Paul shouldered his way through the crowd and headed for the open door. The air was thick with the smell of too many people in too small a place and he badly needed a breath of fresh air. A hand landed on his forearm. It belonged to a grey-faced old man with eyes the color of ruin.
“Where you going, son?” asked the old man.
Paul smiled back. “Need a cigarette,” he said. “All this clean air’s killing me.”
The old man’s face cracked wide, his whole body trembling with mirth.
Paul waved a catch-you-later and headed out into the misty darkness, a midnight breeze slinking over his body like ice water. He popped a smoke between his lips and tried to recall the last time he managed to get to bed before dawn.
Too damn popular for your own good, he told himself.
He lit the cigarette and recalled how, as a child, he had always been the one whom the other kids avoided, always the one to be left sitting alone in the corner of the playground whilst other kids–the popular ones–seemed to have all the adoring fans buzzing about them. Funny how things change.
Paul didn’t mind being popular–it was just that, sometimes, it would be nice to have a bit of privacy, a bit of peace and quiet.
He heard several voices call out his name. “Come on, Paul,” they said. “Get back in here. We’re waiting for you!”
All right, Goddammit, just give me one solitary minute!
“Be right there,” he said.
He wanted to leave. He wanted to make his excuses and go–but they would only follow him.
They always did.
The voices continued to gibber, continued to plead with him to get back inside–things weren’t the same without him, they whined. He’s the life and soul.
“All right!” he screamed. “All right, I’m coming back in. Just, for God’s sake, stop the whinging!” He glared at the mausoleum and at the dark, yawning mouth of its entrance.
Rot-mottled faces peered back at him from the darkness within, the light of the moon playing along bone and the ridges of dust-colored flesh. He stepped towards the edifice, flicking the cigarette into the shadows and undergrowth. “I’ll come back in,” he said, “but please, no more talking. Just, everyone, please be quiet.”
Finger bones clicked as they beckoned with needy eagerness. “Yes,” the voices promised. “Anything you say, Paul. Just come back inside.”
He stepped across the threshold and was embraced by darkness. He wondered, dreamily, if madness might one day come to save him…
He’d give his soul to end all this.
If only… If only he hadn’t sold it in exchange for being popular.
- Copyright: © 2009 John Morgan
