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The mind can be quite an empty place, but it has everything Tamsy needs. Popcorn, a couch and his TV. Tamsy’s TV.
And right now it’s playing his favourite show! Lucky him.
He wasn’t sure when it started, he must have caught it mid season, for he had missed when the stolen glances and stolen touches started, foreign, fatuous, a whim from fate itself. The characters were… funny, albeit fake. The blond heartbreaker being redeemed by the angelic lover, what a cliché!
Tamsy’s hand reaches towards the popcorn, the tips of his fingers tracing the rough surface of them before he plops a handful of them, humming in delight at the salty taste on his tongue. Life up here can get really boring, at least he had some drama to make the sound inside his skull duller and to fill the awake moments with some mindless petty drama.
In the screen, nervous arms draped across the Vessel’s arm. It was strong, sticky with sweat and dirt, but in his defense, everything in the ground is like that. Hard to be a knight in shining armour when iron is rusted and the closest things to knights, apostles, don’t even know you exist, but that’s what makes it the much sweeter, seeing akuta’s bum trying to charm his way in the plastic-y lies that not only wraps but make the Body. But he leaned close, his breath smelling of tobacco, and his tone whispers for them to meet where no one can see.
The Body entered the room after it had cleaned up and groomed itself. Tamsy leans closer, elbows finding his knees, a twisted smile stretches and creases his lips. Here is when things get interesting, the lounge room. The whispered truths, the hurried steps, the heart pumping warm blood through the veins.
“Tamsy. Hi.” The Bum said, way too quick, uncharacteristically unsure of himself. He got up and cleaned his hands on his trousers. He looked more… proper. Cleaner. Smelling of that sickly perfume.
“Enjin.” It said back. The Body’s head tilted to the side, the cameras taking in the sight of the Bum picking up a cigarette and placing it on his lips. He offered it to the Body who shook its head with a polite smile “no thank you. I don't smoke.”
“Good.” The lighter clicked a couple of times before it managed to produce a flame. “That’s good. I've been trying to quit.”
The Body hummed, eyes closed, before it walked forward towards him.
“I suppose you haven't called me to discuss your plans to quit smoking.”
Now this, Tamsy thinks, is where things get interesting. He smiles with delight, his eyes fixed on the co-star on the screen. Nervously, he stuttered and looked away, a mumble falling from his lips, or maybe it was a chuckle.
“Yeah. I guess you're right.” He whispered and exhaled, a plume of smoke rising from those lips. The Bum rolled his shoulders and leaned against one of the tables. And he had the audacity to look directly in the camera. Such bad acting. “I just…” Some hesitation. Some blush. “There's something I've wanted to tell you.”
The Vessel walked closer until they were one in front of the other. His voice, made more for desperate shouts than gentler whispers lowered down, trailing off. An order to continue talking was left unsaid but not unheard.
One last look towards the door to make sure no one was there, a soldier loading a gun about to be fired.
“I'm in love with you, Tamsy. I've been for a while.”
This.
This is unexpected.
The popcorn bucket falls from Tamsy’s hands, hitting the floor with a dry thud and sending popcorn flying everywhere, but his eyes are glued to the screen. His jaw is wound tight, or maybe it should have fallen over.
He feels something warm his stomach. Must have been the blood pouring from the gunshot.
Those are dangerous words. Words he wished he could rip from his ears, forget he ever heard them. Because this is unexpected, and unexpected is dangerous.
What does he even mean?
Does he mean finding a stranger every night to warm up your sorry heart? Rub perfume all over your scars to sanitize, to hide the stench of your past, maybe that's what it means. Join your body with anyone and everyone to try and find a connection.
Or maybe he meant blood. He meant breaking someone from the inside out, kiss their lips and pull their guts out. They say it's synonymous with pain, with loss, with hands filled with blood and bodies beaten to a pulp.
Static buzzes from the screen. He must have left it on. The microphones twisted and distorted the co-stars' apologies and excuses into mumbles, making Tamsy realize he had been talking for quite some time when he saw on the screen the blond actor turning around.
The Vessel's eyes met those golden ones, big, anxious and apologetic, as it pleaded him to wait.
What to do when a beating heart is presented in front of you?
The Vessel walked closer and the Slob paused, vulnerable, his fake confidence flaking off. It hummed lowly, the Thing walked closer until their chest met together and then its nose met his jugular vein. The blood rushed, betraying the man’s nerves, but it still rubbed there, taking everything in.
“Wait.” It whispered. “I was just surprised. That's all.”
One of its pale hands met his waist and he reached under his shirt, tracing the line on his lower back. It met those eyes and placed a kiss to the corner of his lips, because when you're offered a beating heart in a silver platter, you consume it.
“Sure, I'll love you too.” The Thing whispered. Tamsy screamed, but that was the worst part of the head, no one could hear him.
He leaned back against the sofa as he saw the two bodies kiss, the scars on his body itched.
What an awful novella. Such unrealistic dialogue and such bad acting. If only Tamsy’s TV would only play anything else. If only everything went according to his plans.