Phoenix
Authors: Raine Anthony
All rights
reserved.
Cover image by AS
Photo taken from Shutterstock.com
This is a work of
fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission from the author.
For
the lonely ones. May you find your rose.
To
love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other
pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.
Victor
Hugo,
Les Misérables
Phoenix
I can kill you with my left hand.
I can kill you with my right.
There are too many ways in which to end a human life, and yet, I feel as
though I have exhausted all of them. Snap the neck. Slit the throat. Stab the
heart. A strike to the philtrum. A blow to the coccyx. Strangulation.
Decapitation. Impalement.
My commander says that we are fighting a noble war and that I am his
greatest weapon. He is a psychopath. There is no nobility to this. There is no
war. It is merely rhetoric, propaganda. All he cares about is the thrill of the
fight and furthering his own wealth. I am nothing more than an enslaved attack
dog to him.
There was once a time when I did not know the horror of death, when I did
not wield it with my bare hands like the grim reaper’s assassin. The person I
once was is gone. Now I am a prisoner who experiences nothing but what he is
forced to do by a devil in plain clothes.
There are only so many times that you can stare at the lifeless, dead
eyes of another human being before you lose something of yourself, something
that you will never get back.
I remember a time when I wanted to break free, escape this prison of
killing. I had some spirit still left in me then. Over time I’ve grown
conditioned not to feel, to no longer hope for freedom. I have no dreams left.
The man I am choking out is refusing to die. I continue to tighten my
hold on him, staring dully out at the mob who shout and cheer like a pack of
ravenous wolves.
Come in here and you will scream for your life
, I think
at them.
Come in here and you will never again cheer for someone else’s
death like it is entertainment.
They are all black and grey. There is no colour to them, no light. That’s
when I see the red rose lying upon the ground. It is a vibrant beacon. It is
the fight I once had in me; the dream I once had for freedom. All of a sudden,
I feel like I can get that fight back. I will escape this prison cell.
With one final squeeze, the man in my grasp goes limp and I let his body
fall to the ground. My senses sharpen to a needle point as I scan the crowd. I
will get out of here.
I will have my life back.
Then I am rushing through the throngs, obliterating anyone who dares to
stop me. I can see the light now.
It is calling to me in the shape of a red rose.
Eve
Present
Day.
This new town
where I’ve come to live on the coast of Cornwall is just…lovely. I feel like
sighing with pleasure every time I think about where I am now and where I used
to be. Let’s just say, the contrast to my old life is like the difference
between black and white – heaven and hell, even.
For me, hell is a past with an abusive, violent brother. He’s not here
though. Here is new and far away. The residents are wealthy and well-mannered.
They bring hampers of fancy cheeses, cakes, and preserves to your door when you’ve
just moved in. I don’t know how to react when a silver haired lady comes
knocking, grinning from ear to ear and baring one of those artisan goods
baskets.
I’m wearing a long shirt and some denim shorts; I haven’t even had the
chance to shave my legs. The horror. My hair hangs long and tangled halfway down
my back as I awkwardly thank her and she makes her first judgements: bohemian,
left-wing, possibly trouble, not
our
type at all. Little does she know,
I’m about as likely to cause trouble as the local vicar.
My heart is beating rapidly. It has been since the very second I heard
her knock on the door. Sometimes I have difficulty conversing with strangers. I
actually considered not answering at all and hiding in the bathroom until she
left. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the job I’ve come here for as a
secondary school teacher.
I’m doing this because it was Harriet’s last wish. She was my first and
only friend. I met her when I was ten and she was sixty-nine. My mother heard
she gave free piano lessons to children in her spare time since she’d started
her retirement, and signed me up for classes. It was probably just to get rid
of me for a few hours a week without having to pay a penny.
Harriet didn’t have any students left by the time I came to her. She was
renowned for her eccentricity and oddness of character. Most children found her
frightening. For some reason, though, I found her temperament reassuring. It
was the people everyone considered to be normal that were scary to me.
I still play even to this day. It gives my heart a warm feeling. When I
press down on the keys and a sound follows, my heart sings in my chest, pulsates
with this kind of radiating happiness. Perhaps I do this to remind me of
Harriet. I don’t know how to make new friends, but maybe it was enough to have
had one who was loyal and true.
Anyhow, I must try to fit in here. I’ll be working at an all-boys school
that charges notoriously expensive fees. I’ve bought a cottage just outside of town
with the money that Harriet left me. There was a lot. She had no living
relatives. I was her only friend, as she had been mine.
I think I might be able to be happy here, where there are pretty green
trees, hedgerows, rose bushes and the constant twittering of birdsong.
I favoured this place because it’s nothing like where I grew up in a
lower class area of Cardiff in Wales; a place riddled with the dissatisfaction
of unfulfilled lives. Maybe it was shallow of me to think that there will be
happy people where there are wealthy people, but anywhere always seems better than
where you
are
. The grass is always greener on the other side.
The cottage is a dream. If the people here turn out to be evil I’ll be
happy to while away the rest my days within these walls. It’s Tudor in style
with a thatched roof. I’ll have to be careful not to leave any candles lit. My
new furniture should be arriving any day now. Until then I live, eat, and sleep
on an air mattress.
There are a couple of other houses nearby, the silver haired woman whose
name is Margaret informs me. The closest is just over the road and a man named
Phoenix lives there alone.
“Phoenix isn’t particularly sociable, a bit of a lone wolf,” says
Margaret. “Likes to keep to himself. He runs a small furniture and carpentry
shop in town.”
“Oh, right,” I reply, bemused by her volunteering information I haven’t
even asked for.
“I’m sorry dear, but I didn’t quite catch your name.”
“I’m Eve Pound,” I tell her and she nods smiling.
“And what is it you’re going to be teaching at St. Paul’s?”
“History.”
She chats on at me for a while, telling me this and that about the town
and the people who live here. When she leaves I decide to shower, get dressed
and go explore the place that is to be my new home. After packing a sandwich, a
carton of juice and my notebook, I set off to find a nice spot for a picnic.
The country road that I walk down is long and winding, with hedgerows
running along either side. In my mind I pray that I don’t bump into anybody who
will want to interview their strange new neighbour. As I pass by the house
where Margaret mentioned the man named Phoenix lives, I think about the oddness
of such a name in a British town. I remember there having been a character
called Phoenix in Homer’s
Iliad
, one of my favourite books. He was the old
warrior who helped raise Achilles when he was young.
I walk for about fifty minutes in the opposite direction of the town. I
had meant to walk towards the town rather than away from it, but the anxiety of
meeting people drove me towards the unpopulated countryside.
I’m determined to break through the shell of fear my brother’s violence created,
but it’s going to take time. Baby steps, I remind myself.
When I reach a meadow of grass and daisies I sit down against a tree and
take out my packed lunch. I fill my lungs with the soft flower-scented spring
air. The sense of freedom I feel in this open space instils a kind of peace in
me.
One of the hazards of growing up in a family with six siblings and two
parents in a three bedroomed house is that you tend to develop claustrophobia.
I shared a tiny bedroom with my two loud-mouthed sisters and often I sat in my
bottom bunk bed, closed my eyes and imagined I was in a big open meadow just
like this one. It was an instant cure for my mind.
On finishing my sandwich, I take out my notepad to scribble on. Back home
I liked to write poetry on scraps of paper and then place them in the letterboxes
of random houses. Poems of hope mostly, because in this world people need a
little hope.
Some were my own compositions and others would be verses I remembered
from poetry books. One time I copied down every page of the
Tao
Te
Ching
and each day over the course of several weeks I posted a page to a
random address from the phone book. The people who received them probably just
ripped the pages up and threw them away, but if I could have touched even one
person it would have been worth it.
I suppose this was also my way of expressing myself through the written
word, because I never really felt like I had a voice. A speaking one. Another
gift from my dear brother: make your sister so afraid of her own shadow that
she can barely summon up the courage to talk.
On my way home I notice ‘the man whose name is Phoenix’ in the garden at
the side of his house. He’s practising some sort of martial art. His movements
are smooth, like liquid. It’s difficult to see past all the bushes at the front
of the structure, but as far as I can tell he is of above average height with
dark hair that manages to be both messy and neat at the same time. He’s topless
and his tanned skin shines with perspiration under the sun. His arms sway back
and forth in a practiced rhythm, and I am almost mesmerised by the flow.
His form entrances me. I’ve never seen a person move like him before.
I feel this need to get closer, to see him properly. Clumsily, I step on
a fallen branch. The second it snaps his head turns around rapidly in my
direction. His intense, dark eyes meet mine for a moment and time stops. I can’t
look away. He reminds me of a dangerous animal from the jungle when he tilts
his head questioningly to the side, as though trying to figure out what variety
of wildlife I might be. There is something about the way he looks at me that
makes my pores tingle.
And then I can’t take the contact anymore. I hesitate only a moment
longer before running swiftly back to my cottage.
