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Once had her, can’t have her

Empty dinner table for recently departed

 

End of Line

Something about a con-artist. This needs editing I think.

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In a town far away from home, you can be anyone you want to be, anyone you please.

I stretch my legs as we queue for immigration. The flight into JFK took six hour, from when it took off. Five hours of bad films and plastic food, another hour of ascent and descent. I am yet to meet anyone that actually likes flying. The usual question-answer dull conversation occurs at immigration, asking mundane questions in the hope I slip up and start to exhibit guilt. All the same, I feel the guiltiest man alive. Stamp stamp and I am in. “Have a good day, sir” in that overly polite, crystal clear American tone.

There is the usual hustle in Arrivals funnelling people through into the outside world. People book cabs, renting cars or shuttles, the lot. On a far end there stands a line of men holding signs with names on in large, clear letters. I choose one at random.

Today, ladies and gentleman, I am Donald Sawyer. Sorry, Mister Donald Sawyer. I throw away my passport, my only tie to my earlier life.

So it turns out I own a nice attic flat on the East Side. How convenient. Better than all of those fake grand hotels with bellhops and porters constantly demanding tips. The driver was kind enough to remind me where my spare keys were kept. Kind man. I top him fifty bucks and tip the doorman of my building the same.

To a lot of people, money never lies.

I pour myself a scotch on the rocks and start to find out whom I am. Even though this apartment is not mine, I cannot help but feel at home. Seems I am a well of advertising director for a pretty reputable firm. Not quite as low key as I had hoped. Pays the bills, and them some. No debt. No enemies. My journal says clients buy me lunch and dinner regularly, that I rarely go into work and I seem to spend most of my time convincing clients that my agency is the one for them. I do not have a wife or fiancé, which means slightly less baggage, though I am seeing a beautiful girl who may or may not be a model. Either way, the pictures on my desktop suggest she has not much dignity.

The phone rings an hour or two after I arrive. “Mr Sawyer, there is a man here claiming to be you. Of course, this is ridiculous. Do you want me to inform the police?” the receptionist speaks down the phone, her phone smooth as sweetener. The police are called. I watch from my window on the fifth floor as he is dragged away. Should buy some more time. I find myself fascinated by the window, caught between staring through the glass to the cold city outside, and trying to catch the half reflection of myself. I do not even know what to look for anymore. Even I cannot see myself clearly.

She drops by, the model, and we fuck. Through out she tells me she loves me, and after she asks me for four hundred dollars for a taxi home. I get the score, hand her the bills and send her on her way. Some taxi fare. I am no fool. I leave the flat in the morning into the monster that is a rainy New York City, into a crowd of black umbrellas, and disappear into the day. Perhaps never to return. At least for a time I am away from all the drama on the far side of the Pond, blood on my hands and a noose of lies around my neck.

I was always told I could be anything I wanted to be.

 

Turn on the Bright Lights

The stage lights up like a slab of white crystal, protruding far into the centre of the crowd. The crowd has disappeared into darkness as the lights fade to black, accentuating the flashes of photojournalists and kids with their smart phones taking snaps. The air was filled with the snap-snap and blink-blink, nearly saturated with excitement, filled with the excited screams and cheers of the audience. Tonight the world would be seeing the new collection from Valerie Glamour for the very first time.

The music starts, a low and mystic sound, setting the scene as the back stage is lit up light blue. The first model hits the stage and the music picks up, a beautiful soundscape. She walks in time with the bass, as if every step she takes shakes the earth. The exquisite black dress hugs her luscious curves, showing them off in the way only a pro would know how. Strutting to the centre of the stage, she poses, the cameras crowding around her. She stares blindly into the distance, the Never does an expression touch her face. Like a work of art, she stands there, petrified so that she might live forever in photo. The lights reflect off the silver jewellery around, blinding some members of the crowd. Turning off, she returns backstage, and another female model takes her place. Then another male model, dressed in this year’s style. He looks like a drag queen.

And then the final exhibit, the man called the modern day Adonis. Perfection. Daniel Green takes to the stage. The crowd goes wild. Cameras and flashes capture the exception sight of him in just jeans and a crisp white shirt. He reached the end of the stage, and as a final stage piece, ripped off his shirt, , showing off his carved and oiled chest . The flashes and subsequent shadows serve to emphasis the already well-defined shape of his body, and shine his white teeth as he grinned into the crowd.

The cameras did not quite capture the missing or cracked teeth, or the stain of brown. They failed to see the stretch marks and the lose skin that hung off the skeleton of a man, or the cuts all over his face from shaving drunk that morning. Neither did the cameras catch the shape of his matted hair that he tried to hard to style every morning. The next issues of the world’s fashion magazines will feature him on the cover, and overnight bloggers will upload pictures and articles before breakfast. None will capture the depravity and emptiness of the man. The pictures do not see the needle marks, or the hole where the bridge of his nose used to be, worn away from drug use. On his arm was an infected needle wound, right out of that film, all purple and black. He looked in pain, moving the arm awkwardly.

Turning to walk back and return backstage, his leg gave way, bone snapping as he falls down. The audience see him posing on his side, pandering to the cameras by the stage, one leg bent up, as he lies looking seductively into the eyes of the cameras.The stage had met his face with considerable force, the Perspex that formed the surface breaking leading his face to crash into the strip lights beneath. He was barely conscience by this point, his mind recoiling at the horror of his situation, blood dripping into his eye from his forehead, the smell of burning flesh permeated the air as the hot strip light burnt away at his cheek. Tears rolled down this scarred cheek, dripping down on to the light, evaporating with a sizzling sound and diffusing into the air. T

he neon stage snaps off, as stage hands come to pick up left clothes, and give the stage a quick clean before the next batch of models hit the stage. They lift Green off stage. “Good show” they says, “nice improv, the press loved that posing at the end. Some great shots!”

They do not know whose blood is on the stage. He had never imagined it would be like this.