Extremely Short Story
This (extremely) short story was originally written as part of my creative writing portfolio when applying to study English Literature and Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, which I luckily received a conditional offer for earlier this month. After months of patient torment.
The woman opposite watches me with an intensity I've never seen before, her unreadable features curving upwards in a way that's neither approving nor sour. The man beside her remains silent, the black cat mewing softly in his ear before settling on his shoulder in a miraculous move, pawing slightly at his bow tie. Neither acknowledge the cat, the woman simply rises from the sofa, makes the blood in my veins clot like curdled milk and I feel yellow all over until she settles in front of me, turns my palms over with her own and studies them with her neither approving nor sour face.
The bracelet jangles against her wrist softly and I feel the cool metal slide against my feverish skin; already I can feel a relief dislodging the ache in my chest. Maybe it’s true. Maybe there’s hope.
“AIDS,” I tell her.
She hums, thumb pressing against the rash. Everything about her is non-committal, even the furniture of her own apartment, even her husband. They are dull, they don’t speak often, and even when they make the slightest noise I’ve noticed that it’s always in a dry, indifferent tone. As though they’ve seen everything this life can offer a thousand times or more, and while my time is running out, theirs ceaselessly continues to unfurl before them. I envy them somehow, even if they’re simply amorphous paper cut-outs from a newspaper, living a black and white reality.
“They blame you?”
Her voice, disinterested and plain, is surprising in the tangible silence.
“My parents? Yes, yes they do.”
“So you came to me,” she says slowly, dropping my hand. “You came to us.”
“My boyfriend’s mother told me that you – well, you know your own reputation.”
The woman moves back to sit opposite me, and I can’t help wondering how such an inscrutable person can be so wonderfully interesting, even as my own mind fills in the blanks.
“Yes,” the woman says, dragging my eyes away from the cat. “I know my reputation.”
“And is it true?” I blurt out. “Can you fix this?”
Her lips twist into disdain and my heart falters. It’s agonising, feeling the heavy press of time against my shoulders like Atlas did the Earth, while she moves slowly, plucks an apple from the bowl beside her and stares at me with no emotion in her eyes. I’ve read somewhere before that time passes at different rates, scientists with huge blackboards have constructed theories and equations to suit their beliefs, studying velocity and distance and height. If they’re right, if it does pass at different rates, then my time is passing double the speed that it once did while she lags somewhere behind me aimlessly. I’m struggling to find my way through the maze of time while it simultaneously dilates and contracts, completely out of my control as it slips through the cracks between my fingers with all the fine texture of sand, coalescing what feels like too much time and not enough.
Time may be a human construction, but we will never rule it.
And I wonder what it must be like to live a normal life with a normal husband and a plain cat in a dull, crumbling apartment in London, watching from the windows as I focus on the next faint beat of my uncertain heart.
“Well, Mr Smith,” she says with the first amused lilt to her voice that I’ve heard so far. “Let’s see what I can do.”
The woman opposite watches me with an intensity I've never seen before, her unreadable features curving upwards in a way that's neither approving nor sour. The man beside her remains silent, the black cat mewing softly in his ear before settling on his shoulder in a miraculous move, pawing slightly at his bow tie. Neither acknowledge the cat, the woman simply rises from the sofa, makes the blood in my veins clot like curdled milk and I feel yellow all over until she settles in front of me, turns my palms over with her own and studies them with her neither approving nor sour face.
The bracelet jangles against her wrist softly and I feel the cool metal slide against my feverish skin; already I can feel a relief dislodging the ache in my chest. Maybe it’s true. Maybe there’s hope.
“AIDS,” I tell her.
She hums, thumb pressing against the rash. Everything about her is non-committal, even the furniture of her own apartment, even her husband. They are dull, they don’t speak often, and even when they make the slightest noise I’ve noticed that it’s always in a dry, indifferent tone. As though they’ve seen everything this life can offer a thousand times or more, and while my time is running out, theirs ceaselessly continues to unfurl before them. I envy them somehow, even if they’re simply amorphous paper cut-outs from a newspaper, living a black and white reality.
“They blame you?”
Her voice, disinterested and plain, is surprising in the tangible silence.
“My parents? Yes, yes they do.”
“So you came to me,” she says slowly, dropping my hand. “You came to us.”
“My boyfriend’s mother told me that you – well, you know your own reputation.”
The woman moves back to sit opposite me, and I can’t help wondering how such an inscrutable person can be so wonderfully interesting, even as my own mind fills in the blanks.
“Yes,” the woman says, dragging my eyes away from the cat. “I know my reputation.”
“And is it true?” I blurt out. “Can you fix this?”
Her lips twist into disdain and my heart falters. It’s agonising, feeling the heavy press of time against my shoulders like Atlas did the Earth, while she moves slowly, plucks an apple from the bowl beside her and stares at me with no emotion in her eyes. I’ve read somewhere before that time passes at different rates, scientists with huge blackboards have constructed theories and equations to suit their beliefs, studying velocity and distance and height. If they’re right, if it does pass at different rates, then my time is passing double the speed that it once did while she lags somewhere behind me aimlessly. I’m struggling to find my way through the maze of time while it simultaneously dilates and contracts, completely out of my control as it slips through the cracks between my fingers with all the fine texture of sand, coalescing what feels like too much time and not enough.
Time may be a human construction, but we will never rule it.
And I wonder what it must be like to live a normal life with a normal husband and a plain cat in a dull, crumbling apartment in London, watching from the windows as I focus on the next faint beat of my uncertain heart.
“Well, Mr Smith,” she says with the first amused lilt to her voice that I’ve heard so far. “Let’s see what I can do.”
