiots!” Aleksi took another puff.
I buried my face into the table. Berne soured his face. Our bodies twitched as we tried to hold int he laughter.
"Whoa, wait-” the third one said.
“Get the fuck out,” the