YD6~01 Aetheria's Guise: 1984 collision of fate, in the shadows of two boys
Cement-scorched cracked scars my purlicue’s mediate arch thumb and index finger digits, reminiscent of the bricklayer’s trowel in my grip, as I pressed the hinge pin through the button-holes, and another golden cufflink toggle clasp the sky-blue-white fine striated shirt’s doubled-fold cuff. and right hand with Jean’s engagement onyx ring, alongside her wedding band picked by the heel, the Italian-tailored shoe, to pose onto the plinth to mixed shoes underneath the lid to the cabinet. I fingered a shoehorn, slipping my foot inside, stepping onto the shaggy carpet, to slip into a horsebit loafers on to my other foot, raising my eyesight along the pants’ pleats. soft Irish dance feet around the corner from the dressing room mirror atop the three-tier tilt-out heeled-shoe storage, from a glance at my centered Windsor tie. I pricked ears across the double bed’s white Duco headboard. to the bush outside the awning window sashes against a sky’s white glow, to two birds’ wild romantic flutters and chirps.
At the pace of a day to waste, with a glimpse fleeting, crawling out of bed, linen slender edge along the flipped back bedding, I spent thinking about the widowed geologist’s site visit. discarded Jean’s bedside sleek blanket and puffed pillow niggles, a biting, soulless chill. Past the ruffled frosted porcelain lamp shade to her night table’s glass top, I lifted keys jingling at my fingers, past the gold mine dumps, shuttled in my Audi S Coupe to Springs. Near home, from the Impact of a crash, engines kissed, from which an angelic young woman dressed in an efflorescent white, stepped from her outlined lobe of a heart to mine. In the aftermath, out of the showroom, I drove a Champagne Audi, and likewise dating Jean, I loaned her a 411 Volkswagen. The angelic woman stands outside my side window, her shocked eyes reaching for my boys in the rear, after I surmised the backrests absorbed their impact. In the aftermath, I continued shuttling to the geologist, who ordered me to stop construction work because his wife had died.
Light on my feet, out of the main bedroom, I’m minded toward a new start and oblivious to history’s wake, my speculation to a real estate market fall. opening bargain hunters, leading to two mortgage repayments, until Jean had no option but to follow me to a countryside suburb — dead silent, the corridor’s doorway spilling light, ghosted the plain white walls, the cradle of little boys’ growing fire to a stampede on a level-loop carpet. Lionel shooed his little brother, fearing his mother’s wrath, until up a few stairs, their steps fell silent. From the west wing long corridor, I’m walking Jean’s domain. The yellow glow, reflected by the low tongue-and-groove pine ceiling, I sensed the embossed ceramic tiles under my feet. To veer away from the north yard’s amber bullion glass door, adjoining through a wide doorway to the upholstered turquoise lounge furniture lost in space. I head for the shining telephone press button apparatus on a stool, in the lights of the south entrance door’s trio sidelights amber columns.
In a chill reigning silence, the telephone’s scattered rings, seeking openings among fluted columns and paneling, dissimulating plain icy walls. A decor I stole from an exclusive restaurant, and reminiscing scars, hence the drum’s rotating razor-sharp blades on the benchtop wood planer fingertip senseless shaving. The ringing runs like my little boys, past matching upholstered black Duco dining chairs huddling a diamond tablecloth, the west wing kitchen, a wild circle through the adjacent family room, emerging from the lounge, persistent searching for me, until reluctant receptionist’s fingers, brought the horn to my face.
I hung up the phone to a caller’s stern male voice. “There has been an accident. . .” Alongside, I pulled the solid door to the porch. Headed for my latest Red Audi to the fleet. With a bird’s-eye located the Stock Trader client, to track back mapping the Johannesburg highway’s overpass off-ramp. I reverse out of the carport, shift into forward gear, with a hand’s heel spin the steering wheel, to drive up the pan-handle driveway to the gates. engaged in Kelvin’s street, exiting the Wendywood side, to fine-tune the man’s voice echoing in my head, “Glenhove Road.”
Ahead of the overpass hangs a dark blanket, as I’m soul-searching precognitive vibes. the asphalt splits at the grass off-ramp island. throttled to coasting to bright red traffic lenses. On hold, I’m destined to head across into Central Street. A translucent Caltex bubble steered me in the face. I’m holding my brain’s scattering imagination, peering along the concrete curb, the slender grassy median a novelty to the roadway blurring to a distant strobing blue dot. My foot pressed the throttle, pulling across the intersection, passing a canopy’s fluorescence flood a few cars on the driveway, uniformed figures attended by fuel pumps, in the changing angle found my bearings before the highway construction. Crawled into the clearing roadway with a topographic survey as a white red-striped ambulance, wails away from the stationary vehicle distancing in the prolongation through Houghton’s mansion toward The Wilds.
Across the median, I spared glances at Jean’s Toyota slewed, the tail fender impact kinked the corner lamppost. I’m driving in the tracks of the ill-fated charcoal car, to a grandfather’s shadow rising from the intersection’s asphalt. With the heel of my hand turning the steering wheel, by the abrupt-ended median, rotating the grandfather’s scene as I spared an eye on the bustling parametric around Jean seated in the bright ambulance’s tailgate. Beyond which, the grandfather steered across the oncoming lane, seeking his course through the thickets grown tight since the access inception of the inbound highway.
I pulled up a distance past Jean’s Toyota along the curb, to alight the car, stepped onto the sidewalk, backtracking along the sidewalk, questioning. ‘_Where did Jean come from?_’ driving the boys to the Wendywood elementary school._’ I surveyed her father’s Toyota Cressida, the rear fender wrapped around the lamppost. I’ll pan a near-fatal scene, save for the concrete curb absorbing the rear wheel’s major impact. I step from the corner curb, heading toward Jean in a framed glow, tranquil on a throne. elegant crossed legs, lanky blond tied back in a ponytail. In my approach, raised lonesome eyes.
Schlepped with the burden of her mornings at the computer desk desolated account department, I paused. She said. “They have taken Lionel and Gavin away to the hospital.” Her downturn eyelids, accent drooping. “_’Our children! It’s not my fault what happened,_’ An old man just cut in my way — Can you get my purse out of the car?”
I turned away from Jean without visible injury midst examining paramedics. ‘_Me, of all people, she had provided the house number to call?_’ To arouse the Hydra of my mind, outreach over the suburbs, to hover in the Cape Dutch architecture’s vicinity to the Stock Trader, I extended with a wing. Through a hole high in the shy, reckoning to sight, Jean’s mother, in her family world, placed a ceramic teapot in the middle of the table. Onto a round table conversation, overhearing Jean says. “Ivan doesn’t love me anymore...”
While Rachel abstained from meddling, William Whitehorn, Lionel and Gavin’s grandfather, soft-spoken, said. “Jean! Just do as necessary. . . I’ll help you. Don’t worry about money.” My Hydra’s sight volatilized, rolling the scene in my head, I stepped the curb, around the lamppost wrapped by the rear fender, gripped the unscathed door, ducking the door gape from the passenger seat to the dark footwell, found Jean’s handbag by the foot pedals. Free to spy. ‘_How far are you proceeding with your divorce?_’ I scrambled midst a cold chill, to fumble through Jean’s bag, to unfold a slip of paper. My mind’s Hydra to sight, the conference room. In Jean’s wake, the divorce lawyer, and son reassured his father, Barry Baskin, across the table. “This is a case. . . ‘_to reap the fruits_’ We have a blank check — Her father pays.”
The paramedics swung doors closed to a pair of translucent windows, while I handed Jean’s handbag. I turned toward my red Audi, catching glimpses as the driver rushed for the flank, disappearing by the cabin. The van pulls away, the milky windows distancing, and left among the wrecks spread on the broad asphalt branching intersection.
Amid both forearms cast in plasters, Lionel sat upright in bed, and Gavin too, but stood beside his mother by the window light, amid a nurse on her way. I reflect the boys tossed, rough, and tumbled through the rear compartment of Jean’s Toyota, to a distracted glance over my shoulder, to an animation in the angle of the doorway outside the hospital room’s glass partition. A herd of stomping boots approached with wall-banging crates from the corridor. Turns out, a cheeky little blond girl scurried through the doorway into the room’s aisle, but unbeknownst, Aetheria permeates the internet. I’m called back to the television personality, Sybel Coetzee look-alike ash-blond mother, calling out. “We’re here with a television crew, for a Christmas Children’s program by the South African Broadcast Corporation.” from a bustling television crew. The mischievous blond head sunk behind the bedstead to Lionel’s bed. The camera operator freezes in the doorway, raising Sybel’s attention to Gavin. Sybel answers. “No, he can stay too.”
Comments
Post a Comment