by Mark Ulyseas
From The Seductive Avatars of Maya – Anthology of Dystopian Lives – book available HERE
It is 9 pm on a Wednesday night. The roaches are figure skating on Joe’s kitchen floor. His brown bunny, Maria the wife is away. Another fight. She walked into a door. A black eye and a few teeth missing.
“Tonight whatever you drink is being paid for by your friend”, says Joe and puts down a reservoir glass of absinthe.
She lifts the glass and gulps down most of it. Senses collide and ricochet off the walls while Cliff Richard moans the young ones. The place is filling up.
Must keep a chair for her friend.
Joe brings a decanter of absinthe with a plate of slices of roast beef and side portion of salad.
She fills her glass, lifts it then puts it down. I shall wait. Wait for the man to come. He will show me the way out of this life. Away from the raucous sounds of humanity in its death throes.
Shirley is resting in the tower of silence where the Parsis keep their dead, left naked for the vultures to devour. The view is breath taking. Lying open to the elements requires faith. “But do I have faith? In the past I did. But faith went away and got married to a man and had babies”, she thinks.
Just then he walks in. Looks around, sees her and strolls to the table, smiling. She gets up and hugs him. He smells fresh with all-encompassing aroma of Aqua Velva and she of Lakme talcum powder.
“Did Joe look after you?” he asks
“Yes. Do you like my frock?” she ask hesitantly.
“Stand back…turn…yes…readymade?”
“No, Dorothy stitched it for me.” Dorothy is her aunt.
Her white frock is sleeveless, low neckline, gathers around the waist and flowing out below like a flower in bloom.
“Why did you call me?” she asks.
“I need you tonight. I don’t want to be alone. Ghosts always come a-calling when it is the night of the no moon.”
Joe brings another glass and they both get down to sipping their absinthe and holding hands. An aging writer and a young lady high on hormones and a wish to be loved without having to be paid for it, just this once.
The room turns a luscious green.
Mick is screaming sympathy to the devil as he leans over and kisses her on the corner on the mouth. Shirley touches his face and traces her fingers along his nose. She wants him even more. She doesn’t care if he is a hundred years old. They are kindred souls lost in the labyrinth of a world marooned between heaven and earth where souls roam free without the fear of god or the devil.
And when the music turns to the stairway to heaven they get up…he pays the bill while Joe’s grins lasciviously.
At his place they undress in silence and then lie skin to skin. And as darkness envelopes the room he puts his arms around her and places his finger on her lips to stop her from speaking.
This is the tower of silence…
Where Shirley will find momentary peace and her writer friend, a refuge from the demons on the prowl on this moonless night.
© Mark Ulyseas
October 15, 2014
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