The Muse

In which Sherlock receives a very strange phone call

(Just before we begin: this is the edited version of the fourth chapter, which I have REPlaced with this one!! the story is different now! it is edited and now i will finish it because i have finished it...so let's pretend now that the other chapter four was never here, okay?)

        A small chill crept up the nape of her neck; she was shivering on the bus stop, and the faint smell of rain as everywhere. It was going to be dark soon. Most people took a siesta around now, but Angelina was used to staying up throughout the day, and late into the night. She liked adventure, craved the sun beating down on her brow, or the fire in her face, close to burning.

        She realized that the chill that had started fingering up the nape of her neck was not a brother of the wind or a sister of the dew: a HAND was whispering on her skin like a lullaby, dripping in chimerical darkness. It was something she had been waiting for all of her life. Angelina spun around frantically, trying to see who was there, who had touched her, but all that stood in front of her was the small silhouetted figure of a man running so fast his legs were only a blur, another adventurer from another time, lost but never forgotten.

        Sherlock awoke with a start, strangled in his sheets. His dreams had become more vivid ever since he had seen the woman at the cafe, distressed beyond measure. His pen was now a feverish mess, scrawling out bits of poetry and prophesies and strange revelations, a possessed channeling vessel, merely an instrument through which a part of himself, a part he rarely saw, came out and exposed itself to him.

        "The Pink Lady" was starting to sound like a real novel now. He had jotted down nearly eighty pages over the course of a week, staying up late, tirelessly writing to a restless muse he knew nothing about. 

        It was always a weekly ritual to sit at the cafe and have a smoke and some solace, but as of late, Sherlock had been commuting to this little destination almost every day--and instead of ordering Coffee, he ordered wine, and instead of taking "just any seat",  he now demanded to be placed at that same table in the middle of the room, facing that godforsaken phone booth.

         He couldn't tell if he liked this--thing--at all. For one, he never let his writing disturb his rational, educing, finely tuned brain. But this-- this was something new.

He was constantly on edge. He had never found himself to be so incredibly on edge. 

        Sherlock untangled himself from the sheets and put on a fresh pair of clothes. He studied his face in the mirror. He was met by another, seemingly identical man, but this one  was not quite as self-assured and confident as he thought. Behind the mask was a tense and agitated soul, longing for something, but what, he had not a clue.

        Sherlock found himself drumming on his legs, shifting his gaze back and forth, his eyeballs darting to and fro frantically in their sleep-deprived sockets. Ad if mirroring his emotional state, the telephone clattered to life on the kitchen table. "who on earth could that be, at this hour of morning?" he wondered "it's only eight o'clock". Sherlock lifted the receiver and placed it tentatively to his ear.

        "hello mister Holmes", a woman's voice purred on the other end. Sherlock was stunned. Who on earth could this be?

        "tell me" the voice continued, "when you look out of your apartment window, can you see out into the street?" .

        Rather than ask how this woman how she knew his name, or how she knew he had an apartment with a large window, he dismissed this urge, and simply carried on with the conversation as if nothing had happened.

"no" said Sherlock flatly, his voice deep and slow.

        " I see", the voice replied, smooth as velvet.  "well, I suggest you do. You might learn a great deal". "I'm sorry, I don't understand--" stuttered Sherlock nervously, panicking internally. "goodbye, mister Holmes" . The phone line went dead. The voice was gone. 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry