purged. All the emails, the gifts, the photographs, the letters and cards, everything that reminded me of her was gradually cleared from my sight. I could afford no weakness here. The apartment was cleaned and cleared, everything was dumped or incinerated; everything except for the photograph of her that hung above my bed. I had unintentionally skipped over the picture as I was clearing the apartment, it had become such a part of my morning ritual that I failed to notice it at first. One morning before work, a week after all vestiges of Eris were purged, I became aware of its existence. It was like coming across a corpse; unexpected, unwanted, horrific and shocking, a mental jolt that cut straight through the back of the neck into the stem of the brain.
Be normal, be okay, be fine.
A bit of dry wall came down with the picture when I peeled it off. I had no clear recollection of when I had put up the photo.
“I'll be okay, I'll be okay once I get her out of my head. I just need to get her out of my head,” I told myself.
Her features distorted as I tore the photo in half. Her eyes and her smile were no longer her own. I could not bring myself to destroy the photo any further, nor could I bring myself to part with it.
Be normal, be okay, be fine.
I felt hollow, my bones were suddenly void of marrow. The mental foundations I had hastily constructed were creaking and cracking under the pressure. A bang came echoing in from the city streets. I placed the pieces of the photo into my desk drawer and went to work.
Berne and Aleksi would realize what had happened through Rean, but by that time two months had already passed. The coldest days of winter were over but the city still remained a winter wasteland.
“Everything will be okay, I just need to get her out of my head. I'll just never open that drawer,” I was lying to myself again.
You're weak. You're spent. You'll be eaten alive.
My mind was propped up with rotten wood and reinforced with tape and glue. Everyday was like traversing a plane of thin glass; the cracks never recovering, forcing me to move blindly forward, ever paranoid of when the ground will finally give out.
The sweat clung to my clothing and the shards of plastic film clung to my sweat. It was the end of another workday. The shipment was prepared and ready to deceive. Aleksi lit a cigarette and began puffing away. I was too tired and hungry to bother, I just smiled at him. He flipped me off and inhaled deeper before disappearing up the stairs. I stood there for a while, inhaling the poisonous air of burnt plastics and cigarette smoke. The ceiling fan cooled the sweat on my body as the warmth of the computers swirled around me. A sickly mixture of chemicals and odd temperature. I dragged my feet up the old wooden steps and was greeted by the sight of Aleksi and Berne already dressed in their coats. They stared at me as if I had some horrible terminal illness.
“What the fuck are you guys looking at?” I asked the question but I already knew that this was going to be Eris related.
“Nothing, we were just wondering if you wanted to join us for dinner,” Berne said. It sounded like he was talking to a dying animal.
“Uh, sure?”
Just as I answered the question the new kid popped his head in from the front room.
“Can I come too? I'm starving,” he said.
“No, you're closing up tonight,” Berne said.
“But I closed last night.”
“Shut the fuck up, new guy. Get to work.”
“Hey-”
“Ebanaya suka! Ede rabotat! -” Aleksi kept screaming in Russian until the new kid gave up and went back to the front of the store to close up. There was a moment of silence.
“Let's go?” I said as I motioned towards the door.
They guided me towards the noodle shop down the street. The place made of plastic and neon. I had no say in it, it was clear that this had been planned.
“What you have?” the weathered and clearly disgruntled woman spat out.
“Number four.”
“Number six.”
“Number nine, with a number two, and give us a round of beers,” I said. I looked up to awkward glances, it was clear that Berne and Aleksi were surprised by my new found appetite.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Berne said. Aleksi just stared.
We diverted our attentions to the myriad of muted televisions, each playing a different station: New and improved. Redemption. 1-800-. The odd gun shot. The splash of water across an actor's face. Coming Soon. Corruption. Now playing. Please help. Four men shot today at-. Please donate. Bombings in-. Riveting.
I looked away just in time for the food to arrive. Unhealthily large portions of meat and noodles swimming in sink-sized pools of salted and fatty water. I grabbed a spring roll with my left hand and shoved it into my mouth. Mushrooms, ground meat, and a fried outer layer all reduced to the same dull paste. Grease covered my left hand and lips. I could not remember the last time I had this much food in front of me.
“So, how have you been?” Berne said.
I shoveled into my bowl of noodles with a pair of chopsticks and pretended not to hear him. My teeth gnashed against the flesh of what was once living.
“We heard about Eris,” he continued.
I took another mouthful of food, I wanted to destroy something.
“Jon!” Aleksi snapped his fingers in front of me.
“What? What do you want?”
“We just want to know if you're alright, we're worried,” Berne said.
“Well don't be. I've had worse-”
Have you?
“- I'll be fine, just eat.”
“But what about all the money you lost?” Aleksi said.
“What about it? There's always more money to be made,” I said as I motioned my chopsticks towards Berne and smiled, “plus if she wants it then she can keep it. I'm done with her. Fucking bitch.”
The last words clung to my throat as I said them. I took a swig of the beer, cold and bitter, and wiped my mouth with my sleeve.
“Yeah! Fuck her!” Aleksi said.
My arm twitched, a part of me wanted to hit him for saying that and I wasn't sure why.
“Well, so long as you're alright,” Berne said.
“Just shut up and eat,” I faked a laugh.
Aleksi and Berne were only half way through their meal when I was nearly finished mine. The noodles lost all taste, the meat was little better than eating dirt, and the soup-base began to taste like motor oil. Still I carried on until only tiny shards of noodles and meat remained in the soup. The neon lights and television screens reflected in the layer of oil that floated above the soup itself. It reminded me of the cheap multicoloured toys that were sold along Chinatown.
I started clawing at the white garbage-bag plastic that covered our table, taking strange satisfaction in every rip and tear. How it would initially refuse and then give way. I downed the rest of my beer and threw my share of the bill onto the table.
“Alright,” I said, “I've got to get going.”
“Don't worry about it, we've got this one,” Berne said.
“Bullshit, you're paying my salary. I'm not going to have you pay for my dinner as well.”
Berne tried to insist but I merely walked away with my money on the table.
I had enough of their pity. I was not weak.
“I'll see you bastards later.”
I did not need help, I had suffered through hell and I wasn't going to let this inconvenience be the end of me. Not here, not now, not like this. The blood rushed to my bloated stomach and made my steps feel laboured. The alcohol warmed my skin against the dark winter night.
That was the last time Aleksi and Berne would try to console me directly. Though they would still approach me as if I were made of porcelain.
The hollow restless nights wore on.
I still needed answers, I demanded answers. I picked up the phone and called the lobby to Eris' dorm.
“Hello, how may I help you?”
“Hi, I'm
a relative of Eris Mauzer's and I'd like to speak to her.”
“What room number is she in?”
“six, one, one.”
“I'm sorry sir, our building doesn't have a sixth floor. Are you sure you have the right number?”
I didn't know what to say.
“Sir? Is this a family emergency? Sir?”
I hung up the phone and pulled Eris' crumpled photo from the desk drawer.
“Having fun in 611, wish you were here. -Love Eris” it read on the back. I threw the photo back into the drawer and wondered how many lies I had been fed over the years.
'Fucking bitch,' I remembered myself saying.
You're weak. You're spent. You'll be eaten alive. The voices would laugh throughout the night.
Eventually I'd turn to drink to silence my mind and distort the voices. A swig of rum, a shot of vodka, a taste of wine, anything to numb and dull. The drink would keep me warm. I woke up every morning dehydrated, disoriented, ill, and so very drained of life.
II.V
The telephone rang.
“Hello?”
“Wake up, you're late for lunch.” It was Rean.
I pressed my chin against my collar bone as I tried to decipher the time on the clock.
“What time is it?” I gave up after a minute of failed attempts.
“Three o'clock,” she cut in almost immediately after my question.
“Fuck.” The light stung my eyes. There was no express effort made to get out of bed.
“Yeah, we were suppose to meet at two, asshole.”
I stared up at the white wall and the odd exposed spot. The head ache was setting in, the toll of drinking yourself to sleep.
“Shit. Sorry.”
“You are not. Don't lie, asshole.”
Unable to think of any witty or meaningful response, I merely told