Origins of Loathsomeness

‘Water under the bridge.’ His voice was deep and sonorous and he hesitated to face her, preferring to view her fickle reflection in the window, as if that would cushion the sting of her betrayal. Intently studying the flow of traffic below, he continued. ’I hope you realise that means the end of our alliance—I don’t work with those who faulted me.’

She said nothing for a while, twirling a pen between her fingers, then broke the silence. ‘I’m not sure how exactly I’m supposed to have faulted you… but a moment can only last so long, so…’

He was temped to face her, to tell her what she had done—but how could she understand? She was nothing like him, a sheltered princess, trying, and failing, to escape her golden cage. ‘Fine. Go.’ He raised his right hand, somewhere between defeat—after all, she was supposed to be devastated—and triumph, waving her goodbye.

After she had left the room, he continued to glance at the city, realising he felt now just as he had when he was a child: separated, floating above, yet still tethered to the ground, incapable of being what he was supposed to. It had long fascinated him why people were at once so eager to form alliances, yet so utterly incapable of following through—he had never once wavered in his commitment to a cause or agreement, treating them as sacrosanct, realising that humans are nothing without each other.

He turned around, sighed, and sat down on the hardwood floor, leaning against the cooling glass, turning a blind eye to the tumbling life behind him. She had taken his pen with her—his favourite pen, his testament to what he had managed to achieve in his 37 years on earth. He had bought it 20 years ago, at Muji: a simply black gel ink pen, made of clear plastic, adorned with nothing but a simple promise: to serve. And served it had, filling countless notebooks, etching an endless wave of words onto page after page, only occasionally tiring. He slammed his fists on the floor, furious she had dared to take it.

———

Those grey hours somewhere between midnight and sunrise had always been her favourite. She had grown up some place oddly similar to the suburbs, and whenever she had dared to stay up until there was nothing but the humming of the fridge, the faint light of the lone street lantern, and her quiet steps, she felt content. She was convinced she was the sole survivor of a silent apocalypse; sometimes, she would go outside, sit on the antique bench near the light, pondering something deep—and profoundly dark—until the first glimpses of sun would force her inside, all the while pretending she was humanity.

It was no different now: even though she had moved to the city long ago—she perceived it as cruel betrayal that people dared to continue to move about the street during her sacred times—she still liked to pretend it was only her who kept humanity alive. As she sat on her balcony, drinking a glass of mugicha, ice cubes clinking against each other, she recalled the morning; he had ordered her to his office, to tell her that their agreement had run its course. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t figure out how she had wronged him. Of course, she hadn’t always adhered to the letter of their pact, but then, neither had he—or, at least, she couldn’t imagine it. He wasn’t the kind to follow rules, no matter how set in stone they seemed.

She leaned back, transfixed by the action that transpired across the street; it felt somehow wrong that she finally managed to catch her neighbour and his affair—a dazzlingly handsome gentleman who she swore she had met before.

———

Their meeting had been one of chance—they had bumped into each other just outside an underground station, and, although both were fanatic about details, neither could recall who left and who entered. She had worn a black coat, carried a Starbucks cup, and been in a rush to reach university before shattering the last remnants of punctuality. He had worn a deep blue suit with a matching shirt—no tie—and carried an attaché case made of fine leather, dyed in an antique process verging on extinction. Her coffee, not quite as scalding as when she had bought it, drenched the both of them.

A dismissive hand wave before she could even speak. ‘It’s fine… it was about time I changed my outfit anyway.’ He smiled with the corner of his mouth, eyes somewhat dead. ‘Quite hot that coffee of yours though.’

’Oh dear God,’ her voice was filled with anxiety—just how much it would cost her to clean that suit of his? The attaché case compounded her impending financial ruin; for a split second, she considered running. He certainly didn’t seem like the kind of person to run, no matter the circumstances. ‘I’ll pay to have it cleaned—I’m incredibly sorry… I hope you’re not in pain.’

He smiled, as if he were about to suggest something. ‘

———

He cursed that he had been forced to use plain sheets of glass, without any windows—a measure to prevent suicide and to ensure that the climate control would work at peak efficiency. He considered it a personal affront: if someone wanted to throw themselves down a gleaming monument to modernity, why stop them? Climate control was the epitome of human hubris: at first building something uninhabitable, but beautiful, and then tame it—no, he didn’t believe in it and never had. In his childhood, people had merely endured the seasons and their changeable moods.

He stood up, trotted behind his desk—an elegant Danish affair of white wood—and sat down in his chair.