Nefertiti

I

22:12

Trying to hold on faster, I couldn’t embrace her any tighter; she was already fixed strongly to my chest. Her arms poignantly convulsing encircling me, pinned next to the corner. Constant high-pitched hisses prodding senses bracing to reach familiarity. Sporadic flashes illuminating the night awaking reflexive clasps from Helen, enduring intermission of shrilling seconds between resonant clamors. A concentrated silence pleased my mind. But, reality always pulled me back with a heavy tug.

Helen shook me and said “Ray, we skipped dinner…” in a fractured voice. Rising my back from the mattress on the floor, automatic feet upwards, soles back on the ground, flexed the knees sideways, legs used as springs, up I stood. Extending palms in a perpendicular angle to the arm, moving arms from side to side as I walked in pitch darkness. No electricity about, an absent moon. The steps “6…7…8…” memorized. Letting hand fall in the corner, waiting for something to interfere its trajectory, hand bumped against a metal canister. Dug inside picked something and turned around. Tottering in sways back to the corner, an extended arm seized me first and I handled the opened can obediently. Sat down, listened attentively to the chews and entailing crunches from her mouth. She handed the can after finishing her half of dinner, and lay down to rest.

Before the war started, I was studying anthropology, the damm university closed down because of looting and disruptions. Leaving school left me time to get a job. Working on typing emails from the Ministry of Interior, was the only job available in this chaos. Bureaucrats hadn’t figured out the Internet, but they used it because it was the cheapest form of communication, and it didn’t need much investment or overhead, it used phone lines to dial up network computers. I didn’t particularly care about what my functions were; the only just cause for my work is it provides money. Cash to maintain needs: my woman, and this apartment. Being in charge of my parent’s apartment wasn’t a bad idea after all, I get to play house with my girlfriend, and don’t care about anything else; even in its simplest of forms, life can provide pristine joys. Mom and dad left to the country to protect their small townhouse in Prizren, their native village, just over on a turn of the Gliša river. Every two weeks I visit, give them some money, and pile all the vegetables that fit in my sack, they love taking care of their large garden, I harvest the crops.

The apartment was for the most part, barren. Occasionally I sold the furniture to dumbasses that think the antiques are going to be worth something after, in times of war, mundane belongings have no value. With bras and boxer shorts hanging on a chord going the distance of the room, my eyes start to fold for the night; chiaroscuro shadows and palette colors reevaluate the garments as decorations. Double decker shuteye waits for my snooze. Helen is naked behind the quilt, as I lay down, hands gravitate to brownish-olive breasts, with a tug on my pillow twins, I pull her light body towards mine, and assume her fetal position.

22:12

Confined to his state of boredom, left him no choice but to align hypnotized by the flickering candle behind his sunken eyes with thin furrows forming. Mesmerizing flickers dancing with the wind, barely illuminating the thick night, melting wax in rapid streams; the firm took to liquid, sledding on traces, crawling sluggishly, descending over its own self, ending its short movement as it hardened. Laying down on the cardboard, muscles insensitive to stiffness. Years of night experience indulged him this gift. With his skin numb, he reached for the corner of his square carton, where he tucked his cover, pulled and rested under folded newspaper. The surreal setting gave him resolute answers, with near-miss explosions in the background playing counterpoint to the ease in his mind.

He grew restless, as his ears caught the babbling talk of neighbors in the street. They mentioned their personal tastes in alcohol. One remarked the swaying smell of wine, another remembered the sobering drunkenness of whisky, and a former petit bourgeois said he liked to dip his cigar while drinking brandy. After their long debate, they switched the conversation to their misadventures with women. Edgar wasn’t interested in their incoherent opinions, their futile efforts to forget chaos was inconsequential, as he heard the alarm sirens played during the bombing raids, “It wont provide the deus ex machina they need. Why bother to idealize the past, when all you got is hurt” he mused. While some chatted, others prayed before sleeping, he just sought to believe in the only security he could count on, himself. “No deity is going to save me” he appeased his mind.

The sound of the bombs faired very little sleep, “naturally” he thought “one day it’s going to explode here.” Eyes shut in deep terror, blinding him to the enclosing surroundings, darkness providing a more amiable perspective. Stagnation of liberty in half-baked dreams, a soul with yearnings to hope, scant survival was good enough for him to want to trade for the unknown. “Lets focus on my restive sleep” he commanded his brain. The explosions kept ringing in his ears, an overbearing sound, permanent since the first offensive.

Imbued with soothing lassitude within, sleep crept like the rising actions of drug’s hyperbola effect. Grown accustomed to the morbid pestilence of dense fumes, and acrid sweat from peers, he laid to rest.

00:05

The stridency of war plucked away concentration and focus. Dying groans of a person escaping through walls, crying without stop, distressful when they managed to survive for days. It no use to weep, most of the time your cries are not heard by anyone.

Helen held my hair gently. Gathered the twists of brown locks, slid her thin fingers, and pushed the pale scalp in caresses. Kept a uniform rhythm in the swivels of her hands, stopped in short pauses to place her hands on my cheeks, then moved them slowly in upward motion to the beginning of my hair. I can feel the sound of her smiles in the darkness, and catch glimpses in angles of brown shadow. The titillation in trance incites, taking her hands to mouth, filling them with wet presses of my lips. Flirting around in the darkness searching, cradled her face, gently pulled neck… a kiss.

A creak from the door startled me. The knob fizzled again. I stood. A thud bumped the door. Pacing slowly to have the element of surprise on my side, with anxiety in mind, searched the blank room for the ax, a few paces away. Palpitations in heart, adrenaline in movement, walking towards the door, reclined backwards to sway my back against wall ajar, lifted the weapon in the air to suit myself for the match. A grunt from the other side of the door called “misery has led me here… you can't imagine how my nights are spe…” Interrupting I said “whoeverr you are, go away!” Moments passed in eternity, fixed tension stuck legs, arms exhausted for lifting the weight, stood still beside the door for a long while. Waiting to hear the stranger’s steps walking away and thinking of the danger lurking behind these strangers looking for shelter. Some time after, she came over and told me not to worry, embraced me and slowly we walked together to our corner.

An imaginary portrait of what the future beheld trapped in my eyelids. The vision always differed. But the resolution was never good. How can I retaliate to an intruder?

II

06:59

Sunrays began to discipline his skin. Suffocating inside his piece of the streets, Edgar opened his eyes, parallel to his gaze ran broken pavement with collected light in myriad colors. The meager pieces of sleep ceased, as he lamented the visions denying his aspirations. But, he took his reality with a brave tenacity of acceptance, resolving that he didn’t have the luxury of reflection. His reality was too real to let him hide, as he began his day on the gurgle of his stomach.

There was a Red Cross nearby. From a distance, you could see the long line. Arriving he watched with contempt the endless set of parallel rows advancing intermittently. As he took part in the waiting, in flash glances he noticed a tall young Nefertiti and smirked with a diminutive jitter of his iris. Found entertainment with her coffee stained skin, long swings of umber tresses, smiles suggesting liberation, eyes ceaseless and raw, “she has a sweet air” he analyzed. Eyes fixed on hers … noticed and turned her gaze. The line moved slowly; eyes grew heavily in appreciation. The row followed. Minutes passed before he could get into the food hall. Kept concentration on the girl, served his plate, and sat down some distance away from her.

“I need some cleaning and new clothes…” thought Edgar. He looked out the window for an answer, “maybe a body that hasn’t been pilfered” he rationalized. Mind possessed by contemplation on his who and what, he sat inert. “I am a cynic with complacency in my brains” he asserted. “My conversations don’t get much versatility than occasional laconic black humor, diatribe upheavals, and intervals of silence plotted in between.” The what was best left alone without examination, his state in rags told it all. The space in between the who and the what called for change. His past ran a long history of inaction.

The lack of ambition led him here. As he cocooned from teenage to young adult, he envisioned grandeur would fall to his lap naturally, as his teachers and mentors appraised his talents. Promise to have a “great future” would not suffice, as he estranged from his peers. They leered at his comments they didn’t understand. He alienated in libraries couches constructing intricate pipe dreams. Peace in books didn’t last forever, advancement in age brought new needs. Hormones began to ask to smell pheromones, cycle began, but lack of empiricism couldn’t deliver his need for adroit social behavior. The sophisticated mind asked for equals school couldn’t deliver. His eccentricity wasn’t appreciated by girls looking for alpha males, feeble minded noodles couldn’t understand his need to evangelize them. In his messianic complex he would butt-in conversations trying to sophisticate a level, people ignored his plea, while others tried to make him look like a fool. Some years after this ongoing process, he took a self induced hiatus, his mind recollected resentments and debris pathologies, with clarity in mind the answer was “do as you like”.

08:04

Sunrise came. Explosions decreased, only thing that was left was destruction. With a damp shirt I woke, sweat advancing in semi spherical motion to my chest, clothing sticking to skin feel me. It was an unfamiliar peculiarity having woken so early, always sleeping until midday, to be ready for work in the afternoon. Turning to Helen’s hollow space in the mattress, eyes blinked repeatedly. Lips began to tremble remembering yesterday, conquering the blank slate of a new day.
Helen had left early. As a matter of habit I searched for my pocket radio in the blank space on the floor besides the bed that served as nightstand, and turned it on. Listened to the radio news; martial law, shrapnel hit women-children, gang rapes by military, paramilitary independent resistance guerrilla clans, all cohabitating in times of war. Scavenger searches for protection by the thousands left homeless, desperate fights looking for survival willing to upheld ends by any means. Paranoid nursing of mind, set the tone for action.

“I’m gonna get some fruits outside.” Arisen and ready, he opened the front door and locked it mechanically. Walked the hallway and descended the steps. Slowly, but surely, the mind comforted aloofness, as it ventured in possible destinies awaiting absolution. Palpable cries and wretched reminders of tormented shivering from Helen’s lips, as the stranger stabbed me, turning the knife in circles, dragging blood as he took it out. She stood witnessing my suffering, being next in line, she attempted to calm herself with frantic stokes to her neck. Transcending back into reality as the stairs ended, healing jarring agitated thoughts and macabre rituals. I need a better weapon. What if next time the next intruder brings a gun? How will I protect us? Otherwise, death will lurk and await for us until circumstance will make it happen. I need to get a gun by any means.

08:20

After finishing, the girl headed to the exit. As she got away, straightening his back, lust raised, he stood. Hastily abandoning his food “can’t let her leave” he muttered. Edgar stealthily trailed her steps, stopping casually to blend in the crowd and letting distance run by.

Three blocks from the food hall she turned right, and entered a beige colored building. He waited behind a moment on the threshold. Took a pause to remove his shoes before he climbed, glimpsed a piece of her legs across the diagonal stairs going into the third story. He followed the enticing vision slowly. On the fourth floor, Ed crawled behind watching, as she took a key out and directed to a door. The number six posted on the door, it opened to reveal a male figure. Edgar scrutinized their relationship, they kissed, after the door was shut, he left.

09:14

Remembering my handicap, I submitted to the endeavor. Walked across the apartment, and looked for something that would be appreciated by a tradesman. Barter came into use in war, the market some blocks away from his building. A merchant would approach and ask for your interests.
“Ok, what do you need?”
“A gun”
“What kind of gun”
“….”
“I’ll be back, wait here”
The products were mostly stolen, most taken from the lifeless. The furnisher came back sooner than expected. “Here it is, now drop your things” he said as he pointed to his toes. Did as was told, and the gun was dropped on some billowy thrash in a can beside me.

III

16:10

Ed thought, “If I am to have her I need to rearrange my image.” Exploring the crumbled edifices, in search of something trapped inside the debris. Edgar knew better than to go inside the damaged buildings, whose fragile foundation could betray any moment. With scant blurs for sight, as now needed visual assistance, he sensed the apparition of a sticking arm. Edgar, rose and quickly took out a plastic bag he constantly reused. He strode across the rubble and started to remove the blocks, discovering the body of a live man. Distinction made not by the features of his face, it had been disfigured, but by his clothes. The trousers hadn’t been significantly damaged and could be made to look decent by washing it. He needed a few more runs of luck on the rubble until he completed his revamp.

17:15

Coming up the stairs, he distinguished the smell of food that Helen was preparing. Before going in, he assured the pistol lay firmly in place inside his socks, under his pants, and entered. She asked him were he had gone, he answered shortly disguising his fears. They dined early, as they did every day. Warding off interruptions, chatting, casually disregarding their current state, soothing themselves in reminisces of old days, bringing about a placid constitution to the gathering.

20:18

Edgar walked the streets with pompous confidence. After taking washing in the suburban river, changing to his new set of clothes, a bristleless shaving with a sharp utility knife, and borrowing perfume from a young whore he befriended, he felt dandy. Some hours before, with some money he had stolen from a wounded victim, he stepped in a tavern, not far from his alley. Ed asked for whisky, the barman shortly answered, “the only drink is rum that I make in my bathtub.” He asked for a bottle. Alcoholized beyond his senses as he walked the streets, and headed to the tarnished four-storied building.

21:11

Night equaled uneasiness. We retreated to our usual corner. The shelling was once again the monotonous background to our silence. I lay sprawled and slightly elevated in awkward equilibrium to rest, next to me my Helen hidden from sight. The wind carried sobs, deepening the somber mood, drowning hope. She took my hand, barely hiding their shaking. “Ray, I feel we should leave the city, I don’t have any ties to it, being my past lost in the rubble, and you can leave with me, we can go to your parents and live of selling the crops in their land” she said. “But we can’t live there, the house is small, and my idiot parents won’t allow us to sleep together” I rebutted.

A thick, heavy thump protruded over the intermittent silence between explosions. It appeared to be a fruitless effort to force the door open; enlisted the gun, cocked it and aimed into nothing. “Could that be the last effort?” I asked Helen. Without waiting for her answer up I went. Sliding diagonally in half steps, with gun shaking on the end of the triangle formed by my two arms, moving aimlessly about the room, readying fright-control to wait for the moment of contact.

- “know how you win in the battle of love? I´ll show you”
- “…”
- “you want more? You know you are not going to win, I’ll take her away, because that woman is worth it, that I go to the end of the world and come back to get her. Just for her. I’ll do all the shitty things I have to in order to have her. You don’t get it right? Your mind is finite, you don’t get it. You are shitting yourself right? You are nothing.”
- “today I gave your woman what you haven’t in months, make her sigh like crazy. I’m taking her you sissy”
- “I saw her walking with that devilish trot, one, two, three. Her hair bobbed at the same rhythm, she knew I was watching her, she did it to provoke me even more, I still hear the echo of her shoes, the friction of her legs, it made me want to remove her skirt slowly, feel the stroke’s vibrations through, I got my hand under her softly, and I couldn’t take it any more, I want to bonk her all the way”
- “…”

What a deranged lunatic. He wants me to react and talk, to act stupidly out of anger. Shadows formed behind the door at moments with emanated light from the bombs explosion, he was directly opposite the door. Kicked the door… again. Ran from a distance and pushed. The door flexed its corners, clarity was coming in every time he hit the wood, it was giving in. If I open he gets in, if I don’t he’ll smash the door, and still get in. Counting the seconds between each push, I opened. His body flashed out of my hand’s effort to catch him.

… high pitch frantic screams, rapid steps in movement, sweat on steel trembling gun, lights-no lights, silence, sound eruptions, tremors on foundation, flat stillness, hurried gasps, red heat of panic on chest, she yells my name, closer beats per second, discharge illuminates, grabs her arm, tugs it, quiet shadows, struggling voice, grunts, she is wrestling him, fumes and debris smoke filter through the windows, dust all over, I run towards her sounds, slip on alarm sprint, fire… thud on floor, another follows seconds after, mud, flash, red tide dispersing, humid floor beneath my soles, muggy steps from my boots…

“RAY…” she sighs.

After the utter cry, I search for her in half-light, slender body smeared in thin red horror. Clench lean waist, embrace sodden clothes. Evanescence felt through weak arms, frailty calling for succor. Right hand moving to unhinged face, stem straightened. Dirt wiped off smudging sweat and blood. No protest. Crisp cheeks, sharp nip kiss. No reaction. Jagged fall of skull from my support. Broken abyss felt deep within my ribs. Profuse sternum vibrations, difficulty breathing through tears. Displaced emotions spreading through veins. A short end for life, disbelief of fragility. Dry misery looms.

Thoughts on memory’s left lane as I my arms hold departed muse.