5 Minutes

5 Minutes

The elevator doors opened at exactly 8.32am. She was late. She was nervous. She stepped into the lift by herself and quickly turned to the mirror adjusting her hair, which was ruffled and untidy from yet another too late night and too early morning. She took a deep breath. The heavy doors were just about to close when someone stuck their hand in between them, which immediately made them spring open with force.

Adam came into the elevator and they looked at each other. He smiled politely.

She was the kind of girl that fell in love with a song straight away and then listened to it on repeat for as long as the love lasted. She listened to it loud. When boredom set in, she never listened again. Love is fleeting.

He was the kind of guy who, when he loved a song, rarely listened to it simply because he liked to think ‘it was too precious’. He wanted to keep its beauty preserved for as long as possible. He wanted to make it last forever. Love is everlasting.

Thoughts started shooting through her head. Irreverent thoughts. Adam found it too easy to read her. He could read her face and everything she was thinking. The lines around her eyes became slightly more prominent and her lip moved to the right by the most minuscule stretch. He knew she was his song. Probably the greatest song he ever listened to.

Thoughts started shooting through his head. Irreverent thoughts. What was he supposed to do? You can’t just talk to strangers in elevators. That was pretty clear. He could not NOT to talk to her though. That was pretty clear too.

Caught between a rock and a hard place. Caught in an elevator. Adam decided to press the stop button. He could see the shock in her face. Slightly terrified, but also slightly intrigued. He looked bewildered as she stepped closer, turned fully towards him and said “I was wondering if you had the guts to stop the lift”. He could feel his heart sink into his stomach. She stepped even closer. Close enough to smell his fear. Close enough to kiss him. 

As the doors opened she said “not only is it not all about me, it’s kinda not about me at all.”

5 minutes of his life. The best song he’d ever heard.

Becca + Blaine - A short story

*illustration by Mark Adlington

Here is the third short story in my 'desolate' series. Part one here and part two here. Read.

Becca couldn’t help but like him instantly. She couldn’t sleep because she analysed his every move, his every word, his every glance. She knew he was a good one. She also knew that good ones were hard to come by. She could feel that she was getting herself into trouble, but nonetheless there was something in her that couldn’t resist playing with fire. She picked up the phone.

It only rang once before he answered. It was two a.m. on a freezing starless night in London. He sounded irritated that someone would dare to call him that late. He also sounded intrigued that someone would dare to call him that late. Becca was on the brink of telling him she liked him. A lot. She was on the brink of telling a relative stranger, who she only met the week before, that she fantasised about being with him. A lot. She thought that wasn’t like her. She never had these feelings. Awkward.

But instead she started a meaningless conversation about today’s football results. She knew that now wasn’t the time for too much intensity, for too much truth. She had learned her lesson.

Blaine didn’t watch football. He wondered what the hell Becca was talking about, but he enjoyed the sound of her voice too much to stop her. He could listen to her voice for hours even if it stammered endlessly about Manchester United or some other club he didn’t care about. He did care about Becca though. He realised that on the first night he met her.

She was unlike any other girl he’d ever met before. She was strange. In a good way. She was loud, but not obscenely so, just in a confident way. He felt instantly attracted to her. Becca was drawing him in with her flirtatious glances that seemed to shy away at the last second. She was contradictory and that amazed him.

When he finally approached her after deliberating how to open the conversation for about three hours, he simply said: “Hi, I’m Blaine. I’d love to chat to you.” She looked slightly bemused that a stranger would come and talk to her. Like it had never happened before.

It had never happened before.

Becca and Blaine talked for hours. About their dislike of grated cheese, about their love of literature, about being the oldest children in large families and about pretty much everything else.

She was too scared to tell him she liked him. He waited for her to tell him she liked him. No one said anything. Both didn’t want to let their guard down. Both didn’t want to stand on this battlefield unprotected.

Becca put down the phone. She felt empty. They never saw each other again. They never stopped thinking about each other.

Short Story 2

Morning guys, I wrote another short story. This is the second one in my 'desolate' series. Here is number one.

Juliette was a moody girl. When she was feeling down, nothing could cheer her up, but when she was cheerful, she made everyone smile. Flitting between people and places, colourful in demeanour and looks, Juliette was the centre of attention at many parties. When she wasn’t, she went home early.

Juliette was a pretty girl. Her big eyes looked at the world in excitement and fear. Her red lips could hardly ever stop blabbering. Constantly gushing about the wonders of the world in big vibrant words, Juliette had the tendency to project her soul onto the world.

Her hands were always fiddling with things. Her brain churned over thoughts. Endlessly. Her heart never got fixed.

Maybe that’s why she chose Adam. Or that’s why Adam chose her. Adam was a reliable guy, he was down-to-earth and he was certainly what people would call marriage material. Juliette hated marriage material. With his massive bear-like stature he was the ideal protector. A man who takes care of things. A man who protects women. A man who protects Juliette.

They had been living together for 4 years. In a bright, yet relatively crowded maisonette flat in South London. Juliette’s record collection was all over the flat, Adam’s newspapers were neatly stacked in one corner. Juliette’s shoes were scattered all over their bedroom, Adam’s socks were colour-coordinated and packed away in the first drawer by their bed. Sometimes Juliette felt like she was living with her brother and she despised that. At other times she felt strangely close to Adam. Loving but not in love.

She wanted him to take her to the Natural History Museum. She wanted him to take her to the seaside. She wanted him to talk about the Grateful Dead, about Pavement, about some obscure music genre or at least about something that would show a spark, passion, emotion, humanity. That would prove that there is a light behind the curtain of thick brown hair, but he didn’t . He never did. All he said was “Do you want to watch TV?”

Juliette reclined. She didn’t want to watch TV, she wanted to watch Adam. She didn’t want to watch life projected on a dark screen, she wanted to watch it first hand.

Juliette didn’t tell Adam that she was six weeks pregnant. She hated him. She wanted adventure; he wanted babies and a good wife. While staring at the TV screen sitting next to Adam with blank eyes, Juliette spent hours pondering. Then her mind flickered. She told Adam that she was going for a walk. She never returned. Juliette lived happily ever after.

A Short Story

Morning loved ones, I wrote a short story. I was told it will only speak to girls. Hmmmm. Well make up your own mind!

The first time Henry saw Isabelle he was fascinated by her strength. He was also scared by it. She radiated that certain nonchalant flair that boys find equally striking and stinging. They got introduced through a mutual friend but Isabelle didn’t really take any notice. Her mind was spinning around that song, that boy, that pair of shoes, that piece of art, that argument she had last night with that boy about that piece of art. Her mind was always spinning. Too much.

Henry was a nice guy. He was one of those that don’t make much of an impression when you see them for the first time. When you see them for the second time, you pick up on all these little details and become intrigued. His clothes didn’t match, but they did give him personality. His opinions didn’t match either, but they showed the passion and vigour of a thinker covered by the exterior of an underachiever.

Henry was a strange one. Always fiddling around with things to cover his nervousness, he found it very hard to concentrate. Preferring solitude to company, one could easily assume that Henry was some kind of outsider, but on the contrary his quirky charm opened up many doors.

When Henry finally gathered the courage to ask Isabelle out, she didn’t think much of it. She simply assumed another date, another disaster. Isabelle was not very lucky with men. She preferred to play around rather than to be serious about that thing called ‘love’. Even though, Isabelle wanted to believe in that ‘thing’, her life had taught her otherwise.

Judgemental people would probably say she wasn’t girlfriend material. Isabelle, however, didn’t really care. Open about her feelings and intentions, she tended to put men off rather than to attract them. If she liked someone, she told them. Straight, but also scary.

On her first date with Henry, Isabelle tried very hard to behave like a lady, but once the first ‘fuck’ slipped out of her bawdy mouth, she gave up. Five minutes in, she already told him about her bizarre love for busses, obsession with cats and passion for music he hated. Isabelle wasn’t very good at the dating game.

Henry was nervous. She could see him shifting in his seat, she enjoyed his shyness. It made her feel less shy. Less awkward. More normal. Isabelle could tell that Henry wasn’t good at the dating game either. She really liked that.

Henry wanted to come across well too. He had, after all, been chasing this girl for more than two months, so he didn’t tell her that he was terribly, terminally hung-over and bravely downed his pint. As tongues loosened, the fear loosened too and Isabelle actually saw Henry clearly for the first time. Interesting, independent, charismatic and honest. Isabelle started to fall for his charm at exactly the point when Henry said “You’re really the only girl I cannot charm”. Isabelle had before called one of his lines ‘cheesy’.

As the two said their goodbyes that evening, Isabelle’s mind was spinning, but this time it spun around Henry. She thought about what it would be like to kiss him. She wondered whether all his awkward yet equally amiable mannerisms extended to that area too. She thought about what it would be like to play video games with him, to geek out with him, to walk through the park holding hands. She despised herself for having all these stupid romantic ideas, but she couldn’t change it.

After a week Isabelle started to become nervous. She over-thought, over-complicated and over-analysed things. She became THAT girl. She got scared. Scared to be rejected, scared to be hurt yet again. She was convinced that pushing people away was much safer than letting people in, so she provoked an argument with Henry. Irrationally and irresponsibly.

Henry didn’t know what was happening. It didn’t make sense to him. He felt strangely confirmed that Isabelle was that little bit too crazy, too impulsive, too ‘high-maintenance’ for him.

Days later, as Isabelle was dialling the first digits of Henry’s number, 079….., to explain herself, to apologise, to make sense of her senseless behaviour, she didn’t see the bus coming from the left.

Henry met Anna at Isabelle’s funeral. They got married six months later.