STORIES

Viktoria Faust

NARCISSUS
Translated by Karmela Hromin

It happened on the corner of Borg and 46th street, late at night, between 3 and 4, on the 27th of April. The night was warm and clear. There were few people on the streets, even for the streets of Dananh, which was famously overcrowded. She stood leaning on a post, nervously shifting her weight, on the Boann stop. He noticed her right away. She was wearing a tight red jump suit that perfectly outlined her equally perfect body. Her hair was short and black with red highlights. Her nails were long, silver. She had the kind of face most men would call divine. He’d die for her face. For her body. He would.

He came up to her because he had nothing better to do, because public transport was pretty rare this time of night (even for Dananh) and because he wasn’t what you’d call shy, so he would get what he wanted pretty often. After all, most women didn’t refuse a fine piece of ass like him. Especially not in Dananh.

- Lovely night.

She looked at him with expressionless eyes, that stayed heavenly nonetheless, framed with golden and black layers of make up, and unusually red in the street light, mirroring the colour of her clothes. He couldn’t guess what she was thinking. She looked at him for a long time like she was trying to understand the meaning of the words. Finally she said:

- Yes. Lovely. Indeed.

He took that as a positive response.

- What’s a pretty girl like you doing so late at night in Borg drive?

- Isn’t it obvious? - she said and motioned to the glowing time table.

He smiled slightly.

- Are you going for Boann? What a coincidence. I’m going there too.

- Maybe - she said. - And maybe not. I’m not sure I’m going anywhere.

- Yes. Transport is a little slow this time of night.

He realised right away that wasn’t what she meant. For a while he just stood staring at her, admiring her. She turned her face and looked away into the night. Two steps behind her two gays wanted to swallow each other, kissing. He wanted to swallow her, but for now he was satisfied with swallowing her with his eyes.

- There’s a bar across the street. Want a drink?

The pair of expressionless eyes returned to him and the pause was again unusual, even longer than the last time.

- I don’t think our ride will come that soon - he added.

- Why not? - she said finally. They crossed the street briskly, because of the oncoming vehicles that didn’t mind the red light, and entered the empty bar.

She ordered a colourless, odourless drink served in alcohol glasses from a tired, apathetic waiter. He ordered some bitter liqueur and drank it very quickly. She was silent. She stayed silent and slowly drank her colourless drink. He was beginning to lose patience. He talked, ordered another drink, drank it, drummed his fingers, kept talking. She didn’t say a word the entire time.

She didn’t even look at him. Like talking to a wall. He asked her what her name was several times. She ‘d try to look at him, but would end up staring somewhere past him, like she couldn’t determine where the sound was coming from. He was starting to think she was blind, but that was nonsense, blindness was cured with a simple procedure.

- Do you ever talk? – he finally asked. At that moment the pair of reddish, expressionless eyes looked at him. Her face seemed slightly surprised by the question (as surprised as, although heavenly, a face very sparse with expressions could be). She said:

- All the time.

After that she said nothing.

- Let’s go - he finally said, suddenly, almost enraged, as he got up.

- Or I’m going, at least. I don’t know about you.

- My apartment is near by - she said, and for the first time, there was a kind of smile, a very unusual, sad smile, in her red eyes. - Wanna come?

* * *

They walked along almost completely deserted streets. They walked for a long time. He had already forgotten she said her apartment was close. She was whispering. He didn’t understand the words. It didn’t matter. Something about her (something besides her body and extraordinary face and the even more extraordinary red eyes) captivated him, made him forget everything, all the strangeness, peculiarity and made him drown in the very strangeness and peculiarity of the moments with her.

- Your voice sounds like it has an echo - he said, not noticing how the streets were suddenly getting darker, how the light was fading, and how the darkness was thickening around them like black milk, how the darkness was bending around them.

- Echo? Really? - she said, and the echo returned the question from her chest, like someone else was living inside her, and like the voice from the shadow came from that being. He was forgetting. The features of her face became hazy. Her body was just a swaying red shadow. For a moment he thought he saw, when she moved her arm to run her fingers through her hair, with a characteristic nervous movement, a vision following a vision, her hand had a double outline for a moment, like he was drunk, like he was seeing double.

- Drunk after just two glasses? Impossible - he said. She looked at him. Red eyes were almost black in the darkness of the street. Only the glow was giving them away.

He wasn’t afraid. There was something in her that was lulling all his precautions. Like the trembling of a rattlesnake’s tail. Black eyes didn’t leave him. They followed his every movement.

- You are amazing- he whispered.

- Ssshhh – she silenced him. - Quiet. Or she’ll hear.

- Who? - he asked. She didn’t answer.

- Over there. Down the street,to the left -she said. The darkness in the street was thick as melted tar.

- Why?

- Over there!

She pushed him. He fell to his knees. Inhaled, surprised. Tried to get up. She pushed him again. He stumbled and fell again painfully on his knees. Tried to look back. She grabbed him by the neck. Held him. She had a strong arm.

A too strong arm. She dragged him deeper into the street, like a beast dragging it’s prey into it’s lair. Maybe because of the way she held him he felt paralysed...

He closed his eyes. He could almost hear the street breathe, he could almost hear the rib cage of it’s asphalt move with him on it’s chest. No. It was just vertigo, and the sounds were coming from his head filling it with visions of horror. Still insufficiently aware, still insufficiently aware....

He broke free, crawled for a few feet. Then he turned around. Her red silhouette gleamed in the darkness of the street.

- What the hell....?

- I don’t like the way you look at her- she said. I hate the way you look at her. Your eyes all over her, like she belongs to you.

- Look at who?- he breathed and for the first time he was scared, really scared, realising the red glow in her eyes wasn’t the reflection of the colour of her clothes.

- She’s mine- she said through her teeth. - You have no right. You are nobody!

- What on earth are you talking about? You’re crazy!

And suddenly the word “crazy” was so horribly true, and at the same time distant, although she stood before him in flesh, showing her white teeth.

On his palms and heels he backed away from her, not letting her out of his sight, crawling, choking on his own fear. She kept up with him.

- You’re crazy! Crazy!

- What gives you the right to look at her like that? She’s mine, mine, she could never be yours, nor would she be allowed. Where do you get the idea to think of her in the ways you think of her? Where do you get the right to ask her for out a drink without asking me? Who are you to think you can get away with it?

He looked at the blue, flushed, green lips, white, white, whispering poisons and the poisons fell on his soul, broke his strength, poisons of hate, and she, the poisoner, crazed with her own love for herself, was rising like a picture that spilled out of it’s frame, her shadow, on the wall behind her, was double, and both her shadows were moving independently, and each one was moving towards him.

Damn it. It wasn’t a lie. He saw two entwined shadows and he was crazy with fear.

- You mean you? You‘re talking about yourself?- he breathed, astonished . Crazy, crazy, it pulsated in his head as she bent over him, making her eyes the source of all the light, while her hand was clasping around her neck, hurting him. – But it was admiration, a celebration of your beauty. What are you? Some sort of maniac, a dyke, can’t stand a man to look at you without freaking out. Why didn’t you say so? Hey! You’re not the only woman on earth. Here, I’ll go if you want. Crazy! Why the hell did you ask me to come?- fear came out of his every word and he knew he lost everything with the first word he ever said to her. If he had only known...

- You stole a look at something that is mine. You wanted something that is mine. You made my desires yours by your desires. A punishment, what is a punishment for stealing a life?

- Let me go!

But all she let go was his blood that spilled on the sidewalk. And the blood was no less his after she spilled it. She simply left him after she slid his throat with her metal nails.

- For the love of god!- he choked on the blood.

- God has nothing to do with it. And yet everything. The only god here am I. And I am punishing you for stealing with thoughts something that is god’s. Drop dead!

And the quick silver blood red nails plunged into his chest. And the arms made supernaturally strong by madness and rage ripped the cage around his lungs and his insides were displayed like on an altar of a god, indeed like on an altar of a god. With his last breath he watched her hold herself, kiss herself. And his last breath fell on her face and that was all.

Good night, sweet prince...

When the passers by found his dismembered body in the morning it wasn’t a pretty sight. And that’s why the passers by turned around and left and never again came to the corner of Borg drive and 46th street, where a man and a two headed beast walked for a long time, although they didn’t go anywhere. Because there was nowhere to go. Because there is no place where you can hide from the night, especially if the night exists inside you and if the love is so strong you cannot share it with anyone but yourself.

A very powerful emotion.