Sunday 31 August 2014

Serialised Short Story - "Wild is the Wind" - Part Two


The song that inspired the title, a beautiful cover by David Bowie from his Station to Station album of 1976.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbpMpRq6DV4

WILD IS THE WIND (PART TWO)

“Like the leaf clings to the tree,
Oh, my darling, cling to me
For we’re like creatures of the wind
And wild is the wind, wild is the wind”
-       Wild is the Wind, (Writers: Dimitri Tiomkin & Ned Washington)

            At first, she joked about it, but underneath, her terror seethed. Fear of parents. Fear of her youth stolen. Fear that he would grow to resent her. The tendrils of despair squeezed her pounding heart.
            She pushed the situation away, pretending it was a bad dream, this life growing inside of her. She pushed him away too since his presence reminded her of the truth. Until the steady erosion of the days forced her to face facts.
            Their meetings were brief and business-like. He saved all his tears for his friends. They dried his tears and lent him money they could ill-afford.
            She came to see him after the abortion. Their conversation was awkward and superficial. That white-hot passion had blown to ashes.
            She asked for a lift into the city. To her new boyfriend’s house. He suspected she had taken this new lover while still pregnant. Taking a lover before she had rid her body of the foetus seemed to him an act of calculated defilement.
            She smiled weakly before she walked away into the late summer dusk. The streetlights were on in a display of impotence that matched his own. An evening breeze picked up, blowing scraps of rubbish along the footpath.
            The aftermath of those pregnant months was clearly evident upon her body. Her breasts, already generous, were swollen like over-ripe fruit. A loose-fitting jumper failed to disguise the rounding of her belly which had already begun.
            He drove away, but, racked by sobs, he was forced to stop the car.
            Somewhere in the gathering darkness she clung to another.

THE END
           


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