The Sun Sets in the West
He lived in the hayloft and slept on bitter white stains, clutching the leather-bound notebook close to his breast. Life there became impulsive, a double-edged sword – it was the only thing comforting and familiar to him anymore.
There he'd lay and stare up at the splinters in the wood on the ceiling and twiddle with hay in his fingertips, feel how smooth the shaft of it was until he'd prick his finger on the end of it. Sometimes he'd hastily replace it with a pencil as to scribble some kind of stream-of-consciousness into that notebook, but he would do almost nothing more.
He could hear the murmur of his father and mother when they'd go walking on the path behind the barn, the muffled cries of Martha as she curled up after a long night, the echo of a pointer stick against a school uniform like a switch against a pale blue dress...
It was too soon, too soon. Too soon to think about that.
He let his curls grow past his eyes and he'd peer through these willows, letting rain drip off the ends, trying to forget, to forget. If he'd ever wander out of this self-imprisonment it would be to fetch some food from Ilse's crowd. She welcomed him with a mysterious smile and a paintbrush dripping with red paint, but he'd come for the food and nothing else. Not even when Ilse would stretch out her ghostwhite hand and give that worried, mysterious smile.
A few girls in the town spotted his tangled brown locks and a whisper wove its way into the mouths of the others. "Melchoir Gabor. Melchoir Gabor. He has returned." But when his parents caught wind of this they'd reply, "Why, don't be silly! Dear Melchi is off at a reformatory school!" Yet their expressions were the same as when they glanced upon the school's letters that failed to report his whereabouts.
Fitfully he'd sleep, tossing and turning in the hay as images of guns and knee-high stockings flashed before him – the look of fear, wonder, curiosity, pleasure on a young girl's face, a blur of unkempt hair with scared, awe-struck wide eyes... He'd laugh with Moritz and then dive into Wendla, catch the few moments of paradise in the palm of his hand...only to find a new stain on the empty floor when he abruptly awoke.
He'd wash in the river under the bridge and lean against the cool, smooth stones until they welded into his skin, and they'd fall like an avalanche as he'd burst to the surface, gasping for breath, his lips a pale blue. He never left the river feeling clean. He was an atheist, after all.
Peering into the water, he caught his reflection, letting the gentle current ripple through his only mirror – an apparition. His now-tattered clothes, draped over the bridge railing, lay drying and dripping, the drops falling into the water like tears. He squatted there, watching, wondering if it was even there. He rose, still looking down, examining his vague naked body still shining with a gentle gloss of riverwater.
"Melchoir Gabor," called Ilse as she gazed at him from behind a tree trunk.
He flinched as he turned around in haste, collapsing to the ground in an attempt to cover himself. "Ilse... What are you doing here?"
Ilse revealed herself in her dark green dress and floated over to him, stooping down and letting that ghostwhite hand reach out to touch his cheek. He didn't look at her, but when he felt her cold skin touch his, he lashed out, smacking it away. She didn't respond; she only stared at him, watching his uncried tears weld up in his eyes.
"So pretty..." she whispered. "Melchoir Gabor. You've become so pretty."
"Shut up..." he managed to grumble through tense, clenched teeth.
"Let me paint you, please," she began to coo. "A bit of red for your cheeks, your eyes-"
"I said shut up!" he snapped, pulling his legs close and tying his arms around them like a ribbon around wrapping paper.
"Melchior Gabor," Ilse said again. "So pretty."
He would not look as she peeled off her green covering and let her long brown hair flow in front of her breasts. She took him by the hand and slowly brought it there, but he pulled back hard and cried, "Too soon, too soon." Too much like before...
Ilse paused for a moment, watching him. She guided her hand to his hair and stroked it gently, letting her fingers savor each and every curl. Gingerly, she slowly brought him to her bare chest and rustled his head between her full breasts.
"Too soon, too soon," he kept muttering.
"It will always be too soon if you make it that way, Melchi. If one year is still too soon, and one year it has been, then when will it not be?"
Ilse's heartbeat was different. Instead of the pulsations being rapid, excited, yet unsure, they were slower and steady, like drumbeats. Soft, gentle drumbeats. A calming kind of metronome.
He let her untie the ribbon and tear away the wrapping paper and felt his own body pulsate with the rhythm of her encouraging strokes. He fell backwards onto the grass, mouth half-open, a blinding white searing his blurred vision. Mounting, mounting, he bucked his hips upwards as he lay there passively, and he felt a kind of exhilaration come over him, heard the whisper yesyesyes linger in his ears. He let out a high-pitched gasp as he felt himself reach higher and higher and then...
She let go. He opened his eyes and saw her ghostwhite skin and a redpainted smile.
"Moritz didn't want to give life another chance. He wouldn't come with me. But you, Melchior... You can live life. It is possible to love again."
She slipped back into her green sheath and then away with the Blue Wind.
He watched her for a moment before reaching down between his legs and finishing it, grunting as he spilled himself into the river. He sighed as he opened his eyes and watched the clear, phantasmal whiteness head westward downstream, watching it, until it drifted away out of sight.
He stayed there awhile until he got up, put back on his clothes, and walked until he reached his parents front door and knocked.