Ordinary

“Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.”

She waited for me on the other side. Her clothes were never “right” per se, there was always a mismatch between the top and bottom. The black, ripped jeans were restricting blood flow to her legs, but her t-shirt was baggy enough to house a quartet underneath. Her face, however, showed no mood for songs as she waved at me, not even bothering to peel her back off the pillar she was leaning against.

As routine for subways in London, someone, a boy, was pushing up against me as I scanned my card to get through the gates, their fault not perversion, but poverty. The boy couldn’t afford a ticket. I raised my hands for a hug, and she shook her head.

“Where are we going today?” She asked.

“Dunno.” I answered.

“You never know.”

“You always ask.”

We sat down, side by side, on the chairs facing the train tracks. I glanced at my watch, 3p.m.

“Are we in love?” She asked, finally, her words struck the silence like an axe on firewood.

“We are.”

But why, I wondered. How did “we” started? I found her attractive, once. Then went on to figure out the things we had in common. In fact, we were too similar to one another. Back then, a year ago (?), I was happy at that fact. Now, it didn’t mean much.

“Have you eaten?” She asked.

“No, everything was too expensive.” I answered.

“Let’s eat then, my treat.” She replied and stood up.

I ended up paying, for the burgers and fries and drinks. Was it innocence or ignorance, that she doesn’t acknowledge the situation everyone was in.

“I’m bored.”

“Me too.”

There were people around us in the fast-food restaurant, sharing a burger. Five of them, boys and girls that couldn’t have been older than fifteen, savoured every last bite, uncertain when they could eat again. Men and women, in their twenties and thirties, stared at one another, not a job between them.

“Get a job.” She demanded.

“You get a job.” I fired back, and she started crying.

Outside, the cold made everything looked like it was viewed through cracked glass. The five kids were laughing now, not a care for the world now that their stomachs are filled. Their attention, and ours, were drawn to an object one of boy produced from his pocket.

“What’s that?”

“A condom. We can prob’ly sell it for a quid.”

“Who’d buy such a thing?

“Dunno. Perverts innit?”

“When did we last do it?” – She asked.

“Two months ago perhaps?”

“Have you been doing it with anyone else?”

“No. Buying condoms for us was expensive enough. Kids are even more so.”

“More so what?”

“Expensive. It would be such a bother if I were to do it with someone without contraception, and then they came to me saying they’re with child.”

“Don’t you ever think of anything else besides money?”

“I did, when I have money. Like those kids. I betcha for the last two days, they would have talked nothing but food. But now that they have food, they turned toward sex.”

“So, if I give you money, you would stop talking about it?”

“Dunno. You don’t have money.”

She’d brought this up before, the fact that we’d not had sex for so long. The fact that we were outside now, and seeing one another, was because we forgot last month’s anniversary. We couldn’t say we were in love if we missed our anniversary twice. The TV above us begged us, the younger generation, to get married and have kids. She looked at it intently, forgetting to chew. Was it my fault? I, we, could do it at first. But she wasn’t wet, and lubrication was expensive. Before I knew it, I’d stopped begging to have sex altogether. The TV showed men, beautiful men with chiselled abs and beautiful hair. They would have gotten her wet. I’ve got my own fantasies with supermodels, but she would scream if I ever even glanced at them. It was a sense of obligation, to feel jealous for love.

“Let’s go.” She said when the TV switched to politicians making promises.

The cracked world outside belonged to the homeless, asking for change.

“So many of them.” I said.

“It’s London. Where else could they hope for change? Soon enough, the police will come to disperse them.” She answered the question I didn’t ask.

We walked along the pavement.

“Do you know how much I love you?” Her voice had developed an edge to it, but the edge was chipped, serrated, dealing pain in the long run, ultimately non-lethal. An act of anger, well-practiced.

The blade was dull, as dull as the thuds in the alley we walked past. A man, one of those you ripped straight from an old comic, complete with top hat and a monocle, was hitting a prostitute. How did I know? Her clothes were revealing a calculated amount of skin; her breasts were exact science for voluptuousness; at the edge of her mouth was a fracture, where her alluring smile penetrated the layers of makeup. I have always wanted to pay for one, but the pretty ones like her, my arms and legs wouldn’t even get me a peck on the cheek.

The cartoon man continued his assault, the brick bashing at her head. Again and again. The woman looked happy as she collapsed. Her attacker let out one final heavy breather, fixed the collar of his suit, and walked away. I imagined from a hotel somewhere, his butler will be waiting to wipe the blood off with a handkerchief. She and I stood there and looked at the corpse, and we got close to it as we can, and we smiled. For the first time in a long time, we could smell and taste and hear and look. In front of us, the body, a dead body, something we had yet to see; the smell, we have always heard it described as metallic, but it didn’t mean much until now. It was like putting batteries in your nose, faint, fresh, a bit citrusy. Maybe she had some oranges before she died; Warm, the blood on her face. And thick, coated the mouth like milk. Finally, something new.

Her room was clean, too clean. With nothing to do, she herself would make a mess at night and clean everything up in the morning before she could start her day. But soon, she would have gone through all possible iterations of trash placement.

“C’mon, don’t keep me waiting.” She sat on the side of the bed, already naked.

Meanwhile, I fumbled to both connect the TV while trying to undo my jeans. The screen showed the body, eyes wide opened, tongue lolling out.