er rennt

got bored the other night and this is what came out. not edited or anything, but i like the rough sketch. --k.a.p.

Every morning he ran: down Grosvenor Road and across the Thames. He ran until he forgot the year or the day, until he forgot the aching in his bones and the whine in his mind, the You’re too old for this nonsense. He ran for himself. For the god he had almost lost. But this morning, he ran to forget the sin in his bed. This morning he ran to quiet his mind.

He ran to the Eye, where the tourists would gather in a few hours time; pass their savings away for a glimpse at the legend that was this town. It was too early now for anyone but him, the pavement, his squeaking soles. The city called to him: the rushing water and squaking birds. This place wasn’t like home. It wasn’t the quiet northern streets that raged only on Sundays when the football fans crowded the streets and pubs and brawled. Here every day was a battle, in some way or another. And the only solace one could find lived in a world between the last drunken straggler and the first breakfast pan.
And still he ran. And still the lust ravaged his mind.

There were sins he had read of in old, tattered books: sins whose committers burned in synagogues of their forefathers. There were countless laws that he had broken--all destroyed--in a single night. Was he a criminal now? Would he, too, be abandoned, destroyed? Or was it just another story his father had told to make him pray at night? He told so many, it was hard to keep track of them all. It was hard to remember, in that landscape of perfect skin, that this very moment could be his last in the fold.

And still
And still
And still he ran.
The city swallowed him and he was lost.

He arrived on his street without knowing he was there. The baker on the corner had just turned over his sign. His skin was dripping. Surely it would slide off. A bell rang in the back of the shop and the owner smiled at him.

‘The same, my friend?’
‘The same.’
Wasn’t it always the same?

Every morning he ran: down Grosvenor Road and across the Thames. Every morning he found himself in this same little shop with this same little man. Every morning he awoke alone. But this morning wasn’t so.

‘Make it two?’

The steps are long and looming today: his door stares down at him with a sinister grin. There are trembling things in the pit of his gut. Is this what it was always like? Were the stairs always so long; his palms always so sweaty? Or is it the run and the chill and the exhaustion in his bones? He’s forgotten to feel. He’s forgotten so much…

Stove. Kettle. Plates tray cups. It’s all so different but it’s all the same. The writhing the wringing the wait wait wait. Breakfast in bed. Who thought of that? Screeeeeeeam.

Tossled curls peek out from beneath his duvet; tan toes teasing at the other end. He smiles: old muscles shifting to their home. When did he last smile like this? Last night is a blur, but he remembers the laughter, the smiles, the grins. He remembers the aching shift in his jaw and cheeks. He remembers the triumph in the boy’s eyes.

I got you, he said.
Got me where?
Got your smile. It’s mine.
It’s mine.
You’re mine.

‘Emile…?’ It’s groggy and fogged, but his voice still rings: sending shivers down his spine. He stretches and shifts: brown skin for miles and miles and dishevelled hair and warmth and muscles and I was never this young, he thinks. I was never this vibrant, this new. ‘Emile? Is that you?’

‘Yes, love.’

‘I smell tea. Is that tea?’

‘It’s tea.’

‘You’re perfect.’ A flush. When was the last time he flushed? But the boy is smiling now and, suddenly, London isn’t as cold as it was a moment ago. He holds out his arms and beckons him in and the sweat and the smells and the aching of his bones is gone gone gone it’s gone. He sets down the tray and settles in.

‘I’m old enough to be your father, you know.’

‘And I’m old enough to be your son.’ A kiss in his hair. ‘Which is worse, do you think?’

Every morning he ran. But not anymore.