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I am in
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Mar 22, 2023 19:19
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| # ¿ Sep 15, 2024 20:42 |
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Ironopalis 1328 words The cold wind swept in and stung me. I should have worn a coat, maybe some gloves, hat, ski mask, and a second coat. It was that kind of cold. I strode through the streets passing half feral kids as they played their ball games and almost got hit by 3 or 4 cars trying to make their way through the narrow streets. It’s always been grey around this time of year. The clouds threatened to rain any second now but I never minded. I had a simple but unenviable task. Catch the 37 bus, make it into town and meet my friend Maxx. As I approached the bus stop I felt myself experiencing that queasy sickly feeling of deja vu. I took a seat on the rigid bright red bus stop seat and rubbed my eyes to centre myself, tips of my fingers bright red already from the cold. I saw something in the corner of my eye. I managed to sit down without even noticing there was someone else at the bus stop. I gave him a look and the expected nod of silent solidarity that all bus patrons know well and I was ready to settle in for my journey on the good old unreliable 37 bus. Something ate away at me though. Everytime I looked at the other man there was just something off, a detail here, a piece of fluff there. Eventually I’d given up on the pretence of politeness and studied him properly. He felt familiar. Maybe he took this bus often? That’s what was going through my head at the time at least. I remember his dark brown hair, it was cut short but I could see it curling at the ends. He had striking green eyes with visible bags under them. His face was dotted with marks that signified some persistent acne at the very least. He was older, for certain. His ginger moustache and beard were well trimmed and maintained. Eventually he turned to face me. It made sense, I was staring afterall. He gave me a long look. He opened his mouth to speak but I didn’t hear a word. I fixated on his teeth and my eyes traced every one of them until I saw it. Two missing, bottom left. One tooth left on an island with nothing but gums surrounding it for what looked like forever. He was still talking but I didn’t hear any of it, my tongue traced along my own teeth and ran across that tooth on an island. My own island tooth in its sea of gums. Same tooth. What are the chances? I had only just remembered that he was still talking but I managed to snap out of it just in time. Just in time to look like an idiot, atleast. “Do you know what I mean?” were the first words I heard from the gruff scratchy voice of the older man. Was he annoyed? Maybe, I really wasn’t sure. It’s another case where I paid attention to the wrong thing, focused on the wrong elements. Eventually I managed to reply “Oh yeah, sure mate.” with an unconvincing tone of voice and even worse delivery. “D’ya werk then? D’ya?” he asked in the uncompromising dialect of my beloved hometown. “Yeah, just nights though” “Used t’ work nights me, oh yes. Terrible business. No social life, no chance of meeting anyone that isn’t completely loving offit like.” At the time I felt I was frozen in conversation with this man. A perfect superposition of strange and familiar. He continued “Mad the kind of shite you find yourself getting nostalgic for. Used to be buzzing to be out of this place and now when I walk ‘bout these streets I get that sickly sweet feeling. It’ll happen to you too lad.” “It already happens to me” I managed to retort between his lightning quick speeches that he managed to spit out. I got the sense he wasn’t going to stop or slow down any time soon. “Eeeeh aye? Canny lad like you, what do you have to be nostalgic for eh? Hardly even been alive kidda. Beaches do me in proper, I remember being a little lad, a tiny thing. In Majorca I didn’t even bother to check the flags I was so excited to run on off into the sea with my little board thing, whatever you call it.” He was really at it now, words thundering from his throat like he was going to smash all the windows in the bus stop with the pure force of his voice alone. “And there’s this big loving wave that hits me and I’m like yerfuckinjokinaryna? What’s going on there? I look up and I’m under the bloody water at this point and the surface is so loving far away and so I’m paddling, paddling like my little fookin legs are gonna fall right off if I don’t and I get up and I look and I’m proper dying like right?” “Right” I replied. That didn’t slow him down. “The beach is so far at this point it might as well be in fookin Scotland for all I know and so there I am swimming through these massive loving waves man, good thing I got that bloody gold certificate at skool right? Anyway I’m paddling off again and I finally reach the beach and realise I have this board strapped to my arms still. I fell to my knees and took the deepest breaths I’d ever had like.” He finally took a breath at the bus stop too. He was a kind of wheezy breather, they don’t call us Smoggies for nothing. “Then this radgie Spanish bastard came up to me screaming at me but I didn’t speak a word of Spanish so I’m just sat there listening to this proper fumin bloke going off on me and I’m about 10. That’s the part that really sticks in the memory of this big tan bloke just having chew with a ten year old. It was only about then I noticed the red flags on the beach. He gave a smile and I saw those missing teeth again. The 37 came and went. I looked at it and then I looked back to our man here and I stayed. I was feeling the feeling he spoke about. It was hitting me as hard as it had ever. “I’ve got another story” The man said albeit in a much calmer tone than when he was telling the last story. The look in his eyes was serious, almost cold. Not as cold as the wind blowing in and causing my skin to goosebump. He started again “This one was rough but I like to look back and remember it, this bald teacher spends all day winding me up. He got right under my skin, that's for sure, a real miserable kind of gadgie. All it takes is a moment to do something completely aka and ruin everything eh?” “I think I’ve heard this one before” I said, quietly. “Next you punch him and run off to a nearby railway bridge to stare at the tracks right?” “Aye” he said simply. “I don’t think I’ve told any people about that.” I said. I was feeling that feeling again. “I did, it helped.” It seemed he had finally lost his need to ramble. The cool air felt appropriate now. I felt the heat rising in my chest, the anger that I had felt on that day before I stared down at the railways tracks and contemplated if I had just ruined my life. “What are you doing here? Why now? What could possibly be so important about a stupid day and a bus stop that you are here infront of me reminding me of all this loving shite?” The old man smiled and said “It was just one of those days I knew I’d feel that feeling again.”
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Mar 26, 2023 16:14
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In.
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Mar 29, 2023 05:23
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The Bacchanalia 955 Words I cannot believe I agreed to this. It is mortifying to be sitting here at The Bacchanalia in Mayfair. I’m half expecting to be turfed out if they catch onto the little scheme my friends have cooked up for me. “Oh he’s a delightful sportsman, you’ll adore him Alfie” they nattered on in their perfectly practised little voices. I’m almost angry enough that I can’t appreciate the glorious marble statues carved above my head. It does humble a man to find out what it’s like to live from the POV for an ant when he’s eating his dinner. The whole place is the kind of decadence I used to doodle about in my notebooks at school. This place is like Greco-Roman Disneyland and I’m sitting here balling my fists up because I am on a bloody blind date. The finest wine, food, atmosphere and a stranger to come in and ruin it for me. I worked hard for this. I scraped and clawed and sacrificed, oh lord I sacrificed to experience this kind of place. I’m pretty sure I could slit the throat of at least two waiters and if I tipped enough they’d probably thank me for my custom. Half the other patrons are politicians, oligarchs, murderers and such but I repeat myself. I’m not unfamiliar with such types. The same kind I see in the dock week in week out are the same that I see carefully slide out the chair for their wives or escorts or mistresses at this type of place. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like to judge but I do and it’s not like I can turn it off. Once you have the eye you have it, you see things. I don’t expect a film director to want to go down and watch the latest Guy Ritchie fare with me, we both know it’s garbage but he can’t unsee every little string connecting the poo poo to the flies. So here I am on my blind date and he’s late. There’s a hundred different paths to take from this one but I’m working on limited information so let’s jump to some conclusions. The way I see it he probably just isn’t that bothered. It’s a blind date and he’s probably been told as much about me as I have about him, so he thinks I’m the only gay barrister stupid enough to not bother getting a beard. That isn’t fair of me is it? Well alright. He could be unlucky, maybe he’s in a brutal car crash that just ended his sporting career in his prime. Then I’ll feel really bad for wanting one of these massive statues to turn me into a pile of gore if that bloody maitre d’ walks over to me and asks in the most polite way what the gently caress exactly I am doing here. It’s all bloody “Yes sirs” until you’re waiting for some useless bastard to walk in the door. I’m half tempted to start scratching my nails into this lovely mahogany table just to feel something. You turn thirty and suddenly a pair of socks and a funny card isn’t enough. Reservation at the fuuuuucking Bacchanalia. It’s not like I can’t have a good time, I should be a great laugh at this point as I rush into my fifth gin and tonic. They’re all married and suddenly I’m a bloody “singleton” whatever that means. It’s not even like I’m repressed, I did as much coke and had as much bad sex as half those idiots in Uni but they all converted to Catholicism and I focused on my career, investments, health and all the other shite you’re meant to prioritise. Apparently that makes me a catch but loving hell it just makes me feel lonely. What exactly is the point of having the Mercedes, the big house, the ISA that is doing quite nicely thank you very much and so on and so forth? I flip open my phone and stare at it, I should just text Oliver and own up to the fact he was right and I should’ve spent more time doing coke and less time staring at textbooks. Where’s all this dark come from? Looking up I see that some bloke is standing there blocking all those big gaudy chandeliers and their terrible lights. There’s a pause for a second, a beat. “Alfie?” he asks and now I’m processing, how quickly could I kill him? He has the height on me for sure, a few inches. I could jump the table, smash his head into it and jam my glass into his throat. Too much to lose sadly so politeness is the order of the night. “The very same, it’s good to meet you finally” I say with my best smile normally saved for senile judges. “I am so sorry for being late. I’m Thomas but most call me Tom. Someone jumped on the tracks and it turned into a whole scene” he said. I was doing it again though. He was too thin to be a rugby player, thank god. He took the tube so less chance of him being a footballer of any note and I can only assume my friends are cruel enough to match me up with someone actually talented. “So, what is it you do?” I ask innocently. I can see why my friends chose him though, he is so blonde. Sharp cheekbones, all defined features. He might be a model for one of these statues I’ve been glaring at. “Well usually I’m a shooting instructor but I also compete in competitions. If I’m lucky I’ll qualify for the next Olympics” He said, very soft spoken. gently caress it, at least he’s a straight shooter.
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Apr 2, 2023 23:25
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In and flash please.
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Apr 3, 2023 17:12
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| # ¿ Sep 15, 2024 20:42 |
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Interprompt submission 76 words I swear by all that is holy that I’ll be free of these mice one day. I will hear no scratching. I will hear no squeaking. My life will be filled with a peaceful silence. I will be free of these mice. I will use all means to dispatch them. I will use chemical weapons. I will destroy them. The mice are my enemy. I will be free of the mice. The mice are my enemy.
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Jun 21, 2023 03:57
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