Chapter Fourteen: Wallow
Time stopped and hovered for days. He had tried to compose, to tinker, to work on anything else, but he found himself draped carelessly over his sofa instead. Staring at his deep, grey ceiling until he could see nothing at all, save fuzzy particles which seemed to merge and separate within his vision. Something inside him had broken and he was far too tired to fix it, content to lay in the same spot for two days while the rest of the world outside his building moved and changed. The sirens, the occasional voice which filtered through his only window reminded him that he was still alive, and he despised them for that.
He attempted to compose, but the music that came spinning from his mind was so ugly, so brutal, to disjointed, it could influence anyone who listened to commit murder-suicide. Each note was placed into the staff paper with his own blood. For three days, he placed himself within a thick cocoon of dangerous, dark music until eventually the music, like his blood, ran dry and he had none left to give.
She came scratching on his window a few days later, in the deadest part of night, pitifully calling for him.
'Please,', she begged, sounding more like a stray feline than a woman 'I'm sorry. Please let me in.'
In the dark he lay, cemented to the fine fabric of his sofa, his eyes clenched tight as he willed her away silently with his thoughts. An agonizing hour passed this way, she was making quite the scene on the sidewalk outside, he was sure. Had this been a residential street it would have concerned the neighbors, but his was the only apartment building on the block, a building kept empty. Her frantic rapping and pleading were too much for him to bear.
She had even apologized for reacting to his face in the manner she had, and that had nearly broken him. It was nearly enough to resurrect him from his prone state and welcome her into his home like one would a hungry vampire. 'Oh do, please, come in. Devour me, oh foul spirit.'
Did she not know the danger she possessed, the great damage she was capable of?
He clenched his fists so tight his joints began to scream in protest as her cries pelted him like stones. This onslaught of inner confliction was more painful than any blade, more scalding than any flame. It felt like the longest stretch of time, pulled out long like taffy until the tension in his heart grew to the point of snapping.
When at last the world fell silent once more, when she had surrendered her sad spectacle outside his small basement window and vacated the block…only then hid he loosen his fists and breathe a sigh of relief.
The relief was short lived, it fluttered through him like a delicate breeze before the sickening sense of grief and dread reappeared and sucked it forcefully from his being like a great vacuum of despair.
That idiot, Daroga came sniffing around eventually. Disrupting his delightful pity party with his obnoxiously sincere concern.
When the Iranian walked through his front door, he did not even have the strength to sit up. How long had he been upon this sofa? A week? Two weeks? He vaguely recalled his brief trips to the kitchen for glasses of tap water, of the occasional trip to the bathroom…but aside from those small changes to his stagnant existence, he could recall nothing to mark the passing of time.
"How did you get in here?", he growled at the sudden intrusion.
"I had a key, remember?", Daroga cautiously replied, holding up a simple keyring with his handsome hand and giving it a slight jiggle to illustrate his point.
"I don't want you here. Go away."
"I've been calling and texting for two weeks, Erik. What is this?", Daroga waved a hand to the open containers of food that had remained upon his coffee table since the night Christine had eaten from them. Their contents were covered in a fine, fuzzy green and black mold, the odor emanating from them was ghastly.
"French take out, would you like some?", Erik replied sardonically, waving a limp hand in the direction of the containers from where he lay like a sick man.
"It smells like death in here, Erik. When is the last time you bathed?", Daroga's beautiful face scowled, his dark eyebrows drawing together to form one. It almost made him look comical.
"I do not recall, I have been very busy.", he dismissed lazily.
"Wallowing in something, I see. Are you using again?", the suspicion was ripe in Daroga's question.
"No...but I may as well have been. She was an addiction and I had to quit.", he replied with a dreamlike voice, he could practically hear his own words drifting away like balloons as they slipped from his lips. "She could not accept me truly, she said she could but...no." His eyes, lost and dull, continued to stare at nothing, like looking into a great emotionless void. "What I felt for her was poisonous and I could no longer watch her suffer…"
"Who are you talking about? Is this about the woman you took to Antoinette's? She told me you had been with a woman in distress…"
"You do not understand, Daroga. I have never wanted something so completely. My heart is corrupted now." If he had been better hydrated, he may have shed a tear just then. He felt the corners of his eyes sting with the need.
Daroga shook his head and walked over to the grand piano, its surface cluttered with a handful of fresh compositions, music he had created in the first few days after her departure.
"You've been writing music again?", Daroga pointed to the chaotic scribblings. Picking up a particularly messy page of script he gave it a quick glance and gasped. "God, Erik, is this your blood?"
"It is the only appropriate way to write music that burns as that does. Pray you never hear the notes on that page, Daroga.", Erik replied vacantly as he continued to stare up at the empty, grey ceiling.
"You look thinner, I didn't even know that was possible…when is the last time you ate something?", Daroga sighed while shaking his head. He walked towards the kitchen and Erik recalled the door to Christine's room was left open. Daroga's presence so near a space that would have been hers felt like a great invasion.
"This room…You've been working on it?", Daroga said from a distance as he looked into the vastly unfinished bedroom.
"STAY OUT OF THERE!", Erik spat out in a rage that defied the depleted energy reserves he had.
Daroga stormed out of the kitchen area with his hands in the air, a gesture of exasperation. "Have you lost your mind? Please tell me what has happened to you!", he demanded.
"The worst possible thing, Daroga. Now go.", Erik limply replied. "I do so appreciate your uninvited visit, but I believe I have things to do."
His partner sighed, running his fingers through the thick locks of his coarse black hair. "Very well, lay around like a sad dog all day for all I care. Let yourself starve to death and waste away like some tragic, Victorian figure.", he moved towards the door and stopped, looking over his shoulder. Erik's gaze met his in an act of defiance. "I have a job for you when you're ready."
The idea of murder sounded far more enticing than what he had been engaged in over the past couple of weeks. Perhaps he would feel better if he did a job.
Erik swallowed and pushed himself up into a sitting position, his bones and muscles ached from the days of inactivity.
"Tell me the details."
Thanks so much for those of you who left me a comment to tell me your thoughts!
It means so much for writers to hear how their stories affect their readers.
