Within porcelain

or, a short story

*CLICK*

/

L,

I suppose you know by now. Someone will have said something. You’ll have read about it.

You have read about it, right?

You must have.

It’s just I haven’t heard, so …

And you know (and I’ve thought on this a lot, because there’s damn near nothing else to do but think), that hurts more. Much more than what you did.

Anyway. Whatever. I have paper now, and a pen if you can believe it, so I’m going to write it all out, tell it like a tale. Indulge me, for once. It’ll give some closure, I suppose. Maybe for me. Mostly for me.

Oh, and I should warn you (because I’m the decent one): there’s going to be a lot here about her. I’m just trying to be upfront and honest about that. Because I’m the decent one.

---

That night started with toothpicks.

The bar had a jar crammed full of those little wooden toothpicks, the ones no one really uses unless they’re a very specific character in a very specific movie. I remember taking one, staring at the ends and placing it between my finger and thumb, feeling the pain as I squeezed. Then I snapped the thing in two, not wanting it to end up back in the jar with the others.

There was a warm breeze, accompanied by the soft lapping of waves. The moon was a crescent and the stars were visible in the sky. It was beautiful. Warm and beautiful. (Just how you wanted it to be.) A couple left and another entered, wrapped in the laughter of themselves, their lives feeling about as distant as humanly possible.

I swirled my whisky, stuck my nose over the rim, closed my eyes and inhaled.

In, out. In, out.

For some time I stayed like this. The breeze. The waves. Your absence.

Then I heard her.

“Must be some drink.”

I opened my eyes and glanced in the direction of the voice. A woman was sitting to my left. She was Thai, or what I approximated to be Thai, though I wouldn’t have guessed from her accent. She was thin and tan with jet-black hair and a fine-lined tattoo that ran along the length of her forearm. A dress the colour of coral clung to her skin, the material doing nothing to hide the curves underneath. I found myself turning the rest of my body towards her.

She stifled a laugh, catching it in pressed lips. Those lips turned into a smile, wry and dry and full of—

“Your drink,” she said, raising her own—a mojito, by my best estimate. “Is that how they drink where you’re from? Eyes closed and through the nose?”

I glanced back to the whisky. The chunk of ice had all but melted. “No, I… I just really like the smell. It’s heady. It’s,” and somehow I found myself moving my hand as though it held an expensive cigar, “smoky.”

She stared at me, saying nothing but keeping her lips pressed together. I tried to hold her gaze but my eyes wanted nothing more than to break away and find the bar, the stool, the moon.

She stood up.

And moved one seat closer.

“Nin,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Nin.”

I took her hand, shook it, told her my name.

“A pleasure,” she said, the smile resurfacing. She swivelled and shouted to the barman, speaking in Thai, her voice and all its meaning suddenly alien. As I listened, I noticed she wore a silver ring through her nose. It caught the light as she spoke, twitching up and down. The barman nodded, yelling something equally meaningless in the direction of the kitchen.

She turned back. “You look hungry. I ordered snacks.”

The words threw me. I had no precise recollection of the last time I ate. “Oh. Thanks. I didn’t have dinner, I think. Actually, what time is it?” I’d left my watch back in my room, next to the ring, not wanting to look at either.

Nin twirled the ice in her glass with her finger. “What’s your deal?” she asked, ignoring my question.

“My deal?” I drained the last of my whisky, trying to buy myself another moment of composure.

“Yeah. Your deal. Buried in whisky by a beach. All alone.” Her eyes moved around and behind me, as though verifying her statement.

“Just having a drink,” I said, adding a weak shrug. The light breeze whisked away my pathetic words.

Her eyebrows raised. “I can see that. But I don’t believe you.” The wryness came back. She crossed her legs, smooth olive skin stretching into the space between us. “I’ll guess.”

“I’m sorry? You’ll guess?” My neck had pushed itself forward, like a goose.

She nodded, chewing her lip. I waited, uncertain. With my drink finished, I felt naked. The barman was tending someone else. He may as well have been on another island.

“You’re in the army,” she said. “Out here for some stupid army reason. But all your comrades dislike you, so they leave you to drink by yourself whilst they go do stupid boy-army stuff.”

I released a burst of laughter. “Ouch!” 

She winked at me. It was like an injection. Something unstoppered in my brain, letting release a flood of whatever hormone or chemical it is that says Relax, stop imagining you’re being filmed, the world waiting to laugh. No-one’s watching. Except her. So talk, fool.

“I don’t—”

“I’m joking,” her hand swiped at my words. “I can see you’re not the army type. There’s not enough,” and she paused, her eyes moving across my body, “muscle and stuff.”

“Seriously?” I said, half-feigning disbelief. “You know, it’s much less insulting to drink on your own.” And then I did a full feint, turning in my chair to face the bar.

“Aw, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Her hand was on my leg, tugging to pull me back around. I couldn’t help but smile, the flood of that something released again. (You remember what that’s like, right? Yeah, of course you do.) The ring in her nose twitched as her lips pressed out another smile. I couldn’t leave her eyes. They were hazel, like her skin. Deep hazel. We lingered like this, perhaps for too long, all before my words launched into an attempt at the truth.

“Have you ever seen the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall?”

She cocked her head to one side, pausing a moment before speaking. “The one where Jason Segel goes to—wait, wait, don’t tell me—was it Hawaii? There’s some chick, Sarah—Kristen Bell, right? They’d broken up and-ohhhh…” Her voice trailed.

“Yeah,” I said, taken aback at the detail. “That’s… yeah that’s exactly it. Well, not exactly. In this version she’s not here. The Sarah. Kristen. Fuck, I mean my own, my—” I shook my head, restarted my thoughts. “You know what I mean. I cancelled her ticket, she’s not here.” (Not sorry I did that, by the way.)

Nin looked indifferent to everything I’d just said. She merely came back with: “No. Not seen it.”

“Wait. What? What do you mean, you haven’t seen it? You just summarised the plot. And the cast. And the location.”

“I don’t watch films. Just trailers.”

“Just trailers?” My eyes were wide, the goose neck now fully extended.

“Yeah.” Her voice was flat. She took a long sip of her drink, almost draining it, then shouted down the bar, the sudden shift to Thai yet again taking me by surprise. It seemed to break whatever it was that had formed around us.

“Why only trailers?” I asked, trying to reform the connection.

She turned back. “Films are too long. I don’t have the attention. Even one hour is too much. Even some trailers are too much. Still want to know what happens, though, so I watch the trailers and read the wiki, scroll IMDb trivia, stuff like that.” Her words were matter-of-fact, as though reading from a cereal packet. I was incredulous.

“OK,” I began, a thought forming. “I want you to think very carefully about how you respond to this.” I paused, an attempt for dramatic effect. “What about books?”

“Oh yeah, the same.” Nin batted the notion away. “I read the blurb on the back, skim the opening page or two, and then skip right to the end.”

“You’re joking.”

“Why would I joke?” Her expression was that same flatness, unreadable. “It’s very efficient.”

“Efficient? Books aren’t meant to be efficient!”

She shrugged, but then the wry smile came creeping back. The little movement of the nose ring.

“We are very different people,” I added.

“We just met. Who said we’d be the same?”

That stung. “I know, but it’s… weird.” I laughed again. “Wrong, even. Don’t you think an author would be offended? I mean, I don’t know, I’m not an author. Although, well, I’d like to be an author, but… Look, what I mean is, if I were an author I’d be offended if someone skipped right to the end.”

She nodded and made her eyes wide. “You’re right, I really should care.” Great. Full sarcasm. I could see she was holding back laughter.

I turned back to the bar, trying to make eye contact with the barman. My mouth longed for moisture.

“Oh, don’t be so sensitive,” she said, her arm on my shoulder. Then, as though from nowhere, the barman arrived, holding two drinks. I looked to Nin.

“You also looked thirsty.”

And that was all it took. We chinked our glasses and soon enough our food arrived. We ate and drank and talked. Endless talking. There was a flow to it. A practised one, I later came to realise. But it felt real. If you could put me back there and let me relive it (and you know, there’s some messed up part of me that would do that), I think there’s a chance I’d still believe it true. That I, for her, was somehow different, that with me she wouldn’t go through with what she did.

But she did go through with it. It’s why I’m here inside this hell.

To be concluded next week… (well, next week has already arrived: conclusion is here.)

---

So this is a heavily edited repost of something I published within the first few weeks of being on here. I think I was the only reader back then. I’ve wanted to return to this for a while, to read and edit with whatever attempt at a critical eye I have acquired from over a year of weekly writing. I’ve trimmed a lot of fat from this, killed some things I enjoyed but were extraneous. Bye bye darlings.

If you enjoyed, are intrigued, or have no idea why there’s an image of a cat below, then your Like, Comment and/or Share are, as ever, an invaluable nourishment for my soul.

Substack image generator.