Several Stories High: #1- Decadence Lost

Right...I’ve been away from this blog for too long! And though I am simply uploading some short stories written a while ago, I will return with some new posts soon, if not tomorrow!

Now, we crack on; here’s Decadence Lost...

White walls. He’d always hated them.

Every corridor in that place echoed the same sense of indifference in its vacancy. It was yet another domain devoid of conventional emotion; one so stoic that it hid the scars born from countless encounters with misery. Instead, it bore the disingenuous, saccharine smile sometimes seen plastered on the faces of parents who have recently lost a child in the most unspeakable circumstances. We immediately recognise this pain, no matter how well concealed it may be, as it resonates boldly through a guise of fortitude and foolish bravado, but refrain from comforting that individual any further. It simply isn’t natural to impose oneself upon a grieving person who obstinately refuses help. If they wish to remain in pernicious falsehood, so be it. And that’s the impression both these walls and his parents were emanating.

Adam fully understood the depth of meaning that one word responsible had for his parents’ unwillingness to display vulnerability. To godless creatures such as themselves, worrying about the implications of embracing sinful behaviour like pride came a distant second to social appearance – possibly even third to a cool, alcoholic cocktail every Friday night. Perhaps if they’d spent a little less time hosting extravagant dinner parties marked by promiscuity, and a little more time caring for their children…

“You can’t keep blaming your parents. Nobody could have foreseen this, and there’s absolutely nothing that anybody could have done to prevent it”, shouted Dr. Künstlich, glaring at the boy through thick spectacles.

That was a lie. The old man who used to live down the road could have presaged it, and Adam knew it. The quintessentially wizened though knowledgeable elderly member of the neighbourhood, Adam was able to depend on him far more than he could ever with his own family. Most weekdays after school, Adam would spend hours sheltered away in his glorious abode, while gathering his thoughts. No one else in the community seemed to care too much for the man’s existence; mostly because he was taciturn and everyone else preferred the status of drunken socialite. In reality, there was no community; just the grouped affection for an egocentric lifestyle. But the old man was different, and alien to the concept of choosing self-fulfilment over kindness to your fellow man.

“Tell me about this elderly fellow? Do you still visit him?” Dr. Künstlich had reclined in his chair in order to postulate a theory as to why Adam’s heart was full of rancour and his head full of spite.

Adam frowned, and coughed out a single, angry sigh. The old man turned out to be nothing but a fraud, and in his abandonment, more abhorrent than all the people who had called him “Madam” at school, or used his birthday money to pay the water bill. No, Adam may have survived his fair share of maltreatment in life thus far, but he deemed this treachery the most despicable act yet.

How events transpired could be summed up briefly: a wealthy building developer purchased the old man’s property without hearing an objection, and proceeded to first tear it down, then replace it with a set of flats. Consequently, the old man took off without uttering a word of his departure, leaving Adam privy to the cruel growth of a deep-rooted nihilistic attitude that engorged itself on his failure to rediscover the old man and the loss of his baby brother. This culminated in a self-enforced ostracism away from the outside world; a state he had remained in for two weeks until this psychiatric examination. Adam didn’t care for meals or general human contact. Nor did he wish to dupe Charon into ferrying his brother back along that ill-famed river to Earth. But his body tensed sickeningly at the reminder of his separation from the old man; as though it too pleaded for relief, as though it pleaded for eternal relief.

“Can you be certain that this person, this seemingly venerable character, will never return to you? Is it not entirely possible that he left so abruptly for reasons beyond his control? From your description of him so far, I refuse to believe that he has a disposition to flee without warning. You need to have more faith in him.”

Dr. Künstlich sat opposite Adam, immersed in his own arrogant air. The grin said it all; the doctor had obviously weighed up years of teenage despair evoked to him in minuscule detail over the course of twenty minutes, and determined the ultimate problem to be faithlessness. Apparently, he possessed more intellect in one brain cell than Freud himself had in his entire cranium. If that’s what Dr. Künstlich and his stubbly grey beard thought, then, of course, it must be true.

Except Adam wouldn’t allow this opinion to stand as fact.

Many of us dislike hearing “harsh truths” about ourselves. Regardless of the validity in claims that are thrust upon us and designed to exhibit improved behaviour in the recipient of the abuse, it’s difficult not to picture such hostility as an attempted character assassination. Adam’s innate reaction carried no unexpected difference – although the psychiatrist’s odious demeanour contributed in a less than positive fashion. This hypothesis was troubling to him, mainly because it suggested that somehow, he was to blame for the wrongdoing of others.

Adam clutched his head to restrain himself, gently pressing his fingernails deeper into his temple. With the view of an expert proving to be questionable, his heavy heart finally had the better of him. At once, he noticed the flaxen floor beneath his feet that seemed to mock his condition by mimicking the colour of his mother’s hair. Any man, who chose to decorate part of his office in a colour that vividly reminded Adam of his deceitful succubus of a mother, could not be trusted. Dr. Künstlich, therefore, had nothing else of value to say.

“Stop trying to hide from yourself, Adam. I’m not here for personal gain; I’m here for you. I’m here to help you find who you are once more.”

Was he mad? Or was this a dream? Had this chap dabbled in the dark arts, and, in doing so, acquired the supernatural skill of telepathy? Adam had not uttered a word since the doctor had last finished talking. Did his body position speak volumes about his state of mind for him?

Adam trembled at the prospect of another human being invading his brain and observing his thoughts. There weren’t many things in there that he wasn’t prepared to share for the sake of reaching peace, but boundaries had to be established somewhere. This particular incident fell beyond the invisible limits, and it left Adam uncomfortable. How much did this doctor now know about him?

“Think for a minute. Why have you come here?”

He didn’t need to be asked twice. The answer came as swiftly as a summer breeze, and those insidious white walls began to melt around him; dissolving until nothing but the fresh, blue sky and clouds could be seen. He looked down to where the stained-mustard carpet once lay. It had changed to a natural green; blades of grass sprouted up from the earth to tango with his shoelaces, and the aroma he caught fluttering through the wind instilled in him a newfound sense of serenity.

He felt the familiar hand of his father caress his right shoulder. It wasn’t the typical finger clench Adam had come to expect of the man he would so often portray as compassion’s foe. This hand soothed him. It invited him to let out his frustration on the world here and now, and reassured him that no-one would think any less of him.

For the first time since early childhood, Adam experienced a feeling of true love for humanity. The disdain he held for his parents had gone. He whispered to his mother, who nodded, then stepped aside, allowing him to approach the coffin containing his younger sibling.

“Hey, Sam. You doing ok up there? You always were the carefree one, weren’t you? Able to look after yourself when nobody else was around. I don’t know how you managed to do it. Honestly, I really don’t! But I’m glad you could, because it lets me know that you’re safe. You’ll be a part of me forever, Sam; no matter what. I’ll strive to visit you every week, and I’ll buy you that video game you were on about. You know the one I’m referring to. It had all those villains from another dimension, and you had to take on the role of the hero? Haha, you were obsessed with that game! But I guess that’s because it fitted your personality so well. You were brave, Sam; braver than words could begin to describe. And I’m proud to have had a little brother like you. Enjoy your sleep now, and wait for me to see you again.”

Adam tapped the coffin lid, and glanced at his parents. They gazed back at him, eyes full of tears, but smiles as wonderfully broad as a young man could envisage. Taking a step back from what would be his brother’s new home, Adam murmured a final “goodbye”, and signalled for the pallbearers to lower the casket. Then, as he raised his head to the heavens, his happiness was restored.

The old man had returned, destined to smile back at him for eternity.