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ANIMAL INSTINCTS, SAMPLE
They say the eyes are the windows of the soul.
Everyone's eyes looked wrong today. I had been in the café for fifteen minutes praying over a lukewarm coffee; yes, he was fifteen minutes late already. I didn't know then he would never turn up.
The Beau Regard was on the first floor in the centre of this industrial town. The chairs were faux antique and the walls were panelled in compressed pseudo-pine laid in tall thin strips. The wind rattled windows in their tall rotting frames. The decor of the café had a kitschy naval theme; bolted to the walls were brass portholes and bells, a rotting wood figurehead and governor.
It was an ancient café embedded in the social fabric of the town like a tick; situated by the green river, a stinking vein choked with battered barges lugging haulage or grimy workers back and forth from the chemical factories.
A young couple across from me were discussing their new apartment downwind of the chemical nightmare they call industry, the man coughed into a greasy handkerchief between rasping sentences, his skin was pock marker like the mouldy surface of a papier maché moon. They looked like they were originally from the Eastern territories, you know, as if they were constantly squinting against the chill of Sun glaring off age-old snow.
Everything shone and shook today like a four-cup caffeine rush. The sugar wasn't half as sweet as it should have been and I had to call the barman over to demand more for my bitter beverage.
Another Easter territories native about thirty-five going on sixty came in glumly and said "How do." to the barman.
The barman, a short fat greasy balding moustachioed man of fifty years of age or so wore a red check shirt and a peach cravat. "Angelo, how you doing?" he said.
Angelo said thing were going "Fine." He took off his dirty grey scarf and undid his thin stained jacket revealing a moth-eaten off-white jumper, the pattern seemed worn away. His eyes looked the same as everyone else's today. Wrong like razor cuts in recovered clay. He ordered a double Cognac. He looked over at me. And before I had my soul sliced open by those eyes I turned away to watch a shiny new Police schooner, it's sharp nose in the air, bustling through the cheap flotsam and jetsom.
The man with the double Cognac sat down at my table without introduction. He looked at his drink on the table. "This is a good town. Don't write nothing bad." he said.
I told him I wasn't a reporter.
"Nobody thinks they are a reporter when they first get here." he took a sip of his double Cognac and stared out of my window. He offered me a black cigarette. I hesitated, then took one and thanked him. It had been years since I had been able to afford even black cigarettes.
Three tall, young, straight black haired factory workers swept noisily into the café, their scent was something like liqueur or brandy, something sharp at the back of the palette like the lingering memory I have of momma's poisonous hair spray. God only knows what complex body dirt those women were masking with that heady concoction.
They weren't identical by any means, these Goth women, but they were certainly alike; same bad teeth; same dull skin; same deep sultry laugh. Somehow, I suspected these sickly looking freaks were our passage home but I would only know much later in the evening why they travelled in groups of three. A revelation I will never exorcise from my memory.
"Your friend isn't coming." said my new friend.
"There is no fashionable way out of this place. All is nostalgia bound. Big fat eggs, eh?" he directed his gummy grin to the three Goth women at a neighbouring table who showed their bad teeth for an uncomfortable long time...
Chimericana Books.
Chimericana Books.
Chimericana Books.
Chimericana Books.
Chimericana Books.
Chimericana Books.
Hellbound Books, Spring 2006
Plus six other short novels (approx 40,000 words each) that I'm looking to publish in a special 6-pack.
