Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week #19

I Will Write No More

Prague, 22 September 1994

Dear silent friend,

once again I will force you to bear the tremulous handwriting of this pathetic old man.

Time has yellowed my fingers and your pages in equal measure. But I know you will not complain in finding yourself soiled by my memories once again, after such a long time, after the hiatus of decades of life, spent far away from the ancient leather of your cover. And I hope it did not bother you to try the tickling of my pen again. Not more than three spots of water and ten sheets before this, you still were curiously waiting for the hand of a fourteen-year-old, full of dreams and watercolours.

As I write, the mist rises from Moldova and lingers among the ancient gothic spires, guardians of forgotten secrets, while a pale September sun, as a master of alchemy, transmutes in gold water and heavens.

There is this little kestrel who, for a few days, has been picking on the attic's glass at dusk, while I perform my little preparatory rituals before everything happens like every night. The graceful winged evening’s maid urges me to once again cast my gaze on the hundred towers city, but these eyes will no longer be able to patiently stand on the surface of the mystery.

"I discovered a terrible law that links the green colour, the fifth chord and the heat. I lost the joy of living. Power scares me. I will write no more”. Such were your feelings, Gustavo and I still remember your trembling voice when you confided in me, the last time we met, before the great war swallowed everything and everyone, forcing us to interrupt our occultic studies. Only now that the layers of reality have finally crumbled before my eyes, like a sedimentary stone on the sides of a primordial river, I can grasp the true meaning of your words. The anxious joy of discovery, mixed with the ancestral vertigo of sidereal abysses, has overwhelmed me and continues to overwhelm me every night I leave.

And, just as in the layers of rock are the remains of creatures lost in time, even these levels of reality are not devoid of surprises .. and encounters. By now, I'm sure they saw me, but I cannot help but go back. Of all, I know that the faceless child already waits for me, every time closer, just beyond the threshold. He craves my warmth, my vibration and, this time, I do not know if I will manage to continue playing the game of deceiving him, while I persevere to the end. Certainly, I cannot draw back right now that my human life ends and, at the same time, I’m experimenting one, a hundred, a thousand lives.

Forgive me, dear diary, for having forced you to bear my poor ravings again. Perhaps, we’ll never meet again. The kestrel flew towards the old city. It's time to leave.

My Entry:

As he closed the notebook, the weight of the cover pushed the air raising dust. He coughed, and then took a drink of some rotting wine to sooth his throat.

The only light in the room poured in from large smoke stained windows. Ancient city views all around. He couldn’t remember moving here. He had always just lived in this place. Like waking up with a hangover after a big party the night before that had changed his life or something.

He exhaled smoke into the shadows of antiques sitting on shelves, rugs and wood floors, stone walls, a tapestry of a foreign war before guns.

He inhaled smoke into his lungs, the action lifting him from his chair that creaked with the effort of movement. He walked to a large window looking toward the East and Moldova. Annushka lived there. He still loved her thinking of the mist from the gray gothic city as the steam from her warmth on a snowy train platform; her blonde hair curling over the fur coat with eyes like melting ice. On that day he decided to marry her in order to keep her at his side forever.

He continued to smoke his cigarette letting these thoughts engulf his mind. One thought from many different lives.

He turned around. And began to pace to the other side of the room along the Persian rug. Once again, only the stained sunlight lit the room in the shape of the windows, like a Dali painting. The light, square boxes that extended to the wall or the floor cutting shapes in the furniture, the contrast made the shadows empty voids.

He passed his writing desk wondering where this story would lead him. He had wanted to find inspiration in this penthouse. The kestrel helped. That bird hid a metaphor. Only for what or for whom in the story he still had not decided. He would need to finish it first and hash it all out in the editing process.

He took another drag from the cigarette.

He passed the fireplace still clean from the summer of disservice. Wood stacked for a change in temperature. Global warming, or what Americans called an “Indian Summer?” Still warm for September. He liked that he wrote the story to go along with the current date in which he lived, only the year didn’t match.

He continued to the window looking toward the West and Amsterdam. The cigarette half smoked, he knocked off some ash in the ashtray, most of the ash already on the floor somewhere.

Amsterdam, that’s where he’d lost Annushka in a drug filled haze of a disco-tech. They’d each gone somewhere else with different people. They’re paths not meant to cross again. If only they’d been simple village people instead of world travelers.

Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson

Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson
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