Valentine’s Day couples framed by ornate restaurant windows and decorated with candlelight and inflatable hearts… all blurred by torrential rain and the heartsick longing in the eyes of Feliks Blonsky.
Huddled in the stained doorway of an anonymous office block, he jittered on the spot, jaw clenched. It wasn’t just the cold. Feliks clothes hung off his gaunt frame that ached from psychological toil.
On the street corner, a hooded figure beckoned him across. Feliks didn’t need a second invitation. Both hustled into the nearest secluded place – an alley lined with over-flowing drain pipes and industrial wheelie bins. Without a word, Feliks held a lightweight carry bag aloft. The Hood checked the bag’s contents, mild surprise registering it their down-turned mouth.
‘The things we do for love, eh Feliks?’ said the Hood.
The Hood took the carry bag in exchange for a small stack of notes bound by an elastic band. Feliks snatched for the money, triggering the Hood’s recoil. HOOD: Know when to bow out with dignity. That’s free advice. The Hood relented, handing the cash to Feliks.
Hauling his bones past abandoned warehouses lit only by the night sky, Feliks approached a reinforced door known only to those who needed to know. Clenched fist slamming sideways, an eye-level slot opened in the door. Feliks held up the cash. The door unbolted.
Inside was a make-shift waiting room, which it probably was back in the day. These days it was a dank, crumbling state lined with people of various ages sharing one common feature: desperate sorrow. Their complexions drained of life.
A heavily-tattooed mohawked ‘Nurse’ took one step through a doorway, careful not to get too close as the desperate bodies reached out, pleading. ‘One at a time! You know that! Now siddown. Sit! Y’know, if you don’t behave, we can shut this down right now. Makes no difference to us…’
This threat only riled the shambolic gathering. A second Nurse whose skin was mostly tattoos and piercings barged through with a contemptuous glance for their colleague. The gum-chewing nurse yelled with more than a hint of boredom. ‘Let’s go, Feliks. You’re up.’
Shuffling through a dimly-lit backroom, Feliks passed rows of decrepit creatures laying on mattresses seemingly sourced from fly-tipped back alleyways. Wires extended from the bodies like tree roots, hooking them up to hunks of machinery welded together in a piecemeal fashion, powered by small fume-emitting generators. On the soiled mattresses, faces beamed with joy. Others wept.
The Nurse pointed with a casual flick of her hand towards a mattress, undoubtedly vacated by the lifeless body that was being wheeled out in an abandoned shopping trolley.
Feliks lowered onto the mattress, unnerved by the twitching bodies around him. The Nurse ‘sterilised’ a large needle in a jar of amber fluid.
‘Same as always?’ asked the nurse.
Distracted from the visual warning, Feliks looked up, nodding. He laid down. Wired pads were placed in his forehead. Black padded straps were velcroed onto his limbs. Feliks closed his eyes to block out the procedure. The home-made machine beside his head powered up. Pain surged through Feliks, stabilising to a manageable level.
‘Happy Valentine’s, sweetheart…’
Eyes opened. The nightmarish ward was gone. The smells and sounds of agonised torture replaced by soft, romantically-clichéd music. Upmarket restaurant décor, plates of heavenly cuisine and clinking glasses of expensive wine. A clean, healthy Feliks sat opposite an equally joyful young woman. Wordlessly paused in an eye-locked loving gaze.
Stood between them at the table like a shambolic waiter was an invisible interloper: The real Feliks; gaunt and borderline feral. Feliks knelt carefully beside the small table, observing his former self propose to his girlfriend.
Feliks broke away from self-obsessing at his old, healthy image, as thoughts of self-disappointment and pity crashed over him. He shifted closer to the woman, her eyes glistening in the candlelight. She accepted the proposal, leaving her seat to embrace her new fiancé. She moved through the outsider crouched at the table as if he were a spectre.
Try as he might to breath her in, retain something of her, Feliks was left empty. A dreaded, familiar sensation registered in Feliks. He trembled uncontrollably. Time was up. Feliks made a last-ditch attempt to reach out at the interlocked hands of the newly-engaged couple, to no use.
A loud gasp emerged from unseen depths. Feliks thrashed, coughing up nothing, winded as reality hit hard. Pained and retching, his body was hauled from the mattress by two bald ‘n bearded mounds of flesh. His wretched, barely conscious body was dragged across a broken tiled floor until the cold night air slapped Feliks into spatial awareness.
Another night, another garbage-strewn alleyway exchange. The Hood inspected a bag of goods as Feliks jittered on the spot with increasing urgency.
‘Y’steal this?’ asked the Hood with good reason.
Stupid question. Feliks was unable to utter a word as his teeth chattered. The Hood handed over cash without any games this time. He had seen it all before, but even a mortally maltreated creature deserved a quick death.
Down on the industrial estate, Feliks found the reinforced door wide open. The abandoned warehouse was been deserted once more. No background moan of hope-starved patients. No hum and rattle of machinery. Moonlight cut through shattered skylights. Feliks doubted himself, slumping to the floor as panicked levels of uncertainty flooded his mind; unsure if any of it had been real. Facedown to the floor, Feliks sensed something ahead. A glow from a distant back room. Bewilderment gave way to a budding self-conviction. There was still hope.
Feliks hauled himself to his feet. Passing through a doorway, Feliks stood in a room with a view. A glorious horizon of an artist’s pastel sky. A heavenly figure stood with their back to him, looking towards the glory. Feliks limped closer, fighting the urge to accept this vision as reality to avoid suffocating disappointment. The person turned to face him. His wife.
He reached out with a cautious hand, delirious conviction rising. His hand lowered towards her shoulder with the expectation of passing through her body like a soft breeze. Instead, his hand softly rested on her shoulder.
Touch.
In that instant he was lavishly reunited with everything he ever needed. No prize could be awarded, no lottery won. No sensation could come close to the completed journey of a relationship restored.
© Andrew Wright 2023
(Photo courtesy of Leyre)
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