'Fossil'

by

Mordant Carnival

Later- much, much later- when Julia would think back to those days, it would be the smell she remembered. She was hardly aware of it at the time, because it had pervaded everything; a composite entity, legion in its parts  Damp plaster, junk food, something spoiling somewhere out of sight, those had been part of it. But her own flesh had contributed too, betraying her: unwashed skin, dirty hair, the stale, greasy whiff of slept-in clothes, all overlaid with cheap body-spray which Julia applied liberally her clothes as well as on herself. She was reminded every time she did so of strong soaps that morticians use to hide the rot from the bereaved. 

So it was with her, or so she felt, when she readied herself for one of Bradyn's visits. Concealing the dirty dishes in the oven, throwing unlaundered clothes into the wardrobe, laying in food other than noodles and biscuits, drink other than strong cider. Showering for the first time in days. Hiding the rot. 

So it was with her on that last day.

Over the previous month, she'd hardly seen Braydn at all. He'd been busy. Tired. Working on something. When she'd pressed him- reminding him that she had left her friends behind in London when she'd moved to be near him, that she was alone here- he had become resentful. Julia must not put pressure on him. He had his own problems, which she must not exacerbate with clinginess. (Yet how often she gone out for the evening, only to come home to three or four plaintive messages on the answering machine, or had him call her the next day to say how he'd needed to talk that night, badly, and she hadn't been there?) 

Now he had arranged to spend the night at her flat. Once she would have felt like a spoiled child on Christmas Eve knowing that he was coming. Now all she could muster was a kind of sentimental nostalgia for the good times they'd had in the past, and that tainted with apprehension.  

Stepping from the shower, Julia took a towel from the rail. It had dried badly: it was rough and smelt stale. She used it anyway, rubbing herself down despite the coarse texture and the image that the odour conjured in her mind (filaments of mold mingling with the polycotton, a strange filth of spores transferred to her skin). 

She wiped the haze of moisture from the mirror over the sink, and began carefully squeezing her hair in the towel. Her face peered back at her from the damp, smeared glass: pale and doughy, the brow furrowed, the corners of the mouth drawing down. Over some undefined period of time her flesh had been undergoing a change, becoming looser in some places, yet more taut in others. Her face in particular felt as if it had broken down into some flaccid substance that could not sustain a set form. When had it set in- over these last few difficult months since she'd left London? Or perhaps it had been going on longer, the spores carried in her being for years, and only needing the right conditions to spread tendrils out towards the surface. 

She shrugged into the tracksuit she'd worn before her shower, to soak up some of the moisture from her body and to keep her warm while she finished her ablutions. She brushed her teeth, noting, not for the first time, that the bristles came away stained with red. Gingivitis. Her teeth would become loose if she didn't do something soon. She felt a pang of guilt that she would kiss Braydn with this mouth- then realized he probably had it too. Beyond her fear that she might contaminate others her slow decay held little terror anymore, and a certain degree of fascination. She worried only that it might be misinterpreted as seeking attention.

She went to her room to change, taking her best dress- knee-length, maroon velvet- from its hanger. A new pair of black velvet kung-fu pumps completed the outfit. It was a look that would please him: slightly girlish, but sensual. It felt wrong to her. Girlishness was promise, and she felt she had no promise left in her. In the mirror, she saw a bright parcel filled with ashes. 

In the next room, the telephone rang, making her jump. For some reason she found the telephone fearful these days; likewise the doorbell, even the sight of the morning's post on the doormat. No-one ever seemed to contact her with friendly intentions anymore. Still she trotted out to answer the phone. Braydn. It must be Braydn, telling her he was on his way. She was pleased to find that the thought of hearing his voice sent a little shiver of happiness through her, that her heart beat just a little faster at the thought of seeing him. Lifting the receiver, she bade the caller Hello.

"Hello? Julia?" It was Braydn, but the hoarse, tragic tone of his voice made her stomach drop. It was so obviously meant to communicate physical ill-health and a fragile emotional state. She decided to cut to the chase, as gently as possible.  "Bray? Are you okay? You don't sound good." 

"No," he replied, unable to stop a tinge of relief from creeping into his voice. "I think I'm coming down with something- like a virus. 'Flu." There was a pause. "I'm not sure I'll be able to make it tonight."

Damn you, she thought. Damn you. I know exactly what's wrong with you: You were drinking last night and you overdid it- you've given yourself one of those magnificent all-day hangovers you're so good at, because you can't admit that you're not twenty-one anymore. And now I'll be alone, and I don't mind that so much but I'll be alone because you don't love me except when you remember to, and then it's only to demand that I love you back harder. 

She did not say those things to him, however. She kept her tone kind and solicitous, and got rid of him as swiftly as she could. Some goodbyes were to be savoured, each lover relishing the few sweet moments before they finally had to part; not this. This must be hurried, put aside, so that the slow and painful process of living without him might be interrupted as little as might be. Yet she still felt a pang as she hung up; the click of the receiver as she put it down seemed too much like the closing of a door. 

Julia got as far as the kitchen before it hit her. She had honestly intended to go and see about making a small meal, before checking the TV schedule to see if there were any good films to watch, or if she might want a video. Then she'd found herself suddenly and acutely aware of the bottle of vodka in her cupboard, bought in anticipation of the visit which would not now occur; this had lead to her projecting a night spent escaping into an alcoholic haze; this in turn had lead to the question: what then? Only more of the same slow decline. Braydn's lack of interest in her was matched by her lack of interest in herself. 

So she did not go to the fridge, or to the cupboard. She did not bite her lip, punch the wall, dig her nails into the palms of her hands or succumb to any of the impulses that raced through her mind. She only sat down at the table and gazed at nothing, while the last light of the afternoon spilled away. There was a moment when she could have risen and got the bottle and a glass; it passed. She heard a small sound from the next room as the flat cooled and the floorboards settled. When the kitchen was in darkness, she left it.  

She walked from room to room, but did not put on any of the lights. In the dark the flat could almost be strange place, a secret, vital dwelling where her anxieties and pain did not belong. In the dark, she could be other than herself.  

She stood at the top of the stairs that led down to her front door, and looked out of the landing window. The town beyond was very quiet. The glass wore her reflection like a transfer, like a pale spore-print on dark paper. She touched the cool, slick glass and thought of bone, of dead things sketched in rock, unchanging. 

"Fossils," said a voice from the hall behind her. Julia froze. She heard something move, swiftly, and the bedroom door creaked a little. 

Julia turned just in time to see a bare heel disappearing round the door. She felt afraid; not mundane fear but a gnawing dread of the impossible. She took a breath to call out- a demand to know what the intruder was about, a cry for help- but the sound died in her throat. There would be no aid tonight, and as for this other?- she somehow knew that words were redundant.

The curtains were closed in the bedroom, and there was no light. She flicked the light-switch, somehow unsurprised when it didn't work. There was a shadow visible, though, a darker patch in the gloom. When the attack came it was not as she'd expected. She was pulled almost lightly into the room, the door snapping shut behind her with a quiet but final sound. 

Fear made her breath ragged. She began inching her way towards the window, blindly; if she could only see...

"You fear decay." The words dropped like pebbles, like shards of flint softened by time. The timbre of the voice suggested masculinity but oh, how alien. "A stone tree is not what it was when it lived, when it died. It is a memory.

Replaced, cell by cell with something else..." Julia stumbled, sobbing a curse. The window was almost within arm's reach, but now the shadow stood in her way. She could have flung back the curtain but to do so she mus  touch the thing in her way. Better to stroke smooth bone, to touch rot.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" she asked. Stupid, trite words, yet the moment required them of her. If she could not have escape then at least let her have one iota of understanding before the end. 

"I am an end to rot. A fossil. A maker of fossils." Now cool fingers caught her wrists; her arms were drawn up as she was pulled closer. There was a mineral tang on its breath, something like metal on a hot day, or a chalybete spring. "You invited me. You invited this." 

A hot, unreasoning fury boiled up from somewhere within in her at those words. You asked for it. The cheap justification of every brute. "When? When did I invite you?" She spat the last two words. 

It leaned closer in the dark. "It was when you did not get up from the table, and fetch the bottle. You despaired then, even of one hour's refuge from despair. This is how you were chosen. How I choose." A hand was laid on her cheek. Revolting, that touch; alien, yet with something human in it- a travesty. But she was still, didn't move her head away, didn't flinch, knowing that she stood in the presence of something as profound and secret as it was monstrous. 

" You dream too large for your resources. Your life is like an animal that you have caged and then forgotten to feed. Now it is too late." 

"Too late?"

"You are dying. You are dying of ennui, of misery; you are dying because you can't find it in yourself to live your life. If I hadn't found you- if I left you now- you would have perhaps a year before you contrived your death. But it ends now, tonight."

The hand left her face and for a moment she thought that she would be released; then the curtain was pulled aside and she was gazing at her ruin. 

The moon was three-quarters full, and quite bright. The man in front of her, or the thing that had once been a man, was ivory chill in its light. His clothes were ragged; the moonlight hid their colour. Black eyes shone. He might have been handsome once, or he might not; it didn't matter. Here and now he could only be terrible. He nodded patiently at her fear, as if she'd made some trivial observation, then bent to take her throat. "Wait-" she said.

She fought at the last, but it as if she had been locked in stone. Cold breath on her skin. The pain came, worse that she'd expected, then was gone, replaced by a grinding, tugging ache that seemed to run through her body. Her sight greyed, became a mosaic of dim foxfire and shadow. She was still aware when her legs gave out and he gathered her up into his arms. She had time to remember his words- a maker of fossils- and then there was only the dark.

Copyright 2002 The Author

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