Kaya

Chapter 1- Five and counting

The cigarette butt shivered, stuck between the numb fingers it did not recognise for its ten-second flight from the temporary, half torn cardboard box into the wet, bitter mouth. The lips had been softer and smouldering all the more; it had seemed like they had just blowed Satan's dick and couldn't get over it. The fingers, crimson with grey and ashes, longed to touch some smooth velvet; but all it got was this poor, poor little cigarette butt.

A familiar smoke clouded over this lonely head, which was facing a dim lit window, from behind which, sun rays desperately tried to enter the melancholic, groggy cage. He forced his lungs to make love to the smoke at seven in the morning, a time when they're used to hum the tune of lullabies to drunk nights and pamper a hangover. His hair kissed his dirty cheeks, smeared upon with grease, ink and some highly resistance-proof tears.

His eyes were fixed on the wall holding the frame of that window, but what he saw was a mirror.

A simple night, a simpler morning. Two feet?

No, four.

No, wait....

six.

Three pairs.

A wooden floor, lots of noise.

It was mostly bad music, among self-proclaimed, drunk experts of politics and sex blabbering their partially fictional real life stories and experiences away.

It was also her extremely high-pitched voice, which thought it was struggling to be heard, but it was literally the only thing one could hear  when the source is millimetres away from your goddamn ear.

"Can we ask them to play good songs? I am dying here, oh God. Please, ask them na. Please!"

"Kaya, it's a cheap motherfucking bar. Drink your whiskey and we'll get going. Play good music in the car."

"Of course, we play good music in the car, Pradhyum. You don't like my playlist?"

"Jesus, Kaya."

Her red lips seemed like dancing flames, all of a sudden and it wasn't until after ten whole seconds that the shadow of the mirrors realised the cigarette was burning his fingers.

"Argh, fuck this."

He threw it away, aiming at the dustbin but not really bothering to look if his efforts had failed or triumphed.

He stood up, very slowly. His shoulders ached and he was afraid he'd find a reflective surface somewhere and want to smash it with his very weak hands which were simmering with anger and self-loathe alike.

He knew exactly what he would see on a shut-down laptop screen, a bucket full of water or a delicately polished table. An ugly, cheeky little monster, looking stupidly at himself. He wanted to burn himself down and reconstruct his soul back up again, correcting each and every mistake his outlandish childhood had made, every crime his memories had committed and every single pathetic piece of poetry he had typed over many nights, drunk more in lust and booze than love itself.

He had strong urges to part away with his guilt-stricken conscience; he wanted to tear away himself from his pitiable set of flesh and bones, his skin that felt like it had a swarm of bugs crawling all over it. But all he could do, was sit down on a chair at this cheap little motel, kiss the virgin mouths of sweet smelling, familiar, bitter bottles which excused him of himself for a while.

Standing near the edge of the squeaky little bed, he wished with his whole heart for it to disappear into the depths of purgatory so that he could fall on the hard cold ground and break his thick, numb, pale skull.