The Double
The tropical port of this city simmers with restless Latin crowds, shouts of market traders, wearying trumpet blasts of traffic. It wears its decay like the ruined head of a stone idol revealing an unfathomable puzzle of side streets filled with inscrutable chatter.
Ragged children spring at play into a sunlit haze of dust, their cries echo along the cruel walls of the labyrinth. Women peer downwards in curiosity from balconies flagged with linen while old men with black glistening eyes squint upwards from their doorsteps through a haze of cigarette smoke. TVs fizzle in open doorways. Dogs linger in the shade or sleep, unconscious balls of fluff in the gutter.
My travelling companion and I look out to the cool relief of the sea. He is aloof and unnervingly silent. Why won't he speak? I suppress a flare of irritation and point out our escape. A tiny island, a secret town not too far in the distance. A ringed address in a notebook.
A decaying ballustrade leads us along a seafront strewn with garbage, the fresh sea breeze mingling with the stench of decaying fruit. My companion flinches disdainfully. The crowds thin to a trickle of sailors, drunks and cutthroats as we board the rusting hulk of the ferry.
***
On arrival, we are the only two to leave for the island. The cool winding hilltop lanes call us to our destination. I turn to my silent companion who looks ahead, barely seeming to sense my presence. We lean into the current of the twilight that carries us through the silent shade of alleyways. The town is empty, a vacuum of sealed shutters and doors. Shadows fall. The evening turns like a blade.
This is the place. We find ourselves standing by a fragile iron ladder. I climb uncertainly up to a platform to face a heavy wooden door. Prised open, it reveals an otherworldly glow of music and laughter. It seems as if the whole town is present, a candlelit carnival shrine of faces. My companion follows, grim faced. Parched with thirst I weave through the crowd hoping a drink will quench the growing resentment I have for my sullen comrade.
In a dark corner of the bar, a girl I remember. She stands alone, gazing into a tilted glass. Her delicate face is in eclipse. Can it be her? I sense a distance, as though she is marooned in thought.
She will surely see me now. And what then?
My tentative glances are received with poised indifference. Now she lifts her head imperceptibly, sweeping hair away from the lunar slits of her eyes, mouth down turned, severe and blank as a shark's. There is no hint of recognition. She must surely be someone else. But the resemblance...
Then she emerges from shadows to sweep past me, graceful, animated. When I turn, she appears unexpectedly engaged in conversation with my companion. I rage suspecting some cruel trick devised by a ventriloquist devil.
Something inhuman now peers through my eyes, relishing my own misery and humiliation. For what possible reason are they together apparently conspiring? And what of my whispering travelling companion who has barely spoken to me throughout our journey? What is he saying to make her so intimate and lithe in his presence?
Ragged children spring at play into a sunlit haze of dust, their cries echo along the cruel walls of the labyrinth. Women peer downwards in curiosity from balconies flagged with linen while old men with black glistening eyes squint upwards from their doorsteps through a haze of cigarette smoke. TVs fizzle in open doorways. Dogs linger in the shade or sleep, unconscious balls of fluff in the gutter.
My travelling companion and I look out to the cool relief of the sea. He is aloof and unnervingly silent. Why won't he speak? I suppress a flare of irritation and point out our escape. A tiny island, a secret town not too far in the distance. A ringed address in a notebook.
A decaying ballustrade leads us along a seafront strewn with garbage, the fresh sea breeze mingling with the stench of decaying fruit. My companion flinches disdainfully. The crowds thin to a trickle of sailors, drunks and cutthroats as we board the rusting hulk of the ferry.
***
On arrival, we are the only two to leave for the island. The cool winding hilltop lanes call us to our destination. I turn to my silent companion who looks ahead, barely seeming to sense my presence. We lean into the current of the twilight that carries us through the silent shade of alleyways. The town is empty, a vacuum of sealed shutters and doors. Shadows fall. The evening turns like a blade.
This is the place. We find ourselves standing by a fragile iron ladder. I climb uncertainly up to a platform to face a heavy wooden door. Prised open, it reveals an otherworldly glow of music and laughter. It seems as if the whole town is present, a candlelit carnival shrine of faces. My companion follows, grim faced. Parched with thirst I weave through the crowd hoping a drink will quench the growing resentment I have for my sullen comrade.
In a dark corner of the bar, a girl I remember. She stands alone, gazing into a tilted glass. Her delicate face is in eclipse. Can it be her? I sense a distance, as though she is marooned in thought.
She will surely see me now. And what then?
My tentative glances are received with poised indifference. Now she lifts her head imperceptibly, sweeping hair away from the lunar slits of her eyes, mouth down turned, severe and blank as a shark's. There is no hint of recognition. She must surely be someone else. But the resemblance...
Then she emerges from shadows to sweep past me, graceful, animated. When I turn, she appears unexpectedly engaged in conversation with my companion. I rage suspecting some cruel trick devised by a ventriloquist devil.
Something inhuman now peers through my eyes, relishing my own misery and humiliation. For what possible reason are they together apparently conspiring? And what of my whispering travelling companion who has barely spoken to me throughout our journey? What is he saying to make her so intimate and lithe in his presence?
posted by Johnny Rem at 3/26/2006 09:08:00 PM
2 Comments:
Love the sweeping camera effect of this piece. It is as if the camera swoops across the landscape and in to the troubled characheter's head.
Is his companion Alan Sugar again?
Yo! Glad you liked it, Ruprecht old bean. This was a tricky dream to capture. I awoke trembling with intense corrosive feelings of jealousy. My travelling companion wasn't actually Alan Sugar, nor anyone I know, though he did look a little like a dour Glasweigian mate of mine. What a miserable sod, eh?
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