Status: Flash fiction
Rome wasn't built in a day.
Rome wasn't built in a day, my sweet.
Hours shrank to seconds around her. Imagine the scene. A flat beyond the Notre Dame. Paris. Cream coloured sheets in a crisp white room. Cigarettes and coffee for breakfast. Two lovers laid on their backs, like ink blots on clean paper.
A smooth flow of smoke came from her lips. The more I stared, the more it hurt. I found her in a book shop that morning, when she asked me where the history books were kept. I pointed out the basic ones, and went and sat back behind my typewriter so I could watch her at a distance. Dirty coffee coloured hair framed her pale face, and the bright smudge of rouge over her mouth lit up the room. I knew I’d take her back to the apartment, I read her body language like a book. The faint ache of desperation and hunger leaked from her every time she looked at the counter, and I knew. The quiet plead in her eyes, begging to be loved by someone like me. So I asked her for a drink, or seven. I asked her name (Emily) and offered her a cigarette.
We exchanged life stories over the table at the bar, and the more I found out, the more I realised this girl was lost. Completely and hopelessly lost. She took the first train here after one too many bad experiences back home (She never told me where exactly home was, but her accent suggested she was British, or somewhere close by) and ended up here, looking for work. She asked about my life, so I spun some fairy tale about how I was a poor writer trying to make a living in a back street bookshop. She didn’t need to know the truth. Maniac-come-murdered with a passion for breaking the weak and needy. She swallowed the whole thing, and her eyes seemed to light up as she conjured up this happy-ever-after story of us in her mind. Perfect.
About 2AM, we took a slow drunken stroll back to my apartment, and her intoxicated body was screaming desperation, so I invited her in. The bedroom wasn’t hard to get her into; she threw herself onto the mattress before I had chance to lock the door. Moving on into the night, she rested her empty head against my bare chest and made the typical move of stating how nice it was to hear my heartbeat. Her slow tongue and slurred mouth started to form the words “I love you”. She didn’t have chance to finish it. I looked into her bloodshot, eyeliner smeared eyes and whispered “My sweet, you know nothing. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
I hate those words. I hate that girl.
I took the gun from the pine chest by my bed, and put it in her mouth. A smooth flow of smoke came from her lips, as she laid there, the ink blots staining the clean paper sheets a bright colour of crimson mess. The more I stared, the more it hurt.
A smooth flow of smoke came from her lips. The more I stared, the more it hurt. I found her in a book shop that morning, when she asked me where the history books were kept. I pointed out the basic ones, and went and sat back behind my typewriter so I could watch her at a distance. Dirty coffee coloured hair framed her pale face, and the bright smudge of rouge over her mouth lit up the room. I knew I’d take her back to the apartment, I read her body language like a book. The faint ache of desperation and hunger leaked from her every time she looked at the counter, and I knew. The quiet plead in her eyes, begging to be loved by someone like me. So I asked her for a drink, or seven. I asked her name (Emily) and offered her a cigarette.
We exchanged life stories over the table at the bar, and the more I found out, the more I realised this girl was lost. Completely and hopelessly lost. She took the first train here after one too many bad experiences back home (She never told me where exactly home was, but her accent suggested she was British, or somewhere close by) and ended up here, looking for work. She asked about my life, so I spun some fairy tale about how I was a poor writer trying to make a living in a back street bookshop. She didn’t need to know the truth. Maniac-come-murdered with a passion for breaking the weak and needy. She swallowed the whole thing, and her eyes seemed to light up as she conjured up this happy-ever-after story of us in her mind. Perfect.
About 2AM, we took a slow drunken stroll back to my apartment, and her intoxicated body was screaming desperation, so I invited her in. The bedroom wasn’t hard to get her into; she threw herself onto the mattress before I had chance to lock the door. Moving on into the night, she rested her empty head against my bare chest and made the typical move of stating how nice it was to hear my heartbeat. Her slow tongue and slurred mouth started to form the words “I love you”. She didn’t have chance to finish it. I looked into her bloodshot, eyeliner smeared eyes and whispered “My sweet, you know nothing. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
I hate those words. I hate that girl.
I took the gun from the pine chest by my bed, and put it in her mouth. A smooth flow of smoke came from her lips, as she laid there, the ink blots staining the clean paper sheets a bright colour of crimson mess. The more I stared, the more it hurt.
♠ ♠ ♠
flash fiction.