Jahseh's truck had ripped through Abbey Wood at the speed of light, halving that thirty minute journey from Sugar & Spice into a clean cut fifteen. Heart to the pit of his abdomen, pedal to the floor. He can only recall the drive in a series of blinksâbarrelling out the caf one second, hurtling past Woolwich's ferry the next. And when his truck finally cruises down Wolvercote Road, its wheels barely stillâlet alone sink into Parkâbefore two blacked out Airforces hit asphalt and he's stomping from one pavement to another and towards that God forsaken flat, yet again. Never mind his engine still on and his driver's side door every bit of open.
What word is better fitting than rage?
Jahseh's beginning to think no one could ever know it as well as he. No one could ever be better acquainted.
What five stages are there to griefâor any other emotion, at that? To Jahseh, it's always one or the other, one and then the other. That cold numbing, like pins and needles silk pressed into every square inch of his being, a deceitful repose that ransacks his thoughts and pulverises his words before they can take form in the back of his mouth. As though someone had shaken his insides from him, only to fill all that space with a tangible emptiness. A wooden, lacklustre emptiness. That, or rageâthat, and then rage. A rage with limbs of steel and an iron clad grip, the demon he'd danced with, and its skeleton in his closet. His long lost friend.
He'd come so far. But months upon months of thwarting victories, of bitten tongues and clenched fists, unspun jaws and wrongdoings unavenged, that wave is head and shoulders above him now. With the height of all he has to lose and the breadth of all that he's willing to fight for.
Kamale tried to steal his car and Jahseh held it. Eve got robbed and Jahseh held it. Parker hurt Kamale and Jahsehâalthough he'd left the man worse off than he'd found himâmore or less held it. He held it, the insatiable famine of his rage, time and time again.
But when Kamale had calledâa right mess of stutters and shallow breaths and words stumbling over themselves to get out, and then Eve's name clobbered through the phone, rivalled by blows against the door or perhaps the wall or perhaps Eve herselfâJahseh held nothing but his foot against the gas and his right hand balled in the tightest of fists, all the way from Greenwich's north to Abbey Wood's south.
Numb, and then rage.
Nothing, and then everything. All at once.
It's in him, on him, and all around. In the three steps at a time
he takes up to and all the way down that sorry landing, in the smouldering grit of his teeth, and in the unwavering sole of the shoe he can't bother to think twice for prior to the entirety of it he sends flying inches below the door's handle. The thing flies open, all but pings off the wall behind it like a shuttlecock.
He doesn't split a second to adjust to the scene before him, the flat thick with darkness, the air heavy with a tension that only amps him that much more. Parker's slumped silhouette at the foot of the hallway is all it takes, with every kg of his weight all but forcing that kitchen door from its hinges, and the pathetic blows he thunders against it.
The whats, wheres, whens and whys are not at all his concernâonly Parker on one side of this door, Kamale and Eve on the other.
Jahseh starts towards him, "Oi! The fuck are you doing?"
And not even a second after, his fist bludgeons a mouthful of saliva from Parker's mouth and splat against the wall. Parker's head in turn boomerangs off of it, Jahseh uses the full span of his hand to smack it right back into the door. Over and over and over again. And when Parker finally lumbers beneath the white heat of it all, piled onto the floor like wet cement, it's two solid hands that Jahseh takes to every plane of Parker's body that meets his eye. A hit for every minute it'd taken him to get there, every minute he'd spent clueless to whatever was waiting for him, every minute he'd spent preparing himself for a much uglier affair.
Parker tries for amity, but Jahseh's rage in all its vibrance is apparently deaf, dumb and blind. A force that he's frightful to be reckoned with. "G-Get off! Getâ"
"Huh? What you say?" Jahseh's final blow comes by the brick-like nature of his elbow. "Shut up! I look like a jokeman to you? Huh? Keep playing with me! You fat fuck, next time I come out 'ere it's to split your fucking wig! Piss me off again, Parker! Muppet."
Parker uses the little left in him to pull himself upright, but the kick Jahseh drops in the middle of his face surely does the trick. He's out like a light in an instant.
Jahseh heaves, unsettled by the rise and fall of his chest, by the fire in his knuckles and his struggling lungs, the sear of his blood as his heart pants beyond control. He's torn between the several reasons to finish Parker off then and there, and the meagre two not to, still barricaded on the other side of that door. He raps his two knuckles against it, but gets no response.
"Open the fucking door, man."
Kamale cocks it open in good time, his nose wrinkles at Parker's newfound face, all plump and bruised and nauseating to any common man's eye. Never mind the strokes of blood bespattered all about them. "Yuck, man. What theâ"
Kamale is wise to cut himself off, once Jahseh's molten face meets his eye.
"Where's Eve?"
Eve is next to step out from behind the door, looking entirely out of sorts in her trench coat and teddy-lined Uggs. So much so that the dire need to get her the hell out of there fends off the real elephant in the roomâthe fact the two hadn't seen each other in weeks. Jahseh obstructs her view of Parker to the best of his ability, with squared shoulders and his own shadow cast over the man. Not that Eve seems to pay him much mind, if any. The adrenaline settles now, parching off her like smoke, untangling her belly's knotted nerves and giving rise to this bogging lump in her throat that she can't quite bring herself to swallow.
Much less the bitter pill between them.
He can hardly brave her gaze, the distance between them is a thorn in his side on its own. The wistful scruple of her perfume is so pale about him, he's half convinced it isn't about him at all. Only in his head. She smells like better times, looks like a dream, feels unlike anything he's ever known and nothing he ever will. She lives in his head. And he knows she does, because under any other circumstance Parker would've met his maker weeks ago.
When Eve takes to her jeans with two clammy hands, Jahseh's stare lowers to their tremble for a moment, and then right back up to the welting handprint on her cheek. He blinks.
"I..." Eve sighs. "I'm fine."
Kamale stares between the two. The urge to deflate the awkwardness is suppressed by the lingering of that glare Jahseh had shot him. Because he's certainâsooner or laterâJahseh would surely put words to it.
Eve stands a little straighter, her voice narrowed to a whisper, "Let's go."
Eve steadies herself against the arm Jahseh extends to her, eyes elsewhere as she steps over limp limbs and blood-speckled decor. Jahseh's hand shifts to the low of her back like a plug to a socket, and firmly it remains. All the way down to his car.
The five minute drive to Thistlebrook is plagued by agony and longing and besetting fatigue.
This is one of those chapters where I had to push through the writer's block so I'm not gonna give my opinion on it, LOL.
Let me know what you think :)
Bye 'cause I have beef with this app.