CHRISTINE
By
C.SeanMcGee
CHRISTINE
Copyright© 2013 Cian Sean McGee
CSM Publishing
‘The Free Art Collection’
Santo André, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Second Edition
All rights reserved. This FREE ART ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, the reader is not charged to access it and the downloader or sharer does not attempt to assume any part of the work as their own.
Cover Design: C. Sean McGee
Interior layout: C. Sean McGee
Cover Photo: Keli: BazarBizar²o
This book was inspired by the following albums:
Portishead: Dummy
&
Death: The Sound of Perseverance
for keli, nenagh, tomás
my true north
Chapter 0
The shades were drawn, keeping the wonderful illusion of night acting out its façade to help the young woman that lay curled neath the blankets, cozy and warm in her sleep. Morning had broken some minutes or hours before, but the oppressive light had yet to steal Christine from her dreaming and so as her eyelids flickered, her mind imagined all of the things that were only real here, in the comfort of her bed, behind flickering eyelids and drawn shades.
The sound of a noirish guitar played lightly from the cell phone beside her bed that was just within her hand’s reach. Her mattress was laid out on the floor and her, stretched across the entire bed, slept like a young child, on any angle that suited her.
The noirish guitar then danced with a noirish, triste voice, slowly building in its waking resonance so that Christine’s eyelids flickered; at first trifling then trembling and then finally alerting as the theatre in her mind lowered its curtains. Her eyes opened with heavy applause as the ethereal woman canting from the song on her phone sang about uncertainty with such a salient and alleging demureness that it had Christine wanting this kind of affection, to be stripped of the fantasy of her own self.
And as the tempo shifted and the beat shuffled through her bones, she lifted herself up until she was seated and leaning her heavy head against the palms of her hands.
Beside her; sprawled out on his back, lay her knotted, orange Persian, his legs stretching out before and after his pudgy and knotted orange body and a ginger smile etched upon his face, hidden under a mess of curling and intertwining whiskers, knotted like the scruffy fur on his body.
“You are so friggin adorable,” she said, turning to the knotted, orange Persian and diving into his thick fur, pressing her face against his belly then roughly digging her fingers into his fur, rolling him back and forth.
“But so lazy” she said whilst the purring cat looked her long in her eyes and stretched one of his paws towards her mouth, pushing his claws out lightly until they pressed against the cracked skin on her lips, coyly pushing her away but really wanting her to lean close enough so he could lick the tip of her nose.
The morning light was starting to defeat the drawn shades.
Christine turned to the blinds and pulled on a string that hanged lower than the window, down along the wall to the mattress just centimeters from the floor. The cord flung upwards and took with it the drawn shades inviting a deluge of morning sun into the room and blinding both her and the knotted, orange Persian.
The music stopped.
She stretched out the sleep in her muscles and opened her closet, reaching blindly as she normally would for a blouse and a skirt that would be heaped somewhere beside an old acoustic guitar that was dusted heavily from the years of promises that had been wished upon it.
As she walked, she skipped; her hands inflected back slightly so that the tips of her fingers curved like a ramp. And as she stepped upon the cold tiles of the bathroom floor; with the orange, knotted Persian at her step, her toes tingled. She loved this sensation of the morning; the chill on her toes and the feel of the cool draft coming from the open balcony door.
When she stepped, she lowered her foot slowly, treating the cold tiles as if she were slipping into a hot bath, easing the bottom of her foot, lowering muscle by muscle and touching nerve by nerve so that every inch of her skin could feel as her toes did; having the morning dress itself against her entire body and feeling its passage across her skin instead of ignorantly diving in to a brisk adaptation; how some people changed days like they changed their minds.
Standing under the shower and with hot water cascading over the front of her face, Christine thought about her mother, wondering if she was thinking about her and whether she might be angry or disappointed that she hadn’t been around for some time.
The water streamed down her face and it was impossible; even for her, to distinguish the tears as they caught a flight with the water pooling by her toes before slipping away into the darkness of the drain below.
An awkward meow broke Christine from the washing of her sadness. She wiped the stream from the glass door and saw the knotted, orange Persian seated directly in front lifting its paw to the door and meowing in pained distraught as if she were drowning and he was voicing his dissent; mourning the celebration of her grief.
“Einzy, you’re incorrigible,” she said with a smile kissing her joyless face.