Libre Magazine

It all happened in the dark.

Moon was sleeping behind the clouds and the stars were on a leave that night. A solitary breeze was strolling through the lonesome streets. It was half past twelve when Elisa got on the bus. She was late; very late. At the last minute, her manager showed up with a pile of work; a project proposal that was to be submitted the very next day. She had to sit late.

“I might get a raise if I pull this all right”, she fed herself with a hope and got back to work. By the time she completed that proposal, the sun had gone home. She looked out the window; a thousand stars were vividly ornamented in the casement of the modern pyramids of the downtown. “May be they need a raise too”, she murmured and then picked up her bag to leave office.

When she reached the bus stop, the last bus she used to take, had left. So she had to take another one that dropped her a block away from her apartment building. She got off the bus and started walking with the soundless breeze. It wasn’t as quiet as she could hear. A faint__ to a certain extent, oppressed___ whistle of the breeze, the sound of her shoes hitting the pavement, a can dancing its way across the street and a car passing by on a distant road; she had some company.

She turned into a street which was lit by an old, pale street-light. The street was too long for that pale light to have veiled it completely. More she walked towards the other end of the street; more the darkness swallowed her shadow. She had reached half way down when she heard a footstep that wasn’t hers.

Without stopping, she looked back but couldn’t see any feet making that sound. She made her feet race each other a little faster. After a few yards she turned right into another street. The moment she turned, a shadow wavered in front of her eyes and a rough-edged hand was posted firmly on her nose and lips. A very thin space between those rugged fingers showed the way out to her torn breath. A loud scream started off from her lungs, into her throat and then went straight into her head instead of coming out of her mouth. Her brain reverberated with that scream and she felt as it would burst into pieces.

She clutched that arm to remove it from her face but it was cemented there. His other arm was searching through her skirt. With very little exit space for her swollen breath, she was losing sight. The light in the street was withering away when a sparkling reflection of street-light flickered in her eyes. She didn’t realize it was a knife until she felt it on the pumping veins of her neck.

Holding his arm with her right hand, she tried to take her bag off of her shoulder. Her intentions tried to bargain with that solid shadow, trying to offer him the money earned during the week, to save the self respect earned during life time. This offer was refused with a wild swing of his left arm that threw the bag away.

Knowing what to expect, she started scratching those pieces of darkness from his body only to find an evil skin underneath. His hands started displacing her clothes and then pushed her down on the pavement. Stuck between two solid rocks, she fluttered as much as the strength of her flesh allowed her.

Having her clothes torn apart, she then felt that gleaming and colorful fabric of her soul being ripped off. Another scream started off from her lungs, through her throat and came out of her eyes in tears. Her eyes were spreading those warm, salty cries but there was no one listening. That stinking breath kept falling on her face and stirring silence into her already fading screams.

For a few moments, that she didn’t want to count, that she didn’t want to remember, her body was invaded with cruelty and lust. And then she was left there; soundless and motionless. She looked at that silent, non-existing world around her through that red glass in her eyes and saw that ugly shadow starting to disappear in the dark.

Her head fell on to her left and there she saw another shadow; standing still in utter silence. There was something so easy and calm in the posture of that shadow that she knew whoever that was, had been standing there since the beginning; watching. She closed her eyes but that horror started rolling in them like a film. She opened her eyes, stood up, gathering her broken pieces into one broken piece and started walking.

Reaching at the end of the street, turning into another, she looked back. That silent shadow was still there. While her eyes were moving away from him and turning into the other street, she saw that shadow move and disappear.

All shadows disappear in the dark.

Ethan had lived in this neighborhood all his life. It was a calm and quiet place in general but in the night, bizarre things would happen once in a while. He had always heard of those weird things but had actually never seen them. That night, for some reasons, sleep kept avoiding him. Tired of fighting the night, he went out to get face to face with it.

He was wandering in an eternally ill street when he saw a tall shadow standing at a cursed corner. Ethan knew there was something to happen; something that he had always only heard of. While he was standing there watching that shadow, he saw a young girl appearing from the curve. It was a prolonged moment of utmost heat in his brain veins when he saw that shadow move quickly and wrapping his arms around that girl. The girl tried as much as she could but that guy was too big and too strong. Ethan never expected this to happen. He didn’t know what to do. He just stood there, struck in that dreadful occurrence of the unexpected.

While that shadow had finished spreading its darkness on her, it left. Ethan watched him go and then looked at her. She was looking towards him; at him. His feet froze in the melting sand of time and he couldn’t move. He could feel her complaining, “Why didn’t you do anything?” Ethan had no answer. He just stood there wrapped in fear and shame. She walked away and then turned into another street. Ethan went back home.

Some moments never leave you alone.

Elisa entered her apartment and fell on her bed as if she was throwing herself into the abyss of forgetfulness. But it wasn’t so. She couldn’t sleep. It was too painful a night to have carried anything with it as consoling as sleep. She didn’t want to think of what happened while there was nothing else she could possibly think of. All night long, she kept thinking of nothing.

For all the twenty four years of her life, she kept herself intact in a land far away in her head. She stayed away from all the waywardness the unscrupulous colors of life had to offer. She completed her business studies and moved to the Big Apple to become the master of her destiny. She found a decent job and was busy making herself worth the life she was given.

Love did breeze through her heart once when she was in college. But it didn’t sail smooth since her boyfriend was more interested in short and sharp fists of passion than in long lived emotions. She would only give herself to a person who would sail through the troubled waters of life with her. That breeze of loving whispers turned into a sandstorm of arguments and she had to leave it behind her.

She was lying on the bed face down and all the fallen days were swirling through her head. She wanted everything to be perfect. A good job, a house, true love, family and satisfaction of living her life to the full. But it all looked so bleak now because of an ill-defined shadow in a dark street __ that wasn’t even on her way home. Someone took that first time away from her; pealed it off of her body, piece by piece; dream by dream. It all seemed over. Night was spreading across her eyes and sleep was stepping down from her eyelids.

Next morning, she called up at the office and asked for a leave for next two days. Given the work she had finished successfully the night before, she was granted leave. Now she had a long weekend to scratch that painful memory off from her heart and to fight back through her life.

Life was fighting back.

Ethan opened his eyes and felt a moment fallen from time, stuck in his sight. He could still feel those eyes hitting him on his chest. A bitter taste of yesterday was pasted on his tongue. He felt terrible. He stood up and got ready to go to work. He knew it was going to be a slow sunset today.

The day went away somehow. He was clueless as to what happened during the day. All he could see was two eyes shining in the dark, complaining. He knew he had to find those eyes; he had to listen to them. He took the next day off and rode the bus home.

He got off the bus and walked towards the street where his sleeplessness had come from. He stood there at the place where some dreams turned into nightmares. He could see small pieces of cries, a melancholic stain and a dirty red glass. He could hear the shattering of a life, tearing of a soul and that silent death of light. He then looked at the place where he was standing last night. He looked at that place with complains in his eyes.

The world around him looked dusty. He didn’t want to go home so he took off towards the city. He was strolling through the busy streets trying to keep his mind superficially busy in the artificial details of unvarying life around him, when he found those eyes. He saw her sitting on the steps of the museum. He knew it was her, he could recognize those eyes even in the broad daylight. That pain was still fluttering in her eyes. He stood there for a while, looking at her. He knew this time he had to do something. He started walking towards her.

Heavy feet carry the burden of the mind.

Elisa was feeling suffocated in her apartment. Somehow the walls had shrunk and the air was lessening. She went out to the city to make her mind wander on the busy roads of the downtown than in the dark street of her neighborhood. After roaming through a few hundred random thoughts, her mind got tired and she sat on the steps of the museum.

A soft rumble of countless footsteps had surrounded her stationary feet as people moved in and out of the building. She was staring at her soundless feet when another pair of feet appeared and joined them in silence. She looked up and heard, “Hi”.

There was a young man standing there blocking her sun. He was about 28, dark hair, dark eyes and a very fresh skin. She looked at him with no emotion in her eyes and meaninglessly uttered, “Hi”.

“You mind if I sit here?” Ethan asked with a polite tone.

Tired of listening to that deafening silence, she nodded in affirmation.

He sat down on the steps and for a few moments joined her silence.

“Too quiet today, isn’t it?” he threw some meaningless words in to the pond of no words.

“Yeah” Elisa hardly uttered.

“Silence always hides painful words”, he intended to get her to talk about something.

“Not always”, she paused for a moment looking deep into something in the air that only she could see. “Sometimes it merely reveals the absence of words.”

“Yeah. And what makes the words dry out?” he asked.

“I don’t know”, was the answer.

“Pain?” he asked again fearing he might be getting too personal.

Silence appeared again as she fell deep into her thoughts.

“May be” she said without any intention of saying anything.

“A silent pain is more painful than a screaming one” Ethan wanted her to say something more.

She looked at him with a thousand expressions on her face. Fearing that she might suspect him for someone he isn’t, he tried to change the subject, “Ethan, my name is Ethan.”

With her eyes looking towards him but not at him, she said, “Elisa!”

They sat there for a while and then he took her to a nearby restaurant where they talked some more.

Elisa found a temporary refuge in Ethan. He was keeping her at a fair distance from last night and with every word he said, the distance kept growing. There was just one thing that disturbed her, that made her feel distressingly uncomfortable; his eyes. There was something about them; something related to her. She shrugged those thoughts away as she didn’t want to tell herself that it was love.

Love makes you feel lonely.

Later in the night she entered her apartment and felt alone again. She was safe here, she was free. But she had this fear in her heart that a detailed memory of the night gone by will visit her again and will pollute every night that is to come.

She didn’t want to switch on the darkness and didn’t like the thought of losing her sleeplessness. Tired of listening to her cracking thoughts; she picked up the phone and dialed Ethan’s number, that was painted on her palm by Ethan himself. Her heartbeat kept ringing on the other side and before she would give up on her heart, Ethan picked up the phone.

“Somehow I knew you would call now” he said in a firm voice.

“Yeah? How?”

“I don’t know. I just___ I just wanted you to.”

“Ok, I have called now.”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t know what to say and she didn’t know what she would hear. Silence was about to fill the distance between them, but before it would freeze, he broke it into pieces, and “Can we meet again?”

“Yeah” she wanted to hear that.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“11:30?”

“Yeah.”

“Same place?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

She shut the window to let sleep in.

The night gave way to morning sun and she woke up with light falling on her face. It was a quiet morning. She stayed in bed; just lying there, staring at the ceiling, thinking of so many things that she couldn’t focus on any one of them. She never wanted a day like this in her life___ or a night like that. It was all so imperfect__ it so didn’t match her plans. But whose plan was it? Of that dark shadow? Of God? Of her fate? Whatever the reason and whoever the culprit, she was the victim___ and for what sin?

“What would___ or ‘should’ if fate allows me___ I do now? What is this morning so silent and unbearably perfect? Where will this day go when its finished? Where will I store it? In my head___ along with that night? Who is Ethan? Why doesn’t he fit into my life so perfectly?”

Questions remained her sole company till the sun rose above the window. It was about time. She took a shower, got dressed and left her apartment.

Dreams travel the distance we avoid.

Sitting in the bus, Ethan was looking outside aimlessly while his mind roamed through the brightest corners of the day gone by. She so perfectly fit into that day, the whole memory of it.

The bus stopped and he came out of his yesterday for a while. A rolled up paper bag was place in his lap. Looking at it and holding it tight in his hands, he let the day before yesterday enter his head again. That night when a few inactive moments took him on a journey promising a melancholically beautiful dream and abandoned him in the land of insomnia forever.

“Why didn’t I do anything? Why didn’t I move; why didn’t I call for help? Why didn’t I help? Why didn’t I fight that dark shadow?”
In the junkyard of so many useless questions___ for it was over now and the fact remained that he didn’t do anything___ he didn’t find one purposeful answer.

The bus stopped again. It was his stop. He got off and walked towards the restaurant.

Heart feels like an ocean when you feel so many things swimming through it at the same time.

Elisa saw him entering the restaurant. He moved like a warm morning breeze through the wintry beaches of her eyes. There was something so calm about him, in his eyes, on his face, in his gate; that it scared her. Perfect things are stagnant things, they don’t grow, they don’t change, they don’t improve. She didn’t want things to be perfect between them. She left that fear roaming in her veins. Those salty beaches were now hidden in mist.

She laughed__ didn’t know after how many days__ but she laughed. He made her laugh. He dived into the deep seas of her heart and fished out the happy days. When he surfaced, he came out with laughter in his pockets which he merrily gave to her and she decorated them on her lips.

Things were about to divulge into perfection when she looked deep into his eyes. There was something so silently calm about them that she knew there were secrets to be told. She wasn’t wrong.

After all that was done, what was planned, he put that paper bag on the table.

“What is this?” she asked without saying a word.

He unrolled the bag, took out a shiny, stainless knife and put it on the table in front of her.

“What is this?” she repeated her question, this time in words.

“I found it.”

Something in his tone told her that things were about to fall apart.

“I found it ___ on 23rd street ___ in the corner ___ on the sidewalk___”

She kept looking at him.

“___ On the night before last night.”

Her heart shook and stopped for a while. Silence fell on her ears, her eyes, her heart___ her life. He kept talking, explaining to her the illogical reasons why he didn’t move, why he didn’t do something, why he just stood there. She wasn’t sure if she listened to him or not. The cynosure of her heart was that sparkling knife ___ the emblem of her fear ___ lying in front of her. It kept wavering in her eyes, casting a dark shadow on her memory.

“All this time I have hated myself, cursed myself for being such a dormant coward. I didn’t know you, but that night when you looked at me, I thought that’s what I was born to do, to protect you, and that’s what I didn’t do. I wasted my whole existence there; I denied the justification of my being alive. Now I know you ___ and I regret it even more…”

She picked up the knife and silence stuck in his mouth. She just gazed at that sharp-edged object of arrogance and ignorance. He wanted her to say something; he wanted to listen to her but she didn’t say a word. There was nothing to be heard, not even a sigh.

And then she looked at him ___ with no complains, no resent, no regret; nothing. She just looked at him; to say goodbye and it was too hard to say in words that she chose to say it with her eyes. Not sure whether he understood that or not, se put the knife in her bag, stood up and walked away. Ethan just sat there with an empty brain.

You waste life all life, then one day life wastes you.

All day long, Elisa kept wandering all over the city. She went to places she had never visited before because she didn’t have time. Today she had all the time on her wrist, she was free; free of any boundaries of time, any relationship, any obligation___ any passion. She wasn’t obliged to think of anything; not her past, not her future, not even today. Why should she bother herself to think of things so unreal; so much unreal that they don’t exist.

By the time night fell from the sky, she was all tired. She approached the bus station and sat there with a motionless body and a thoughtless mind and kept watching her bus leave every 10 minutes.

It was late in the night when the announcement for the last bus of the day was made. She stood up and walked towards the bus, holding her bag tightly in her hands as this was one possession that could salvage her painful heart.

She got off the bus a block away from her apartment building. For a moment she stood there silently and then moved towards twenty third street.

The wind held its breath when it saw her again there. A can trying to dance its way over to this end of the street; stopped half way. Her shoes hit the pavement but didn’t leave the company of silence. The street had eaten up her shadow. She turned right and felt a black shadow creeping on her neck. Before the shadow could touch her, she took her hand out of her bag while turning around, swung that shiny piece of metal with every piece of energy in her raging mind and stuck it in his neck. The knife entered that rotten skin all the way and stopped. Silence broke into a surprise-struck painful scream. The shadow flickered for a while and then fell down. She stood there watching it until it went motionless. A red piece of glass melted and rolled on the concrete. In that thick fluid, she saw her memory dieing away.

She stood there for a while with her eyes shut; and then she felt two eyes looking at her. She turned around opening her eyes and looked at that dark spot across the street. He had been standing there all the time; watching. A wave of tears went through her eyes but she didn’t let it spread out on her face. She replaced it with a wave of arrogant smile and a successful march of shining stars on her eyelids. Life came back; a raise, a house, a family, love and above all her worth.

She turned around and started walking towards her apartment building.