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London Falling
By L.E.Swainsleigh
Click here if you'd like to exchange critiques
London Falling is a short story from my unpublished compilation, Fletcher
North. This particular story is a fictionalized account of a very heavy
personal experience. Comments and feedback are extremely appreciated!
I think I watched someone die tonight. Over at Tommy’s. Her name’s Sara, I just met her this evening. She has pretty eyes that she paints around carefully with soft blue powder and never seems to be smiling. Sara is extremely tall and very thin, and she wears platform shoes that give her another half a foot. She’s always taller than the rest of the room, especially her redheaded British boyfriend, Bobby. Sara is, or was, seventeen.
I came over and she was already passed out. A large empty bottle of Smirnoff’s was standing proudly on the coffee table, mocking her apparent lack of tolerance for alcohol. Her long dark blonde hair was sprawled over the arm of the couch. Like an incapacitated angel she seemed. Paler than any angels I’ve known of, but just as silent.
I remember Tommy and Bobby moving her into Troy’s vacant bedroom. I saw her face when they put her down on the mattress that lay on the floor. Her mouth was purple, and the rest of her face was turning a sickening yellowish blue. I’m pretty sure she was still breathing at that point. I just sat on the couch and waited. None of the events taking place were registering in my mind, just flitting through like a passing bird and gone before I could examine them. I felt like an adamant constant force, not reacting to anything portrayed before me. I sat with a bottle of I don’t remember what in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I felt like the angel of death, come to witness her falling and take her back in quiet, unnoticed.
I feel like that a lot. Most times people don’t notice I’m in the room before I speak.
I just took this whole scene in, breathing it in with the smoke I was inhaling. It left bitter air in my mouth, stale molecules of a usually refreshing substance. Sara was motionless the whole time I saw her tonight, she could have been dead before I arrived, I have no way of knowing.
It’s like that time I was in the courtroom. I don't recall exactly why I was there.There was a man, a very lonely looking man in his twenties with most of his life ahead of him. He was sitting in the little area beside the bench, cuffed and shackled to his chair. He had his hands clenched together, fingers laced in the manner of prayer. He had been imprisoned for god only knows how long and was in the courtroom that day to see if he was to have his freedom or be condemned to another few years.
Every second that went by in that courtroom, with the stale, ulcerous old men rustling around in their very important people seats looking at their watches, looking out for their lunch break or the next time they could walk the streets with their cellular phones, was agony for that man in the corner. There they all were, the people who had never made mistakes, the people whose parents had their futures laid out for them even before they were born, not even giving a shit whether he lived or died, or went to prison. Each moment that passed that man made bearable by the fact that he might never set foot inside that prison again. That maybe, just maybe he could be unchained and walk out of that courtroom without a police escort.
I remember by the time they addressed him, or rather got to the number he was represented by, he had his elbows pressed down so hard on that railing in front of him that I thought it might break. His hands were still praying, the metal bracelets he wore dug into his wrists. The gavel came down, and right there I saw that man lose his freedom. I don’t even know what his crime was, or whether he had committed it, but I saw the hope fall from his face like a porcelain mask and shatter on the floor in front of him. He rested his tired head on the railing; his arms slumped over in front of him. They took him out of that courtroom even more destroyed than he had come in. The judge and all his attorney henchmen remained unmoved, completely devoid of empathy for the man they had just broken.
That powerful instant taught me that every second counts, even if there are metal cuffs on your hands and feet. If you can have that hope for just another minute, you’re better for it. But at this point in the night, I had nearly lost hope for Sara.
Time passed, I don’t know how much, and Tommy came out of the room and sat down next to me. Bobby stepped in a couple of minutes later, looking pained and distraught as he gently closed the door behind him. He sat down in a wooden chair across from me, and before him was the cluttered coffee table, the vodka bottle still boasting its superiority. His back was to the door behind which Sara slept dreamless, surrounded by a cloud of intoxicated loneliness. I handed him a smoke and lit it. Briff walked in and sat on the pool table behind Bobby. He perched there like a demon in his bright blue pants and spoke quietly to Bobby from over his shoulder. His conscience, almost.
“Just put a pillow over her face, man. It’s not worth it. She’s suffering.”
Bobby just shook his head and mumbled back.
“I wish I could.” He said, I think he almost smiled, but in it was pain.
“But she’s miserable. How much shit did she take? Four lines, right?” Briff’s face turned somewhat concerned, but he maintained his childlike mischief, keeping it in his eyes alone. Bobby nodded, then pointed over to the empty vodka bottle.
“That too.”
Briff turned suddenly serious.
“All that... She’s gonna die, man.” Out of the corner of my eye I caught Tommy looking down and shaking his head. I heard him think. Shame. This should not happen in my house.
Briff spoke again.
“Just get it over with, Bobby. She won’t feel it.”
Bobby shot from his chair, sending it backwards, crashing to the floor. His voice roared like I’ve never heard.
“Look Brendan, this isn’t some crippled dog in there, we’re talking about Sara. She’s not some goldfish you flush down the fucking toilet, all right? All right?!” With one swift motion he grabbed the vodka bottle by the neck from the table and winged it at the open kitchen door. It flew through the room and smashed on the kitchen wall by the window, a bit of the clear liquid streaming down to the linoleum below. Bobby stepped back, shocked by what he had just done. He sank down to the floor, his back against Troy’s room door. He sat like a little kid, elbows on his knees, staring down at his feet.
Tommy swept up the little pieces of glass from the kitchen floor. I sat staring, quite perturbed, but rather too drunk to notice. I lit another cigarette and watched him.
That’s where it ends. I sit in the car now, on the way home in the back seat. I still don’t know whether Sara lived or died tonight. My headache is seeping into the front of my brain, making it hard to think. I think I'll just close my eyes now, because if you just close your eyes it goes away.
