Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,48

was her, but it wasn’t her. He pushed her gently away from him, her bare shoulders felt unnervingly cold in his hands. He held her there, staring into her face.

She slowly opened her eyes, a smile at first, then a perplexity, on her drunken face. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a wind of alcohol on her breath.

Michael felt his body twitch. He snapped out of a momentary fit and returned her bemusement with a warm smile. She looked OK; she smelled OK. He flexed his fingers, still clasped to her shoulders. She was warm, her skin was soft.

“Nothing,” he said unsurely.

She shook off the momentary strangeness, too drunk to linger. She fiddled with the lock for an indeterminable moment and stumbled into the house, grinning at Michael before closing the door on him.

He looked at his hands when she departed, turning them this way and that whilst cursing a muttering stream under his breath.

He heard some commotion on the other side of the door and recognised the obtrusive and quizzical voice of her friend and roommate Julia as she unleashed a barrage of questions. He heard a stumbled, mumbled reply, then listened to a pair of hesitant, cumbersome footsteps ascend the staircase.

He turned around to leave, saw the curtains in the main room flicker. Julia’s face popped out and glared at him disapprovingly. He gave her a little wave and then left, a skip in his step as he strolled the darkened streets.

5

He woke up with a breathless start, a dream fresh on his mind.

Jessica was there. They were together, arguing. She wasn’t happy, he didn’t seem to mind. Then she left him, just turned away and walked out of his life.

He saw himself at that point, watching his own image as if through the eyes of a camera. He saw the misery and helplessness on his own face. The anguish and agony in his tear drenched eyes.

Jessica was gone, she had left him. He didn’t know the details, didn’t know why or how, didn’t know what he had said, what he had done or how he had said or done it. She was just gone.

He wondered at his own feelings when he woke. He liked her, but he had only known her for a few weeks. Was his subconscious really that anxious that she was going to get up and leave him? Would he be that traumatised if she did? Clearly she would have her reasons and, as much as he liked her, if those reasons revolved around her not feeling the same way, he wouldn’t, surely couldn’t, be that affected by it.

He dressed lethargically, his mind heavy with thought.

He decided to perk himself up with a hefty breakfast and a few cups of coffee. Joseph was a renowned cook and would put Michael on the breakfast order without a moment’s thought.

By the time he made it down the spiralling staircase, bypassing one of the lodgers on the way -- a short woman with a rodent smile and wiry blonde hair -- Michael had already forgotten about the dream and the emotion it invoked. When he made it to the dining room, he also forgot about his hunger.

Samson sat alone in the room at the head of an empty table, his eyes pinned on the entrance that Michael strode cautiously though. He looked serious. The carefree demeanour was stripped from his wizened face, his knuckles pressed sternly and thoughtfully under his chin.

Michael flopped down opposite and absently picked at a crusted mark on the table top -- the remnants of a previous breakfast.

“What is it this time?” he queried.

“It’s about Jessica,” Samson said simply.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Michael spat tiredly. “Not this again--” he paused, stared darkly at his superior. “How do you know her name?”

Across from him Samson merely shrugged his shoulders, a gesture that indicated there wasn’t much he didn’t know.

“What do you have against her?” Michael demanded. “Or is it us that you have something against? Is it because she’s alive?”

“That’s not--”

“I’m going to continue seeing her,” Michael interjected.

Samson sighed. He rocked back in his seat. A cup of coffee had grown stale and cold in front of him, a thin spoon lolled about lazily on its scummed surface. He reached out and flicked the spoon, watching it dance its way around the cup.

“What is wrong anyway?” Michael said, thrown by the dejected nature of the typically composed man opposite.

Samson glanced up soulfully. “I don’t know how to tell you this...” he said deeply.

“Try.”

He shook his