Tumult

Here's another one of them. A lot of these sick murky melodramatic *sswipe stories have been spewed forth recently. Ugh.

Tumult
By Michael Martin

The laptop screen’s glow etches him in blue against the darkness. Once in a while, everything is in plain sight, as lightning snakes across the night sky. The room is awash with light for an instant; a Polaroid snapshot from God. Sound effects of thunderclaps on cue, courtesy of the Big Cheese as well.

Andy is lost in thought, staring but unseeing, peering at the crevices in his mind. The WordPad is empty, save for the flickering cursor, eternally patient for the birthing process to begin. It will not today, for the muse has taken leave and left the writer to his devices.
Finally tired of staring at the screen, Andy folds the laptop and stares at the window and the endless night. Immersed in the sights and sounds of the violent evening – and he is roused by the cigarette ember in his fingers.

"Shit!" As he jumps to his feet, wringing his hands, the cigarette butt falls to the floor and he crushes it underfoot. He looks at it intently afterward and decides not pick it up. Dressed in boxers and undershirts he trudges downstairs and goes out the back door into the stormy evening.

The rain is a welcome respite. He sits in the backyard, head bowed and unmoving; the slow rise and fall of his shoulders are the only sign of life. If you knew him, it’s the sign of the tumult inside the man. He’s talking to himself again.

He starts to murmur. To whisper. The freight train inside him begins to gather steam, gain momentum and he lets it build. Until it is audible: his pain, his hurt, and his vehemence. He lets it rip, imploding on himself.

"And I chanced upon you in my mind again. Time does fly doesn't it? There were fleeting hand waves as you passed by. It seemed to be pretty much the way this was going to be. You in a different league and going past at breakneck speed. I am resigned and reconciled. More than an acquaintance, less than a friend."

His alter ego is standing with his arms crossed, shaking his head and smiling at him condescendingly.

"How long are we going to stay in the rain sissy boy?"

"Shut the f*ck up will you? I didn’t ask for your opinion."

"Well excuse me, Mr. I know where I am headed! I’m not the loon sitting outside getting soaked moaning about how unfair life is. Why don’t you just nail some woman and get it done with?"

"Contemplating while washing the dishes. That's the life, I say to myself. I have neither the luxury nor good luck to have had it otherwise. Ugly and unbalanced to boot. There are a lot of things I ought to be thankful for I remind myself, my eccentricities are nothing compared to the plight of who we consider to be less fortunate. At least I still have time to muse."

"Yeah, yeah. Blah blah, sob and all that rot. Will you quit being a pussy? You’re about to make me puke you know."

" It's in these terms: anyone who would have you in their life need not look for much other than that, except maybe for air and water. Then again, what do I know I am little league. I think of it in terms of like being the emperor of the universe or some grandiose event. But therein lies the gist of all this meandering. The inevitable question will be, can we ever find an adequate ratio? To be colloquial, "rock mine as I rock yours?" Darn impossible right?

If we do get it does it mean we settle for someone else? To be the center of one's existence and then revolve around another's? To choose because you are loved but know deep inside you are head over heels for someone else. History and literature is replete with it. All of them end in tragedy. A warning that the world will not stand for it. Is there no workaround? Can it not be two souls revolving around each other?"

He stands up and glares maliciously at himself, picks up the umbrella near the back door. He proceeds to the empty flowerbed, opens the umbrella and hunkers down groping for a nearby stick. He writes furiously, and droplets are caught in between his furrowed brows.

"Oh writing! I see you still haven’t given up that sissy dream of yours eh? How quaint!"

His hands grasp the muddy soil, as if purchasing for balance and lets out an anguished scream, body wracked with sobs. After an eternity of silence, with nothing but the deafening pitter-patter of the rain around him, he folds the umbrella and walks back to the house. Inexorably being erased by the elements, the words he wrote barely legible in moments:

"We live and we love. Once in our lives we love enough to override everything and it is the stick by which all subsequent loves are measured. You will move on and fall again, but never recapture it. You will tell yourself it's over and love fully. Yet once in a while you are reminded of the lie you told yourself to believe in order to continue. There the person remains. Her smile, her hands, her face, the tilt of her head when she looks at you, there she stands, in the sunshine and in the rain. In your heart until your last breath."

---end---