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think you can touch it, you’ll think it’s getting closer, and sometimes you’ll glimpse it, but it’s not, it’s getting further and further away, every time you come back here.” The bar was silent. It felt like all the people there had stopped what they were doing and were just looking at us, waiting for us, like they knew, they knew what we were doing. But I had just lost myself in her, that was all, her, who I didn’t know, who had come and sat at my empty table without asking, and smiled at me, and looked at me with her red eyes.

  Is it that, is it the soft touch of hands, the touch of flesh, skin on skin, blood touching blood, merging in a whirlpool, physical desire more than just a manifestation of desire, is it the need for pain, the need to cry out in ecstasy, the need to transcend more than that momentary instant of two sparks of light in a black sky, to become something more, something other than the emptiness that follows. Can you ever hold it for more than a few moments, before the pain subsides, before the pleasure vanishes, can you touch it and hold it, can you keep it.

  She breathed softly, she moved slowly, faintly, like a ghost, her movements were smooth and sensual and she laughed when I tried to touch her but couldn’t. “It’s not me” she had whispered, “it’s not me that you want. You don’t even know who I am, you don’t know what I am.” She had insisted that I buy her a drink, a glass of vodka, no mixer, no ice, and she had held it in front of her, playing with it, but she didn’t touch it, not once, and it had remained there when she had left. I had studied it for what seemed like a long time, not daring to touch it, but wanting to remember it.

  I had thought she was joking, or she was in some way leading me on, though I couldn’t understand why, an addled, broken junkie, my hair messy and matted to my face, my eyes red and bloodshot from too many nights here, my hands shaking, scars on my face. My essence, my being, had slowly drifted away, lost in the loneliness, all the while stumbling, chasing a forgotten dream, leaving a husk. I had thought her beauty was a joke, she had sat down with me for a bet or a dare, her friends laughing somewhere, hidden in the smoky bar. That the other sad and lonely men, congregated there, drinking alone or in pairs, staring down into their glasses, would look and wonder, would stare and point and that low, murmured conversation would break out, questioning why she was there, why she was there with me.

  Step fifteen and I’m almost there and I daren’t look back, but what do I want to find, if I look forward. I have to grit my teeth together now to overcome the pain, shooting from my soles through my legs and taking over my entire body, every step, every tiny movement, and I feel like screaming, I can scream, I want to scream but I won’t, I won’t break the godly silence that is around me. Tears in my eyes and it makes my view hazier, the something that is there, waiting for me, lost in a shadow through my blurry eyes, but carry on, carry on, it’s all I can do. There is nothing behind me, nothing to go back to, just back to the fear and hopelessness and misery, and she touched me, that night, she just touched my hand, gently, with her fingers, she ran them over my hand, so softly, but it was enough.

  I can do this, I can make this, two more steps, eyes screwed shut against the pain, but it doesn’t matter, I know where I’m going, I can’t fall. “Just come with me” she had whispered, “there’s always a way out.” I had followed her, transfixed, “Who are you” I asked, I didn’t say the words out loud, but she smiled in any case and shushed me and asked me to follow.

  Your heart’s desire, you can have your heart’s desire, all you have to do is follow me. All you have to do is walk to the other side. My hands are still shaking. Maybe I just want them to stop, maybe that will be enough, of course that will be enough. Will it be enough to end the emptiness or must I fill it with something, is it enough not to feel it or do I have to know it’s not there.

  “But you can’t choose” she had whispered to me, last night, her red eyes burning again in my dream. “Don’t think you can choose. It’s there, it’s there in you, you can’t just pick it and make it up, it’s always in you.”

  “But what is it? What is it? will it be enough, will it give me courage and hope, will it give me fulfilment?” and she had just laughed. You know what it is, you know, you always know.

  Step eighteen and I can almost touch it, I can almost reach out, yet still I can’t see what’s on the platform, but I know, I know. Dare I look behind me, how far back is it, how much would it take to go back now.

  I know.

  There’s always a way out. I see villages, towns, cities, I see their houses, narrow streets and night, no one outside, the shadows cast by streetlights and moonlight, reflected in puddles and the whitewashed walls of the terraced houses, I see empty people living empty lives behind the lights burning through their windows. I see a castle in a desert, surrounded by emptiness, a single road leading to it, a dust covered tarmac road cutting a line through the sand, leading to the entrance, leading to the drive, four lonely, expensive cars parked outside, and I see myself, standing at the window, looking out over it, the same misery etched on my face like a tattoo. I see the houses, in the villages, in the towns, I see the lights go out, one by one, flickering then dying, I see the doors swing open, of the huts, of the terraces, of the made up, majestic houses, each of the doors open, and the people inside step outside, singly, as couples, in families, and all make their way together, a procession in the night, to the village, or the town centre, the square or the monument within the city. I see then coming in droves, like rats, like predators drawn to fresh meat, and I see them kneeling down together, in a circle, and I see them falling, down together, as one, and lying, lifeless, children, women, men, together, watching their blood leave them and flow, in its slow, inevitable pathway, to the centre, to rest there, to relentlessly fill, to grow and grow until there’s a lake, glistening red in the moonlight. All round the world, wherever I look, wherever I see, I see the same, and I hear the noise, the buzzing, the humming of voices, slowly trickle to a stop, until there is nothing. And this is peace.

  Step twenty. Just one final step onto the platform. On the platform is nothing, just a haze, just a shadow, but I recognize it, I can’t fail to, it’s my shadow, it’s me. Step twenty and it’s all over. There’s no going back, she said, there’s no choice. And on the platform it’s not my shadow any longer, maybe it never was, maybe it’s the sun that’s playing tricks with my eyes, because now I see very clearly, that it’s her. It’s her, and she’s laughing.

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  The End

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