Author S. K. Nicholas

In the old town, there were ghosts everywhere I walked. In the bookshop where I first set eyes upon Sophie, the novels seemed the same as they did several years ago, and yet they had all changed. Despite appearing the same, the pages were different, as were the faces of those stood behind the cash registers. It used to be me, but that version of myself isn’t here anymore. Then there was the pizza place where we had the Christmas party, and the noodle bar where the very sight of her legs made me droll as she crossed then uncrossed them with such elequence. Even the sushi restaurant waved hello, but it seemed so foreign I couldn’t respond. Down an alley behind the train station, there were glimpses of so many unlived lives; of so many existences that were real and false in the same breath. There was a time an old lover struck me in the face in the middle of a drunken argument. I’d insulted her, and treated her dreadfully, and so the black-eye was fully deserved. I stormed off then came back. We cried, went back to hers, and then kissed. Maybe half a mile up the road, and six years later, Sarah and I were walking back from a night out in town. There had been bowling and drinking. It had been her birthday; her eighteenth, I think. Treading off the beaten path, I took her in my arms beneath a tree that once shed its blood-red leaves on fresh snow. Then, I unzipped myself and pressed my cock against her groin. Such a beast when she looked so heavenly. Such a drunken monster- a damned lover in love with the night and all of its dark mysteries. Stopping to light a cigarette, the sun shone upon my face and burned it red as I reminisced about what had happened when we returned to mine. The flat above the chemists is still there, in particular, the balcony where all the baby pigeons rotted outside their nests while their brothers and sisters survived just inches away. All those evenings spent working in that god-awful pub, and those afternoons spent not going into Uni and playing on my Xbox instead. Finding a few quid down the back of the sofa and popping across the road to buy an energy drink and newspaper- now that was a treat. I didn’t eat well back then. Didn’t eat much of anything. Coffee, wine, and Redbull- these were my favourite things. Packets of crisps were okay, as were slices of toast, but that’s about it. And there was the time I jacked off while eyeing up some girl in black tights waiting at the bus stop across the road. She had these legs that never seemed to end, and a bosom that spoke to me in a way I’d never heard before.