Faust

The other end of karma

  As requested. I told him three stories.
Three only I can recite and known to no one, about when I first found the central library's door's unlocked at night and how I understood a stranger's inadvertently act may end him as well as saved a lost soul on the street.

The second. Is about the first time I met them. How I learned to forget and abandon all that defines a person and how little significance it holds. How we could become anyone with a wrong turn of life. And how I've become unconcerned if that's a bad thing or if it'll eventually doom me. In the next second or many decades later.

The third is about last night. The fight at the pit scored us enough to get out of that dump we lived, shit, slept in for longer than anyone should. How I went in and got out by the skin of my teeth. Scraped off some of the hide on palm and almost unhinged my jaw, tibia and knees still burning.

"You should see the other guy. He ain't moving on his own for a long time if not ever."

The old geezers at the table under the lamp keep on bickering over some politicians who've been dead for a long time. The bartender is now rinsing the neck of a whiskey bottle if that makes sense. The air is still for a moment after I finished the stories in one go, I raise the glass to my mouth and find the liquor tasteless.

           A gram of salt fell slowly into the brown liquor as if it were normal before dissolving.

           The man by my side leaves his drink untouched. In the duration of my telling his expressions, if any, are behind the collar and the eyelids dropped too low for me to read his eyes. He kept his leather-clad hands intertwined and elbows on the edge of the counter.

          "Do you think." The man's voice is like a beast's. Throaty and.....uncivilized. "You'll tell the same stories. Tomorrow? A week later? A year?"

Without an answer to his question, I shook my head and tried to shrug but felt like I didn't do either.

"You will. And you will become a better teller. But for now. Thank you."

He reached for his glass, the worn-out gloved hand spread out like a spider as he drew it behind his collars and downed the quarter-full brown liquor. He rotates the glass along with his head tilting left to greedily catch the last drop of it without raising his head.

            "Now for my end."
                                       ***

My eyes open to the sound of rain bearing the glint of sun splattering on windows. I peer at the left before moving my head in confirmation I'm not plagued by hangover today.

It's closer to noon than morning now.
With the sun high above and the clouds not thick enough to completely block it, each dribble of rain is lit like plastic fairy lights on holiday magnified by my blurry vision.

I rub my eyes and roll my feet to the cold wooden floor. Some fragments of dialogue and details from whatever the hell I dreamt of still linger as I walk to my phone by the table to find no missed calls from the sisters. Not sure what I was expecting.

          Walking downstairs, I turn on the 24/7 news channel before going to the bathroom sink. The cold water from faucet shook me wide awake from the tangible grip of 12-hour slumber. The voices from the living room go on and off as the sound of water down the drain triggers a slight tinnitus.

"Last night at the North Valley residential area......."

I run my closed eyes to get rid of the dryness cause by whatever. Tap water washes down the edge of my eyes to the cheeks till made it to the chin.