Autumn in London

The Portrait behind windows

London’s grey skies poured down icy droplets. The city was wrapped by a spectral veil of mist, and a gloom all too familiar to Londoners clung to the air.

Oliver pressed his forehead against the cold, crystal window.  He closed his eyes and released a long, wistful sigh, his breath fogging up the glass.

The sound of the downpour had become a familiar lullaby. As the drops pounded against the window, they composed soothing melodies only meant for his ears to hear, they were reassuring, soft words that spoke to him in a way his deceased mother never had gotten to do; calming him, releasing him.

Lightning struck in the distance, illuminating the skies, followed by the crashing sound of thundering resonating in the distance which echoed in the back of the man’s mind for a long time.

Opening his eyes, he was once more greeted by the sight of the foggy city. Behind the drenched glass, the outline of the neighbouring buildings resembled the work of an impressionist who had splattered his canvas with different tones of greys and silvers to convey the portrait of his grim homeland.

Despite being quite young, those hooded, green eyes of his, contoured by dark circles, revealed exhaustion, anguish, despair, and anger. They were the eyes of a man who had been deprived of his youth, of freedom, of joy.

After gazing blankly into the distance for a while, he began tracing the path of the drops at the other side of the glass with his finger as they slid in a race to the bottom of the window pane.

The familiar feeling of his cat’s tousled fur brushing against his hand broke his captivation on the droplets. He parted his eyes from the window to glare upon the old, black furred creature nuzzling his hand. His distant, pensive expression contorted into a scowl as he focused on the animal, jerking his hand away from it.

“Leave me alone, will you, Azazel?” he murmured with irritation as he stood up, dusting his dark coat and heading to the old fashioned desk at the other side of the room. The dark tom followed him closely, climbing the wooden antique with a strange agility for its old age. The cat stretched before settling down on top of the desk, his long tail dangled from side to side while he eyed his owner with mischievous, beady, black eyes.

It was a vast room, perhaps a place far too big for only one person. The large window overlooked the city, opposite from both the writing desk and an old wardrobe. In the centre of the room sat a king sized bed and facing it, was a wide selection of books, all types of literature, from history to fantasy, from Fitzgerald to Da Vinci and back to Cervantes. Stories of all sorts filled the room. Once, a long while ago, all those books would have been scattered around the room, brimming with notes, doodles and tea stains, but, for years they had sat in seclusion and neglect while their owner moved on, dust and time slowly consuming them, yet those stories loyally watched over him, yearning to be read once more.

The small lamp beside him gave off a dim light, weakly illuminating the writing desk. He tapped his pen restlessly against the sheet before him. Even after days of attempts to write the speech, he still sat there, a couple hours away from the event having only managed to scribble out the phrase: “Thank you for coming, my dearest friends.” Even when truthfully, most of the people attending where no more than acquaintances, not even good acquaintances at that.

It wasn’t like him to procrastinate; in fact, he considered the delaying of any activity a sacrilege, an unforgivable blasphemy. Nevertheless, as much as he had wanted to get the torturous piece of work over with, the words surging from his mind refused to mingle with his emotions, resulting in stiff, cold-hearted phrases. He had spent long, sleepless nights trying to write, achieving nothing more than an awful migraine.