Sometimes a single action is enough to bring back entire lifetimes in a flood of bittersweet flashbacks. But, nostalgia endures from fiction. It is a safer place; a waiting net to catch you when the abysmal threat of reality starts creeping into your heart from the dark recesses of your all too aware mind. It was a blanket to wrap small children and jaded adults in some attempt of comfort. Sometimes, for some more than others, nostalgia is not a blanket but a razor blade that cuts deeper than any knife. Murphy stares at the empty bottle on the kitchen counter, tracing its narrow rim with a calloused fingertip. He watches its long neck glow a dark amber as the light from Henry’s battered blinds hits it just right.
There was comfort in its soft browns and yellows, the peeling banner across its body. How long had it been since he last enjoyed a beer? How long had it been since he sat down at a real table, drinking real booze, with a real smile? He couldn't remember, but the cheap liquor felt the same. The same way a touch and whisper could.
The hand on his face mere hours before had felt so real, so warm, that he almost wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe that he was capable of love, of being loved again- but there was a part of Murphy that still felt otherwise. There was a part of him that believed, more than anything else, that the horrific bus ride to Hell had been no accident. The rain outside Henry’s windows seemed to grow louder still, doing its best to drown out the sun. To wash away a touch he hadn’t felt in what seemed like eternities.
He wanted to lay down and let it. The louder the rain got, the more he wanted to drown in its icy bullets. The more he wanted to feel his skeleton melt and his skin to be violently washed away with every last trace of memory that his aging mind insisted on trapping within his empty skull. He wanted to forget Carol, to forget himself, to forget that town- this apartment and Henry. As selfish as it was… he wanted to forget Charlie. But a pain that deep doesn't go away, instead binding itself in wicked runes that carved themselves into his very being.
“It doesn’t rain here often.” Henry was suddenly behind him, awkwardly standing in a way you’d expect to see a doll or mannequin. The more he thought about it, everything Henry did had some air of awkwardness to it: as if someone else were controlling him and trying their best to mimic human behavior. But… in a way, it was endearing. There was a peace in not knowing everything, a peace in the ignorance that one misses after becoming all too self-aware. There was peace in not being human.
“Guess I’m a magnet for bad weather,” Murphy sits up and pushes his chair out from under the counter. Guilt consumed him, burning him from head to toe and all at once. He shouldn’t be mourning his past life or nursing these suicidal death wishes. Certainly not at the kitchen counter of someone else’s house. He sighs emptily, dark eyes following the small sliver of sunshine towards a frame on the wall. It contained a portrait of him and Murphy. The owner of the apartment was as silent and still as always, a stark contrast to the goofy pose Murphy had pulled.
Someone else's house.
Henry had gotten a new camera, one that could take portraits of the person holding it. He had insisted Murphy try it with him and continued to be a menace until the older man gave in. Apparently, he liked it enough to replace a small picture of a church with it that had hung there long before Murphy ever showed up. ‘Moved in,’ Henry would remind him. And Murphy would correct himself, though deep down things stayed the same. No matter what label was put on things, nothing was real. Not here, at least. There was a set pattern to these sorts of mirages- illusions, dreams. Bad news followed Murphy, falling down like rain on himself and those around him.
He wouldn’t put Henry through that.
