Author S. K. Nicholas

Getting in from work, I run a bath. With the rain pissing down outside, it makes me feel at one with myself when little else does. The sound of police sirens drifting through the open window, I imagine what the horizon looks like adorned with all those shimmering lights; it must look so pretty from far away. Everything always does. Closing my eyes, I imagine what it would feel like to breathe in the cold night air as the buildings I haven’t seen in years welcome me back. Treading those old footsteps, I taste oil paint and pornography. Lonely fields under starlight; the train station and all those lost dreams, crumbling like the abandoned church on the corner of St. Mary’s Street. The dried up lake and the garden behind her house; the cemetery where I fell asleep drunk and the pub where we used to drink from afternoon until early morning. Getting out the bath, I admire my beard while remembering the path I once took to the mausoleum that overlooked the town. One day when it was thundering, I went there especially to take photographs of the dangerous sky. I still have them somewhere, boxed away and dusty, the way memories always are. Dried and wrapped in a dressing gown, I shelter myself around the side of the house from the rain and light a cigarette. It’s almost dark now. Illuminating the droplets of water with mouthfuls of smoke, I wonder where everything is heading. To what disaster will I find myself next as everything falls apart yet again. Laughing at the absurdity of it all, the cat from next door runs across the garden and comes to a halt at the sight of me. Kneeling down, I make cat noises to entice him over, but he doesn’t trust me and skips off in the opposite direction. Alone and wet, I go back indoors. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I sit down at my desk and gaze out the window at faint lights in the darkness. They look so beautiful, so enticing, but if I were to find them, they would only disappoint. Rusting streetlamps and smashed windows. Bars where the insects lose themselves in the hell of what they are. But somewhere out there, there must be something different. A light not like the others. Take me someplace where flowers grow and the disease of modern living is nowhere to be seen. Maybe I’ll read Wuthering Heights while drinking another beer, and when I fall asleep in the early hours, I’ll be on the Moors, dancing with ghosts, ethereal, and free at last.