Bottle Green Daffodil

Chapter 1: Rosemary

October, 2014

I
I've only known two emotion
Careful fear, dead devotion.
I can't get the balance right.
-The Nationals

II
Rosemary. Rosemary Bagshaw.

The name settled on his lips like the first flake of snow, cold and short-lived. He chanted it like an ancient spell, almost forgotten, over and over again; the only whisper thrown into the void of silence when nightmares, with its outstretched talons, pulled him into the tunnels of darkness and despair.

It left him sweating and swearing, the usual cycle of punishment bent on pushing his tolerance and sanity over the edge of cliff. This name is an unsuccessful benediction to ward off the dreams of a certain dead person trying to drown him with guilt, and then there is a living soul enticing his nightmares.

Klef has his black locks bloodied and askew. His brains appears like an unedible mass of grey jello, spilling from a hole in his skull. He points an accusatory finger towards his best friend and hisses acidly, "Traitor!" But, oh, it is no longer the sweet and funny Klef. His dreams take another ugly turn. Some guy is making Rosemary, his Rosemary, scream and call out God with every thrusts he takes inside her. The desecration continued and so did the anguish inflicted by these dreams.

Zion woke up with a jolt, his heart frantically punching the insides of his chest. Shaky hands switched on the bedside lamp. Soft, golden light sliced the smothering darkness, illuminating his surrounding. Just his flat. Nobody else.

His utterance of profanities, amassed in his vocabulary over years, were muffled as he buried his face in his sweaty outstretched hands. The breathings eased to a gentler pace, body tremours ceased, the chain of curses broken. Zion snatched the immobile packet of fags thrown casually beside the nightstand last evening, took out a stick and lighted it.

He inhaled a long drag, the soul of smoke sucked out as his cheeks caved in. Nicotine filled his lungs and so did the sensation of lightness. Or maybe it was his vices clawing at his life system.

Zion padded around for a while and perched himself near the window.

Desertion, like dust, had settled on the face of the street below; lonely shadows, dark as the sky above, casted by the streetlamps.
After the cigaratte was reduced to ashes, Zion walked towards his bed, lighted another one and inhaled his acrid antidote. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "Bloody, bloody hell."

The sketches, product of his many insomniac nights, stared lifelessly at him from their assigned places on the wall. Black coffee replaced cigarette temporarily.

The thing about having nightmares, almost frequently, was it made a person worry less about sleep and more about solace.Smoke and sketches were Zion's personified solace.

Putting Wormhole in the rearview mirror of his mother's car as he drove to Fetnock a year ago was supposed to help him. It was meant to be a case of "out of sight, out of mind." But ghosts of past don't die easily, do they?

When the sky, dark as the sins of human, slowly turned to a suttle shade of vanilla, Zion found himself downing his third cup of coffee; a packet of Camels already extinguished.

He pocketed his wallet and dashed out of his flat. It was about time for her to leave soon.

"Hey."

The voice tightened the listener's gut and made his heart rate spike up.

Zion met Rosemary outside the building. She was stretching her legs, those fine specimen of her flawless anatomy.

"Hello, Road Runner." Zion's acknowledgement elicited a gentle laugh from her.

"Benjy's?" Rosemary twisted her high ponytail into a tight bun. It signalled the end of her warm up routine. Pity, he missed it.