In My Mind

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Chapter One

Slowly, her body slithers down to the ground. Her limp hand strokes the back of her head as her eyes weep in pain. Her pain throbs away and the sadness is in her grey eyes. She knows that slowly but surely, she will be no more. She cannot remember feeling so helpless ever before in the thirty-five years of her life as she has helped to give life, not take it. She lays perfectly serene, as beautiful as ever, make up still as fresh as the morning dew and her eyes as round as a reindeer’s button nose, perfectly round. He stands beside her and shudders, trembling pain in his eyes as his tears playfully roll down his withered, arched jaw.

Stephen, save me please, save me, she pleads with him, not in anger but in helplessness.

All he utters is, Gabriella, my beautiful Gabriella. She lays still with stunned eyes peering up at the old cellar ceiling. It is full of cigar-smoke grey cobwebs and she knows that she has been here once before. She escaped before, perhaps she can once again. Has hope come knocking on the door once more? She tells him to shut up as she cannot stand men who cry like a weeping bitch. He quickly shouts back that nothing can wound the sly fox in him as he only loves her and hatred has no home in his unfulfilled aching heart. He tells her to quieten and relax as she has suffered a very bad bloody blow to her head through her own innocent clumsiness and that she has no right to leave him, no matter what. She must only live for him.

My head is bleeding badly, get help, Stephen!

Hmm, he quickly utters, It’s Steve, remember? Steve as in Steve McQueen. I’ve told you so many times to call me Steve, my beautiful Gabriella, take a little look, you’ll see the resemblance.

She fights back, No one calls me Gabriella, it’s always been Gaby.

His tongue cuts her words short. No, no, I’ve told you it’s beautiful Gabriella Velente. You’re not like the rest, common trash like the young folk of today. You’re simply not trash, you are sophisticated as I, my gorgeous. I’m the hand as you’re the glove, perfect together, my Gabriella, only mine, no one else’s.

There’s a creepy chill lurking in the background. The walls are crying out for help for this helpless young thing amongst the cracks of the smothered paint. They watch as her soft voice murmurs cries of helplessness and he in a world of his own with her firmly in his mind.

He sits on his buttocks with his nose dribbling slowly like the tap that has worn out its washer, but all the while, he keeps his eyes firmly on hers. Fixated. For a moment, he stands still and yet his head is chasing butterflies. Nothing new there! His humming tune sounds like, Sweet Gabriella the most delicate butterfly of all, now here with me forever, just the way it should be, the way it should have been a long lifetime ago, my sweet, my sweet. He interrupts his own broken strings to slide his arm straight across his moist face. He carries on, telling her that it has taken him five years to get her to come to stay in his kingdom even though she has visited his public house upstairs many times.

His broken string repeats itself and he tries to reassure her that it’s only A MATTER OF TIME before the bleeding will stop and she will find the energy to get up. Then, he will carefully cradle her into his arms, both cradled in the corner of the public house cellar which he has made so new for her. There’s a lingering smell of thick lacquer on the walls and clean glossy oak sideboards tainted in strong odour, a bit like him. He tells her that he purchased this designer two-seater in a peach colour just for her because that’s her favourite colour.

The sofa is empty and so is my Gabriella’s life. My sweet, do you realise now why I had to take you away from this wicked and monstrous life? Do you not understand, Gabriella? But of course, you do. You do, don’t you, Gabriella? I am truly sorry, my sweet, that I had to put something in your drink that I made for you, what did you ask for? He laughs out loudly as his ears ring with his own laughter, no one else’s. He can visualise her friends upstairs, sitting on the soft blossomed bar stools with whisky cracked splinters raging to get out. Night falls, darkness serenades the sky, the bar stands still.

You know, Gabriella my sweet, you must tread more delicately like a butterfly. That martini on the rocks was supposed to only make you relax and wash away your worries and come in to my lonely, longing arms. I would have guided you carefully down here so we could live our life together, forever. A life where I would take care of you, that’s all I want and to fulfil your every wish, a life with no care in the world as you would be mine and I yours. The only thing you would need to do was feed my hunger. Five long years I waited and now you’ve gone and spoilt it all, you could have had everything. Why did you screech and slither as I aided you to the washroom? I had to lie to your friends by telling them that you’d left already. You made me lie, Gabriella my sweet, lie, see what you have made me do. I DON’T LIE.

He continues with his jumbled words that he brought her down stairs to speak to her and make her understand that she needed to be saved from her wild friends and he had to protect her from this life which was wrong. His sobbing child-like words plead with her to wake up as he narrows himself to her slender pink palm and then nears himself further to smell her close up.

Wake up, beauty! He orders her and he bangs his fists in vain for her to open her eyes, she bleats back doctor.

It’s okay, my sweet, I am here, you need no one else, we will live together, we need no one else, but you need to listen and be patient with me. I did ask you to come quietly with me down the stairs but you resisted. I had to make sure that you didn’t hurt yourself so I held you real tight and caressingly close to my heart, my sweet Gabriella.

He continues, I helped you all the way down the stairs and then into this palace of ours. You see, my sweet thing, time waits for no one and I have been waiting far too long, five years for you and many years for my father. You’re in my head, he’s in my mind and my heart all the time, as if it’s been raining for years, five long years of getting wet as if there’s only been one season, winter, cold and damp, then dry and wet all over again. The wanting and waiting and loneliness and the mind games you played with my head whenever you came. I’m not lonely anymore, no I’m not, see, I have you and you have me.

The cold cement floor gives no comfort to his posture as he clasps his hands like a staple. The crispy crumbly floor feels cold and uncomfortable like them, as one lay in her own blood bath and the other besotted in his own mind. He keeps reminding her that he is doing this for her own good, he is obsessed with her delicate being and now he will make this a beautiful love story. She tells him that this is a horror story that’ll destroy him as death will come knocking on the door soon enough and her friends will report her missing. He doesn’t want the black death to cradle her. He peers attentively at her laddered black stockings and wedged black shoes, he strokes the gothic look one by one and then looks tightly at her short leather skirt as he politely asks her the purpose of wearing such tight clothes?

This is why I had to take you away from them, all those people you hang around with, you understand, how could you not?

He tries to reassure her, Don’t be terrified of me or angry and this is not how it was meant to be, we were supposed to live happily ever after like Cinderella, like Snow White. You can’t leave me. I won’t let you. He runs his heavy hands through her red hair, all the while trying to unlock her curls.

She slowly says, Leave me alone, don’t touch me. All I want is a doctor, please call a doctor.

Doctor, he retorts, I can do what a doctor can do. I will make you comfortable. His heavy clammy hands smother her legs. She feels uncomfortable and nervous and moves her legs. Goosebumps!! The hair on her legs stand on edge with the creepy eerie chill and not because it is cold. He tells her that she likes that and even if she doesn’t, she will have to get used to it. He sniffs and hovers around her like a bad smell, placing his being close to hers, realising all the while that even he is feeling uneasy. His eyes pierce at her, as green as the sea on a not so sunny day. He gazes at her sunny warm blue eyes and smiles.

He tells her that they can be together forever now but it just wasn’t meant to be this way and he repeats and repeats but she hears no more. His tone bounces up and down like empty yet powerful words, bouncing around in a hollow bucket as he tries to reassure her that it will be alright as she has him and he is enough.

Slowly, he slithers off her footwear and reminds her that she can be more at home and relaxed. She releases stress by bending her toes yet her eyes flicker not.

His nose is moistened and it drips and drips onto her. He sees her eyes give way to the agonising tear drops. They glisten from the corners. He doesn’t want to lose control or weaken but hesitantly puts his hand underneath her cheek to save them.

Our pain, my beauty, is the same. We both idolise one another, the only difference is that you don’t know it yet. Let me wipe away your teardrops as they are too precious, my love, my Gabriella, my delicate beauty, my awesome butterfly. He looks at the teardrops in his palm now and with a few words recited to himself, he rubs his hands around his own neck and tells her that her pain has become his. A man’s body jumbled together in a boy’s head? He has chosen not to grow up whereas others have had no choice!

He starts to talk to her. He tells her that this world has lost its senses, not him. The world cannot appreciate what true love is, as no one really loves anyone anymore, it’s all lust but not him. His words ring like an awful nightmare banging on and on in her tiny ears.

He tells her, "I’ll go and get us a few drinks and you can relax and after a bite to eat, maybe a drink again. We will sit and we’ll talk and will make a plan about our future life together, as I haven’t got it planned yet but I’m a good planner. I tell you what, why don’t I get some paracetamol or maybe something a bit stronger? What would my butterfly like, hey Gabriella? Anadin maybe? I’m an ibuprofen man, or codeine. Perhaps we could get the ones that go fizz in liquid and that you could drink down, think of it as champagne.