Ensis Damocles

Ch. 1 A Sufferable Location

The long, low drone of cicadas sounds like baking sun and hot pavement. 

The sun burns red through Jay’s sunglasses and closed eyes. He lies slouched against the stiff plastic webbing of the chair and it digs sharply into his back. Without even opening his eyes he fumbles for the pack of cigarettes lying next to him on the glass side table, shakes one out and lights it in a flick of his wrist. 

The woman lounging on the deck chair next to him is talking, he knows that, but the drone of the cicadas is too loud in his ears. They sound like the cracked pavement in front of his aunt’s house. They sound like the kids down the block playing in the summer heat. 

A long thin hand presses against his arm. “Jay,” she reproaches, “Jay are you even listening?”

He sighs. No, of course he isn’t listening. He doesn’t know why she’s still here. 

“Mm,” he grunts noncommittally, his eyes still closed. He takes a deep drag. How does he get stuck in these situations. 

She’s been knocking back mimosas since nine this morning; her voice growing shriller and shriller with each drink she orders from the roving waiters. 

He always gets stuck with the ones who can’t take a hint. 

She’d been shoved on him by the porter. The porter always sticks his nose into Jay’s business. Can’t keep it clean. 

She’s still talking, even as he gets up and leaves to go take a piss, the straw from her champagne glass never far from her painted lips. 

He walks across the faded black and white marble tile of the pool deck and into the restaurant; its unnaturally dark compared to the glare outside, almost unbearably so with his sunglasses on. He stumbles through the gloom, avoiding chairs and diners, and makes his way upstairs to his rooms. 

He stops at the bar on his way back outside and stares at himself in the pocked mirror behind the bar. Waving to the bartender, he orders a beer—“something to keep the heat away”—and reaches to light another cigarette at the same time. He fumbles in his pocket for his lighter. 

“Here,” comes a lilting voice, and a lighter flicks on right in front of him. He leans forward into the light, taking a deep drag. Smoke curls out of the embered end, stinging his eyes. 

He blows smoke against his own reflection, flecked and grotesque in the wavy mirror.

He nods a thanks to her, but the woman has already turned away from him, back to her drink. He gets up, and trudges outside. The perspiration from the beer is stark cold and the dampness drips down his wrist to spatter onto the tile. 

The chairs he left are now empty, and for a moment, there is no noise; even the cicadas have paused their relentless humming. 

Sometimes he thinks nothing happens at any time around him. Sometimes he thinks that the world has come to a complete standstill. 

But the world always, inevitably, jerks to a start again: the cacophony starts again, a child shouts, and a high-pitched call of, “oh there you are Jay,” comes from behind him. 

Jay sighs and lights another cigarette.

“You shouldn’t” she says.

He takes a deep drag and wonders why she cares or, more likely, who she is to give a care.

“It’s bad for you, you know. I’d know.”

“No, it’s not,” he retorts, “it’s good for me. I’d know.”

Ch. 2 A Dead Sardine

It is some time on some afternoon and Jay orders a plate of calamari.

One of the servers—Jackson he thinks his name is—slides the plate onto the small table grating it across the tile along with a bottle of Dom.

The bottle sits in the bucket, condensation pooling across the tabletop's grout lines.

One eye of the dead sardine stares up at the ceiling and Jay can only sit there and stare at it. The sardine rests on a bed of breaded calamari next to the lemon wedge and the useless bit of parsley. It’s so empty. So dead. 

Jay ashes his cigarette and turns away, nauseated. He squeezes the lemon wedge between his fingers and the citrus drips down his hand and burns into a small cut on his finger.

He squeezes the lemon tighter.

Ch. 3 A Hurt Throat

And so, the car rushes out of the garage, the valet pulls up to the sidewalk with the hurried easy efficiency of a veteran. 

"Thanks Albert," Jay says, handing him a small handful of euro. Albert gives a quick nod back in thanks.

Jay slides into the front seat and roars out of the driveway. Pressing a tape into the deck—the blues of Nina Simone’s Do I Move You? crackling out of the old speakers—he pulls the 1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider onto the highway.

He only pays the barest attention as he makes his way down to the dock. It’s only through some sort of reluctant obligation that he finds himself here, after all. One of his neighbors, Rolf Henderson, is someone of some import he guesses. Rolf had cornered him at one of the hotel parties and weaseled a commitment from Jay to attend one of his yacht parties. Being stuck onboard a contained space with a whole lot of droll people isn’t Jay’s idea of a good time. But Jay’d been desperate at the time to escape from Rolf, so—to his own greatest displeasure—he’d thrown out a promise to attend. 

And now here he is: walking onboard a grand yacht, already full of beautiful, blank people and his throat hurts.

And now here he is: drawn into needless conversations over and over. Until he escapes to the aft balcony, standing out over the sea.

“Ah, it’s you”

He turns to a woman standing in front of him. 

“You know me?” he asks, looking at her curiously. 

She flicks out a lighter, placing a cigarette between her lips. He grins and she offers him one and he nods in thanks and lets her light it for him. Their eyes meet and he feels a thrum of pleasant surprise at the warmth of hers. 

They stand facing over the sea, in companionable silence. 

Until: “What do you do?” he asks, cursing himself for using just an inane opener. 

“Ah, but how can I describe my life to you?” she ponders, “I think a lot, listen to music. I like flowers.”

He looks at her in the silence that follows. 

“There’s beauty in all those things,” he says.

She laughs, “there is, isn’t there?”

They turn back to the sea, breathing smoke in silence.

“I don’t love a crowd,” she begins, looking out over the water, “I suppose you don’t either.” 

She—effortlessly, elegantly—lifts her cigarette to her lips. “However, I find a certain freedom in the anonymity of a large gathering though.” 

She turns and her eyes bear into his. 

He realizes he hasn’t asked her name yet, nor introduced himself, and wonders idly if this is rude of him. 

Her hair is tied up in some sort of elegant knot at the top of her head. He realizes he’s been staring and looks back down at her eyes. She grins at him.

Ch. 4 A Boring Book

The leather couch sticks to the back of his legs, and he shifts around trying to get comfortable. Folding the front cover of the small novel back and forth, Jay stares across the lobby at the woman.

He still doesn’t know her name. Is it too late to ask for it? Shouldn’t he have asked for it when they first met. He hadn’t even introduced himself. Like some sort of numpty.

He glances down at the book in his hands, the cover completely creased from his twisting hands.

The first page opens with a quote from Mark Twain: “Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

Jay reads that line over and over again. But it just sounds like Mark Twain was full of shit.