Afternoon

A Story by Ben Taylor

The afternoon is ugly and pregnant with rain, a sulfurous storm brewing opposite the shrinking sun. I pace hurriedly to the curtains and draw them closed. My anxiety is incipient and will not be fully realized until it has festered and gnawed gloatingly on minutes and hours.

It is difficult to recall why these gales bring me such discomfort. But, regardless, my ribs invariably begin to tighten as the sky begins anew its awful shuddering. Dust flings itself from fissures in the ceiling, seeking refuge on a more reliable surface. My fingers are shaking. I pull back a curtain; it shivers beneath my uncertain hands. I place my other palm on the window. The concrete is as cold and unyielding as ever.

The landscape remains stagnant, the pastel storm as yellowed as the faded grass below it. I beat the image in a sudden fit of desperation, chips of childish paint flaking from these crudely drawn clouds and the poorly proportioned hills and flowers. The concrete beneath my fist and above my head rumbles again with explosive uncertainty.

Lights sputter, and the bodies of my fellow tenants flicker beneath the continual downpour of dust and grit. I can’t remember their names -- I forgot them when the layers of rock and concrete no longer promised us salvation, when their desperate prayers devolved into fits of coughing.

My knees give out as the floor shifts, and I am unable to tell if my eyes are open or closed. The coarse burn of the dust forces tears to my eyes -- the light is gone. As the temperature rises, I place my hand on the tepid concrete, wishing I was in that terribly yellowed world, that place that has horrified me so incessantly.