Her er så min short story "Watch". Enhver kritik vil sføli blive mødt med glæde. Enjoy...
Watch
I leave the gas station, walk past an old man with a dog and start walking down the street. For some reason I start wondering about whether I’m really going up or down the street. My apartment is somewhere “down there” so I guess I’m walking down the street. But then again, maybe my apartment is “up there”. I look back to see if I’m leaving any footprints. Strange really since I have never heard of visible footprints being left on hard, dead and cold asphalt.
With me I have a plastic bag containing 2 bottles of coke, a bag of potato chips without flavor and a can of dog food. In itself this is strange because I have no dog. I stop to check the plastic bag only to find that I haven’t bought dog food. Did I leave it on the counter? Did I ever contemplate buying a dog?
I cross the street for no apparent reason besides the action of crossing it. No cars in sight. No honking of horns. No witnesses to my trip home from the gas station.
I know she’s at the apartment. She’s waiting for me but not in a good way. Not in the way that lovers usually wait for each other when one of them is on the way home. When I left she was on the couch. She was watching me but without seeing me. I remember I stopped and thought about how strange she looked sitting there watching me but without seeing me. How long can a person look without blinking? Maybe you have to see to blink. I stop again and switch the plastic bag from my right hand to my left hand. It’s not that my right hand hurts or anything and the bag is not really heavy. Sometimes you just have to switch hands.
I hear a dog barking and again I think about the dog food that I never bought and the dog I may never have thought about buying. I laugh but not out loud. It’s the kind of laugh you only experience yourself. The kind of laugh that is the reaction to something no one else would have seen as funny. Essentially, the reaction to life.
She never said goodbye when I told her I was going to the gas station to buy something to drink. She didn’t remind me to get her a diet coke even though she knows that I know she likes it. I never liked diet coke. I never liked diet anything. I’m a man who likes flavor when I eat or drink something. To make up for the lack of diet coke I eat the potato chips without flavor. With the sugar and the fat goes the flavor and you’re left with a copy of something that once tasted good but now has lost all color, smell and taste. Like a copy without the qualities of the original. It’s like every bad sequel ever made to a great original movie. I like my original, my Coca Cola with the entire flavor. She never understood it though and I never understood why she wanted the bad copy of it. It doesn’t really matter anymore.
Two blocks to go and I’m home. My place of refuge used to be such a secure, warm and comfortable place. Perhaps it still is. I will find out in a few minutes. The idea that it has changed comes every time I’m on my way home to it. It’s like I fear it has transformed itself into a diet apartment without the things I liked about it.
She will be there on the couch waiting for me. Perhaps her head is tipped back a bit so it touches the window behind the couch. Her breath will leave no mark on the glass. Her skin will leave no greasy spot on the window. I suddenly remember I forgot to buy dog food. I do have a dog. A thing that cares about me and doesn’t care about whether I buy one kind of dog food or another. The dog will eat it no matter what. The dog is dead.
I cross the street again but this time with a purpose since my apartment is on the other side. I enter the building and start climbing the stairs. The plastic bag was back in my right hand as I entered the door but I need that hand to hold the banister as I’m going up the stairs. It’s not that I need to hold it. It just wouldn’t make sense not to use it when it’s there.
I stand before my door. I take a deep breath and get ready for the argument since I didn’t buy diet coke for her. I open the door, enter and close it behind me. I start counting backwards from 10. As I reach 3 I notice that the door to the living room is closed and I wonder why. I remember leaving it open. I hear a siren somewhere and I finish my countdown. Without noticing it until 4 seconds later I finished the countdown with “the end” instead of “zero”. I’m walking towards the living room door. I pass the dead dog and kneel down to pet it. How could I forget the dog food? I want to cry but can’t and I stand up. I take a deep breath and open the door to the living room and enter. It all happens in one swift motion. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The air comes in, the door goes up and the air comes out again. Life has been to hell and back.
The first thing I notice when I enter is that a candle is burning on the coffee table. I never drink coffee and usually just refer to it as “the table”. She drinks tea but for some reason never calls it “the tea table”. It’s a board and 4 legs all made of wood. Why does it even need to have a function and a name limited to hot beverages being placed on it?
I blow out the candle and through the smoke I see the couch is empty. Is this even my apartment? I turn around and go to pet the dead dog again. I go back into the living room and sit down on the couch. A few seconds go by before I realize my hand is in a small puddle of blood. The blood is slowly disappearing into the fabric of the couch. As I wash my hands in the kitchen I try to remember where I bought the couch as I was told by the salesman that the fabric would not absorb liquids. He mentioned water, soda and coffee as possible liquids but not blood.
He probably mentioned coffee since I bought the so-called coffee table on that day as well.
I look at my watch. It’s 4pm and I’ve been gone for 2 days. In the kitchen I find the knife I used before I left the apartment. I take it and go back to the dead dog. The wounds on the side of the dog are still there. I stick the knife into the wounds to see if my knife did the damage. Perfect fit.
I turn on the TV and turn it off. I go to the bathroom. The bathtub is still red. The handprint on the wall is still visible. A complete print of a hand with all its details. You can even see where the ring was on her finger. I turn on the water and wash away the red. I leave the print on the wall since I’m a firm believer in holding on to the little things: movie tickets, letters etc.
I stop to wonder why there is no red on the floor from the journey from the bathroom to the couch. Her last journey. I get down on my hands and knees to look but there is nothing. I’m in the hall again. I pet the dog, this time stroking its wounds as if to close them.
I search all the rooms in the apartment but I cannot find her. I open a bottle of coke and enjoy the real taste of it. Always Coca Cola. If everything else were gone tomorrow, we’d always have Coca Cola. I finish the bottle and run my tongue across my teeth to get the whole flavor of the coke. I hate to lose good things.
I try calling her parents but when I ask for her they hang up. Didn’t they use to like me? I look at the time. It’s 8pm. I sit down on the couch and start reading a magazine. She coughs and I look at her. Her red tears stain her naked body. Still she is watching but without seeing. I stroke her hair and go to wash my hands again. I look at her. For a second it seems she is looking at me too this time also seeing. I catch a hint of a smile and I feel bad about not getting her the diet coke. I turn around to get the bag of potato chips. When I sit down on the couch again her eyes are closed. She doesn’t cough. She doesn’t cry. There is nothing but silence. I look at the time. It’s 2am. She’s gone again. I choose not to go look for her. I go to bed. I change the sheets first since the color of red is unbecoming in this situation. I stare at the ceiling and hear something in the distance. A dog is barking. I get up and write “dog food” on a note and put it on the kitchen counter.
Watch
I leave the gas station, walk past an old man with a dog and start walking down the street. For some reason I start wondering about whether I’m really going up or down the street. My apartment is somewhere “down there” so I guess I’m walking down the street. But then again, maybe my apartment is “up there”. I look back to see if I’m leaving any footprints. Strange really since I have never heard of visible footprints being left on hard, dead and cold asphalt.
With me I have a plastic bag containing 2 bottles of coke, a bag of potato chips without flavor and a can of dog food. In itself this is strange because I have no dog. I stop to check the plastic bag only to find that I haven’t bought dog food. Did I leave it on the counter? Did I ever contemplate buying a dog?
I cross the street for no apparent reason besides the action of crossing it. No cars in sight. No honking of horns. No witnesses to my trip home from the gas station.
I know she’s at the apartment. She’s waiting for me but not in a good way. Not in the way that lovers usually wait for each other when one of them is on the way home. When I left she was on the couch. She was watching me but without seeing me. I remember I stopped and thought about how strange she looked sitting there watching me but without seeing me. How long can a person look without blinking? Maybe you have to see to blink. I stop again and switch the plastic bag from my right hand to my left hand. It’s not that my right hand hurts or anything and the bag is not really heavy. Sometimes you just have to switch hands.
I hear a dog barking and again I think about the dog food that I never bought and the dog I may never have thought about buying. I laugh but not out loud. It’s the kind of laugh you only experience yourself. The kind of laugh that is the reaction to something no one else would have seen as funny. Essentially, the reaction to life.
She never said goodbye when I told her I was going to the gas station to buy something to drink. She didn’t remind me to get her a diet coke even though she knows that I know she likes it. I never liked diet coke. I never liked diet anything. I’m a man who likes flavor when I eat or drink something. To make up for the lack of diet coke I eat the potato chips without flavor. With the sugar and the fat goes the flavor and you’re left with a copy of something that once tasted good but now has lost all color, smell and taste. Like a copy without the qualities of the original. It’s like every bad sequel ever made to a great original movie. I like my original, my Coca Cola with the entire flavor. She never understood it though and I never understood why she wanted the bad copy of it. It doesn’t really matter anymore.
Two blocks to go and I’m home. My place of refuge used to be such a secure, warm and comfortable place. Perhaps it still is. I will find out in a few minutes. The idea that it has changed comes every time I’m on my way home to it. It’s like I fear it has transformed itself into a diet apartment without the things I liked about it.
She will be there on the couch waiting for me. Perhaps her head is tipped back a bit so it touches the window behind the couch. Her breath will leave no mark on the glass. Her skin will leave no greasy spot on the window. I suddenly remember I forgot to buy dog food. I do have a dog. A thing that cares about me and doesn’t care about whether I buy one kind of dog food or another. The dog will eat it no matter what. The dog is dead.
I cross the street again but this time with a purpose since my apartment is on the other side. I enter the building and start climbing the stairs. The plastic bag was back in my right hand as I entered the door but I need that hand to hold the banister as I’m going up the stairs. It’s not that I need to hold it. It just wouldn’t make sense not to use it when it’s there.
I stand before my door. I take a deep breath and get ready for the argument since I didn’t buy diet coke for her. I open the door, enter and close it behind me. I start counting backwards from 10. As I reach 3 I notice that the door to the living room is closed and I wonder why. I remember leaving it open. I hear a siren somewhere and I finish my countdown. Without noticing it until 4 seconds later I finished the countdown with “the end” instead of “zero”. I’m walking towards the living room door. I pass the dead dog and kneel down to pet it. How could I forget the dog food? I want to cry but can’t and I stand up. I take a deep breath and open the door to the living room and enter. It all happens in one swift motion. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The air comes in, the door goes up and the air comes out again. Life has been to hell and back.
The first thing I notice when I enter is that a candle is burning on the coffee table. I never drink coffee and usually just refer to it as “the table”. She drinks tea but for some reason never calls it “the tea table”. It’s a board and 4 legs all made of wood. Why does it even need to have a function and a name limited to hot beverages being placed on it?
I blow out the candle and through the smoke I see the couch is empty. Is this even my apartment? I turn around and go to pet the dead dog again. I go back into the living room and sit down on the couch. A few seconds go by before I realize my hand is in a small puddle of blood. The blood is slowly disappearing into the fabric of the couch. As I wash my hands in the kitchen I try to remember where I bought the couch as I was told by the salesman that the fabric would not absorb liquids. He mentioned water, soda and coffee as possible liquids but not blood.
He probably mentioned coffee since I bought the so-called coffee table on that day as well.
I look at my watch. It’s 4pm and I’ve been gone for 2 days. In the kitchen I find the knife I used before I left the apartment. I take it and go back to the dead dog. The wounds on the side of the dog are still there. I stick the knife into the wounds to see if my knife did the damage. Perfect fit.
I turn on the TV and turn it off. I go to the bathroom. The bathtub is still red. The handprint on the wall is still visible. A complete print of a hand with all its details. You can even see where the ring was on her finger. I turn on the water and wash away the red. I leave the print on the wall since I’m a firm believer in holding on to the little things: movie tickets, letters etc.
I stop to wonder why there is no red on the floor from the journey from the bathroom to the couch. Her last journey. I get down on my hands and knees to look but there is nothing. I’m in the hall again. I pet the dog, this time stroking its wounds as if to close them.
I search all the rooms in the apartment but I cannot find her. I open a bottle of coke and enjoy the real taste of it. Always Coca Cola. If everything else were gone tomorrow, we’d always have Coca Cola. I finish the bottle and run my tongue across my teeth to get the whole flavor of the coke. I hate to lose good things.
I try calling her parents but when I ask for her they hang up. Didn’t they use to like me? I look at the time. It’s 8pm. I sit down on the couch and start reading a magazine. She coughs and I look at her. Her red tears stain her naked body. Still she is watching but without seeing. I stroke her hair and go to wash my hands again. I look at her. For a second it seems she is looking at me too this time also seeing. I catch a hint of a smile and I feel bad about not getting her the diet coke. I turn around to get the bag of potato chips. When I sit down on the couch again her eyes are closed. She doesn’t cough. She doesn’t cry. There is nothing but silence. I look at the time. It’s 2am. She’s gone again. I choose not to go look for her. I go to bed. I change the sheets first since the color of red is unbecoming in this situation. I stare at the ceiling and hear something in the distance. A dog is barking. I get up and write “dog food” on a note and put it on the kitchen counter.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home