The Morning After

It was a perfect summer morning. Bathed in the sun’s gentle pink radiance, he basked in the afterglow of the night before.

He wasn’t walking home; he was strutting home. There was a spring in his step, a song in his heart, and a shit-eating grin across his face. And for the first time in God knows how long – he knew precisely how long, almost to the hour, but was refusing to think of it this morning – he had something ,and someone, beautiful in his life.

The warm air and tentative breeze across his skin echoed what had happened only a few hours ago. He could smell flowers on the air and her perfume on his shirt. He was trying to act casual, as if last night happened to him every day.

Birds burbled liquid song from the roofs above him, as if the dawn chorus was applauding him and his exploits.

He passed a milkman and thought he saw his eyebrows raise a millimetre. He tried to emit “Oh yes, my friend, you and I, we know the score” vibes. Complicated vibes to give off.

He pulled some gum from his pocket. And to think, some people called this the walk of shame! Walk of pride more like.

He was aware of the saying Pride comes before a fall. But he hadn’t noticed the scrap of paper with her number fall from his pocket.

Twenty to Two

Listen to this while reading this. And if you don’t have it,
buy it.

nobody finds the one but keep looking

She looked on as the hot, writhing crowd slowly atomised and paired off, dancers already bathed in one kind of afterglow.

He watched on with a sinking heart as his friends one by one sought out counterparts of the same approximate level of attractiveness as them and made their excuses. Some euphoria. In a room so full of people that their body heat made his skin hot to the touch, in the middle of a city of six million people, he was all by himself.

Where had her friends gone? In a room full of people doing the same thing to the same beat she was moving to a jerky rhythm of her own. She felt lonely. She didn’t want to be alone tonight.

There was that boy again, sipping beer by himself, looking lost and sticking out like a sore thumb. And yet still ... he did stick out. He’d kept turning up all night. He was tall and handsome. And he’d not once sleazed on to her or asked her if it hurt when she fell from heaven.

There was that girl again. Somehow her face cut through the crowd, like hearing a whisper slice through the din. He’d seen her at the bar but she was too cool and too pretty for him to even reasonably countenance standing near her, let alone speaking to her. She was an amazing dancer. He couldn’t dance; but he’d been pulling shapes in his head all night.

Was he looking this way? She could feel herself blush. Great, he’d definitely notice her now, shining away like a stupid red beacon like a stupid fucking loser.

Was she looking this way? No, she couldn’t be. But just in case: act casual, look cool. Great, his stupid gangly limbs wouldn’t obey him. It was like trying to paint a portrait with a yard broom. His dad could dance better than this.

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

She stepped forwards.

The Best of Dark and Bright

Following Josie's request for things written in glitter, here's something about someone dark and sparkly written on something dark and sparkly.



The Best of Dark and Bright

Her dark eyes glittered.

Under the lamp’s velvet glow, points of light sparkled in them like stars.

He watched them dance as she held him with her gaze, feeling as if he were transfixed on the points of a dozen winking blades.

Her eyes pulled him in like black holes. He imagined he could see his own reflection in their dark glass, already trapped inside her.

She had stars in her eyes, diamonds at her ears and silver at her throat, and his heart was in her hands.

Hidden

Alice was excellent at hide and seek.

But even allowing for this, the fact that she had been silently waiting unfound in the cupboard for three hours and counting suggested something was amiss.

An ever-fixed mark

He loved the lines around her eyes.

He thought they made her even more beautiful, a delicate filigree, ringing and radiating out from her eyes like rays from a sun.

But they were also witness to all the experiences, good and bad, that made her the woman she was, the woman he loved. A visible echo of her laugh, an imprint of her easy smile.

He often found himself envious of the people who’d been there when they had been written on her face, sharing times with her that he wished he’d shared before he knew her.

Sitting opposite her as a finished his morning coffee, he looked forward to watching the lines grow, writing their own story there together.

“Will,” she said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

Ear today

Mark frowned at the nose of his car.

There was no escaping it – the small, pink, rumpled, rubbery article folded into the radiator grill was almost certainly someone’s ear. The right one, to be exact.

He scratched his chin.

Now what? Remove it, obviously. But was he meant to wrap it in a bag of frozen peas, in case the owner wanted it back? Or was that just for fingers? Was there some lost property office that he could take it to? Should he put an ad in the paper? Donate it to someone? Just, you know, keep it?

He bent over and peered at his aural stowaway, like some flat, crinkled remora.

How the hell had that got in there in the first place? He felt a spasm of nausea at the thought of the weight of his metal car striking the weight of someone’s boney head wobbling on their skinny neck.

But he was pretty sure he would have noticed that. And there were no signs of any impact on his car. And he was fairly confident that he would have remembered being chased down the road by some livid, ear-sheared unfortunate. Had someone just stuffed it in there, like a crumpled crisp packet?

Still frowning, and without taking his eyes off the car, he edged up the drive and went to get some chopsticks.

Valediction

Perhaps the worst thing about being dead was the complete absence of bereavement counselling for the recently deceased.

He had attended his own funeral, drinking in an unhealthy cocktail of schadenfreude and self satisfaction mixed with longing and regret.

Who knew he was so popular? And who had known that Maila had held a torch for him all these years? Too late now, of course. And he and Ed hadn’t spoken for a decade, but here he was. He’d always assumed they’d drifted irrevocably apart, but his death had pulled tight on the faint threads that joined them. He had so much catching up that he wanted to do with the ugly bastard.

But then he saw his mum. There had been few sights in life, or unlife, worse than the sight of his mother in tears, but now he was helpless to console her, unable to tell her that he would make everything right, incapable of even putting an arm around her. Not that he had when he could.

As she was led away by his brother, a crowd of well-wishers gathered around her like a huddle of black penguins, he was left to haunt the cemetery by himself.

And that was when he realised how alone he now was. They had lost a son, a brother, a friend. He had lost everyone. His entire world was dead. And he had the torture of seeing it carry on in front of him, without him, as untouchable shadows. Everywhere he went, he was to be haunted by the ghosts of the living and the regrets of the past.

Had it had gone too far already?