This Dark Paradise- a collection of dark tales

Scarlet Epigraph

Agosto sat at his desk. The silence around him was deafening. A drink, yes, he needed another. Reaching for his glass he nearly knocked the candle holder over. Wouldn't it be a tragedy? Dying in a house fire before you had finished writing your own suicide note? 

He poured himself another glass, a little more than half of it filled up with red. Shaking the bottle Agosto tried to get every single drop out. Setting the bottle on the mahogany desktop, droplets trickled down. He leaned into the neck of the bottle and lapped them up.

The night sky has long since fallen around him, it suffocated some but he always thought that the night was a veil, not a wooden box. It was the sun that had always burnt his bones, it scorched his flesh and made his pale eyes sting. Sometimes he felt as though he was drowning in the wretched stench of June. Long, pale fingers tensed at the thought of summer, they gripped the swan-tipped plume, threatening to break it.

His tongue tasted of Merlot. He remembered kissing his lover's lips barely three days ago. It had been on the gondola, right before his beloved had left Venice to return to his native England. For weeks, Edward had begged Agosto to come with him. 

"Pack your belongings and return to London with me. There's is nothing here for you, nothing but sorrow." 

But Agosto had declined. There would be no place in the world for him where he did not feel anything but sorrow. Even his lover's touch could not ease the suffering piercing his soul.

He had spent almost thirty years of his life prostituting his mind for the mere handfuls of coins he had been given by small publishing houses and the rare newspaper. Writing had been his first love, but he quickly came to learn what the bitter truth was. People did not want his dramatic vignettes; they laughed at his poetry and mocked his love-letters. If he wanted his name to become eternal he would have to write for the masses. Years in and years out, his heart and soul had been traded away for a handful of beans.

Agosto sipped at the wine, his eyes wandered to the bed where not but a few days ago two figures clasped and clawed at each other under those sheets. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of alcohol and sex.

The pistol rested next to the note he hoped would reach his lover, it was to be his final piece of work. Agosto drank down the rest of his Merlot. He made sure the plume was set back in its place before he reached for the gun. On a page of white, Agosto narrated his finest story, one that sprang right from his heart. This one was not for the masses. This was his final masterpiece, his scarlet epigraph.