Pt. 1
The clatter of
crates packing up for the evening clacked through dusky air,
interrupting Milandra’s nap. Cat-like, her stretching limbs reached
for nothing, undecidedly, languidly, as the wash of a dream dripped
from the corners of her mind. Again, she had dreamt that curious dream,
always of the same man. Inevitably, the man’s silhouette lingered,
but his identity- the details – remained burrowed in that
ungraspable, uncertain dream-state.
Slits of dying sunlight slipped through heavy Egyptian blue curtains, zebra striping her skin as she lounged on scattered cushions in the nook of her shop. She realized in spite of her sleep-addled state, her heart was drumming against her ribs, its pulses beating in flustered, disjointed rhythm. Her hands fluttered towards the little metal pipe on the floor: would there be enough to calm her down? Perhaps. She struck a match and inhaled as the last glimpses of sweet, tarry smoke poured into her lungs.
Slits of dying sunlight slipped through heavy Egyptian blue curtains, zebra striping her skin as she lounged on scattered cushions in the nook of her shop. She realized in spite of her sleep-addled state, her heart was drumming against her ribs, its pulses beating in flustered, disjointed rhythm. Her hands fluttered towards the little metal pipe on the floor: would there be enough to calm her down? Perhaps. She struck a match and inhaled as the last glimpses of sweet, tarry smoke poured into her lungs.
“I would die this
way,” she mused. She thought it was coming many times, every time.
At this point death was a waiting game; but wasn’t it that way
throughout life anyway? The grey hollows ravaging her once-plump
cheeks told her so; the gnawing knots in her guts told her so; those
strange aches in her bones told her so.
Amber embers curled
and faded in her pipe as remnants of smoke burned down into
tin-trapped air. She carelessly threw the pipe into a massive
jet-black ashtray, and stood, swaying - ever so
slightly. Practiced like a drunk teenager feigning sobriety, her movements were a little too precise, a little too exaggerated. Smoothing her skirts, she felt sharp bones underneath,
jutting through softened fabric, the skeleton making itself known.
Hours would go by without customers, and certainly no visitors,
although she was thankful for this in her modes of exhaustion. As she
walked over the creaking wood floor, her mind sank down into waking
dream, as the lingering lull of smoke flowed through her throbbing
veins.
Outside, carts and
cars rolled up rusty dust streets and the last calls of working men
wavered in her ears. The familiar sounds did not distract her from
her undistractable state, but rather became an extension of her
internal thoughts. The mundane is taken for granted by those in in
the throes and thrust of life, but perhaps she would, in death, miss
street sounds and men’s voices, no matter how tobacco hoarse or
sun-parched their grate.
Milandra parted
another set of curtains leading to the back of her shop. A cracked
slab mirror leant against the wall and she stopped to study her
reflection. The only face she had ever known gazed back, yet, marked
by time’s change, in another sense it was hardly recognizable. At
46 years old, she appeared ancient beyond her years, with creases
marking complex emotional road maps around her eyes. For the past few
years, every smile, tear, and wince seemed conveyed and betrayed on the canvas of her olive skin. Each morning she lined her eyes heavily with smoky
kohl and their pale citrine colour still pounced playfully with
youth, in spite of her near-constant suffering. Rose petal lips had
thinned to a pale pink crack; blooming no more. The pang of their
sternness in place of kissability affected her, and a deep-set
yearning for love ached, even though she knew she'd soon be dead.
She remained somehow exotically attractive – but she denied such
knowledge, because any love discovered could only end tragically.
Pulling her glossy onyx hair, strewn with strands of wiry silver,
away from her face, she half-frowned, and turned towards a heavy
chest of drawers.
Nestled inside the
top drawer, folded in amber-scented fabric, was the only tangible
reminder of him that remained: a seashell he once gave her on
a gloomy-evening beach walk. She could still sense the drifting mist
dancing on her skin, the touch of his hand: fainter, but with that reaching, desperate clarity of a re-lived memory. Over endless time
and rolling waves, the shell itself had been worn down, smooth against her
fingertips as silk, yet one side was jagged and snagged like a
witches nail. The symbolism wasn’t lost on her – as this
reflected the eternal emotional state he had infernally left her in.
Typical... luckless. She carefully folded the fabric around the
shell, returned it to the drawer, and traipsed back to the front of
her shop.
In the centre of her
shop stood a round table covered with brocade cloth, upon which lay a
tasselled pouch containing her tarot cards. Knowing herself to be
perpetually damned, she gave up reading the cards to shed any light
on her own life long ago: well, what was the point? However, many in
town still flocked to her for glimpses into their futures, whether it
be through the cards or palmistry. Some visitors were anxious, some dismally disengaged or sulkishly skeptical, some excited - all because time had played or frayed them one way or another.
Lost in thoughts and
her waning high, the tinny jangle of a trio of bells was nearly
missed, and it wasn’t until the young man cleared his throat she
noticed he had entered her shop. Neither startled nor necessarily
surprised at his arrival, she avoided eye contact and gestured with a
coarse, almost exasperated motion of her hand for him to take a seat
in front of the card table.
However, as soon as
she looked up into his eyes, she knew she was damned.
