A Painful Beauty
This is the first piece of fiction I wrote for the Writing Short Stories module I take at Uni.
There wasn't a brief or prompt for the peice so it's pretty random.
Gentle smoke curved around each figure and shape; transparent yet full of colour, it was unnerving.
Several girls stood close by, staring just ahead at something I couldn’t quite make out. Each was awestruck and tears were softly flowing down their pale faces. As I stepped closer the smoke began to part, revealing an elderly gentleman sitting by a tree. Although old in years his eyes held a youthful lust and longing that his life did not fulfil. I watched as he slowly took a drag from his pipe before cautiously setting it at his side. As he did so, he began to sing; it was nothing like I had ever heard before, his voice was harsh and soul destroying and he sung tales of woe to his ever decreasing audience.
My ears started to ache from the shock of such terror and frustration. I tried to move but I was transfixed by his story. I longed to be anywhere else, anywhere but here. The rasping voice of the gentle man abused each of my senses in turn whilst ripping my heart out of my cheat. As the song reached its conclusion, I was desperately gasping for breath. Surprising, a scattering of applause immediately followed; the crying girls who stood at my left were apparently thankful of the old man’s music.
‘Why did you enjoy the trauma of his voice?’ I asked the youngest.
‘Beautiful, was the song, and full of such love and hope’ she whispered ‘I do hope he will grace us once more.’
‘But you were crying…’
‘Only because I knew it must end.’
I watched as the child turned to follow her friends. The image of her sad yet knowing smile lingered in my mind a minute longer than I cared for.
It began to snow, and for the first time I noticed the shape of each individual snowflake as they landed on my outstretched palm. ‘This is certainly a curious place’ I spoke to no one in particular ‘I wonder who I shall meet next?’
‘Why hello mi dear, and how may I be of service to you?’
I quickly turned on the spot, too quickly in fact as I lost my balance and had to be caught by the old man, only he wasn’t the same, he wasn’t quite old enough.
‘The eyes never change, do they my child?’ he spoke, and then he was gone. He disappeared into the night, faded entirely and only a slither of silver smoke suggested that he had ever been there.
********
I had no idea of the time; my watch read that it was early in the afternoon but the light surrounding me told a different story, I gathered it was barely past dawn as the air was ripe with a kind of freshness one can only associate with spring mornings. I had been walking most the of night, maybe even two, I no longer knew or cared. My only company was the vast emptiness of nothing; no trees, no coast, no fields of bountiful bunnies and no bricks containing joyful drunks.
I was in complete solitude and I hated every minute of it.
I started scuffing my shoes as I walked. It allowed me a little peace as I imagined the horror on my Mother’s face accompanied with her nagging voice, begging me not to act so common in public. Even this brief moment of normality was abruptly stolen from me as a voice called my name through the wind. I turned, cautiously this time, and was again face to face with the old man who was beginning to haunt my very being.
‘You have to stop running away,’ he urged ‘the present is already in the past, the future is already part of the present.’
‘And the past?’ I asked.
‘The past is always in the past, forget it, it’s not important. Now please, open your eyes.’
I opened my eyes as the man pushed a small mirror into my hands. Suddenly I knew what the reflection would reveal and I summoned all the courage I could muster before bringing the offensive piece of glass to my face... was I really that old?
The eyes they say, never change. They are merely a reflection of ones soul, and this soul is tired.
‘I don’t want to open my eyes thank you, I think I will rest just a little longer.’