RuKsaK

Here is the penultimate part. I've been thinking how to write this part for a while and come up with nothing. So, I've just rattled the thing out in 30 minutes of a Sunday evening. Please let me know what you think.

Previous parts are here:
She multiplies infinity - part 1

She multiplies infinity - part 7
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I didn't see Fred for about a week after that night we got drunk. I figured he'd been kept in the dog house by Angie. She was always so forgiving though and so it didn't seem quite right - her keeping him at home for a week.

It wasn't anything I'd have dared to imagine though. Alice had been ill and by the time I heard from Fred she was dead.

He called me to tell me. I didn't know what he was saying. I heard his words drowning inside chokes, phrases struggling out of him. I mean, imagine a man having nails bolted into him, hammering at him, tearing into his body. Imagine that man trying to say something important - that's the only way I can think of describing what he sounded like. I still didn't know why he was saying it.

'She, she, she. Oh my god Ruk! Oh my god! She said sorry to me. She fucking said sorry to me.'

I could hear each of his words splutter down the phone. Language being smacked the fuck out of him.

'She didn't want me to be angry. Jesus! Jesus fucking Christ! You bastard. Bastard. Bastard. She didn't want me to be angry that she was ill. She was so ill. So fast, so fucking fast. Then she wasn't there.'
'Fred! Fred! Who? Who?'
'Alice. Alice. Alice is dead.'
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To this day it's the longest sentence I've ever known a man have to travel through - 'Alice is dead'. I swear to you, hearing Fred say that was really the hardest thing I've ever listened to. It's like each sound stumbling onto the next was proving she'd died - each single syllable a step to truth. He could barely step outside babbling, but with those three words. Three fucking words! Do you get me? Three little words - 'Alice is dead'. Could three little words be more perverse or have more wrong in them? I think he felt that all he had to say was those three words and then it was true. Can you imagine, honestly fucking imagine, getting to the end of that sentence? A row of words which declare your daughter is dead.
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This was no loss of precious stones, no winter racing at the end of spring. This was no end of light or reaping thievery. Fuck your rose petals falling into some poetic darkness. Talking the final bow, the curtains coming down can fuck right off too!

This wasn't a frigging metaphor. This was a dead little girl - zero poetry. That was it for Fred. I don't want to get cliched on you and I'm not being, but the only way to say it is that Fred didn't just have his heart broken - that's another dirty splash of metaphor anyway. His heart kept beating alright - beating more than it ever had - threatening to splinter his ribs and explode his lungs. His heart wasn't broken - his heart was working harder than it ever had. Alice was dead and his soul was shattered, vapourised - beaten to a fucking pulp. That is the truth.

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She multiplies infinity - part 9 (the final part) will be with you next weekend.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

She multiplies infinity - part 8