A Tragedy

CHAPTER 1

Click. Click. Click. So maddeningly repetitive. Hours upon hours of the same sound, looped endlessly. It would truly drive one insane. But she was too caught up in her work to notice. And like her are oh so many. It's as if none ever hear the sickening clicking of the keys. And all of this for what?

A tiny little speck of darkness seemed to interrupt her work, momentarily, as she was taken aback by the slight disturbance; only to return, relentlessly, to her work, waving her hand to get rid of the minuscule creature. She felt a tingling sensation in her right nostril, scratching the itch with her long nail, only to find a small fly underneath it. Now, she was finally completely snatched from her bubble, shoved abruptly into the real world, needing to deal with problems of other nature.

She's never noticed these flies before. Where did they come from? An annoyed sigh escaped her lips as she fought the three nuisances, stomping each of them with a long and slender index finger. Leaving no evidence on the desk, she collected the bodies with the same finger, a look of disgust plastered across her face.

She rushed towards the bathroom to rid herself of the mess. The tap water washes the flies and their memory and she is ready to go back to work.

...

The day passes by like all the others. Mondays, Fridays, they are all the same. Today Marta ate a disgustingly greasy double cheeseburger from the cheap fast-food down the road. The mixture of grease and BBQ sauce was leaking on her hands, dripping on her desk. She did not mind. 

Expectable. How can one eat as if they had never seen food in their entire life although they eat something every hour or so? The munching sounds of the mixture of meat, salad and burger bun accompanied by occasional moans of pleasure at the presumably delicious taste of the concoction was sickening. When will this be over?

Laying in bed, sinking slowly in the mattress, she mindlessly reads an article on the different origins of fruit, all cuddled up in her blanket, staring at a screen that might as well have been empty. A fly lands on the glass and frantically dances around. She hushes it but another one soon takes its place. Where the fuck did they come from? She brushes it off, finishing her article and heading to the bathroom to wash her hands before going to sleep. Only... another fly gets in her nose. And another lands on her cheek. And another wanders round. They swarm around the room, a dozen and only seeming to increase in number. She looks in awe at the ever-growing amount of small flies minding their own business, forming a black cloud on the bathroom's ceiling. Her vision narrows, the light fades and everything becomes blurry as the furious swarm spirals towards her.

Blinking, she washes her face and yawns tiredly, finally getting the well-deserved sleep she's been awaiting the entire day.

CHAPTER 2

She lives in an apartment on the fourth floor of a 12th story building. The block of flats was erected as a result of the great demand of a rapidly expanding population. It is grey, lifeless concrete and cold steel, a bulky, monotonous and unpleasant view. The entire area looks akin to the stashed frames of a beehive, only far less colourful, and even less of a display of spectacular architectural inclinations. The playground was a mandatory aspect of such residential areas but, to no one's surprise, was invested in the least: just a pile of mangled masses of plastics melting slowly under the burning rays of the summer sun. Plants are scarce as no one bothered creating green spaces. And as long as the city didn't demand it, it's perfect just the way it is.

The apartments are crowded: a bedroom, a living room merged with the kitchen and a bathroom, covering a total of 60 square meters. She lives alone, so that is not much of a problem. A piano sits idly underneath a blue and black table cloth next to a tall window overlooking the highway leading to the city, to the commercial places, to the people, to the life. There is no life here. It is covered by curtains in an attempt to maintain a reasonable temperature.

Summer is horrendous here. The house feels like an oven and she is the delicious pie being baked. Only, the heat makes the pie melt, dripping slowly until there is no more pie, it has all been burnt at the bottom of the oven. Nothing but ash is left.

She wakes up at the blaring sound of the alarm, hardly feeling energised as the heat kept her up most of the night. She has to go back to work. It is unavoidable.

She slowly makes her way to the bathroom which is 16 steps away from her bed, mechanically. Firstly, she empties her bladder. Then, she washes her hands and face, brushes her teeth and her hair. She takes a good, long look in the mirror checking every minute detail about her face. Her pale skin seems even paler today, and the bags under her eyes almost look black. The purple-ish veins under her eyes and on her eyelids are incredibly prominent, as her skin seems to become more and more translucent as she keeps staring at it. It is as if tar filled them.

Suddenly, a burble could be heard. The tar finally made its way to the surface, oozing out of her every orifice, blackening her face, spilling on the bathroom floor, tainting the white tiles. It keeps flowing, an endless stream. It is so much it bursts the windows and cascades towards the ground. Tar covers the streets, the city, the country. The Earth drowns and she is the spring that flows relentlessly. It fills the lungs of all humans, coating their insides, torturously. All is black.

At work she was sweating profusely, worrying what people might think of her appearance. That is why she was wearing long sleeves in 28 degree weather. Marta was minding her business.

"Hey, you ok, girl? You look a little pale today. Have you eaten anything?"

She turned in an instant and the woman must have noticed her tar-filled veins too. "Ah, I haven't had lunch yet...", she says in a fragile voice, as if it was about to break.

"Girl, you really need to eat, you look like you're about to faint! And with that blouse on, too! God, aren't you extremely hot in it?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks." 'Oh no! What will she do? Will she call an ambulance?' she thought. They'll run tests on her, it is definitely abnormal to have black veins.

But nothing happened. She went back home at the end of the day and no one bat an eyelash at her.

CHAPTER 3

Sunday. The day God rested after creating light, the stars, the Earth and all there is on it, good and bad. She feels like she can't rest. She has to work. However, she takes another sip of coffee. The bitterness of the black liquid makes her purse her lips, momentarily. The sun warms her feet which she has leaned on the balcony's metal rail. It is quiet.

The neighbour's voice disrupts her moment of blankness, a comfortable mental void.

"Have you heard what happened last night?"

"No?"

"Nana's son had an accident."

A slight gasp could be heard. "Is he alright?" There was only a faint trace of shock in the woman's low voice..

"Yes. The other four people that were in the car he crashed into, not so much. The smallest child , 4 years old, barely survived while the others didn't make it."

"What will happen to him?" The woman questioned with much indifference, as if the answer were obvious.

"Ah, you know, daddy will make sure his boy doesn't have to suffer for long." the man said, scoffing.
Silence again. Then the door to the balcony was opened and slammed shut seconds later. Alone again.

She gets up and goes back to her never-ending work. There is no stopping it. Work. Eat. Work. Sleep. Eat. Work.

Bedtime comes around and she decides to take a shower, even though she is sure she won't go anywhere tomorrow. She just can't stand not cleaning herself daily. The air everywhere would start to feel heavy with the dirtiest, most disgusting particles, clinging to her skin, entering her lungs and stomach, coating her entire being. She can't stand it. She has to scrub and scrub, viciously, every square inch of her body. Her body needs to be clean. The obsession of cleanliness of the vessel, but never the contents...

The hot, almost boiling water cascades over her head, comfortably enveloping her in a warm, cozy layer of liquid. Sometimes, she spends half an hour like this, in a trance. But lately the water bill has been quite high and she can't afford to waste money like that. She's been saving ever since she got a job. She does not know for what.

Two empty eyes, reflecting the hollowness of what's behind them, scan the body in its entirety, alongside ten long and delicate fingers, retaining every new piece of information and comparing it to the old one. Her extremely pale skin has not changed one bit. However, she comes to the conclusion she has lost weight. She can see her bones through her skin. Her ribs are so prominent she can finally see the irregularity of their construction. She has always felt they were uneven. There is a complete lack of symmetry. The right rib ends normally while the left one has a hole in it, an inward bump. It does not hurt when she presses a finger in it. Her wrists and ankles are also skinny. She has never been fat, but it was never like this either. It looks as if she's on the brink of anorexia. She's been eating, three times a day. So then, how could she have lost so much weight? And how come she only noticed it now? It couldn't have gone under the radar for long, it is an obvious change. Even her face is much more skeletal. Much more drained. Much more lifeless.

The water washes away dead skin, dirt, dust and hair, as well as her concern.

CHAPTER 4

The night is warm. The hot concrete radiates its heat, only to recharge once the sun is out again, boiling the suffocating summer atmosphere. A cold gust of wind makes her shiver.

The neighbourhood is empty, as always. It sometimes feels as if she's the only one here, as if all the others are dead, mere projections of her own demented mind. Then, she thinks she doesn't feel alive herself. As she falls deeper into the void, her mind trapped in an inescapable cage, she is jolted awake when she stumbles upon something laying on the pavement, something she didn't see at first. The orange light of the lamp on her right is not quite bright enough. Actually, it is extremely annoying, it hurts her eyes, making her squint. And yet, she can't even see that well.Thus, she takes her phone out in a swift motion and opens the torch. A middle-aged homeless man seems to be laying on the dirty grey stone, stained by recently dried blood, dark red but not brown yet, a remnant of life. His contorted body is twisted in an awkward position, limbs forced at unnatural angles, with his head turned towards her, broken, as if he knew she'd be there to witness his descent into undoing.

But something is terribly off about this man, this mangled body. She takes a closer look. He looks drained, like a raisin, cheekbones protruding, face elongated, wrinkled, almost as grey as the stone beneath. It's as if the life was sucked out of him, leaving only an empty husk behind, like a snake shedding its skin. His brown hair and beard were tangled, dirty, grey in some places, the only indication of his age. A few breadcrumbs were visible in his beard. The corpse was decomposing, the stench was horrendous, so pungent she choked when she took a deep breath, unknowingly, in an attempt to regulate her involuntarily fast breathing.

She saw a twitch behind his closed eyelids. They seemed to be moving, rolling around, almost as if there was still some life left to be lived by this man. Her heartbeat was well above that of a marathon runner. However, to her dismay, a long and black insect crawled from underneath the rotten eyelid, dragging its hundreds of slender legs along. Its entire body seemed almost perfectly symmetrical, if it were not for the two long antennas on its head; antennas that resembled it legs. Her heart was pounding, painfully bashing itself against her rib cage in a desperate attempt to escape it. The insect slithered disgustingly across the dried flesh of the man's cheekbone, displacing small portions of dead cells with each motion, revealing the brownish flesh beneath, finally entering the mouth and disappearing. A shriek escaped her dried lips, hardly making any sound.

She was completely repelled by the scene but was frozen in place, unable to move her eyes. An invisible hand of doom reached out to her, caught her in its grasp and forced her to remain still.
More and more centipedes crawl out of the man's body, out of his empty eye sockets, out of his nose, his mouth and ears. They keep crawling quickly, like a black fountain. They writhe and squirm and twist, becoming one, a wave of insects. They storm and ravage in their path, and when they're gone, gaping holes in the rotten man's skin can be seen. Underneath lies a void, so dark and so empty she thinks it might be a black hole. She feels drawn towards the corpse, towards the emptiness beneath it. She leans in, closer and closer to the interstellar mass.

The light flickers, dying, as she leaves the lamp behind.

Motionlessly laying into bed at night, she stares blankly at the ceiling. She cannot sleep. It feels like she's been in this same position for hours when she feels a tingling sensation on the bare skin of her left arm. She glances at it. A centipede is crawling, slowly, on her skin. She tries to move, shocked, but, to her horror, she is paralysed. The insect seems to be heading towards her face. Her eyes are wide, so wide they might pop out of their sockets at any moment. It stops, for a second. Another one drags across her other arm. More and more envelop her body, the sensation of the million little legs and antennas dragging over her smooth skin makes her cry out of disgust. Her facial expression is static. She wants to scream her lungs out as the insects crawl over her open eyes, entering her nose and her ears.

She wakes up in cold sweat at a shrieking cry from the street.

CHAPTER 5

The sound of the alarm fills the silence, in unison with hundreds, thousands, of others from the hollow apartments. She wakes up and follows the same set of motions. As always. 16 steps to her bathroom. Mechanically. Toilet first. The liquid makes an unsettling noise. Dripping. Then, she washes her hands and face, brushes her teeth and her hair. A chunk of it is left, tangled, in the comb. She takes a good, long look in the mirror. Rotting walking corpse, decomposing, worse than last night. But she left no bloody trace and no pieces of putrid flesh behind. She gets dressed. Goes to work. Mechanically.

...

She's been dead for far too long. But she feels alive now, for the very first time, with the wind blowing in her face, messing up her hair. So much life. She sees the sunset for the first time. The birds and the trees, the clouds and the grass all shine with novelty. So much life.

The clouds are scarce, but the sunset paints them in pastel shades of pink and orange, bright reds and yellows. The sky is gradually turning navy blue. The half moon is bigger and closer today. She can clearly see every crater, every dent. The orange light of the setting sun reflects off the glass windows of the apartment building in front of her, blinding her. A pigeon barely misses her head, flapping its wings. A white feather detached itself, twirling slowly towards the ground. The old oak tree in front of her flat is bigger than she remembers, so green and so full of life, hosting the nests of different birds teaching their young to fly. They chirp happily, dancing around in the air. Two children run in a game of tag, giggling and panting, their parents discussing on a nearby bench. The air smells of freshly cut grass. A cat struts on a corroded metal fence. Bees swarm around the big and colourful flower bushes: magnolias, marigolds, carnations, peonies.

So much life, so little time.

The sirens of a police car scream, distorted, in the distance, approaching rapidly.