Circumstancial (standard:science fiction, 1286 words)
Author: Vincent Collevera	Added: Mar 31 2010	Views/Reads: 2739/1751	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A man feels as though he is cursed. One missed phone call can sometimes make all the difference in the world.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the glowing orange tip of
his cigarette through the thin skein of smoke that hung in front of his 
face like a shroud.  The air inside the hotel room was cool and still 
as a mausoleum, but the memory of sweat still stung in the furrows 
carved into his back during the height of passion.  The skin.  He 
thought.  The memory always lingers in the skin.  He knew the most 
memorable thing about her would be the scent of her that wouldn't come 
off no matter how hard he scrubbed. 

He shook off such thoughts and took another drag of the cigarette,
drawing the hateful smoke into his lungs until it burned.  His clothes 
were all piled in the same place from when he'd hastily disrobed 
earlier in the evening and his shoes were strewn in step en route to 
the bed.  He dressed slowly, deliberately, already feeling the numbness 
beginning to set in.  Apathy was warring with some unnamed emotion he'd 
never stuck around long enough to identify as he laced up his sneakers. 


Looking back when he reached the door, he set his key on the small round
table beside the lamp there and took one last look at her.  Long locks 
of dark blonde hair was scattered like memories of sins across her 
pillow and shielded half her face from view.  Were those eyes open, 
they would be the color of muddy blue water, dark with flecks of green 
and brown sprinkled through the irises. 

Her skin had been like a salve, a balm for all the lack of sensations
that had dried his soul like the barren wasteland left behind by a 
dried up lake.  She had, for a short time, been like the rain for him.  
He had already forgotten her name and her face would blur and fade 
within a few days, he was sure.  Something inside him rose up, 
threatening his resolve and making one last valiant effort to claw its 
way through the wall of self-loathing and numb disregard he had built. 
Closing his eyes against unaccustomed tears, he made sure not to make a 
sound as he closed the hotel door behind him.  On the elevator, he 
remained stoic and unflinching under the barrage of guilt, shame, and 
disgust that washed over him as implacably as the sea.  And he remained 
as visibly unchanged as the cliffs that were slowly eroded away. 

Maybe this time...maybe this time it will be different.  Maybe it won't
happen again this time.  He tried and failed to convince himself that 
this was believable.  In the parking lot five floors below, he unlocked 
and opened his car door.  He looked up at the window he knew had been 
theirs as the sun began to make its first hints of awakening behind the 
hotel.  The sky had gone from the dark magenta of the inner city to the 
blue-grey of just before dawn. 

I should leave now, just in case...just in case it's not different.  The
engine rumbled fitfully to life, reminding him that he probably needed 
to get the oil change that was several thousand miles overdue.  He 
almost made it.  He was turned around, backed out of his parking spot 
and facing out towards the street when he heard it.  The crash of 
broken glass.  The short silence followed by a surprisingly loud thump. 
 He thought he heard bones shattering, but it was probably his 
imagination. 

Tears made the streetlights and the lights from the few cars on the road
at this hour look like multicolored starbursts.  He wiped his eyes with 
the heels of his hands and pulled out into traffic.  What difference 
can one more stain on a soul so dirty you can't tell what it is anymore 
anyway?   What got to him the most was that they never screamed on the 
way down.  Somehow, no matter what floor he booked in the hotel, they 
managed to find a way. 

He'd made the mistake of getting one of the super-cheap single-story
motels once.  That one had walked out into traffic.  She had gotten 
back up after the first car hit her and walked in front of another.  
She hadn't made a sound either.  Screeching tires and a car horn 
blaring persuaded him to veer back into his lane and concentrate on 
driving. 

The sirens could be heard before the lights were seen.  They passed him
in the opposite direction, having undoubtedly received the call about 
the suicide that could not be explained.  He could never understand why 
the police didn't question him.  His fingerprints had to be all over 
the room and the girl.  There must be evidence of sexual activity and 


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