Tarnish: Bridge Over Clouds

So he imagined copper coins, their every detail and every mark. He turned them round and round inside his mind’s eye. He brought the blank screen up. Sweat grew on his brows and forehead. Meanwhile, the barman rudely slammed the ale down on the table. Pavel cautiously opened his eyes. The bastard. What’s he toad-staring at me for? Tried to smile. A staring toad I tell you. Barman asked for the money. Grinding headache. Opened hand. It is there. Barman shrugged and walked away. Walking, prodding, toad. He couldn’t really bring himself to believe. Something, which he had never tried before, had worked the first time round. He thought of Oole and how proud and happy the annoying man would be when finding out. Then, he thought of himself. Alone. Sitting in a regular pub. Not even having any grub. Taste. Cool aftertaste along and down the throat. He felt there no sentimentality. He saw mostly men indulging in passionate drinking and heard only men telling dreary jokes. Women. Fat an d disproportional. Alright for some.

No thinking.

Why?

He cleared his throat.

Where was Ogatu? He kept asking himself the same phrase again as he had asked himself so many a time. It was now getting tiresome. Again and again. Just won’t go away. Although the brothers had never shared the best of times, Pavel was certain that finding the last of his family’s blood was the right thing to do. He smiled at remembering his contradicting talks with Oole regarding such a subject.

Eventually, he grew tired of staring into an empty mug and a twisted room. The reflection seemed to hauntingly stare back at him through his own eyes. How funny...how strange... His diluted, half confused, reflection tore his mind from uncertainty. After getting up and moving, with the side of his right foot, the stool under the grainy table, he moved with less ease through the bunching crowd and out of one of the less constricted doors.

He belched, the carbon bubbles previously offending his throat. He found the sight of dreary brick walls even more depressing. Time. Fast. Turn. Movement. One. He found the sight of the tubby man turning round the corner and wearing a bright white jacket surprisingly uninspiring. Until, that is, seeing the man’s creased up face and haunting, gray, eyes. Two. The character drew nearer in time and so did he. The man stopped. Pavel stopped, thinking the man would ask a question which seemed, if it happened at all, that is, to be doubtfully positive. Characterpossedofcharacter. So dam-ned, yes, damned. Swirl.

"Child," said the man so coldly that, altogether with his meaningless, unnerving, eyes, made Pavel cringe and shiver. "I feel there is energy prospering. Do not be stupid." Energy. Cold. Gape.

Eh? What the...

The words he were to ask (what? why? pardon?) only never came out but in bedraggled verses as he found himself flying backwards, away from the white jacket - a-a-a-a-a-a-a-h-h-h-h-h-a; an enormous current of air propelling him as his conscience waited and willed for an impact not to happen. Oomph - and, strangely, an impact did not happen. Pavel’s back, backside, and thighs brushed lightly against a probable wall. He tried moving, his eyes looking down, and found himself desensitized in mid air. He also tried talking and found his lips locked together tightly.