It does not take a significant amount of emotion to
dredge up the memories of the initial occasion I made contact with the eyes of
my executioner. I recall them, clearer than daylight: incomprehensible
unforgiving grey-blue pools of eternity, framed solidly by matching lines of
golden brown eyelashes that, in any other situation would conflicted and
clashed in the presence of my own eyes. However in this instance, they seemed
to fit together like pieces of some overly-eccentric puzzle, as though in some
warped way, the contrasting colour combination was lazily premeditated. And of
course, within conforming to the archetypal stereotype; his skin was riddled
with a maze of freckles, forming mysterious constellations that foretold a
future riddled with the threat (or could that be promise) of no specific
pathway or direction. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul: in
this instance, his soul was equivocal, suppressing any intrusion from outward
influence. It was as if he didn’t want to
let anyone in. Those were the only aesthetics that I remember to begin with. If
anything, they are the only aesthetics that truly matter.
Our first meeting had been ritual: the typical
exchange of introductory greetings, and then, with a response that sealed my
destiny, a simple sentence formulated from my own curious subconscious desires.
The question. He laughed, shrugged it off; his face revealing the nonchalant
dismissive frame of mind that I have become so used to these days. Nothing more
than the ghost of a smile began to curl the corner of his lips, breaking apart
his previously jaded expression. Simultaneous to this remark, those eyes
casually grazed my dark silhouette as I retaliated: taking in my smart, yet
conventional appearance so carefully chosen to conceal any form of
individuality a person was to possess. Factoring appearance alone, I was a lone
sheep in the midst of a herd. Nonetheless, every herd has its black sheep, and
it was clear from the beginning that my fate was different from the others n
this cited position.
There it was.
The beginning.
Time passes in the prison. The flutter of a
butterfly’s wings could have been lengthier for all I was aware of, or indeed,
concerned about. As days melted seamlessly into weeks, he steadily infiltrated
my time spent in confinement by stealing whatever chance he could get to find
conversation. Inevitably, by this constant desire for dialogue, we drew ever
closer, the lines binding us to our once frangible lives becoming less defined
and more interweaved the nearer we ventured towards the penultimate pages of
our ‘ever-so-troubled’ tragic... solitary
stories. The date was set for the end – I would even endeavour warily to say
that I had anticipated from that first moment what was to happen. Like a
grotesque clichéd tragedy, the future was damned even before it had begun. He would bring about the end of this
era.
Time passed in the prison. The date tip-toed ever
nearer: its enticing possibilities seeping effortlessly into the cracks in my
selectively private existence. I had a troubled past, and knew that this was
almost solely the factor behind the inevitable future that I was destined to
face. My thoughts once more returning to him (as they so often did these days),
I could deduce that from the stories he’d recounted to me as I sat in my
virtual cell, our lives were mirrored in the ways that we had both surmounted
(or so at that point, I wanted to pretend) our own demons. So similar in fact,
that he mused the information himself, with the same arrogant smile playing on
the corner of his rough-looking face.
That face. You could call it beautiful in an almost
twisted way. My favourite facet of his multifarious existence was the way those
eyes peered out from under a velvety waterfall of auburn hair whilst
concentrating intently on any form of trivial activity – I studied avidly from
the side of my ever-nearing prison walls at the way he deliberated the
unblemished surfaces of snooker balls on the smooth velvet table in front of
us. We played Snooker: a simplistic coincidental allegory to the game that was
beginning to enslave any conscious thoughts in the tortured chambers of my own
mind.
On the night we knew it was to happen – death – the
termination of my angst-ridden existence, my heart resembled that of a
hummingbird’s: beating out an over-exaggerated rhythm against the concrete
walls of my heaving chest. My body felt like it was finally breaking free of
the bonds that had restrained it for so long – there was almost a sense of
sickness and nausea present in my voice, let alone my head.
I had almost wanted to be in some mindless form of
stupor as he made it happen, and I had no trouble in achieving this,
considering the copious amounts of... yes, mind-numbing substances shall we
say? I had wanted the end to be instantaneous and clear-cut, and there was
nothing more I could have done to ensure this. He willingly accepted my
request, and my thirst was satisfied – I was assuming that he too had wanted
the end to be particularly swift on his part. The emotional attachment that we
had built up over these past few weeks was finally working up to my advantage.
It could have easily been the sound of the blood
pounding in my ears, but I could hear the faint drum beats resonating around my
head as I seized those fateful steps towards the end. Away from the only forms
of safety and security that I had ever had the fortune of knowing. Away even,
from him. For the moment anyway. I had known deep inside my unfathomable soul
that he was pursuing me – even when I ran, he followed, and there was nothing I
could have ever attempted to escape his muscular arms. I was caught, and pulled
back to the place where I was fated to be.
Falling. Falling as a result of the gyrating mess that
my head had become: a head that was now comfortably resting on the rich earthy
ground. The dark soil below me had smeared itself on my face as I lay there and
awaited his presence for an indefinite amount of time, not quite knowing at
this point where this would take me. Almost in two distinguishable personae – the
so-called ‘sober; girl inside: careful and prudent, and her reckless
counterpart that the presence of alcohol had so easily procured – I waited.
He was next to me. I could sense his hot sticky breath
encountering the skin on my neck, casually feathering down the back of my dark
hood – so close to my own shivering figure. For once, this proximity was
physical in addition to emotional, given that I had never before let anyone
venture this close in my meagre short existence. Looking back, I’d gather that
this was possibly one of the reasons I had walked so easily into the trap. I
listened to his voice for a blurred interlude. He explained himself. Words
that, even in my state of intoxication, I understood. And then... the three
words. Interpreted loosely as “Time to die.”
That was the moment.
The moment.
Our Moment.
All in those few seconds, everything that my life had
been directed towards ever since that fateful day back when, in trepidation, I
first condemned my fate with that frank question was finally beginning to
happen. A prospect I had repeatedly imagined, yet never really conceded as
truth.
I flicked my eyes up and for a brief few milliseconds,
the two pairs synchronised for the first time. In the dusky light of a half
moon, they were nothing but two reflections of a distant fire that was burning
behind us. But it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see the very colour of
perfection I knew they hid, and as he leaned in closer to deliver the final
swift move that signified the end, I closed my own eyes in anticipation: it was
almost too perfect, almost too typical of the moment. There was a pause: a
brief hiatus in which neither of us spoke a single utterance, and all I could
feel was the scarlet heat of the blood coursing through my head in the face of
impending doom; the cool damp dirt against my flushed visage. And then...
And then he pressed his soft warm lips to mine,
meeting them at the exact moment any threads connecting either of us to another
individual on this earth were severed. Nothing mattered in the world other than
him for those few beautiful moments that I could use to forget everything I
realised that I would one day have to return to. Consumed by an ecstasy of
temporary amnesia... bliss.
My fate. Sealed with Love’s first fatal kiss. And I
would come quietly.
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