Writer's note:
It's been a while since I've caused anyone a hernia with my bad writing, so here yar.
Love, Cat.
And you said, it was like fire around the brim
Burning solid, burning thin the burning rim
Like stars burning holes right through the dark
Flicking fire like saltwater into my eyes
You were one inch from the edge of this bed
I dragged you back a sleepyhead, sleepyhead
-Passion Pit
Lightheaded and weary, Paula stood on the small balcony. It was submerged in the late night fog, and she could make out nothing but blurry streetlights peppering the distance. All the little noises were amplified tenfold to her ears. She didn't know what time it was.
She blinked and blinked and everything remained drunk and hazy. She shivered in her nightshirt. It was too late and cold to be out on a balcony.
But she wasn't going back in, no sir. If her was repulsed by her presence, she wouldn't go near him ever again. He could take his chances with Murdoc Niccals for all she cared. No, sir. Not at all, sir.
The phrase repeated itself in her head for another minute, until it didn't make sense any more. She stuck her bare feet between the bars of the railing and leaned over it, staring down into the abyss below. Absolutely nothing. The fog was thicker than congealed lentil soup. The abrupt endlessness reminded her of some story she had probably read when she was small, one of those raunchy Greek myths with lots of dicks in them. There was a bottomless pit in Greek hell. What was it called? Tortellus. No, it was something like mayonnaise. Tartar sauce.
"Tartarus." She mouthed it out.
So intoxicated she was with the infinity of her view, she wondered, if she threw herself off the railing, would she ever land? At that time and place, a bottomless pit beneath her balcony seemed very plausible to her.
Like usual, her stomach felt sick. She lurched. Her belly twisted and howled inside her and she whimpered and felt the cold eat away at her body. Like everything else in her life. Like him and like her anger and her employer and any sense of creativity in her that hadn't been murdered yet, it consumed her, inside and out.
The cramp subsided as suddenly as it appeared. She felt curiously calm in the silence, which was curious in itself. Everything was still a blur. Everything seemed so lonely. She felt like crying and she felt stupid because she felt like crying. By the flickering light of the fluorescent lamp above her head, the veins in her pale limbs seemed blue and prominent. It looked so sick. She felt like a pulsing, gross meat monster.
She didn't feel real, and the night felt unreal. She was falling out of reality.
She heard the screen door slide open behind her.
"Paula?"
She didn't turn to face Stuart. She just kept staring into the nothing.
"Paula, come to bed. It's so cold out here."
She didn't know it, but her eyes were swollen and raw.
He pulled up beside her, a blanket in his arms. He took one of her hands.
"Jesusfuck, you're freezing. You're gonna get sick if you stay out any longer."
She refused to look at him.
"I'm really sorry, you know." He said, giving both her hands a fierce rubdown. "Paula? I'm sorry. It was really daft of me to say that to you."
"You know I'm thick as hell. But please don't hold it against me if you're just gonna give yourself pneumonia."
He wrapped the blanket over her shoulders, and she didn't stop him from embracing her.
"Come back to bed, Polly."
She felt a weird shudder in her ribs, and it had nothing to do with the cold. His arms were warm and thin around her, his frail chest beating against her ear. She let out a sigh, and she let him lead her back to bed.
She slept soundly, with her arms around his shoulders. She dreamt that she fell from her balcony into the fog, and he fell beside her.
They just kept falling, together.