Short Story

[Dominicy]

Kinda nameless (incredibly) short story I wrote last night.  I personally like the idea, just don't like how I pulled it off, but hey, it was late, so I have something of an excuse.





A thousand faces passing by me, and not a single sign of life.  I look down at my own feet, wrapped tightly in my wood colored, nondescript shoes, sick of looking at all these faces, twisted in disgust.  I knew I didn’t look any better than they did, but at least I had something to be sickened by.  They didn’t know me but still judged me, like they would the criminal who killed their brother.  I was trash to them, and they were trash to the world.

I limply lifted my eyes just enough to watch the twin metal train doors slowly drag together, kissing lightly against one another in a completely metaphorical love scene.  The door’s on the other end of the train, I thought to myself idly as I drummed my fingers on the stained iron colored arm rest as I waited for the engine to start.

The room was a mess of nameless eyes and mouths, each guilty of nothing, but innocent of nothing.  Except her.  She looked down at me, completely unscathed by my dark appearance, my dirtied black coat, lined with a synthetic fur collar to fight back the choke of winter.  I loosely noticed her short legs, scarcely reaching my thighs, and even less heard her repeat her question.


“Sir… Is this seat taken?” she asked one more time, this time loud enough to get me to look up at her flawless, near bleach colored face.  She wasn’t fake like any one else, and it made her perfect to me.  Her cheeks were blemished by scars, lips almost as gray as fog, as if they had never felt the feign massage of a make-up brush.  I could only shake my head, too deep in thought to speak.

“Ok.  Thank you.” She took her seat next to me, that serene look still on her face, at least I thought it was.  I couldn’t see out of the corner of my eye.  She looked so natural, her unremarkable black hair reaching to about her almost underdeveloped chest.  She didn’t try to hide her underdevelopment with layers of disposable towels, and it made me love with her all the more.  Her eyes were a moss color, matching her thick sweater.

She and I are one of the few people who still don’t wear eye color adjusting contact lenses, I almost thought to myself.  She looked deep in thought as well, but inlike me, she was regretful, not bitter.  She looked over at me, I could feel my heart skip a beat. “You’re not staring at my…” She ran two or so fingers along her lips and cheek in complete shock.  I barely noticed her flawed, long finger nails hanging from the ends of each finger, each their natural salmon color.

She at least had the bravery to ask why I wasn’t giving her a cold stare for not wearing makeup, unlike me.  She stared into my eyes, a deep blue last I had checked, rather than into my thin glasses.

‘You’re beautiful without makeup is why…’ Come on!  Say it you coward!  Tell her.  No.  I can’t.  She’s not beautiful, she’s a short, pale, scar-faced teenager, but that is what made her beautiful.  I fought an internal war with myself, asking myself the same questions over and over.

She shook her head dismissingly, rather than insulting me or judging me.  I tried to hold back my stunned eyes from freeing themselves from their sockets, or so it felt.  And then it went silent, the only audible sound, the whispers of contempt around us and the metal-on-metal battle between the train and it’s tracks.

About ten minutes past, and I kept rehearsing that single question in my head, forcing myself to memorize the very letters that made up my one-line ballad, delivered right from the mouth of a stubborn troubadour.  Another hand full of moments pass again.  That’s enough!  I have to!

“What is your name?” I ask in a shaky voice, barely noticeable over the crashing of steel under our feet. “What?” She looked over at me, her symmetrical, thin eyebrows arched like the doorway of a great palace.  Talk louder, you idiot!  She can’t hear you!

“I said, ‘what is your name’?” I repeated my question after subtly raising my voice. “Oh,” she nodded softly in confirmation. “My name’s Vanessa.  What’s yours?”  My mind went blank as I spoke my own name, as if spouting the words of a long-dead memory.

“Cute.” She softly smiled, her body very suddenly tensing.  Please, don’t smile for me, I can see your fear written under that smile, but why?  The train screeched to a halt, dragging into the station.

She seemed to try to hide her face from the door right in front of us, looking out the window right into the brick-lined wall at our backs, denying me the privilege of looking into the beautiful windows of her soul.

The two pairs of doors in this cart slowly opened, and the faceless figures ALMOST politely shuffled out of the way of the door to let the unknown and unfamiliar inside.  Someone was coming, for her, I managed to convince myself, looking back at her one last time, as if looking for some form of confirmation.

The next few moments became a white blur, somewhere between seeing a cluster of silhouettes enter the train to seeing absolute white I could never imagine existed.  The sound of yelling, a slap, sobbing…

When I woke up from my trance, a hulking figure hovered over the both of us like an eagle over its prey.  She was at my side, afraid to cling to my arm but too afraid not to.  Her perfectly imperfect cheek was bright red, I could tell it had stung, just by her tears.

I did what any real man would do - as if I really consider myself a real man – I pushed our brutal assailant away, arming my frail, small fists. ”Vanessa!” The tall, undetailed figure barked down at her in a commanding tone.  I could see her respond out of the corner of my eye, but couldn’t hear a thing.

“I give you everything,” mid sentence he caught me off guard, the coward…  I was thrown backwards, and any previous thoughts were lost, in place of a searing pain in the back of my head. “And I find you with some loser like this!?  I thought you had dignity!”

“So did I…” I told the barbarian, putting two and two together.  This must be her ‘boyfriend’, I recalled her telling me about him in a thousand different memories that never truly happened.  I armed my weak pair of weapons, not ready to win a fight by taking my opponent off guard.

He gave the second punch, narrowly dodging what I imagine could take my entire nose off my head, based off the size of his fists.  I replied to his punch with what felt almost like a feigned punch to the shoulder. ‘Try harder!  Do it for her!’ I subconsciously screamed at myself.  I took another swing, this time landing a blow on the cheek.

This was like no other force I ever felt, like the feeling of having fire running in my veins, or having twin fists of metal.  Whatever I had done, it had worked.  The nameless hulk recoiled in absolute shock as I over powered him, sending him backwards onto his head.

I wasn’t given time to savor the victory.  For just a split second, I turned to look at Vanessa with my loving, almost fatherly protection.  For just a split second, the brutish figure was given life.  For just a split second, her attacker knew intelligence.  Realization. Maliciousness.

The click of metal.  I threw her out of the way, what felt like almost intentionally pushing myself in the way, as if to give him the satisfaction of hitting something.  Then, fire.  Shattering glass.  Metal, whizzing through my shoulder.  Blood.

I fell forward, face first onto the metal floor of the train, my body in my control just long enough for me to disarm my attacker with the help of one hand and some cunning.  It was done, she was safe, he was taught a lesson, and I got the best reward of all.  There was a centimeter wide piece of metal in my chest, and it was a testament to the fact that this day, I died to save a girl I fell in love with in a thousand fairy-tale memories.

Some of the faces in the crowd lit up.  I could see it.  Once lifeless figures became fully figured human beings right before my eyes, one after another hunched over me in worry. “I want her…” I choked on the words as I forced them off my tongue.  It wasn’t even a moment before a sobbing girl was hunched over me, tears in eyes, cheek red and stinging, eyes bright with empathy.

“I love you.”  Our lips met one another, just as the metal doors of the train had.  “I love you too.”  And then?  Nothing.  Not a sight, not a sound…