Jacintha's priceless notes were lost.
All
was lost! Howard put his fingertips to his forehead
and cursed miserably.
He rushed a bath, threw on his best casual garb
- no time for ironing - and sped his Maxi to
the campus. With the haste of a god fitted with
winged ankles, he visited the Students Union
and the Physics buildings. His yearning enquiries
after lost property were met with sombre shakes
of the head. No notes had been handed in.
Deflated, he drove to Donovan Hall of Student
Residence. Even if he couldn't return them,
he knew that Jacintha must be told about her
loss. Such a fearful deed was noble - the
done
thing. He would take her scolds like a man!
But, like all human motivations, his core impetus
was more self-interested than he cared to admit.
He had to pluck a giant nettle, and the firm
grasping of it would mitigate the pain, though
far from nullify it. It was a sine qua non to
confess immediately. His thoughts dwelled less
upon the damage he was about to dispense to
Jacintha's feelings; but rather his motivating
concerns were to put
himself out of his
own misery, to have this rank torment
buried and preferably forgotten. The sooner
the matter of the devil was dealt with,
the better.
Donovan Hall was a mind-boggling collage of
concrete and windows decked with wide mauve
frames. Rows of rooms were stacked up to seven
high in places in thin labyrinthine strips.
Mentally he compared the complex to a sprawling
nest of serpents with narrow spines and window
scales. He would soon feel the sting. He left
his Maxi in the car park; entered the building
through the main entrance; wandered past the
Hall porter's office, through the foyer and
down a lengthy corridor. Festooned on either
side were doors with numbers, lively posters,
postcards, scraps of scribbled paper and other
paraphernalia tacked to them. One of these
doors opened and a student appeared. Howard asked him for the whereabouts of room 2192 and was given directions to a corridor on the second floor in the far side of the complex. Howard was an hour late as it
was. Profusely perspiring, he ran through the
labyrinth until at last he saw some promising
signs. He cursed the sheer vastness of this
hall of residence. Finally he found himself
staring at
the door. This door, unlike
the others, was unornamented apart from the
number 2192 counted out by four metallic plates.
He swallowed. He paused. He shuffled his feet.
He took a deep breath. It made him feel worse.
He looked at
the door.
'Fuck!' he whispered, and tapped the wood.
It opened. A divinely proportioned face appeared
sandwiched between a towel wrapped around her
head and another around her body. A lock of
wet hair sneaked out from beneath the head towel
and formed a little serpent-like curl on her
damp forehead. His eyes couldn't resist the
darting observation that her cleavage was just
visible. He told himself that she couldn't possibly
have noticed such a fleeting glance. Just to
make sure, he flicked his eyes around chaotically
to make any breast-peek seem like a random noise
driven aberration.
'Where are my notes?' Jacintha demanded in slurred
voice at counterpoint to her usual, crisp syllables.
Howard started. This was all he needed: she
was acting even more strangely than usual! He
tried to speak as his rate of perspiration
hiked skywards. He peered at his feet and then,
after further hesitancies - used to muster some
mental gumption - he peered meekly into her
eyes. She seemed to see straight through him
into some curious middle distance. Her large,
black pupils were dreamy conduits to heaven.
She looked so sweet for one so frigid and yet,
as ever, she seemed distant. To his complete
shock, she took hold of his hand. Gently, he
was tugged him into the room. The door slipped
shut behind him.
Her room looked busy yet neat, with everything
appearing to be in a well thought out placement.
Jacintha sat him on her bed and, to his amazement,
sat on his lap. She took the towel from her
head. Eyelids half hooded, she put his head
in her hands and gently kissed his neck and
cheek. His eyes widened with astoundment. The
tempo of the caresses picked up and their amplitude
magnified. Soon they were naked, groping each
other on the bed. Her body was a taught, yielding,
rounded, angular, ratiocinative in its mortality
and existent in its transcendence. She lay on
her back. She threw back her head. Her throat
was exposed. He kissed her wildly. He fumbled
ineptly, then...
She asked him to leave. Howard was distraught
'But...' he pleaded, pathetically.
Her eyes were slightly more focussed, her voice
cool and tuned.
'Now!'
As he scrambled into his clothes he implore
her to change her mind, but she was severe again
now, as wintry as he had ever seen her. Her
pupils, though still enlarged, were frosted
over. Her beauty, once again, was a jewel beneath
ice.
Ushered out into the empty corridor door of
room 2192 closed with finality. An incredulous,
frustrated frown played on his face. He stepped
hesitantly down the corridor, neither thinking
nor caring about his orientation, when he remembered
he hadn't told her he'd lost her notes. Nibbling
a knuckle he minced back to her door. He held
up his hand to knock then checked himself at
the last instant. He thought he heard something
- sobbing - soft sobbing. He manoeuvred his
ear to the door. There was no sound. He rubbed
the side of his face. Had he
really heard
that? How could she be so sad? He felt disquieted.
He could hear the Devil's laughter! Satan and
his iniquitous mates were positively rolling
on the floor in hysterics, the bastards. They
had showed him his grail and then snatched it
away. He had been so close! So very,
very
close! But
still he was a virgin. He
cursed.
As he walked up the corridor once more he saw
two students dressed in white sports gear at
the top end of the corridor. A tall, sinewy
looking student sniggered. Howard knew that
face, that baseball cap, the prominent ears
and asymmetrical mouth. It was the perfidious
student who had betrayed him for being late
to lectures. His enemy's companion was a tallish
woman with black, permed hair. She seemed quite
attractive were it not for her National Health
glasses. He noticed how smug they seemed together.
They both wore sports bags slung over their
shoulders. Their free arms were wrapped around
one another's waists. Their faces drew close
and they kissed unselfconsciously. He walked
past them. In their lustful state they didn't
pay him the smallest glance. Their observations
of the Universe were mutually telescoped upon
each other. His enemy, with a shifty glint
in the eye, was whispering into the woman's
ear. She smiled and whispered something back.
They seemed oblivious to his presence.
His damaged ego quenched his urge to inflict
bloodthirsty revenge upon the baseball capped-student.
He walked stiffly past. His ego was constipated
by his hunch that Jacintha did not like him.
Maybe if he had impressed her, if her were better
looking, she'd have had sex with him.
Eventually he was cocooned inside his car. A
gentle patter of rain tapped the roof of the
car like a mob of fingers. Splashlets obscured
the view from the windscreen. The sky darkened.
The pitter-patter of the rain grew intense.
He listened to a million noisy signatures from
the heavens. Wearily, he turned the ignition.
The engine obediently sprang cheerfully into
life and roared defiantly against the weather.
He could have sworn he had heard her sobbing.
***
*****
***
Howard threw open the battered blue door.
'Ahhh, this'll be him,' hailed Gallie. 'Howie!'
she called.
Howard's emotions bubbled inside at the sound
of her gorgeous voice. He stepped gingerly through
to the living room and saw Gallie was with Karen,
Greg and Dominic. Seeing his friend from his
hometown with his new housemates delighted him.
'All right Dom!' he cried.
'Ado Howie dear fellow! What's up? You look
deuced flustered, all shook up.'
'That's the usual side effect of my fucking
life.'
'More plausibly the usual side effect of living
with such breathtakingly lovely ladies, I expect.'
The women smiled widely at Dominic.
'Well, Howie mate, you look frigging
shit!'
observed Greg.
'I know. So what brings Dominic to this primeval
tip?'
'Actually, this tip has been
tidied up by
Muggins here,' moaned Karen.
'I must say you are to be commended on your
splendid diligence, Karen,' said Dominic, flashing
a winning smile.
Jubilant, Karen blew him a kiss.
'At last!
Somebody like, appreciates
me! Thanks Dom, you're, like, such a darling,
you know! You're totally brill!'
Howard rolled his eyes.
The door opened, creaking its high-pitched creak.
A hefty black cat padded into the lounge. It
glowered with fiery contempt at the occupants.
Its tail was held out low behind it, swaying
slowly in a way Howard took to be the feline
two-fingered salute.
'
Sodom and Gomorrah! Who let that frigging
beast in here? Send it back to the Devil!' demanded
Greg, shifting back in his chair.
'
Moggie Macabre! Oh, you're such a lovely
wuvverly
kitty witty!' cried Karen to
the cat. The cat looked at her indifferently.
'Listen, I love
pussy more than any other
geezer on this bleeding planet, but I draw the
bleeding line at that
devil cat. Cast
that wretched creature out of this fucking house!'
riled Greg to Karen.
'Hey Greg dear, are
you not going to
let it out? You're not
scared are you?'
teased Gallie in her charming voice.
'Why, fuck no! Of course I'm not scared you
daft cow! I've told you a million times: that
cat is
evil. It's the devil's own fucking
cat. It's a witch's cat. How many more bleeding
times do I have to tell you, it has no white
dot on its vicious little neck. In the Middle
Ages they drowned all completely-black cats
but they let the cats with white dots go - they're
not all bleeding black, you see! This wretched
creature has
no bleeding white dot!
It should be put to death forthwith! Ten thousand
medieval witch-murderers can't be wrong. Kick
that cat out before I drown it in the bog with
mine own bare hands! That'll see the little
bastard off to where it came from: bloody Hades!'
'It won't stand a cat in hell's chance there,'
chipped in Howard.
'Ohhh, Greg, I won't have you talk that way
about Moggie Macabre! The Animal Soc will have
you arrested!' said Gallie.
She was obviously finding it difficult to contain
her amusement.
'Fuck the Animal Soc!
Sodom and Gomorrah!
They don't give a bag of shit about bleeding
people do they? Damned right they don't
or they'd buy the piss-soaked tramps in the
street a hot meal eh? They sit on all that cash
and they throw it all away on mangy hamsters
fished from the bowels of benders, and stray
fucking cats.'
'Greg's a
scaredy-cat!' said Gallie,
mouth tight under the strain of keeping straight.
Never before had Howard seen Greg off balance.
'How many times do I - it's got zilch to do
with fucking
fear you silly cow! I loath
that stupid fucking cat in the same way I loath
quiche. Does that mean I'm scared of fucking
quiche does it? No, of course it bleeding doesn't!
I loath that wretched cat, with its horrible
extensible claws and its... Besides, that cat
brings bad luck. If you remember only one thing
I tell you, remember this:
bad things
happen when that cat pitches up. Who lets it
in, that's what I'd like to know! There's no
bleeding cat flap on the front door for Sodom's
sake! Get rid of that cat before it I shove
a stick of potassium up its arse, light its
whiskers and turn it into a bleeding Roman candle.'
'Ah, don't be cruel to Moggie!' admonished Gallie.
'Poor Moggie! Don't listen to nasty Greg!' burbled
Karen to the cat. She scooped up the animal
into her arms, stroked its huge, furry head
and took it from the room.
At Howard's suggestion, he and Dominic set out
for the corner shop to buy food. Outside they
admiringly inspected Greg's Kamizaki 1000 motorkbike.
At next-door's bedroom window the ashen girl
in pink was watching them. She joylessly blew
cigarette smoke out into the atmosphere.
They strolled out of Napoleon Terrace into the
Chillington Road.
'It was the most terrible thing,' groaned Dominic.
Never had such a ghastly disaster happen to
me all my life. Believe it or not, last night
I was jilted - by my beloved Sue!'
 | | | | |
| From: |
isolani | Subject: | 2001-08-04 13:07:05 |
| | | | |
| From: |
MadPole | Subject: | 2001-08-04 19:59:42 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Samad Iqbal | Subject: | 2001-08-05 21:10:03 |
| | | | |
| From: |
MadPole | Subject: | 2001-08-07 18:46:47 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Knor | Subject: | 2001-09-04 10:49:00 |
| | | | |
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