DD - SpiralDancer - City (A Continuation For Generation X)

City (A Continuation For Generation X)

Miracles occur every day, with not one god in sight.
I have all the gods I need and have no use for any false hope.
Though time escapes me like an ocean of fine, warm sand between my pale fingers. The odd grain gets stuck under a nail like a stubborn irritation and for that irritation, I am grateful.

It's late, again, and christ am I tired.

She paces over the linoleum floor, towards the chair and she sits, her legs aching but some things, well, you just get used to them.
So she sits and waits, elbow placed firmly on the old, scarred table, head placed firmly on her old, scarred hand.
Staring blankly. Watching the past through an out of focus present.

A young smile creeps across her lips and instantly snuffs out any sign of ageing on her narrow face. Pushing back a strand of unkempt dark brown hair from her eyes and pinning it behind her ear, catching the earring she made. A single piece of silver, threaded through all nine of her piercings and then soldered shut.

Because ageing makes you decide. It forces you to make choices you might never make otherwise. And it happens to every one of us, no matter how much you think it won't. Nobody lives forever and even the most loved will be forgotten after a while.

We are human, after all.

She looks up, the kettle boiling with all the ferocity of a scalded cat and still smiling, walks over to the old cooker,turns the gas off and takes the towel with a smiling acid face on it. Someone had painted a bloodstain on the face with a permanent marker some years ago but the effect was good so she never tried to get it off. Some comic book cover someone had said ,when people came to the house. To the parties they had.

She wraps the towel around her hand, lifts the kettle and with her other hand throws a teabag from a blue ceramic jar into a battered old mug, pours in the water and places the kettle on the side.
Standing, she watches the water stain a deep reddy brown. A memory stirs and dies inside of her head. Not quite breaking the surface. Taking a jug of room temperature milk she dumps it into the tea and stirs it with a stained spoon.

So much for the English version of the tea ceremony.

Carrying her drink, she walks over to the small, dusty window and looks out over the City from three floors up. The old house belongs to her and that counts for something these days. All three floors and a basement echoing back the silence within the house like some archaic amplifier.
That background hiss of pressure against your eardrums and the crashing of the warm blood in your head. Laughter and cries used to reverberate around the walls of this house, but now she is the only one left from 'the guys' who used to hang out around the City together. Running in the rain from one bar to another. Crashing parties. Jumping club queues and then crashing back here, head rushing with alcohol, spinning ceilings and unsure footsteps.

After her friend died everything tasted bitter. No matter how often they went out. No matter how much they drank or how many drugs they took. Everything felt numb and dull.

Everybody has memories that no one could even imagine. Some of us carry them to our deaths. Others, myself included need to speak of these things to stay sane.

So one by one they left. The house became more and more silent until the only sound was her breathing. She wasn't like most people who mutter to themselves when alone. She was comfortable with her own company and felt no pressure to speak.

She rubs away some of the dust to focus on a couple of men walking the street behind her house laughing and talking the talk of the partially drunk and slightly stoned. She grins. Thinking back to when she used to get all 'Gothed' up back in the eighties. The shorter of the two looks up. Straight at her as if sensing her gaze. A look of acknowledgement crosses his face to be replaced with a smile.
Smiling back, she takes a drink and watches as he turns around, a look of concern flickering across his face to be replaced by a laugh.

A dog barks. Another replies. She looks out again. It's all she does really. Looking out across the present. Looking into the past. Searching for a path to the future. Watching the City unfold like a cancerous bloom. Feeling it breathe beneath her feet. Sucking in the hopes and joys of the people who live here and exhaling all their fears and hates. Breaking them down piece by piece until she can absorb them back into herself through her blistered skin.

The City looks back at her. Looking into it's future.

She stares.

A dog barks.

And She breathes.

Something for the pain?