Best Served Cold

A Dark Short Story...

The rain is deafening me, beating hard and relentlessly against the thin and fragile panes of the phone box. My ankles are damp and cold. There doesn’t seem to be anyone, in any direction; I am completely alone in a ghost town. But I feel safe; I am alone, just close your eyes breathe in through your nostrils, out through your mouth, in the nose out of the mouth…

The date is September 13th. It is 2003, and the time is 2.37pm exactly and it is a Sunday. My name is Jacob Peter Spencer and I am 24. It was exactly 3 months ago that I met Katie. Katie’s eyes: deep and brown, so dark I would often get lost in them; melt into a euphoric silent, safe place. She had a way of tucking her fine caramel hair behind her tiny ear when it would fall in front of her amazing eyes, blocking my view of the windows to her mysterious soul. She saved me. But that was then…

On a mild June day I was feeding a sparrow in central park. So trusting it was. Fragile and naïve, and solely dependent on my donation: a morsel of bagel. I liked it best this way, just me, independent, ‘I don’t need anyone else’ I thought. Remembering my home town I shuddered and was cold. Quickly I swallowed one of my tablets. “They help me, I need them” I reassured myself, exhaling deeply and shutting my eyes. The sparrow fled, isolated again. Pulling my sleeves down around my hands and hugging my knees to my chest was my instinct, a reflex action. I could not bear to recall what happened, but erasing my past- impossible. She made me jump! A soft comforting palm rested on my shoulder, delicate fingers gently but firmly pressing down. “Excuse me, are you alright?” A soft voice questioned.

And that was how I met her.

That moment seemed to last forever, when our eyes met and I froze. “Is it ok if I sit with you? Its just I saw you were alone, and well like I guess I think you look like you could do with a friendly face?! Sorry, it’s Katie! You are?” she glowed extending her arm towards me. I suppose looking back it was too good to be true. Who was this girl? Why would she talk to a guy like me? “Jake” I answered. “Um uh…” I started before she cut me off: “Sorry if you want me to go I’ll just…” “No, no stay. Please. Talk with me.”

I will never forget That Day. Katie was like no one I have ever met before. Have you ever met someone that you are just in total awe of? Who you never tire of listening to? Is always willing to listen to you, when you think there is nobody left? That was her, and more. In the park we sat for hours. Time passed in a daze and all the while I thought to myself ‘this is not happening, it’s a dream’. We talked about so much. I was so lonely, if only she’d have known. But she understood me in other ways, ways that mattered. A friend. It was only when her cell shrieked a shrill sound she left. Gone suddenly, but not forgotten. I had to see her again. She must want to see me too I figured. Why would this amazing woman have spent the entire day listening to me? Caring?

That night, in The City That Never Sleeps I was alive. I drew. Her face was etched in my memory like a photograph. Sketching carefully I recalled those eyes so fascinating, delicate nose, rose blush cheeks.

The next morning I walked back through those trees, sun filtering between them, rays streaming onto the path. I sat on the bench again. And waited. And thought. And she came. The ecstasy that erupted inside me when I set eyes on her again was immense. “Hey!” She chirped merrily as she noticed me, like a bird at dawn. “Fancy seeing you again!” she joked. If only she knew what she meant to me. “Wanna grab a coffee before I get to work?” she suggested with a trace of Manhattan drawl. I obliged. Sitting in the corner of Starbucks sipping on a caramel macchiato, I was ignorant to the activity, the buzz all around. I was safe.

She left me that day.

It started to rain, small droplets splashed on my nose and I looked at the puddles around me. A web glistened in the corner frame of the window panes, a beautiful prison, a trapped fly.

It was a Thursday when saw her for the last time. I hadn’t been sleeping. Where was she? By now anxious to see her, desperate, I started out of my chair, when I froze. She hadn’t seen me, but I saw her. I watched. She kissed him. She kissed him again. Her beautiful face illuminated like an angel. But my heart pounded stronger, harder tearing out of my chest. Hot tears burned my cheeks. Why? Who is he? It was unbearable. It happened in a blur, flashes. I remember swallowing a fistful of pills. My head throbbed. She was mine. Mine! Not anyone else’s. I needed her. “Why?! I Don’t understand!”

She shrieked and yelled but I was deaf to her pleas. The rage! How could she have done this to me? Why?! I tossed her like a rag doll into my dark, stale apartment. And then I left her. Alone. Like she had left me. I turned the key and departed. Calmly, coolly. My sketch, her reflection. Her only companion in that room. Cold. Nobody knows where she is. But me.

The rain is ceasing. I thumb the small key in my hand so hard my palms are raw. And I let it go. Released. It falls down, dropping as if in slow motion, striking the grates of the drain cover, and then gone, forever. Placing a pill on my tongue it melts.

My bittersweet poison...