Viktor Chase

02 : cold

23rd December, 2014 12:22am

"When you open your eyes you see what you know or perhaps those forgotten pictures that have become mere facts of everyday, but when you close your eyes you see things that cease to exist for the brimming cosmos till the ends of hell, untouched."

The third week of December, sun stretched out of the gloomy grey sky that had shed snow each night rambling its frozen sorrows out of its vast cover.

I saw Viktor's face etched on the front page of the daily like I had since the past few days, eyes crinkling at the folds of his skin in a way his cheek bones touched the edges of his pale lashes.

It made his disappearance look even more morose than it already was.

I had heard the Ivanovich' protesting against the use of such a happy picture of his, Mrs Ivanovich breaking down whenever she stared too long at her eyes and her husbands pale face and how much the boy all over the news resembled them.

News travelled fast in southport.

Like every other night, the night before, I had stolen my father's favourite stack of red wine and had locked myself in the garage. Sipping wine, pasting another picture of Viktor's smiling face on the wall, It was a collage of his eyes.

His face staring at me.

Staring through me.

I was aware of his presence around me, how he had smelled of the summer breeze and lemons, the crook of his nose bent at an odd angle.

He wore a traditional buzz cut and the ugly yellow sweater with threads falling loose.

With every breath he took, I was going insane, combusting into a million thousand sparks like on the night of the fourth of July.

They mentioned his name so often at school, like reciting a poem.

He became a poem to me, a free verse and I couldn't stop. Not anymore.

Viktor Ivanovich.

The boy who went missing.

They just couldn't find a body to declare him dead. Yet.

*

24th December, 11:48 am,

Detective Finch stared at the public pool. The ice melted ever so little but enough to see through to the bottom of the tile covered base.

Silence engulfed him as he stared and he feared he couldn't stop staring at the image that lay on the base.

Partially naked, hands curled into a mock surrender, long legs sprawled at a painful angle.

And the blond buzz cut.

He thought of his daughter who had died of leukaemia and the picture of her that he carried in his wallet.

They had proof now and no doubt the boy was dead.

*

The same morning the news flashed of how the pool caretakers had found Viktor's frozen body and how they had been taken in for their statements.

It was odd how they had speculated that Viktor had probably committed suicide but it was not humanly possible for Viktor to go for a swim down when it was freezing. And again he was not insane, I was, for him.

That night I drank more wine than usual until the world spun and everything around me changed, somewhere where Viktor was alive.

Breathing.

[a/n] : i don't know anything anymore.