I haven't written in a long time. I'm not sure anymore what prompted this. It's changed since the original idea, which was influenced a lot by the mood in Xandria's I'm in Love with the Darkness. I still fail to have story ideas while listening to anything upbeat or positive. I hope you enjoy.
When the distant sun rolls behind the horizon and hides its harsh brilliance it dips the world in gold and crimson, in navy blue and finally leaves only velvet black. Playful lights kindle in countless windows beckoning to passers by. Soon the moon peeks out from its shadowy hiding place pouring out a flood of silver. And at last the sky is carpeted with a miriad sparkling gemstones.
This is also the time when hunger rears its head and utters its greedy snarl. It wakes me from a slumber so deep it ought to last an eternity. It finds me whereever I may hide. It takes hold of me and floods my being with its urge, a bitter taste added to the sweet restful darkness. It sharpens my senses seeming to lend my surroundings an extra edge of focus. It howls persistently until I give in to its call. Thus I rise every night to satisfy the only need that is left in my existence.
I walk into the lamp lit street sliding smoothly into the bustling stream of life I find there. At this early hour the streets are full of life. People walk this way and that but all pushing forward in a general common direction: a river of individual lives that I join as a tributary. The street is an immediate barrage to my senses. The familiar mingles with the unfamiliar in a tantalising whirlpool. There are so many flavours of life that these common strangers miss, details lost to their organs in an overwhelming cacophony. I take them in - a baleful secret whispered into a trusted friend's ear, a desperate glance at a beautiful stranger while trying to conceal the ring, a whiff of exotic spices oddly interfering with the stench of waste in the next alleyway. That is the secret which lies hidden from them all, that there is no beauty that decay has not slyly crept into. It is their bliss and my curse - to be the very essence of this contradiction.
I wander the maze of streets taking in what they have to offer me. An onlooker might call my path aimless. He would not comprehend the pattern I follow. I listen past even the most minute details that my senses perceive. After everything else is shut out what remains is only a regular beat. That is what really calls me out here, what makes me rise time and time again against nature's very will: the pulse of countless things alive all around me. The longer I walk the more it fills every sense as its steady lump-lump drives the water of life. More and more the sound drowns out the buzz of the streets and has me pushing forward toward my salvation.
As I still resist the mounting urge I suddenly hear another sound that captures my attention. It is faint yet it cannot escape my acute ears. It is a voice that cuts through the buzz, a muted female voice singing softly to herself. I takes me a while to pinpoint what sets her song apart from all the noise. Then I realise that it is the very contrast unlying my own nature that attracts me to it. Her voice is small, yet clear carrying the tune effortlessly. The words are ones of love and joy moulded into a set of simple verses - a carefree lullaby popular during my younger days when the hunger did not yet call me forth every night. The way she sings it, however, there is a deep sadness in her voice that any mere mortal might miss but that is not lost on me. It is these kinds of souls that we flock to like moths to flame.
The damned attract the damned, you might say.
I quickly locate her in the throng following the trail laid by her voice. Her melancholy tone drifts through the crowds like whisps of smoke. Instinctively I pick up her trail. She is small with slender shoulders and neck, silky skin and hair that seems to have night woven through it. I would not have required the street lamps to make out these details. Had an act of God snuffed out all but the twinkling stars my mind would have painted no different picture of her. I pass her, move to her other side, a hunter circling his unsuspecting prey. It is not the stars glittering in her eyes. A clear droplet seeps forth and begins an unsteady journey along the sharp ridge of her nose. She quickly brushes it away. From my vantage point close by I admire her beauty. What could cause this profound sadness that even manifests itself through this fair tune.
I have found what I am looking for tonight. Stalking never far from her side I study her. I extend my perception as far as I may peering deeper beyond the shell of flesh. I find a pain there that I cannot explain. Only feelings are open to my perception not thoughts themselves. And I feel a heart that is ready to collapse upon itself constricted by suffering. Alone yet side by side we make our way through the streets to whereever her path is to lead her.
She picks narrow alleys, criss-crosses over boulevards just to disappear in another dimly lit portal. I nearly believe she knows I am on her tail. It appears more as if she seeks out darkness, even invites it in. The more I fathom her the more I realise it has already consumed her. The more I am unsure as to why I follow her. She intrigues me and she has awakened something that at last replaces my appetite for a while: my curiosity. I want to glean more of her, discover what sorrow has her in its claws. I probe her as best I can but our abilities have limitations. Eventually she seems to decide on a direction.
When she finally stops it is outside a watering hole of some repute - mainly for its sleeze, both concerning the establishment itself and its patrons. I follow her inside at a careful distance. As crowds lessen outside they seem to collect in places like this. It is a sinkhole for those that defy sleep. She chooses the bar ordering a drink straight away. The waiter hesitates almost imperceptibly and a look of puzzlement flits across his face. Young women are rarely seen here without male accompaniment - especially ones that appear as pure as this one. I seat myself at one of the last free tables and attempt to get a good view of her. I want to plan my approach. By the time I have managed to order a drink that I will not consume she has already downed her second short glass of amber liquid. A man approaches her as she orders a third. He smiles at her confidently and leans against the bar next to her. I notice in the slight swagger in his walk and vagueness of his mimics that he is also intoxicated. They make conversation. I can see that her heart is not in it. He tries to edge closer brushing his hand against her arm in a clumsy, familiar motion. He laughs at his own joke. She smiles politely. I notice a feeling of emptiness when I look at her. It is that emptiness she seeks to fill. In the streets she did not find her target so she has come here. But this man is not the one she is looking for. His presence is no remedy for the deep void inside her. She rejects him. I see it from her lips that mouth the words, from her entire body. This man makes the vacuum in her mind worse. He is reluctant to leave. In the end pushing off the bar he spits out a few words that find their mark like bullets from a gun. Disappointment hidden behind disdain drips from his mannerisms. In his drunkeness he is even easier to read.
She aches more after he has left. Her shoulders hunch for a while before she heaves a shivering sigh. Now is the time to make my move. She raises a beautiful upturned gaze towards me as I step up to her side.
"I apologise for the species", I say with an apologetic smile. I ask for permission to buy her a drink. It is given though I can see - feel - the resignation in her voice. She has been made this offer much too often already it seems. She cares not whether I sit with her. The emotions I glean from her are intriguing: sorrow, loneliness, indifference toward me - everybody, yet at the core the hint of a hard anger, a purpose even.
I contain my curiosity and converse on some irrelevances. The replies I get are mostly curt but she does respond. Despite the state she is in my aura is having an effect. She quickly downs the drink I bought her as if it is the only thing she can do to endure me. I offer her another. Seemingly drawing some reassurance from the fact that I have not tried to close in on her and obviously am not one of the usual drunks. With the next drink she finally slows down. I can sense a beginning tipsiness from her.
"How come a woman so young and beautiful is drowning herself", I finally venture.
She gives a sad smile. "Who says I am drowning myself", she counters otherwise ignoring the compliment.
I pretend to be considering her question for a moment.
I persist: "Why else would you be here in this place where you would only find cheap drinks and insincere offers? The place is not renowned for its entertainment nor for its customers."
"Maybe I simply like it here", she shoots back at me almost challengingly. "Maybe I am a regular in places like this."
I keep my cool. Now she radiates selfpity. She hates this place with a passion. I pretend to take a sip from my glass then shake my head with conviction. I say: "I do not think so. I believe this is beneath you."
She remains silent at this but takes a large gulp from her glass.
I carefully place my words: "As a matter of fact, a regular to this place, to such establishments, you may be but you certainly do not enjoy them. I can see you suffer having to endure the attention you receive here."
A laugh burst forth from her but sounds more like a sob. "It is not always that bad", she says staring at her glass, gently stirring the liquid in it.
I wait. She is still contemplating her drink. She sighs, then concedes: "These kind of encounters are never entirely pleasant." There is an uncertain pause. "In a way, you might be the first human being I have spoken to in a long time." She meets my gaze for what must be the first time in our conversation.
There is another pang of emptiness in her that I cannot explain. Should she not feel more positive about an encounter she admits to being not altogether uncomfortable? Still, she could not be further from the truth - I have not been human in a long time. I permit myself a smile and another empty sip.
I study her intently while speaking the next words. "What confuses me is why you would torment yourself so. Surely the young and beautiful have no reason to suffer?" I let the words hang in the air.
She gazes off into infinity for a moment, then her eyes sink back into her nearly empty glass. She speaks quietly, hardly audible above the din of the liveliness around us. "What does it matter how old I am or what I look like? I am just a lost low life." The words are accompanied by another burst of what I realise now is bitterness. A bitterness directed at who? Herself? The world at large? I am still confused.
I gently lay my hand on her wrist touching her for the first time. The sensation of her silky skin, the pulsing life beneath it, arouse my hunger again. I struggle with it trying not to let her see. It is not time for this yet. She misinterprets the pause.
"See? Now even you are lost for words."
"Not at all", I reply, "on the contrary I am speechless at your persistence to punish yourself. You are tidy, with clean clothing. Your speech is clear given the circumstances. You have neither the appearance of a bum, a drunk nor any other kind of 'low life' or anything but a respectable woman. You do, however, radiate sadness and desperation. Will you tell me why that is? What do you seek here?"
With a palpable pang of longing, of loss, she smiles to herself. "A respectable woman." She seems to weigh this phrase in her head inspecting it like a dead insect under a microscope. "What could possibly bring her to a place like this?"
I wait.
"Maybe it is what brings all these lost souls here." Her gesture encompasses the entire room and everything in it. "Maybe a lot of these people were once 'respectable' themselves. Now this is their life. Now this is all they have left. Don't you think?"
I make a vague gesture. Nobody can comprehend the fate of the world in its entirety. While there may be common features every man and woman's fate is complex and differs from any other's. I may not speculate as to the motivations of others present here. All I can do it focus my attention on the few, on details right in front of me, on her.
There is turmoil inside her now. I struggle to pay attention to what she replies while peeking behind her mortal facade.
"I assure you all here seek the same thing more or less being here. Some may call it company, others being more honest will call it oblivion, salvation or plainly drinking themselves to death."
The harsh word from her lips strikes a chord. Oblivion. Death. Salvation. Not always in this order. And not always all of them at once.
"You are shocked?" Again she misinterpretes my silence. She cannot know that I have made intimate acquaintance with what she mentions here. I play along.
"I am disturbed that you should intend to end your life. Here of all places at that. And I still fail to understand your reasons."
"Why should you care what makes me do what I do? Are you not here for the same reason? Or are you one of those that prey upon the weak and the vulnerable?"
It takes me some effort to conceal my reaction. Considering the drinks she has had she is still surprisingly sharp. I must not underestimate her. Sometimes injured animals are the most ferrocious.
"You are right: We are no more than strangers. What we have in common is here and now. After tonight I may pass out of your life again and leave no mark in it."
She holds my gaze defiantly now. The sorrow mingled with bitterness gives her will a steel edge.
"You think I have no idea what I talk about. You see this 'respectable woman' and think: 'what could she know'. You are wrong. I been close to those things. I've faced them." There is a silence. I feel her heart constrict. She heaves a sigh and continues: "I wish I could say I had overcome them."
She cannot possibly know what she is saying. She cannot know who - or what - she is talking to. And she cannot know that overcoming death is not oblivion nor salvation.
"Somebody close to you has passed away", I venture, realisation dawning on me. I believe I am reading her correctly now.
She nods looking at her empty glass. Then she shakes her head. I can see her facial muscles flex to remain in control as she continues.
"Not passed away. 'Taken away' would be the better term."
"Murdered", I exclaim.
"You could call it that. Murdered by the decay of man. Murdered by corruption first within and then without."
A clear little droplet seeps out of the corner of her eye. She leaves it to roll down her cheek.
The damned attracting the damned. God knows I have caused my share of suffering - that I am sure to pay for - but suddenly I feel sympathy for this frail creature. To my surprise anger even begins to rise in me, anger at whoever could have hurt her thus.
To her I say: "Is that what makes you seek out the night?"
I can see her regain control, order her thoughts. She exhales all in another sigh.
When she is sure her reply will come out level she answers: "Yes. I would not put it just that way, but yes, sometimes. At night - it is usually worst so I come outside to forget. To think. To just be absorbed." She shoots a sideways glance at me. "You would probably think that strange."
She cannot know that this is every night of my continued existence: the hope to forget.
I shake my head.
"I know exactly what you mean. More than you know, maybe. I would not presume to consider you strange."
"You are kind to say that. If I may ask: what is it that brings you out here 'seeking out the night'?"
My eyes wander around the tables but I do not see them. My gaze is inverted toward the inside. For one moment, one agonising blink of an eye, I almost tell her. The truth, the whole ugly truth that she would not understand, laugh at or slap right back in my face for mocking her. What else should she do after all? Believe the impossible? Believe she has unknowingly invited in her doom?
From her reaction I see that the smooth smile on my face has failed to fully materialise.
"Let us say you are right: I too have endured a loss that I come here to forget. I would tell you but it is still fresh on my mind."
"Does it sometimes make you wonder why we should linger on and suffer? To take a away one life really means destroying two, doesn't it? The difference is only that one may rest in peace while those that abide are ever haunted by their loss."
I nod. The pain in her is resurfacing. But there is something else.
"Sometimes", she continues hesitating, "- somtimes it seems better to share their fate and end the suffering."
The damned inviting the damned. Still, there is this new feeling of injustice.
"Is that not a harsh thing to wish upon yourself? Surely time heals wounds eventually?"
"Still sometimes time fails to have this effect. And memories remain clear and undimmed. Then time is not a healer but a scourge."
She literally spits the last word onto the table. A long silence ensues. Memories sweeping over me, more of them than should be natural. Too many years.
When the silence because like a titanic weight crushing down on us she suddenly looks around. When she speaks her voice is more controlled.
"Will you accompany me for a while? I have had enough of this place."
Now it is me who am lost in thought. I can only nod, pay the bill absently and follow her outside into the cool air of late night. This time the air does little to clear my head. My urge is back with a vengeance, as well. It mingles with my thoughts and the recollections that surge up are guilty ones of grim satisfaction and the iron taste of life's essence washing over my senses.
She begins to walk and I follow blindly. We keep each other silent company. She begins her aimless walking again and I follow her almost as I did earlier - in plain sight now. The memories are merging to become hungry visions of drawing her life's sap. If she as much as pricked her finger now the monster in me would tear her apart.
"I wanted to thank you", she says suddenly and I realise we have stopped. We are the corner of a dark alleyway that seems vaguely familiar as all these places do.
"What for", I manage to mumble.
"For lending me your ear. You may not be a priest and you are a complete stranger but nonetheless this night you heard my confession. Forgive me if I have burdened you with my woes."
With her head tilted back looking slightly up at me she is presenting her jugular to me. I can see it throbbing slightly. I try to shake my head. I must have her. She has noticed me staring at her throat. I no longer wonder if she misinterprets my behaviour.
Suddenly there is a new feeling that cuts through the haze in my head. Is it excitement? Her hand go up to her collar and she carefully opens first one, then two buttons of her blouse exposing more of her silky skin. She gently pulls the opening apart as if to make sure I can see properly.
There is a new note of sultriness in her voice when she purrs: "You look hungry."
She beckons me to follow her into the alleyway. After a few meters she stops in the shadow of the building and leans back against the wall. Still, I need no light to make her out. I step in close to her. What she has said seems to strike a chord but it does not register. Her hand plays with the front of my shirt. I can hardly tear my eyes away from the narrow, tender space between her collar bone and her jaw.
The damned feeding on the damned. Her finger almost self-consciously trails up and down her slender neck.
"You want this, don't you", she whispers.
I put my hand on hers following her movement. What is she talking about? I can feel my teeth sharp as tiny daggers behind my lips. I am just a moment away from utter extasy. My vision is cloudy. Somewhere right in front of me her feelings are in turmoil. I begin to lean in.
"You never asked me who it was that I lost", she says quietly.
I stop only inches away from the throbbing life. Hesitating now.
"It was my mother. She would tell me bed time stories when I was a little girl and sometimes she would sing to me. She made the best bisquits in the world and would always believe I had a bright future."
I lean in further but she sets a firm hand on my chest while she goes on speaking in her quiet, level voice - like a child reciting a poem. She is awash with emotion now, conflicting emotions that I cannot grasp through the haze.
"One night there was a strange man in the house - for the first time since father had passed away. She had brought him home even though she would never do that. I was very quiet and tried to catch what they said. He was very gentle to her. Then I heard her sigh and got curious what they were doing. When I peeped through the keyhole he was kissing her right here." She taps her neck right at the place I long for. I start gently pressing against her hand pushing forward.
"They never did anything else. After some time he got up but mum did not. I though she was asleep. Then the man turned around and, you know what, he looked right at me through the keyhole as if he could see me."
I am only an inch away from her. Her scent fills my nostrils making me dizzy.
"I ran to my room and pretended to be asleep. But he came to my room. He was very kind and apologised for scaring me. He said that mum was tired and needed to rest. That I should not worry and everything would be fine. Then he sang me a lullaby that he knew from his childhood long ago. The next morning mum had not woken up. She was still lying there just as I had last seen her. She never woke up again. The man had lied. The doctors later said that there was no blood left in her body. The only marks on her were two cuts right here."
She touches her neck again brushing against my lips. When she turns to face me we are hardly an inch apart. I realise I am staring at her wide-eyed. That song. That's how she knew it though it should have been beyond her years.
"I recognised you right away but you have all but forgotten me, haven't you?" Her voice is dripping bitterness now and an ice cord hatred. Her gaze holds mine in a lock like steel, her lips pressed together into a narrow line.
I can only stare at her. That must have been so many years ago but it all comes crashing back in. I remember singing the lullaby for her on her bedside, extending my aura over her until her scared little features finally relaxed. I had not had the heart to take her, too. If I had known... Again she misinterprets my hesitation.
"Don't you want to finally finish what you started twenty years ago", she screams at me, tears beginning to stream down her face. Her breast heaves with her sobs. Her resisting hand has disappeared from my chest.
"Please finish it and let me find peace at last", she whimpers, "I have suffered and hated enough. All those years turned bitter. Can you not at least do that for me?"
"Forgive me", I whisper.
I drive forward and sink my teeth into her vein. The skin breaks. The familiar iron taste pours forth in a gush of red. At last. There are tears in my eyes now. Forgive me.
Suddenly there is an upward jerk. A thrust. It is immediately followed by a sharp pain in my chest. My heart goes cold. Vision blurs. Letting her go my gaze wanders down - past the red pulsing out of the cuts my teeth have made, past her blouse soiled with fresh, hot colour, along her extended arms toward my chest where her hands are still clenched around a sleek wooden rod, which is now protruding halfway from my chest. Already the stasis is beginning to set in. I can hardly move anymore. I gape at her, eyes wide now in incredulous terror. Even with life draining rapidly from her throat her eyes are set firmly onto mine. "It ends tonight", they seem to say. And suddenly the pain and rising panic seem to subside. She is right. It finally ends. Sometimes what we look for is oblivion but instead we find salvation. In a few hours the sun will climb over the horizon again and its rays will consume me for good. We will be dead at last side by side.
The damned saving the damned.
I have no more sensation when I hit the ground of the alleyway but I believe I manage a smile.
Thank you.
When the distant sun rolls behind the horizon and hides its harsh brilliance it dips the world in gold and crimson, in navy blue and finally leaves only velvet black. Playful lights kindle in countless windows beckoning to passers by. Soon the moon peeks out from its shadowy hiding place pouring out a flood of silver. And at last the sky is carpeted with a miriad sparkling gemstones.
This is also the time when hunger rears its head and utters its greedy snarl. It wakes me from a slumber so deep it ought to last an eternity. It finds me whereever I may hide. It takes hold of me and floods my being with its urge, a bitter taste added to the sweet restful darkness. It sharpens my senses seeming to lend my surroundings an extra edge of focus. It howls persistently until I give in to its call. Thus I rise every night to satisfy the only need that is left in my existence.
I walk into the lamp lit street sliding smoothly into the bustling stream of life I find there. At this early hour the streets are full of life. People walk this way and that but all pushing forward in a general common direction: a river of individual lives that I join as a tributary. The street is an immediate barrage to my senses. The familiar mingles with the unfamiliar in a tantalising whirlpool. There are so many flavours of life that these common strangers miss, details lost to their organs in an overwhelming cacophony. I take them in - a baleful secret whispered into a trusted friend's ear, a desperate glance at a beautiful stranger while trying to conceal the ring, a whiff of exotic spices oddly interfering with the stench of waste in the next alleyway. That is the secret which lies hidden from them all, that there is no beauty that decay has not slyly crept into. It is their bliss and my curse - to be the very essence of this contradiction.
I wander the maze of streets taking in what they have to offer me. An onlooker might call my path aimless. He would not comprehend the pattern I follow. I listen past even the most minute details that my senses perceive. After everything else is shut out what remains is only a regular beat. That is what really calls me out here, what makes me rise time and time again against nature's very will: the pulse of countless things alive all around me. The longer I walk the more it fills every sense as its steady lump-lump drives the water of life. More and more the sound drowns out the buzz of the streets and has me pushing forward toward my salvation.
As I still resist the mounting urge I suddenly hear another sound that captures my attention. It is faint yet it cannot escape my acute ears. It is a voice that cuts through the buzz, a muted female voice singing softly to herself. I takes me a while to pinpoint what sets her song apart from all the noise. Then I realise that it is the very contrast unlying my own nature that attracts me to it. Her voice is small, yet clear carrying the tune effortlessly. The words are ones of love and joy moulded into a set of simple verses - a carefree lullaby popular during my younger days when the hunger did not yet call me forth every night. The way she sings it, however, there is a deep sadness in her voice that any mere mortal might miss but that is not lost on me. It is these kinds of souls that we flock to like moths to flame.
The damned attract the damned, you might say.
I quickly locate her in the throng following the trail laid by her voice. Her melancholy tone drifts through the crowds like whisps of smoke. Instinctively I pick up her trail. She is small with slender shoulders and neck, silky skin and hair that seems to have night woven through it. I would not have required the street lamps to make out these details. Had an act of God snuffed out all but the twinkling stars my mind would have painted no different picture of her. I pass her, move to her other side, a hunter circling his unsuspecting prey. It is not the stars glittering in her eyes. A clear droplet seeps forth and begins an unsteady journey along the sharp ridge of her nose. She quickly brushes it away. From my vantage point close by I admire her beauty. What could cause this profound sadness that even manifests itself through this fair tune.
I have found what I am looking for tonight. Stalking never far from her side I study her. I extend my perception as far as I may peering deeper beyond the shell of flesh. I find a pain there that I cannot explain. Only feelings are open to my perception not thoughts themselves. And I feel a heart that is ready to collapse upon itself constricted by suffering. Alone yet side by side we make our way through the streets to whereever her path is to lead her.
She picks narrow alleys, criss-crosses over boulevards just to disappear in another dimly lit portal. I nearly believe she knows I am on her tail. It appears more as if she seeks out darkness, even invites it in. The more I fathom her the more I realise it has already consumed her. The more I am unsure as to why I follow her. She intrigues me and she has awakened something that at last replaces my appetite for a while: my curiosity. I want to glean more of her, discover what sorrow has her in its claws. I probe her as best I can but our abilities have limitations. Eventually she seems to decide on a direction.
When she finally stops it is outside a watering hole of some repute - mainly for its sleeze, both concerning the establishment itself and its patrons. I follow her inside at a careful distance. As crowds lessen outside they seem to collect in places like this. It is a sinkhole for those that defy sleep. She chooses the bar ordering a drink straight away. The waiter hesitates almost imperceptibly and a look of puzzlement flits across his face. Young women are rarely seen here without male accompaniment - especially ones that appear as pure as this one. I seat myself at one of the last free tables and attempt to get a good view of her. I want to plan my approach. By the time I have managed to order a drink that I will not consume she has already downed her second short glass of amber liquid. A man approaches her as she orders a third. He smiles at her confidently and leans against the bar next to her. I notice in the slight swagger in his walk and vagueness of his mimics that he is also intoxicated. They make conversation. I can see that her heart is not in it. He tries to edge closer brushing his hand against her arm in a clumsy, familiar motion. He laughs at his own joke. She smiles politely. I notice a feeling of emptiness when I look at her. It is that emptiness she seeks to fill. In the streets she did not find her target so she has come here. But this man is not the one she is looking for. His presence is no remedy for the deep void inside her. She rejects him. I see it from her lips that mouth the words, from her entire body. This man makes the vacuum in her mind worse. He is reluctant to leave. In the end pushing off the bar he spits out a few words that find their mark like bullets from a gun. Disappointment hidden behind disdain drips from his mannerisms. In his drunkeness he is even easier to read.
She aches more after he has left. Her shoulders hunch for a while before she heaves a shivering sigh. Now is the time to make my move. She raises a beautiful upturned gaze towards me as I step up to her side.
"I apologise for the species", I say with an apologetic smile. I ask for permission to buy her a drink. It is given though I can see - feel - the resignation in her voice. She has been made this offer much too often already it seems. She cares not whether I sit with her. The emotions I glean from her are intriguing: sorrow, loneliness, indifference toward me - everybody, yet at the core the hint of a hard anger, a purpose even.
I contain my curiosity and converse on some irrelevances. The replies I get are mostly curt but she does respond. Despite the state she is in my aura is having an effect. She quickly downs the drink I bought her as if it is the only thing she can do to endure me. I offer her another. Seemingly drawing some reassurance from the fact that I have not tried to close in on her and obviously am not one of the usual drunks. With the next drink she finally slows down. I can sense a beginning tipsiness from her.
"How come a woman so young and beautiful is drowning herself", I finally venture.
She gives a sad smile. "Who says I am drowning myself", she counters otherwise ignoring the compliment.
I pretend to be considering her question for a moment.
I persist: "Why else would you be here in this place where you would only find cheap drinks and insincere offers? The place is not renowned for its entertainment nor for its customers."
"Maybe I simply like it here", she shoots back at me almost challengingly. "Maybe I am a regular in places like this."
I keep my cool. Now she radiates selfpity. She hates this place with a passion. I pretend to take a sip from my glass then shake my head with conviction. I say: "I do not think so. I believe this is beneath you."
She remains silent at this but takes a large gulp from her glass.
I carefully place my words: "As a matter of fact, a regular to this place, to such establishments, you may be but you certainly do not enjoy them. I can see you suffer having to endure the attention you receive here."
A laugh burst forth from her but sounds more like a sob. "It is not always that bad", she says staring at her glass, gently stirring the liquid in it.
I wait. She is still contemplating her drink. She sighs, then concedes: "These kind of encounters are never entirely pleasant." There is an uncertain pause. "In a way, you might be the first human being I have spoken to in a long time." She meets my gaze for what must be the first time in our conversation.
There is another pang of emptiness in her that I cannot explain. Should she not feel more positive about an encounter she admits to being not altogether uncomfortable? Still, she could not be further from the truth - I have not been human in a long time. I permit myself a smile and another empty sip.
I study her intently while speaking the next words. "What confuses me is why you would torment yourself so. Surely the young and beautiful have no reason to suffer?" I let the words hang in the air.
She gazes off into infinity for a moment, then her eyes sink back into her nearly empty glass. She speaks quietly, hardly audible above the din of the liveliness around us. "What does it matter how old I am or what I look like? I am just a lost low life." The words are accompanied by another burst of what I realise now is bitterness. A bitterness directed at who? Herself? The world at large? I am still confused.
I gently lay my hand on her wrist touching her for the first time. The sensation of her silky skin, the pulsing life beneath it, arouse my hunger again. I struggle with it trying not to let her see. It is not time for this yet. She misinterprets the pause.
"See? Now even you are lost for words."
"Not at all", I reply, "on the contrary I am speechless at your persistence to punish yourself. You are tidy, with clean clothing. Your speech is clear given the circumstances. You have neither the appearance of a bum, a drunk nor any other kind of 'low life' or anything but a respectable woman. You do, however, radiate sadness and desperation. Will you tell me why that is? What do you seek here?"
With a palpable pang of longing, of loss, she smiles to herself. "A respectable woman." She seems to weigh this phrase in her head inspecting it like a dead insect under a microscope. "What could possibly bring her to a place like this?"
I wait.
"Maybe it is what brings all these lost souls here." Her gesture encompasses the entire room and everything in it. "Maybe a lot of these people were once 'respectable' themselves. Now this is their life. Now this is all they have left. Don't you think?"
I make a vague gesture. Nobody can comprehend the fate of the world in its entirety. While there may be common features every man and woman's fate is complex and differs from any other's. I may not speculate as to the motivations of others present here. All I can do it focus my attention on the few, on details right in front of me, on her.
There is turmoil inside her now. I struggle to pay attention to what she replies while peeking behind her mortal facade.
"I assure you all here seek the same thing more or less being here. Some may call it company, others being more honest will call it oblivion, salvation or plainly drinking themselves to death."
The harsh word from her lips strikes a chord. Oblivion. Death. Salvation. Not always in this order. And not always all of them at once.
"You are shocked?" Again she misinterpretes my silence. She cannot know that I have made intimate acquaintance with what she mentions here. I play along.
"I am disturbed that you should intend to end your life. Here of all places at that. And I still fail to understand your reasons."
"Why should you care what makes me do what I do? Are you not here for the same reason? Or are you one of those that prey upon the weak and the vulnerable?"
It takes me some effort to conceal my reaction. Considering the drinks she has had she is still surprisingly sharp. I must not underestimate her. Sometimes injured animals are the most ferrocious.
"You are right: We are no more than strangers. What we have in common is here and now. After tonight I may pass out of your life again and leave no mark in it."
She holds my gaze defiantly now. The sorrow mingled with bitterness gives her will a steel edge.
"You think I have no idea what I talk about. You see this 'respectable woman' and think: 'what could she know'. You are wrong. I been close to those things. I've faced them." There is a silence. I feel her heart constrict. She heaves a sigh and continues: "I wish I could say I had overcome them."
She cannot possibly know what she is saying. She cannot know who - or what - she is talking to. And she cannot know that overcoming death is not oblivion nor salvation.
"Somebody close to you has passed away", I venture, realisation dawning on me. I believe I am reading her correctly now.
She nods looking at her empty glass. Then she shakes her head. I can see her facial muscles flex to remain in control as she continues.
"Not passed away. 'Taken away' would be the better term."
"Murdered", I exclaim.
"You could call it that. Murdered by the decay of man. Murdered by corruption first within and then without."
A clear little droplet seeps out of the corner of her eye. She leaves it to roll down her cheek.
The damned attracting the damned. God knows I have caused my share of suffering - that I am sure to pay for - but suddenly I feel sympathy for this frail creature. To my surprise anger even begins to rise in me, anger at whoever could have hurt her thus.
To her I say: "Is that what makes you seek out the night?"
I can see her regain control, order her thoughts. She exhales all in another sigh.
When she is sure her reply will come out level she answers: "Yes. I would not put it just that way, but yes, sometimes. At night - it is usually worst so I come outside to forget. To think. To just be absorbed." She shoots a sideways glance at me. "You would probably think that strange."
She cannot know that this is every night of my continued existence: the hope to forget.
I shake my head.
"I know exactly what you mean. More than you know, maybe. I would not presume to consider you strange."
"You are kind to say that. If I may ask: what is it that brings you out here 'seeking out the night'?"
My eyes wander around the tables but I do not see them. My gaze is inverted toward the inside. For one moment, one agonising blink of an eye, I almost tell her. The truth, the whole ugly truth that she would not understand, laugh at or slap right back in my face for mocking her. What else should she do after all? Believe the impossible? Believe she has unknowingly invited in her doom?
From her reaction I see that the smooth smile on my face has failed to fully materialise.
"Let us say you are right: I too have endured a loss that I come here to forget. I would tell you but it is still fresh on my mind."
"Does it sometimes make you wonder why we should linger on and suffer? To take a away one life really means destroying two, doesn't it? The difference is only that one may rest in peace while those that abide are ever haunted by their loss."
I nod. The pain in her is resurfacing. But there is something else.
"Sometimes", she continues hesitating, "- somtimes it seems better to share their fate and end the suffering."
The damned inviting the damned. Still, there is this new feeling of injustice.
"Is that not a harsh thing to wish upon yourself? Surely time heals wounds eventually?"
"Still sometimes time fails to have this effect. And memories remain clear and undimmed. Then time is not a healer but a scourge."
She literally spits the last word onto the table. A long silence ensues. Memories sweeping over me, more of them than should be natural. Too many years.
When the silence because like a titanic weight crushing down on us she suddenly looks around. When she speaks her voice is more controlled.
"Will you accompany me for a while? I have had enough of this place."
Now it is me who am lost in thought. I can only nod, pay the bill absently and follow her outside into the cool air of late night. This time the air does little to clear my head. My urge is back with a vengeance, as well. It mingles with my thoughts and the recollections that surge up are guilty ones of grim satisfaction and the iron taste of life's essence washing over my senses.
She begins to walk and I follow blindly. We keep each other silent company. She begins her aimless walking again and I follow her almost as I did earlier - in plain sight now. The memories are merging to become hungry visions of drawing her life's sap. If she as much as pricked her finger now the monster in me would tear her apart.
"I wanted to thank you", she says suddenly and I realise we have stopped. We are the corner of a dark alleyway that seems vaguely familiar as all these places do.
"What for", I manage to mumble.
"For lending me your ear. You may not be a priest and you are a complete stranger but nonetheless this night you heard my confession. Forgive me if I have burdened you with my woes."
With her head tilted back looking slightly up at me she is presenting her jugular to me. I can see it throbbing slightly. I try to shake my head. I must have her. She has noticed me staring at her throat. I no longer wonder if she misinterprets my behaviour.
Suddenly there is a new feeling that cuts through the haze in my head. Is it excitement? Her hand go up to her collar and she carefully opens first one, then two buttons of her blouse exposing more of her silky skin. She gently pulls the opening apart as if to make sure I can see properly.
There is a new note of sultriness in her voice when she purrs: "You look hungry."
She beckons me to follow her into the alleyway. After a few meters she stops in the shadow of the building and leans back against the wall. Still, I need no light to make her out. I step in close to her. What she has said seems to strike a chord but it does not register. Her hand plays with the front of my shirt. I can hardly tear my eyes away from the narrow, tender space between her collar bone and her jaw.
The damned feeding on the damned. Her finger almost self-consciously trails up and down her slender neck.
"You want this, don't you", she whispers.
I put my hand on hers following her movement. What is she talking about? I can feel my teeth sharp as tiny daggers behind my lips. I am just a moment away from utter extasy. My vision is cloudy. Somewhere right in front of me her feelings are in turmoil. I begin to lean in.
"You never asked me who it was that I lost", she says quietly.
I stop only inches away from the throbbing life. Hesitating now.
"It was my mother. She would tell me bed time stories when I was a little girl and sometimes she would sing to me. She made the best bisquits in the world and would always believe I had a bright future."
I lean in further but she sets a firm hand on my chest while she goes on speaking in her quiet, level voice - like a child reciting a poem. She is awash with emotion now, conflicting emotions that I cannot grasp through the haze.
"One night there was a strange man in the house - for the first time since father had passed away. She had brought him home even though she would never do that. I was very quiet and tried to catch what they said. He was very gentle to her. Then I heard her sigh and got curious what they were doing. When I peeped through the keyhole he was kissing her right here." She taps her neck right at the place I long for. I start gently pressing against her hand pushing forward.
"They never did anything else. After some time he got up but mum did not. I though she was asleep. Then the man turned around and, you know what, he looked right at me through the keyhole as if he could see me."
I am only an inch away from her. Her scent fills my nostrils making me dizzy.
"I ran to my room and pretended to be asleep. But he came to my room. He was very kind and apologised for scaring me. He said that mum was tired and needed to rest. That I should not worry and everything would be fine. Then he sang me a lullaby that he knew from his childhood long ago. The next morning mum had not woken up. She was still lying there just as I had last seen her. She never woke up again. The man had lied. The doctors later said that there was no blood left in her body. The only marks on her were two cuts right here."
She touches her neck again brushing against my lips. When she turns to face me we are hardly an inch apart. I realise I am staring at her wide-eyed. That song. That's how she knew it though it should have been beyond her years.
"I recognised you right away but you have all but forgotten me, haven't you?" Her voice is dripping bitterness now and an ice cord hatred. Her gaze holds mine in a lock like steel, her lips pressed together into a narrow line.
I can only stare at her. That must have been so many years ago but it all comes crashing back in. I remember singing the lullaby for her on her bedside, extending my aura over her until her scared little features finally relaxed. I had not had the heart to take her, too. If I had known... Again she misinterprets my hesitation.
"Don't you want to finally finish what you started twenty years ago", she screams at me, tears beginning to stream down her face. Her breast heaves with her sobs. Her resisting hand has disappeared from my chest.
"Please finish it and let me find peace at last", she whimpers, "I have suffered and hated enough. All those years turned bitter. Can you not at least do that for me?"
"Forgive me", I whisper.
I drive forward and sink my teeth into her vein. The skin breaks. The familiar iron taste pours forth in a gush of red. At last. There are tears in my eyes now. Forgive me.
Suddenly there is an upward jerk. A thrust. It is immediately followed by a sharp pain in my chest. My heart goes cold. Vision blurs. Letting her go my gaze wanders down - past the red pulsing out of the cuts my teeth have made, past her blouse soiled with fresh, hot colour, along her extended arms toward my chest where her hands are still clenched around a sleek wooden rod, which is now protruding halfway from my chest. Already the stasis is beginning to set in. I can hardly move anymore. I gape at her, eyes wide now in incredulous terror. Even with life draining rapidly from her throat her eyes are set firmly onto mine. "It ends tonight", they seem to say. And suddenly the pain and rising panic seem to subside. She is right. It finally ends. Sometimes what we look for is oblivion but instead we find salvation. In a few hours the sun will climb over the horizon again and its rays will consume me for good. We will be dead at last side by side.
The damned saving the damned.
I have no more sensation when I hit the ground of the alleyway but I believe I manage a smile.
Thank you.