Sometimes I don’t even understand myself let alone other people. Life isn’t so hard. I have both my parents, though they haven’t loved one another since before I remember. I am healthy, maybe a little inactive and I can be lazy when it comes to food. But life, it’s easy really. Too easy. It becomes pointless it’s so easy. I am not meant to understand who I am or relate to anybody. But I have no other challenge in my life, so relating to people and myself becomes that challenge.
So I am sat here listening to the radio for the first time in a year. Music doesn’t change really. You don’t need me to tell you that. There is a stone resting in the pit of my stomach, a smooth, heavy thing. I look at the letter she wrote me and I try to feel something about what she said. I know the stone in my stomach is connected to it in some way. But I am unable to form the feeling into anything clear or understandable.
The paper is thin so that I think it might break if I handle it too much. Already I have smudged the pencil marks and the white is smearing into grey. She doesn’t wear perfume, but the paper holds the smell which always follows her. A musty sort of smell, like she has been lost in a basement for a few years. Actually, come to think of it that is a good way to explain her general personality and appearance. I don’t mean this in a rude or condescending way. I don’t know what I mean exactly. That’s part of this whole problem I have. Well, forget about all that anyway. It’s not important.
A song begins on the radio that I like so I forget the letter for a moment and get lost in memories that I associate with the sound and lyrics. I allow my eyes to flicker closed and a smile creeps onto my face. I can connect with sound better than people. I connect with sound even better than words. That’s saying something since I write stuff a lot, but I can’t thread notes together.
Maybe you want to know about her, maybe not. I’m not sure I should even bother saying anything about it. It’s probably best if I clear my mind of her. I’m not one of those guys who puts notches on his bed post. If I was I wouldn’t have many to show anyone. I’m not sure if I really have one notch. Did that thing with Laura really count? I doubt it. To me it counts and I guess that’s part of the reason why I can’t clarify the meaning of this stone in my belly and the letter.
I just can’t connect with people; guys, girls, old or young they are all so alien to me. I don’t understand their jokes, or what they are doing and why they’d want to talk to me about anything. Never mind. What does it matter?
The gloaming air becomes close with the heat from the lights, and moths dart in and out of the warmth they throw out. I am just sitting here, trying to push the letter out of my mind. But I can’t. I’m scared by what it says I suppose, nervous and excited at the same time. I’m not sure. I take a lungful of warm air, my eyelids flicker closed and open again.
My flat is eight floors up, and this heavy armchair is always placed just so, facing the metropolis below. I never did buy any blinds, I saw little point. There’s no one this high for miles and no one can see me sat here in this armchair from the street. I spend altogether too much time sat in this velvet green seat looking out over my kingdom. If I use a little imagination I can see the hospital from here. That red light gives it away, though sometimes I think it might be a different red light. I have never taken the time to truly discover if it is the hospital I can see from here. I sit forwards in my chair and narrow my eyes, searching out for a twinkling red in amongst the dull orange and clean white. There. I see it. It’s insubstantial because it is too far to remain unbroken. The fact that the light isn’t constant was the reason I first imagined it must be where the hospital is. That cold place filled with broken people, the inconstant ones. Or in Laura’s case, too constant. Never changing. Never offering any hint of hope for those who are waiting for her. I have said too much.
A phone rings somewhere in a neighbouring flat. The walls have dulled the sound so that it seems as if it is ringing from another dimension. Perhaps it is, I haven’t any proof either way. I stand and fumble my way to the kitchen to put on a snack despite the fact that I am not even remotely hungry.
No. Stop it now, because you are only trying to distract yourself from things that cannot be and will not be ignored. It’s no use. I can’t get the letter out of my mind, nor will the problem with Laura lift. Well, the latter has been with me for a while now, but the letter is something new. And it’s that newness that offers a release from everything else. From Laura and blinking inconsistent red lights and the hospital and this crippling loneliness that has gnawed at me ever since that day that she was gone. Because I lied when I said life isn’t that hard, it can be. It has been hard for me this past year and the letter might help make it better again. There is nothing else for it. Ignore the pang of guilt and just pick up the phone and call her.
My legs take me through the flat and across to the white ergonomic thing that rests on the small wooden table near to the door. It clicks when I lift the receiver, but I guess that’s not important. I dial the numbers that I know off by heart. I wait, unable to breathe. I wait.
“…hello?” that stone in my belly has turned to rancid butter, it is no longer smooth, but curdled and it bubbles within me. I don’t know what to say, calling her was a mistake. “Hello, Chloe speaking.” Just as I exhale the slightest of breathes, ready to slam the phone back down she stops me. “Chris? Is it you?”
“…yeah.” I say, wishing I hadn’t.
”Did you get my letter?”
“Yeah. Yeah I got your letter.” Damn it. I pace over to the window, the line crackles as I move further from the main phone. The handset feels clammy in my hands. I sit on my armchair and keep my eyes on the flickering red light in the distance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. Bell lives in the countryside writing novels, short stories & comics. She’s had stories published in The Pygmy Giant, The Recusant, Just a Kiss Anthology [Freelance Press] and a couple of student art magazines. She recently won a Curator’s Choice Award (Noise Festival 08) judged by Niven Govinden. Her website is at www.bellstories.co.uk.
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