Austin and Ophelia

Austin: Paper cut me fine. Slit in my skin. Began to ooze my inspiration dry. Sucking on my right index finger I take pleasure in flattening the paper into a balled fisted. White knuckled. It dropped gracefully hollow against my bear feet. Paper is low. Another vast journey across London is lavishly luring me out of my hovel.
My clothes are creased, wearing thin at the joints, flexing my elegant fingers in a nervous habit. Pull on a battered pair of canvas shoes, soul coming away from the body. Patting down wallet and keys through felt dark coat, collar is up, approachable. Reflection smiles white ghoulish mirror. Practice, smile, closed door. Dead bolt.

Ophelia: Air had been thick this morning, making it hard to breath and preparing the way for the sheets of revengeful rain that beat in a hellish rhythm upon the streets. I was clock watching, waiting for my shift to end. The day had held no customers, which lead to siver doubt how a small shop that only stock different gradients of paper could remain afloat. If it wasn’t for the patronage of the neighboring art university I doubt this shop’s existence at all.
Head in hands and the count of seconds on my breath broke when the ancient tin bell sounded. He loomed in the doorway scuffing feet on the welcome matt. There was an air of awkward elegance shrouding him, his long limbs adorned in dark attire. Black coat, high collar, black trousers, straight legged, white shirt, un-ironed, thin black tie, chocked knot. Hunched down in his posture made him into an abstract sculpture. A sudden flinch came about him face.
“Can I help you with anything?” My Sunday voice was lost in the high-shelved shop.
“No…thank you.” The voice was oddly soft, in more of an unsettling way than the polite tone intended.
Vanishing behind the narrow shelves in the back of the shop, the creeks of the slowly rotting floorboards was the only reminder I was not alone. He appeared some minutes later as quickly as he vanished, tenderly placing a stack of different assaulted papers on the dented oak counter. The pile was daunting as I began to scan the individual sheets.
“Have you got your student card?”
“No” his back was to me, as he scanned the bookcase on the other side of the counter.
“Oh…I presumed you were from the university with this amount of paper.”
“You presumed wrong.” His finger ran eloquently jagged across the spines, till he stopped and pulled a book out.
There was something hostility of his tone, a strained friendly quality that did not belong. A dull sound of plastic and wood scrapped like silk across the counter.
“And this too, if you will please.”
“Of course, Sir.”
I smile looking up at him. Grey Colbert shifts in his eyes catching my own, his cheek bones scoop down into apple hollows, hugged by stubble fixated in shadow. The flesh is liquid clear, all one tone. A solid jaw line, strong chin, an upper lip line pulled down at the corners into a prominent cupid’s bow and a full bottom lip. Dark hair in soft curls caressed his hairline, molding him into a modern day Peruvian man.
“Origami. Are you a sort of artist?” I read the books upside down bold title.
“It could be said.”
Presuming scanning I manage to handle the gigantic pile in a reasonable amount of time. Rain is still pounding mercilessly outside.
“That’s fifty-five pounds ninety nine pence please.”
Fluidly fumberling for money he retrieves his wallet and produces three crisp twenties. Taking it from him and ringing his change I felt the weight of his gaze, as I hand over the recite and penny. His head tilted to one side on handing back his money, as if he were working out some complex math equation, eyes narrow and brows furrowed.
“It’s raining pretty hard out there. Why not take one of these on the house. It would be a shame if all your paper got soaked through.”
Lining his paper up with the plastic wallet I have a battle to fit it all in through one successive slide. There was a bemused smile on his lips. When I looked up flustered again, which looked like it didn’t belong to his face at all that was half sulk stricken.
“I already have several of those and yet always seem to forget to bring them.”
Reaching under the counter I pull out a paper tag and a protective plastic slip.
“Name?”
“Pardon?”
“What is your name?”
“Austin.”
‘Austin please bring me with you next time to Artimisa’s!’ I scrawl in my best handwriting across the tag in grotesque capital letters, before slotting it into the plastic haven. Before tying it to the handle of the cheap artist A2 carry case.
“Now you wont forget.”
“Thank you.”
Taking the case, his fingertips brush against mine playing upon the pink blush already set on my cheeks. A smudge of a smile appears across his lower face, not touching his eyes. Turing on his heels he makes his way to the door.
“I like it here. The quiet.”
The tin bell sounds and Austin does a disappearing act behind a curtain of rain.