A/N: I'm most interested in the story you, the reader, can construct from these exchanges.
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Hey,
Haven’t heard from you in a while. What’s going on? How was the flight?
Bored, can’t think of anything to do. It’s too dull.
**
It’s cold. Colder than I ever thought it could be, my bones feel paper-thin, wobbling and shaking beneath the onslaught. Loud tones beep and automaton-voices resonate. This place is big and empty.
**
Went to a party the other day, you know, the kind we usually hate and sneer at – with other people and music. Floor was sticky. Grotty. Had a drink – okay, maybe a couple, just enough so the music started sounding good and things began to feel better. Got groped at. Smacked the guy, but he did it again. It felt okay.
It’s funny how strobe lights make everything better, distracting.
Why won’t you answer your phone?
**
My face is a slab of marble. Little flakes keep melting on it, tiny baby tears barely felt. Big shapes roar passed in the whirling white, huffing, snorting, tooting; there are no lights. Only varying shades of grey and black. My hands shake as I try to light the thin cylinder of paper, come on, fuck, just a spark will do.
Just one spark.
**
Saw your mum the other day. She looked sad. Straight out of one of those old black and white movies. Grainy and silent. She was across the street. She saw me but didn’t say hello. You think its paranoia, but it’s not. She’s definitely not a fan. It doesn’t matter anymore though, does it?
It’s all gone to shit.
**
Went to another party filled with sex and drugs and booze.
How’s that make you feel? Are you doing the same over there? Can’t help thinking – dreaming – sometimes, that you’re doing as I’m doing, a sick mirror-parody distorted by distance and neither of us can see the other performing just in front of the other.
Fucked a foreign boy; he couldn’t speak English.
**
It’s all too real, here. The wind stings my cheeks and nose raw, tears tingle on lashes already wet. I sometimes wonder if that other life I led was all a dream, a cardboard construct of bare white offices and sterile halls. No TV screens. Just the elements. My feet crunch in the snow – I leave footprints but they last mere moments in print, forever memories.
It’s a lovely feeling, of being physical, of mattering.
Alone, without consequence. The hills are still waves in the distance. Trivialities try to intrude on my silence, on this ghostly solitude but I won’t let them; won’t plug back into the fucked up mentality. Do you see me, world? I’m passing through, here.
Don’t take notice, I won’t be long.
**
Hey again,
The rentals are getting worried; they try to hide it but they suck at lying. It’s why they’re not good parents. Doesn’t matter in the end, it’s all fun and games, right? Slow down, they say, take it easy. As if this merry-go-round can ever stop. As if there’s a choice anymore. You’d know about that though, wouldn’t you? They’re talking of moving, of people, of you, of bad influences – they don’t realise the problem is inside and there’s only one sickening thought left.
There’s no fucking choice.
**
This place is surrounded by woodland. I left the buildings behind a long time ago, left the rent, the lies. Huge black trees rise up into the sky until I have to squint against the glare of the sun; I can hear them swaying with the wind, all the leaves in full voice, singing in the night, accompanied by the chatter and squeak of small animals and odd bugs…
It’s magical.
The lake is up ahead.
**
We’ve moved.
Not that you give a shit. Would it kill you to respond? What the fuck is with you anyway? You act as though it wasn’t you who did this. Just answer me once, okay?
**
I remember one person, shadowy-figure from the past. They keep haunting my dreams, keep trying to bring details back, drag me down, down, down into the depths. I won’t though. I can’t. The lake’s surface is gelid. It glimmers in the dark. No boundaries in the dark. It can lead from here to anywhere. The bank is thick and brown, swollen with weeds.
Can’t see what moves beneath the surface.
Cities, mountains, whole worlds could be swarming beneath but its skin remains untroubled. I walk down onto the short wooden platform.
**
Can’t stop.
It’s all blurring together. Keep dreaming of darkness that gleams. Wake up, stare out at the lake; only a few dead trees haunt its sides. Feel like its calling, like sometimes there’s someone there inside, waiting. Can’t see them, want to get closer but can’t. It gets misty and cold and inside it’s warm and safe. Want all this to go away, to truly wake up and realise it was all a fucked up nightmare and everything is going to be okay. It isn’t happening and time’s running out. Has run out.
Gonna go down there tomorrow.
**
The water bends beneath my foot, suspends me for a second.
It breaks.
**
You’re not coming back, are you?
Stood at the lake tonight, in the dark. Its burble was the only sign it was there. Mist obscures, crawling ghost hands caressing the surface. Knew what was waiting in the water, knew all it would take was to reach in and make the connection. Couldn’t do it.
Walked away, so sorry, but I walked away.
