"Untitled"

First 2 chapters of a piece of fiction I am working on. In the style of realism, the piece deals with many topics, such as, personal psychology, relationships and love.

Chapter 1

 

Autumn swept through viscously that September. The trees wiped off their kiddish green make-up, dropped their fruit, and started to uncover their second skin. A wiser, more modest brown and gold took over. The insects vanished into thin air, and the birds made preparations for the upcoming bleakness of winter. A deathly shadow of the cosmos instilled in them a knowingness, and feeling of the end.

 

It was warm and crowded with students in the lecture hall that day, untainted by the seismic shift of the earth into a new season, and the mysterious workings of the universe, the professor discussed Baudrillard and hyper-reality. The students tapped away on their laptops like automatons, and Zarah with an almost psychic sensibility shivered. She looked at Alec's neck, wondering if he could feel her glare. He left half way through the lecture without saying a word to her, even though it had been a whole summer since they last spoke. A*****e, she thought.

 

During the break a Bulgarian intonated voice shouted over the mini huddles of smokers “Zarah!”

Zarah looked back conspicuously, trying to attach the voice to the face, and then when connecting the two, warmly yelled “Aldiyaar!”

She wrestled through the packs of smokers, trying to gage contact, until she finally reached him.

“Oh my god, Aldiyar!

 How are you?! Its been seriously ages dude.”

 

Aldiyar was happy to see Zarah, but a slight look of disappointment came over his face when he heard the word “dude” come out of her mouth. It only reminded him of his place in the friend zone; a purgatory which seemed to be his eternal destiny.

“I’m good” he responded, trying to disguise the bitter tinge in his stomach. “Just trying to stay awake through this bullshit.”

“Tell me about it. If he brings up his new book one more time, I swear to god I’m gonna shoot someone, if not my self.” She giggled morbidly after this bold statement.

There was a cute blonde stood next to him. His next victim possibly, Zarah thought. She had all the criteria of one of Aldiyar's victims; petite, slightly alternative, and definitely way out of his league physically.”

“This is Sophie by the way”

“Oh hi. I’m Zarah.

 Incase you didnt notice from the yelling a second ago.”

She giggled emphatically over this.

“Well, I’m Sophie incase you didnt notice!” followed by an even more uncomfortable amount of intense laughter. She seemed to be one of those girls that just spoke in empty laughter. Everything and nothing was funny.

The other two laughed with her, in an attempt to de-sensitize the awkwardness.

Zarah wishing to escape the nuisance of the girl and situation said “Im gonna grab coffee, you guys want?”

Thankfully Aldiyar’s new girl of the month wanted to finish her cigarette.

Aldiyar seemed momentarily conflicted. He knew he had no chance with Zarah, and that it would be better to try and sweet talk Sophie, rather than go have coffee with her. But her eyes captured his and he fell helpless to his heart.

“I’ll join you” he solemly concluded, as if defeated.

 

They walked through a Hogwarts like set up, with 400-year-old paintings of past professors and educators watching over them through the hallways. Eavesdropping on their intimate conversations. They past the marble steps draped with red velvet to get to the canteen, reinforcing the students sense of privilege and place in the world. The two caught up and joked about everything from silly juvenile sexual anecdotes and beliefs, to the deep political problems in Aldiyar’s home country in the Balkans. “You know a journalist burnt herself to death infront of the parliament two days ago?

That’s how bad its gotten there. F*****g journalists are burning themselves to death.”

 

Zarah looked to the ground momentarily, trying to fathom something she could not. She had experienced her share of economic and social struggle, but not to this extent. The political problems of her home country in the UK felt pitiful in comparison, and she often tried to never speak of them infront of Aldiyar because she felt foolish for complaining about comparatively trivial matters. Instead she fittingly responded with her sympathies for Aldiyar’s country’s situation, but then continued to joke to deflect the topic.

 

In his presence she often felt beautiful and special. She could joke with ease, and he would always laugh. She could talk about her artistic endeavours and he always found them spectacular. Asking her questions, wanting to know more about her ideas and thoughts, the way one does when they are lost in blinded infatuation. His infatuation and love for Zarah emitted off him like powerful rays. And sometimes Zarah could swear that she felt these love rays in her chest when in his presence; so much, that they almost fooled her heart into loving him for brief moments.

 

She sometimes tried to imagine what it would be like to kiss him, and perhaps even be in a relationship with him. But these thoughts quickly vanished, and a strange feeling of disgust would rise in the pit of her stomach. She would feel his acne and sweat caress her face and lips. The stubble on his chin, mixed with pimples. And as she drew from the kiss she would be greeting by his intense bulging eyes that were graced with longer eyelashes than her own, obliterating any sense of romance. This fantasy would be repeated in Zarah's mind throughout their relationship, reminding her that she would never love him.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Zarah walked home after the lecture, feeling a sense of resentment for how quickly the day vanished into darkness. It was all over too fast, she thought. And she became angered by her sense of futility against time.

She walked over her usual canal in the northern section of town, which was now lit by an orange glow from the streetlights. The lights shimmered on the water beneath the bridge, creating an impenetrable sense of romance. Her anger subsided for a brief moment as she took all this in. The beauty of Hejmansstad could never cease to surprise and awe her. The scene soon invoked unwanted feelings that Zarah tried to bury over the summer. Nostalgic memories of Alec and their late night adventures. His soft lips. The smell of his leather jacket mixed with cologne. When he held her hand the first time in the early moments of summer. The poetry of his words. A writer. 

The first time she actually spent time with him didn’t feel romantic at all. She was with a friend walking into the university library, where they bumped into each other. Alec seemed to be lingering in front of the library, looking lost and disoriented. They had all decided to grab a bite to eat and to the girls horror he recommended McDonalds. As they walked through town, he didn’t seem to show any sign of social etiquette. Never really walking close to Zarah and Jess, but sort of lingering to the side or in front of them at a distance. The lost and disoriented expression seemed to be a permanent fixture of his face at that time. She watched him as he took a juicy bite of his burger whilst discussing Kafka with his mouth filled with food.

 

“You know that book he wrote, the one with the guy who wakes up to find himself turned into this huge monster spider thing. What was the name? Ma..Me?”

“Metamorphose!” Zarah shouted, feeling as if she were in a game contest.

“Yes! That’s it. Oh man, that book is f*****g crazy. He just wakes up like this insect and no boby really questions it that much. I guess its all about the absurdity of life or some s**t.

So yeah I kind sent in some twisted stuff like that to the American Studies newspaper, and they didnt feel it was appropriate, or some bullshit.”

That was how Alec spoke. A mixture between Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rhye and Hank from Californication. Both characters he spoke of admirably. Together with his love for masculine alcoholic writers, such as, Hemmingway and Bukowski. Although in reality he connected more with women on a platonic level, nihilist masculinity and hedonism seemed to be his deep spiritual quest.

 

He tried to disguise his intelligence by speaking of intellectual topics in a carefree kind of tone, with many curse words randomly placed either at the beginning or at the end of each sentence. As if he were talking about a time he got high or wasted before going to class. Never as if he were actually talking about the existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus, or the differences between Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Zarah's heart surprisingly began to race and slow as she heard him speak. Her spirit sensed everything he was saying inbetween the lines, deleting all the “f***s” and “s***s.” Ignoring his apathetic juvenile manner, that would usually be the first thing to put off women. She began to get self conscious as she ate her fries infront of him, and suddenly was at a loss for dinner time banter. Instead, she was busy absorbing him as a human-being and processing the first inklings of love, or something atleast in the same ball game of love.

 

A scooter zoomed past Zara from behind un-expectantly, awakening her from her memories. She crossed the last street to her house, and could feel a rising fear as she soaked in the night and all its mystery. The street lights swayed in the wind, creating a haunting light, accompanied by a whistling sound, that could have been moans of a dying child, a crying woman or an angry man. The lonely night time streets often stirred an uncomfortable amount of imagination for Zarah. She walked faster as she drew closer to her front door, realizing that if she ran she might look crazy, but that if she walked slow she might also become one of the moaning sounds amidst the wind, and be taken away by whatever it was that she felt lurked there in the nothingness. Her heart raced manically as she saw a random bystander walk past her house, already developing a whole sinister back-story and personality to the stranger. She punched the code to her building as if her life depended on it. And as she entered the building her heart took a few moments to slow down, becoming overwhelmed with panting, as if she had just ran cross-country.

She tried pushing the sensory button for the elevator, but it did not respond to her touch. She pushed another five times in frustration until the doors finally opened. But as she entered the elevator it dawned on her that perhaps she were not real. Perhaps that was why the elevator could not sense her touch. She was possibly living life as a ghost, and this was simply a memory that she had lived a dozen times already. Her life at this particular moment in her studies generally felt like a compilation of memories. There lingered a detached quality when she spoke to most people, with her often watching herself as she communicated to others as if she were outside her body. Her words seemed alien and restrained, and all her jokes felt rehearsed, having the residue of a magic past. The borders of her identity felt loose and dislocated. Her skin, translucent. She felt like she was fading. 

 

Author's Note

Ignore grammatical and spelling issues, (unless it really impedes the comprehension!)I am more interested if story and characters resonate with you. And if you feel drawn into the story. If so, why? Or if not, why? This is still very much a work in progress, and will need to be completed and trimmed in various ways.