The Decay of Whatever
by Anastasia Zaritovskaya
“The National is by far the most underrated band ever,” Elizabeth continues. She is hunched over, still as a statue except for her fingers that are spreading weed on a suspiciously brown piece of paper with a professional dexterity. Every movement she makes is graceful; I can imagine watching her for hours, the warmth of her being spreading through my fingertips.
“They’re singing about alligators in the sewer,” I glance at her.
“You’re such a dick to the music,” she licks the paper and turns to face me, “But, in the wise words of Oscar Wilde — your cynicism is only a pose.”
“Alligators in the sewers, Liz.”
“It’s the art of giving yourself over to something completely, you idiot. Letting yourself be engulfed by whatever is happening at the moment.” Fire bursts from her lighter. “Maybe then you’ll actually feel like a fucking sewer alligator.”
“Or that’s all a bunch of bullshit.”
She takes a long drag and falls back on the couch next to me. “Maybe. But that doesn’t make for a good story, does it?”
Miller finished typing and rested his eyes on the tree outside his window, unable to come up with another word. With a characteristic snap that meant something inside the machine was broken, he shut his laptop.
The dialogue wasn’t right.
He had been working on it for a week, but couldn’t get the right words down on the page, and grew more frustrated with every attempt. He wanted to blame the hormonal crows screaming on his windowsill, or the dull banging noise coming from the apartment below — Mrs. Li was redecorating for the tenth time this week — but deep down, he knew that this block was not caused by distractions. It was already 10:30am, but she still hadn’t appeared.
Every day, Miller watched from his window as she left the building for morning classes, her long blonde hair (the ends dip-dyed in whatever crazy colour she wanted that week) dancing around her, headphones choking her neck. Some days he wished he was out there holding her hand, others he was content with feeling her presence in his room grow and grow, and on very special days he wrote like a madman for hours because she had a particular spring in her step that morning. Some days were bad. Those were the days that she didn’t show — probably in her room, fucking some guy that wasn’t him.
Jessica. Jess, as she called herself. Miller hated the name — it didn't suit her, it was too mundane, too chunky at the edges, and too short coming out of the mouth. She was above something so common. Above the decay of mediocrity. In his mind she was Beatrice, Miranda, Rosalind, Guinevere, and all the heroines of medieval prose whom he had fallen in love with in the dusty library near his high school. But these names existed only in his work,
so he developed a habit of not giving her a name at all — and in such she had become a She. He worshipped at the altar of her, ready to drink any Kool-Aid she could offer, addicted to the intoxicating mystery of her being.
Over the years, he had gotten to know her a little bit better, but their conversations never extended past fifteen minutes — occurring when they bumped into each other around the building, or whenever she came over to “borrow” cigarettes. Miller didn’t smoke, but kept a carton around that was just for her. Sometimes, she stayed to smoke on his balcony. He could watch her lips wrap around the smoke — like she was whispering a secret into the air —and then masturbate for hours after she left.
She lived down the hall from Miller in the dirty ten-story building at 83 Roehampton — perfect for students, addicts, and struggling writers. Miller’s living arrangement was resented by his parents, bitter to this day at his inability to buy them a house in Florida, despite their claims that they gave up on him the moment he graduated university with a degree in English Literature. He had already lived here for two years when she moved in. Afterwards, he had tried to remember what the building was like without her burning incense
and her loud music that pulsed through the
building’s veins
and the smell of her coconut shampoo
and the flowers left at her door by a
never-ending array of men
But he could not imagine such a world, for it would have been like imagining Flatland while living in the fourth dimension. She had added colour with one touch, and he was not willing to go back to the grey Kansas he used to live in.
***
“Mr. Janovski! Are we going to pay the rent this month, or are we going to have to be evicted?” Mrs. Li was hot on Miller’s footsteps as he appeared in the lobby. For a second, he imagined telling her to fuck off to see her reaction, but suppressed this urge.
“I swear I’ll have it soon,” he stretched his lips into a forceful grin. Mrs. Li mirrored the fake smile and shuffled away. Miller let out a sigh, but in a matter of seconds it was sucked back in, because something much more monumental than a possible eviction was happening at the door.
She stumbled into the building slightly off-balance, only to be caught by the tall figure walking in front of her, who Miller recognized as the male suitor of the month. Miller was 60% sure this one’s name was Matthew; he had been hanging around her for a couple of weeks — broad-shouldered, the snapback on his head the only real thing about him. Douche. Miller made an effort to duck behind the potted plants to avoid him, but she had already noticed him and was waving.
“Hey, Miller, how’s it going?”
“Hey, Jessica. Missed you at the last tenants’ meeting,”
“Ugh, it’s just another excuse for Li to yell at all of us.” Directing her attention to the guy at her side, she smiled. “You’ve met my boyfriend, right?”
Miller forced another smile. “Matthew, right?”
The man broke out into a toothy grin and slapped Miller on the shoulder. “Nah, I go by Drew. No one cool was ever named Matthew.”
“Um.. Alright, Drew it is.” For a couple of seconds, they stood in silence.
“So,” she asked, “What’s up with you?”
Miller had almost begun to say “nothing much” but a sudden mad streak of courage clotted up his major artery. “Actually, I’m performing at the open mic night at the Palooza tonight.”
“Shit, bro, you sing?”
“It’s poetry,” Miller rolled his eyes, “I’m going to be reading some of my new work.”
Her eyes lit up. “Drew, we should totally go! That’s the place that Cindy bartends, she could get us some drink tickets.”
“Whatever you want, babe. My time is yours,” Matthew-slash-Drew winked at no one in particular.
“Wow, so you’ll come?” Miller asked her tentatively, ignoring the asshole next to her.
“We’ll be there. What time?”
“It starts at nine-thirty.”
“We’ll be there for ten.” She bit her lip and smiled, then suddenly tapped Matthew-slash-Drew on the head, and ran towards the door with a loud “You’re it!”.
“Sorry, bro. Booty calls!” Matthew-slash-Drew patted Miller’s shoulder, and jogged after her. Miller was left alone with the sickly sweet feeling in his stomach.
***
…I have a recurring dream of her in a river. It always comes at four in the morning - the perfect hour for the intangible to be made metaphysical. I never know how she got there, but the dream is always the same.
She is slowly floating downstream, her hair tangled with the stems of the water lilies, spread out like a shredded halo. Her short white dress is torn to shreds, with grass and dirt tinting the edges. She has become Ophelia in the beauty of her monumental immobility, perfect in her unkemptness. Her eyes are still fluttering, but, just as a butterfly’s wings near a flame, her black eyelashes — like the rest of her — are destined to combust and decay.
Miller finished reading and looked up to mild applause from the audience. She was there, looking at him — and immediately the applause magnified in his ears to fill up the space between the cracked barstools and the faded posters on the wall. He made his way down from the makeshift stage and towards the bar for some much-needed liquid courage, but a “yo, Miller!” turned him around; Matthew-slash-Drew was calling him over to their table. Miller hesitated, but when he saw her gaze rest on him for a moment, his legs dragged themselves over to the corner.
“Dude, dope poem! I totally felt whatever it is you were getting at.”
“…Thanks.” Miller’s eyes were focused on her, but she was scratching the table with her fingernail.
“Fuck, I’m thirsty. What’s your drink, brah? I’m getting Jessie another vodka cranberry anyway.”
“Whatever’s cheapest. Thanks, uh, Drew.”
Matthew-slash-Drew gave a wheezing laugh, slapped Miller on the back, and left the table. For a minute, Miller sat in silence, admiring the messy bun on top of her head.
“So,” he said, “What did you think of the poem?”
“It was pretty cool,” she nodded her head in approval, “I didn't get the title though.”
“The Decay of Eccentricity?” He frowned.
“Right. The decay of… whatever.”
Miller felt a sharp pang of anger through his stomach. “Eccentricity.”
“Yeah. What does it mean?” She looked curious, but all he felt was unease he had not expected.
“It’s a lament for the inevitable death of everything pure and inspirational in this world.”
“Shit, that’s like… Really deep. I just thought it was about some girl that killed herself.” She cracked her knuckles — a sound that made him shudder.
He said nothing.
“I didn’t know this place was so artsy,” she continued — oblivious, or simply cruel to the turmoil Miller’s mind was in. “I’ve only ever gotten wasted here.”
He silently shook his head. She didn’t understand — or pretended not to understand. He hoped for the latter.
“Actually,” he gathered his courage, “I was kind of inspired by— you.”
“Hm?”
“You’re the girl in the dream.”
“But she’s dead?”
“Well… yes, but her beauty is still alive to the narrator. Ophelia— you know Ophelia? She’s from—“
“I know who Ophelia is.”
“Well, she’s basically the epitome of female beauty in death, and—“
“I said I know who Ophelia is.”
“So… you get it?”
“I don’t really think that being compared to her is a good thing.”
“…Do you understand anything?” He narrowed his eyes in an attempt to drill into her skull and make her say the right thing.
“No.”
Miller closed his eyes. He felt the words coming to the surface, and by this point he was powerless to stop them. “Why don’t you fucking get it? It’s all about you. Everything is about you. You’re the only beautiful thing around me, that’s what the poem meant, and now you don’t get it
— and why don’t you get it?
I know that you’re so much better than what you
pretend to be.
Why are you even with him?
He’s a dick, and you deserve so much
better.
I could have immortalized you, made you greater than fucking Juliet, but instead you’re ruining your life with him! I understand you. I—“
“Bro?” Matthew-slash-Drew reappeared next to Miller, two drinks in his hands. Miller shuddered, his breath racing in and out of his chest. His face flushed with a bright magenta colour as he stared at her.
“So, what’d I miss?”
What the fuck?
Jess sat dumbfounded. For some reason, the only thing on her mind was the chicken nugget she had when she was twelve years old. It had looked like a dragon, and she had been scared of eating it because she thought it would poison her. Eventually, she bit the head off with her mother’s urging, pretending the sauce was the dragon’s blood.
She shook her head with the realization that chicken nuggets and insane people did not go together.
Not at all.
He looked down. “You’re not the you I thought you were.”
“Excuse me?” Jess didn’t mean to say something so idiotic, but she couldn’t think of any other rational response to his words. She scrambled to find something to say as she absorbed him with her eyes.
He was sitting across from her, his hair lying flat on his damp forehead. His blue shirt was buttoned the wrong way, the buttons scrunching up in places they shouldn’t be. His hands, pressed into the table, were filthy; the dirt under his overgrown fingernails reminded her of an animal, and she involuntarily cracked her knuckles underneath the table.
Jess grinded her teeth.
“Fuck you.”
***
Jess walked into the building at half-past one. She was still feeling a little weird from her encounter with the crazy writer — Drew going down on her in the bathroom of the Palooza had helped a little, but not as much as she would have wanted. The drink tickets paid off, though. She locked her apartment door and checked that the locks were tight for good measure. The writer hadn’t sounded violent, but she could never be too safe. Besides, she had just watched that documentary about the girl who was raped in her dorm room last week.
She plopped down on the second-hand couch she pretended was vintage and opened her laptop. Her sister’s birthday was coming up. Jess imagined for a second showing up with an armful of balloons and gift bags, laughing with her grandparents the entire day, and resolved to do so, despite knowing in the back of her mind that she will just send Britney the same generic text she does every year.
Jess closed her eyes.
Down the hall, the Ryan twins were playing video games. The crashes and yells of “fuck, man, you’re in my lane” would continue until two in the morning.
Downstairs, Mrs. Li was counting out twenty-dollar bills to buy her and her husband weed for the month — the supply in the kitchen was running out far too quickly.
In the apartment down the hall from Jess’s, Miller was turning over in his bed. For the first time in a while, he couldn’t sleep, knowing full well that her burning incense
and her loud music that pulsed through the
building’s veins
and the smell of her coconut shampoo
and the flowers left at her door by a
never-ending array of men
were for her, and not for him — or anyone that decays in his worship.