Liquid Dima

Chapter Five: The unexpected guest

"Assumptions are the termites of relationships" - Henry Winkler

Sliding her back down the closed door, Darla drops into a heap of built-up tears. Each tear acts as a reason for her anger, and they glisten brightly before landing with a gentle splash on the wooden floor. She knows the muffled shuffles outside the door are Benji and she knows that he will sit there silently before she eventually calms down enough to let him in.

But he won't be let in tonight.

Gathering up her exhausted body, Darla stands and approaches the bedroom window. Their bedroom seems to have taken on a melancholy mood this evening, and the freezing temperature outside has seeped through the thin glass into the small room. The forlorn mortal girl turns her stare slowly away from the window to the pile of sheets on her boyfriend's desk. Like a sudden burst of gun powder, the anger Darla feels fills itself to the brim once more, making the struggle to not go over and burn Benji's writing even more difficult. She picks up a sheet and puts it back down again. 'No' she thinks. 'I shall not read what I have been accused of hindering'.

From an outsider's perspective, this room doesn't hold much to suggest that it belongs to two people. Apart from the semi-double bed and a few scattered female clothing items, one would assume this to be just Benji's room. The desk in the right-hand corner is home to not only his work, but also his aftershave, sweet wrappers, empty noodle pots, his gaming console, and his childhood collection of miniature kung-fu action figures. Underneath the desk, shoved to the back, are his huge dumbbells and a box packed with clothing and toiletries. To the left of the narrow window is a shelf with his favourite books. Some are written by mortals, others by his own kind. Each one is special not only for what their pages contain, but for each section of his life. He associates some with the time he first met Darla, whilst others remind him of the struggles he faced during the time he confronted his father about pursuing his dream to become a writer. Darla moves over to the shelf and lifts one of the books down. From years of love and cherish, the pages of this novel are delicately thin and frightfully close to falling out. 'Our Inner Child' is a book known by Darla to have been in Benji's possession since he was a very small immortal child. It was a gift from his father and a gift he has told her many times he will never part with. "It's about the inner child all immortals have throughout their never-ending existence Darla! Despite living for eternity, we are never robbed of our inner immortal child, our inner innocence". She has never understood why he values a gift from a father who disapproves with his son's dreams so much, yet she has often wondered whether it be because, deep down, Benji hopes his father will see the innocent child in his grown son. That he will someday see that Benji has a childhood dream of his own and can flourish from it. She pushes these thoughts about Benji's writing to the back of her mind under lock, bolt, and key.

Darla's possessions are either under the bed or in the bathroom. When they had first moved in together, she had planned to make their small abode homely by hanging up photos of them, covering the walls with warm glowing lights, and painting the doors in bright cheerful colours to lighten the place up. However, all this motivation to make the place comely didn't vanish but merely got pushed aside when university and work got in the way. Peering at the tins of buoyant paint peeping out from underneath the end of the bed, the worked-up mortal kicks them abruptly back out of sight.

As Darla debates charging out of the room and yelling at Benji again, she hears him get up and march down the short hallway out of their apartment, shutting the door loudly behind him. This shocks the mortal girl. He usually always waits for her outside their bedroom when she has a sudden anger outburst. He can never stand the thought of letting her be by herself. Oblivious to emotions other than her own in her enmity, Darla is insensible of how much she has upset her boyfriend this time round. She is unaware of the overbearing guilt she has made him feel for something he never intended to upset her with.