‘What a mess,’ Orn grumbled as he sat on the couch with his head pulsing painfully to the abused beat of his heart. 1
What a mess - he was referring to his trashed living room as much as his body. A tongue like a dry sponge, a mouth like an old burnt-out ashy furnace and a head that ached as his brain seemed to throb rhythmically against his skull. His body hurt all over, he knew he had been beaten up, vague images of violence lashed out from the alcoholic haze. 2
People said they felt like death with a hangover but Orn knew better. At moments when all the strange sensations reached a crescendo with his stomach acting like a cement mixer and his eyes exploding from their sockets, he knew quite certainly he wasn’t dead but would almost rather be so. 3
The room had been turned upside-down and then kicked like a giant spilled can of beans. Vomit streaked down the walls and pilled on the carpet. All the lamps had been smashed and the pillows had been torn. Someone had written on the wall: “BURN THE FUCKER DOWN!” Obviously they hadn’t gone through with it for one reason or another but Orn doubted lack of inspiration was key as he looked mournfully at his shattered guitar. 4
A window had been broken from the outside and bloody glass lay on the soiled carpet. Who were these animals? This sort of thing doesn’t happen ever, at all, to anyone. Then how did it happen? Surely everyone would have been rounded up, dispersed or thrown in the back of a paddy wagon. Maybe that had happened, Orn knew it could have happened. He imagined police barging uninvited in to the hellish scene that must have been the last night’s party. They would have spent a few moments at the front trying to find the owner but unable to reach him and unable to let the bloodbath run its course they would have barged in. 5
His imagination ran wild and he gritted his teeth as wave after wave of uncontrollable, terrifying speculation flooded his abused head filling in the extensive voids in his memory. They would have faced resistance from the moment they showed up hailed with abuse and beer bottles infuriating their arrogant sense of authority. God there had probably been a riot and somehow Orn in his blind drunkenness had skipped the noose – or maybe not. Perhaps he had been on the front lines and it had been the police that had beaten him. Then, if he wasn’t in custody they would be looking for him, they would come back! 6
Orn tried to dispel the crazy thoughts but looking up from the palms of his hands, at the evidence of chaos that was the room around him, made those crazy thoughts seem more real. 7
What to do now? The clean up seemed like an impossible task not even worth undertaking in his crippled state. All that vomit and urine! Most of his furniture and personal items had been busted up. The TV had been thrown through the glass top coffee table and the stereo was embedded in the wall. Fuck, if the cops didn’t lock him away the landlord was going to murder him with a soldering iron.8
“BURN THE FUCKER DOWN!” Maybe that was good advice… Orn considered the phrase that had been printed on the wall in massive pointed capitals with a black marker pen. With all the madness that must have taken place he could probably get away with it. Perhaps just skipping town would be less trouble. 9
A tide of nausea was building in his stomach and for a moment he thought he was going to be adding to the stinking decoration already adorning the walls and soaking into the carpet. Orn clambered to his legs and stumbled through the kitchen wincing with pain at injuries he hadn’t realised he had till he moved. He collapsed in the open back doorway and vomited all over the cement veranda, the acrid refuse burning his throat, nose and eyes. Again he heaved but little came up, involuntarily he continued to dry heave. He felt a little better after the convulsions subsided. 10
The back yard was almost as bad as the living room with just about everything that could conceivably be broken being broken. One arm of the rotary clothes line had been bent almost to the ground, underneath lay a crumpled mess. Orn kicked it, not hard but hard enough to say he wasn’t in the mood for shit. The crumpled mass turned like a frightened cat and two crazy blue eyes stared up at him from beneath a mat of long frizzled black hair. 11
‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man with the crazy eyes blurted out.12
Orn laugh, not amused but bewildered. ‘Who the fuck am I?’ he said deliberately, rhetorically. ‘This is my fucking place and I think it’s time you left.’ He turned away dismissively, the crazy man ceased to be a concern as he went back into the house. 13
The kitchen strangely was a model of stability, sure all the plates and glasses were dirty and strew everywhere and the floor was covered in glass and broken crockery but there were no holes in the walls and none of the appliances or furniture were damaged beyond repair. Some how this little island had escaped the worst. Thirsty but not willing to touch the contaminated glasses he drank water from cupped hands. The cool water helped soothed his stomach, tongue and throat and washed away a little of the thousand cigarette taste in his mouth. 14
The bathroom, other than the pools of urine all over the floor, also wasn’t too bad. He put down layer upon layer of towels making an impervious layer between his feet and the build-up of human waste. In the shower he found a used syringe and again he wondered about those people that had descended upon his little party. He also wondered about the depths of depravity and violence the house must have sunk to in the early hours of the morning. 15
He put the syringe in a glass jar and threw it in the bin feeling infected for just having touched it. He stripped off his clothes and was shocked at the evidence of just how comprehensively he had been beaten. Looking in the mirror he saw he had a black eye and big black bruises covered his chest and ribs. No teeth missing but come to think about it they did feel a little loose and his gums had been cut. Orn had no recollection of receiving any of those wounds but felt no anger about them, just surprised and troubled. He showered cleaning himself of the invisible contamination that had overtaken his house. 16
Finally he felt clean, or at least his outsides felt clean. The filth of the house now seemed all the more repulsive. Naked except for a pair of boots he wore as a barrier between himself and the mess, he walked through the troubled kitchen and through the devastated living room, down a little corridor that, without furnishing, had escaped without damage other then graffiti. His room on the other hand was almost as bad as the living room. The door was off its hinges, pieces of broken mirror littered the ground, the walls covered in graffiti and the legs had been broken off an overturned chest of draws. In the middle of a ruffled bed lay a sleeping woman. She wasn’t particularly pretty but that may just have been the situation. She was sickly thin, her face was a mix of blotchy red and white under dark brown hair chin-length hair. She was short, probably not even up to Orn’s shoulders. For the sake of his last remaining shreds of alcohol soaked dignity he decided to put clothes on before he woke her.17
‘Who the fuck are you?’ she asked wide-eyed as she was shaken awake. This time he was amused as he laughed. He told her that was the second time that someone had asked him that question in much the same way. 18
‘Oh,’ she said waving her had dismissively, ‘I remember now. There was a party… and this is your house, isn’t it?’ She eyed him suspiciously maybe a little frightened. She looked around at the destruction. ‘You really got fucked over.’ Orn just nodded.19
‘You fuck me while I was passed out!’ It was more an accusation then a question. She was frightened but didn’t want to show it.20
He wasn’t offended but felt sorry for her. He lifted his shirt showing her the bruises. ‘I was passed out too.’21
She nodded. ‘Yeah I remember that too.’ She didn’t explain just looked through him, probably caught up in hazy drunken recollections. ‘Then they dragged me in here.’22
Orn looked at her then away, he didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know these things that had happened in his room on his bed. ‘I am sorry.’23
The woman stretched out on the bed her back cracking audibly. She sat up. Caught his eye, staring into him, measuring the worth of his words. ‘Why?’ she asked.24
‘This is my house and none of last night should have happened.’ Shame burnt through him and he just wanted to curl up on the floor and never move and never be seen or spoken of or to again.25
The woman shrugged and sighed looking away. ‘It isn’t like I was totally unwilling.’26
‘Still,’ he said distantly, staring at the floor. How could everything be so fucked up? One night and too much alcohol, it only started as a little party with a few people that he had met since coming to town. Where were they now, what happened to them? The party had picked up as friends of his friends showed up then people no one knew began appearing and from there it was blank. What were they thinking about him now?27
‘Would it be too much to ask to take a shower?’ the woman asked.28
Surprised, Orn just shook his head. He had thought she would just want to be anywhere but here. He was surprised she wasn’t running out the door and down the street.29
‘By the way I’m Myra,’ she said over her shoulder as she started down the corridor.30
While the woman showered Orn set about making breakfast. Most of the food had been taken, even all the cereals but half a dozen eggs remained abandoned at the back of the fridge. Obviously no one had had imagination enough to throw them at anything or anyone, nor the desire to cook them.31
The room darkened as a figure appeared at the back door, it was the crazy-eyed man, he was a giant lanky guy approaching middle age. Orn eyed the man warily.32
‘I need water and there isn’t a tap in the back yard.’33
‘Fine,’ Orn said with a shrug. He didn’t really think the giant was responsible for the destruction of his house other then possibly bending his clothes line but that was an easy mistake to make.34
The giant lurched from the doorway into the kitchen. He looked around at all the grimy glasses, rejecting them, he took a vase off the top shelf and filled it with water. He gulped the water from the sizable vessel down in a few massive mouthfuls then filled it again.35
‘I’m Laurance,’ he said offering Orn a hand near the size of a dinner plate. 36
Orn introduced himself and went about preparing breakfast for the three of them but remembering how Laurance had gulped down all that water he doubted he would have enough for the giant. He cooked up a bland pancake-like omelette. 37
There was no bread for toast and no milk for tea or coffee and the idea of having either without turned his stomach, water instead. He served the meal in saucepan lids and water in measuring cups, Laurance kept his vase.38
Orn called Myra out to the back yard and they sat down in the ankle high grass and ate their eggs and drank their water.
Author notes
Okay, I have finally edited this piece making many of the alterations suggested, thanks to everyone that offered advise. I hope the piece is recepted as well as it was before.
A contest entry
- Give me your best. by Sammeh Cat X.
160 points, ended December 27, 2008, 49 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 8 of 8
-
You know you rock
it was very good =)
but I did start to get bored with it.
But then it dramatically improved.
-
As the other commenters have said, your descriptions, simile usage, and the overall "mood" of slightly dark humor-ish bewilderment are all perfect. I enjoyed the story overall and I especially enjoyed the ending simply because of its simplicity -- amidst the mess, the three characters sit and enjoy (somewhat) a meal. Great stuff!
. Rewarded 6
-
-
Thanks for the kind comment. Glad you enjoyed.
-
-
I absolutely love your use of similes. They are pretty unique. Your imagery is outstanding also. It's an all around great story and I can't wait to read more from you!
-
-
Thanks for reading and commenting. The story is a few years old and still probably one of the better ones.
-
-
Honestly, I thought it was nicely written. The descriptions were beautifully done. Not only could I see what he was seeing, but I could see what he was seeing in his mind as he thought about what could have happened.
I say good job. I can't think of anything off the top of my head you could fix. As I said, nicely done.. Rewarded 6
-
Hey Jimmy
this was really good. Your descriptive powers are impressive as the whole telling came to life for me. The tone of bewilderment and of being blindsided was well done and consistent throughout without being overt. You write really well, Jimmy, and I enjoyed reading this. It sounds like it was written from experience...was it? Because it sure sounds like it.
Nice job, Jimmy. You're an excellent writer(IMHO).
al
p.s. Only one question: Can a "beat" be abused? Would mebbe his heart be a better candidate for abuse?
. Rewarded 8
-
-
Actually,
no this wasn't written from experience, well not directly anyway. I haven't experienced anything approaching this sort of depravity. Glad you liked, I had a lot of fun writing this one.
I'll take a look at the "beat" thing but I think I like it the way it is, though, it doesn’t make literal sense. Perhaps it is a styalistic error (me fail?).
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 8 of 8
