A Tad Myopic

As if the creepy scary stares with each step I take aren’t enough!

A glaring eye. Like that of an eagle peering above ready to pounce and devour its next meal. The whispers of hurly-burly jeered epithets from misfits have to trickle their way down into my eardrums.

The mirror itself even stares back. Disrepute and disgrace is the image it reflects in shame. The eyes gaze back at me. They have shades of red flecks in them. Rheumy with a sense of gloominess. A deeper leer into them, and my eyelids drop down to stifle the raging storm of tears within. The efficiency with which they bury the eyes into darkness is enthralling. The intoxicating fragrance whiffs across my aardvark of a nose (as some call it) when the perfume atomizer strikes the floor.

Darn it!

My hand continuously forages the vanity table, almost knocking off the clear tray. My eyes flash open. And point at the concealer. My fingers cringe tightly, holding the concealer brush, they dab some green pigments against my smile line, and then they abruptly stop! Across in the embellished mirror, the man does the same.

Man! Woman, yes? No! Not at all. Maybe in another life. His face is guilt stricken, with sunken cheeks resembling those of a bulldog. His lips slightly quiver, and the mouth opens in an oval-shape, and he asks,

“You dullard! Is it the right shade? Tonight has to be perfect. It’s a special night, can’t you see?”

A special night. A night where I will not be accused of looking for that right Maybelline shade to match my daily fraudulent feelings. The man in the mirror seems to deem into obscurity. The reflection of his scintillating red negligee is now a tentative foggy fade that is dwindling far away in the remnant thoughts of the past.

A much more flowery past. A past illuminated by the sun shines of daily smiles and the glitters of warmly hugs. A past with heated conversations where my tongue would find itself stuck in his mouth carelessly telling him how dear he was to me. When from his tender touch I got caught up in the raging hormonal fusions of horniness, a damsel’s blood… scratch that, my blood burning sensationally. 

The constant vibrant rings from my phone don’t allow me to continue my jaded thoughts. You can call all you want. Today is a special night. I want no disturbances. I tell myself. My bonny-pointy shoulders shudder slightly, and slowly, with a sigh, I lift myself up and let the image in the mirror stare at my back. From the corner of my eye, I can see a pop-up notification. Maybe it’s a lengthy explanation of how it is that he can’t see me in her.

I care less.

….

“Louie, what are you doing up there? Two in the wee hours of the morning!”

“I’m coming,” a voice is heard shouting back from the terrace of the roof.

“I will not get a migraine bullocking my brains out alone!”

“I said I’m coming! Jeez!”

From where he stands, Louie can see below him some smoke flare up above a pulpy-fat-round head as the man drops the butt of the fag, grinding it with his boot.

Walking away from the edge of the roof, Louie dips his left hand into his right pocket. Out he squeezes a smartphone. He seems a little dazed. Through the crack patterns of the screen, he scrolls upwards with his toe thumb.

Down the stairs he traipse…

Maybe one gets to learn past their time that like Adam in the Garden of Eden, women are the open doorway through which evil enters to poison us all. When the tender delicate touch of her skin simply desiccates her undeniable exuberant body oozing with beauty – she becomes a fruit from a poisonous tree. In a glamourous soiree without you! One is left with no choice but to lurk at the bottom of a liquor glass. That red negligee that leaves your precious thighs protruding underneath it, worn only on special nights. Let this be a special night for us. And as you read this, I’m staggering my way to you. For this will be a special night for us.

…..

“There you are.” Detective Marvey Dullock is heard yapping with agitation. “First a dipsomaniac, now a meretrix.”

“In a minute.” Louie says, his eyes jerking up and down frantically.

… It is nights like these that naked bodies writhe around in the dark to the contorted tunes of passionate debauchery. I love how like the wind, my beach floriferous fluorescent weave cascades down to my pointy shoulders, dancing freely and oppositely to the movement of my red negligee which is slightly filled up by my slender hips.

From a distance all I hear is the mating sounds of the crickets and the cicadas. Lucky them.

Bloody staircases!

I heave heavily, as if my lungs have just been wrenched out of water. I take short puffs and huffs of breaths like those taken by a croaking frog at dusk. The under of my chin is looking like a puffer-fish as I gasp and try to grasp for tinny ounces of air. The glare in my eyes no longer has a flare of brightness. Only a clear beam of the moonlight is reflecting my pupil….

“Louie! I’m talking to you!” Detective Dullock hisses. He’s run out of patience. He watches Louie who’s approaching his direction.

“What do you think happened here? Somnambulism? Murder?.. A dilettante in love?...”

“In a minute.” Louie repeats.

…In the dark, the stinging cold cannot compare to the darkness ravaging my heart. I walk in the dark wearing a red negligee he so much loves. The darkness will not swallow and hide my red negligee like it has hidden my scars. The forbidden apple in the garden is what I am to you. The only apple that became the apple of your eye.

Finally! Here we are. 

My hazy eyes crisscross over the edge, trembling. What is that? My eyeballs glare up ahead as a loud screech of a truck’s tires hugs over the atmosphere.

Oops!  The driver’s feet are not quick to stop his uncontrollable truck barreling down the road. A staggering lad is sent flying high before coming into contact with the ground.

Shit! I wonder where his soul is going to be welcomed. Heaven or hell? I wonder. Perhaps. Maybe in another life, I will find out.

Let’s call it a night, shall we?

I will let my feet take a leap of faith off of this rooftop terrace.

….

“Fuuck!” Louie shouts a bit jumpy. His eyes are fixatedly mapped at the cold dead body draped with a red negligee.

“Jesus Christ Louie! Can you refrain from applying gutter language!

We are in the public.” Dullock says as he snatches the pink diary from his hand.

“She fucking jumped!”

“Where did you get this? And what the hell were you doing up there when the body is down here?”

“On the floor of the roof terrace,” says Louie in disbelief. “If only she answered the phone. Or checked her DM. “

“What are the odds?” Louie continues. Assuaging the atmosphere.

“Can you believe it?” Louie steps back, huffs slightly letting out a warm foggy breath. “Even if she would have read her DM does it mean she still would have died or she would be alive as we speak?

“It is dated 4/05/23. That is yesterday. Here, “handing Louie a lighter, who by now is biting the tip of a panatela. “Let’s clear this off and get to the other one.”

The flick snap of a lighter can be heard as Louie lets a huge puff of smoke raid his nostrils, before snorting the cloud of smoke out of his flaring cave like nostrils.   

“I want to call it a day early today. “ Marvey continues. The forensic scientists are left checking out samples from the crime scene.

Louie hands the lighter back to Marvey. “Don’t be such a minimifidian. Watch as the golden eye shades hue rays of answers to all the questions of the day.” By now their shadows skew west, following them behind like two stray dogs.

“What a weird night. It’s not love, but the lusts of the night which don’t even last in our minds but get washed away like the wind wallops across a dark night.” Louie says. “Do you think they will meet again?”

“Who really cares? Maybe in another life." Marvey sighs bored by the question." But seriously dude, what were you doing up there even before the crime was called in?” Marvey askes as they stream down the road, the round orange sun in front of them a giant eye.

…..

to be continued..