It All Makes Sense When You Are Near The End
Placed
deliberately side by side, two cylindrical nozzles stared at her like blind eyes.
Weapons, she might’ve thought. With a black, hungry, wanton gaze that glowered from
across the marble floored square that made up the living space of her apartment.
They did not
waver.
As if anticipating their sound of thunder, she knocked back and swallowed a large amount of
the drink in the glass beside her. Her hands did not shake, she noticed.
Steady. Smooth and without trembling. Yet she winced at the sound the ice made hitting
glass, in resentment.
But was it her face,
or the one in front of her? Familiar in thought and deed, each looked at the other, waiting, waiting.
The clock on
her phone waited, too, and told of a growing sense of inevitability, a crushing
feeling of a road not willingly travelled but a final destination reached
anyway. Everything inanimate seemed personal and imbued with a reckless
malevolence.
You can see that deck of cards now in front of her and the darkening of the room as the sun retired,
in indecent haste, replacing light with shanked bars of shadow that lengthened?
Yes, those
cards. Not just an ordinary deck, they were…sinister. Born of a left hand like
her own. Well that could be an advantage. The cards stacked, the seconds
ticked, the shadows lengthened, the nozzles watched.
Now came a rumble of an impatient cough.
The deck was
seized and shuffled. Perfectly openly, with fairness that there could be no
claim of palming or sharping in some later, panicked mitigation. When those
unwavering, observant nozzles spoke their final blank message, as she knew they
must, when it came, there could be no plea of bias. Just stand or fall.
Fingers
scuttered forward like scorpions and dealt the top card, then the next, and both
were laid on the table in front of her, face down. She supposed a nonchalant
look might be best. Remembering to use her right hand in the chance it might
offer some sort of benefit, she took one of those offered.
Turned it
up.
Queen of
clubs. Pretty decent and quite high. She allowed herself an inner smile.
The other
hand took the remaining card and flicked it over casually. Ace of spades; well
of course, so let it be that, let it be that.
Blown it.
She must use her right.
In studied reflection, the calm face opposite knew too, her opponent looking back at her, a
half smile forming, deep lines of grey age meshing into a cynical, threatening
mask. Glancing pointedly at those two shooters, arranged side by side, the hand
reached and with a decisive jab, started the countdown.
Nine minutes.
Nine minutes to contemplate what would happen when the numbers clocked zero.
She didn’t feel
anything acute. Since this had started, she had always thought that, when the
moment came, she might do. Doors had been barred, there was no way out. It had been
like that for some time now. All her movements were being tracked and traced by
unseen shadows. Even wearing masks, blending into the anonymity of the crowd
was next to useless.
No, she felt
a strange ennui.
The clock
ticked. Seven minutes before they fired automatically. But which would be win?
Nothing for it now, but to sit and wait in front of them. One would be first,
the other second, and there was some chance that at the given moment, she could act.
In front of her, her silent adversary similarly waited, brows furrowed and frosted like
a winter field, presumably having exactly the same thoughts – but how could you ever be sure?
She
desperately wanted that drink, but as her hand moved towards it, the face in
front of her shook almost imperceptibly, raising a finger to the lips.
Six minutes,
then five.
So it had
come to this and now she riffled regretfully through the memories of those courses she had life's waiter take away with a disdainful toss.
She had
chances, no doubt of that; choices made. She could’ve packed a burner phone,
switched it off. She could have followed the rules.
And what of marriage,
love, children? Well, what of them? She had not taken that safe road like many
of her friends; always crazy, always the first to be different. So, no, she had
countenanced reckless decisions, picked up her pen, written much of many an
affair, brought numerous accounts to book – little child, running wild - and now
here was the result. A locomotive fixed to her track but hurtling towards her
in an oncoming tempest.
Two nozzles,
both equal, but opposite. Which would fire first?
So many
things in life are unpredictable, she reasoned, and one could never know certainty.
When would the venus fly trap close and what movement of the fly would trigger
it? The plug of a volcano’s crater, pressure building relentlessly, until the moment
half an impulsive mountain exploded into the sky to curtain the sun. Even a
geyser called old faithful could one day sue for divorce from its marriage to
time.
And, yes,
there was that, she smiled, remembering those occasions when she had, knees
aching, stroked and stroked, worked hard with her tongue, never sure of the
time she would hear the stifled groan and it would all be over, in a wet, salty
puddle.
Two minutes.
She leaned slightly forwards, but so did her rival, as if reading her mind.
One minute, thirty
seconds, fifteen, then none.
On the sound
of the alarm, she hurled headlong for the weapon like a striking serpent. But
the other hand was quicker. It wrenched the shooter, flicked a switch. Too
late, the second spoke its message whilst she desperately grabbed at it - grabbed at it and knocked it to the floor.
“No!” she
screamed.
With a
gentle, lengthy hiss, the automatic air freshener gushed a sweet fragrance of
apple and cinnamon into the air from where it had fallen.
Mabel kicked
it with her left foot in frustration. She glared into the mirror and put the
other back where its black nozzle continued to mock her.
Grabbing her
phone, she swiped it from clock mode to call and jabbed the screen a couple of
times, listening to the electronic purr. After a while, she spoke.
“Bill? It’s
utter shite.”
“What is?”
“You cannot
switch off two air fresheners simultaneously before they fire, in the way you
said. It’s bollocks and a complete waste of time.”
Bill
chuckled quietly to himself. “Well it’s not as if you’re pressed for that in
self isolation is it? After all you’ve eight more days of quarantine to go.”
“Oh, fuck
off.”
