Echo

Ok this is a different type of story. This one is also still raw and needs work as well sorry.

WARNING this one is quite dark and has sone disturbing content.

PART 1

ECHO


The white hum of the florescent lights always hurt his eyes. Eric always felt as if he was blind when he was around them. The light radiating all around him, small blinding rays of flickering light slowly pulsing their way into the back of his head, distorting his perception. This is what he hated about the outside world, everything was imperfectly done.
People where jostling all around him, rubbing against him, his body rolling slightly from their casual brushes. Eric’s long overcoat was scarping against his skin, he felt each individual fuzz of fabric scraping against his flesh. This accompanied the overwhelming stench that filled his nostrils and which sat at the back of his throat. The sweet smell of the galleries cleaning ammonia was muddled and degraded by the oily stank of the people around him.
Eric was becoming dizzy; the world around him overwhelming his sensibilities, there was too much. Those lights burnt into eyes, he was unable to catch his bearings, his feet became unsure as the outside world was swallowing him into her dizzying array sense.
Eric was knocked forward; his hands barley managing to stop his body from slipping over the rail, the auburn rail was all that divided the masterwork piece of art in front of him from the swarming masses behind me.
“Pardon me,” said a voice from within the mob. Eric couldn’t tell who it was that had said it. He decided it was time to leave, he didn’t care much for any sort of modern or impressionistic art, it just seemed like talentless paint spread across a canvas, or random collections of materials to create some sort of monstrosity which people would swoon over. This world was devoid of craftsmanship.
He walked slowly through the crowed, trying not to touch anybody or anything; he hated the clammy oily substance that was thinly veiled across human skin, their bodies were absolutely covered with germs and slick with a thin layer of sweat and oil. With every breath they expelled bacteria like a pump. He had once heard that a single sneeze sprayed germs up to a twenty-five foot cone from the nostrils, think of all the bacteria. “The gods never had to suffer disease,” he mumbled to himself. This is why his hands were always shielded from the mortal world by a pair of leather gloves.
As Eric pushed forward against the tinted glass door, he noticed an old lady behind him. He held the door open for her and let her go in front of him. She walked ever so slightly hunched over; bundled up in a dull green overcoat, an ornate red hat sat atop her whitish red hair. “Thank you,” she said, her soft voice and equally kind eyes radiated her true gratitude at not having to strain her frail body against the door to move in order to move the heavy glass. He just nodded in acknowledgment. Eric liked the elderly, there skin, dry with age, seemed cleaner. Their apparent mortality made him feel almost immortal with the knowledge that those years were so distant.
He walked out after her into the street his crimson scarf wrapped around his neck to keep him away the chill of the bay air. Many people thought California was always sunny and warm. Those people had never been to San Francisco in the winter time, the sea air sweeping in front of the enshrouding fog as if it was an usher. It wasn’t cold that froze the skin, but a piercing chill that cut thru the muscle. The fog would then dampen the surroundings as it rolled through the streets, which were little more than cracks in the majesty of the tall buildings.
The walk back along the Warf was disgusting as always, the filthy homeless, making their living as parasites upon the long snake of people that weaved their way along the sidewalks. It was close to dusk now, and the people huddled around the shops and filtered into the cafés, like impurity in water. The seafood booths dotted the surrounding area; the salty sea air was too cold for the flies to buzz around their wares. To get to his apartment house he ad to cross through China town, his least favorite part of the city. The endless thick crowed of people, a sea of disgusting little souls. And he had to bridge them; he had to part the tide of pathetic beings like Moses did unto the Red Sea. He slipped between them attempting, unsuccessfully, not to make contact with anything around him. He did what he always did, gauging his movements to be at the front of the group of people at the crosswalk, all this just to try and stay in front of the bulk of the crowd. His tall stature allowed him to look down upon the people around him.
He finally made his way across to the next street and walked the steep San Francisco hills up towards his small house. The small patch of grass in front was neatly clipped; the gardener had been earlier that day. He pulled his Mickey Mouse ring out of his pocket, he greeted it with a sneer and a word “Rat” and then proceeded to unlock the door, listening as the heavy tumbler turned and freed the portal. He entered his dark apartment, the Venetian blinds pulled down to stop anyone from viewing his private life. He quickly slammed shut the door behind him behind him and set the heavy lock into place. This done Eric leaned his back against the door in relief, gulping down the crisp clean air of his home. Finally relieved to have escaped the world behind him, the shut door imprisoning the earthly realm the way children imagine some strange world within the confines house of their closet.
The house was unearthly clean the furniture covered in plastic, the hardwood floor holding the sweet aroma of ammonia and several other detergents. He took off his black overcoat and methodically hung it in the closet. A bead of sweat broke across his brow and swiftly shut the door, fear creeping in that world might lie within. He walked into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, withdrawing a large silver pot from within its depths. He placed it upon the electric stove. He glanced over at his fridge; nothing was on it, no magnets holding up pictures of friends or family, no notes reminding him of something important, it was just a stark white fridge. Eric walked over to the fridge and opened the freezer door that sat atop it. Within its frozen depths were several large chunks of ice, he grabbed one and took it over letting it descend from his fingers into the heated pot. He had once heard that many bacteria could withstand extreme cold and some could survive extreme heat, but very few could survive both. He didn’t know if this was true or not, he couldn’t even remember where the tidbit of information had come from but it was a case of precaution. So every night when he arrived home he would repeat this procedure, melting down the block of ice he would use for water each night, and then putting it in to the fridge to cool once againt so it was pleasant to drink.
While the ice melted Eric walked slowly into his living room, he sat down into a leather armchair laminated with plastic and turned on the T.V. At the side of the chair sat a small fridge, he opened the door without looking and took out a bottle of soda water, this was the only thing he would dare drink straight from the bottle. Soda water had carbonation, and this helped to make the drink acidic, not many things would live within carbonation he thought.
The news was on the T.V. Though he didn’t really care what was on, the pathetic problems of little people wouldn’t interest him anyway, he already new that. It was more a habit from his childhood. But he did almost like the news when he was in his armchair; it was like sitting there atop a throne listening to his peoples grievances groveling before him to solve petty disputes. Of course he didn’t really understand what a grievance was. Oh he new what the word actually meant, a wrong considered as grounds for complaint. But he couldn’t comprehend why people would have them, or what caused them. He had always been like that he just couldn’t relate to people, he just didn’t understand emotions. He knew what an emotion looked like, like when someone was angry there face creased and they talked loudly, but he had no idea why someone could be angry. He had even seen a psychiatrist about it once; he had been told it wasn’t a lack of empathy, but the complete absence of it. The psychiatrist had prescribed him a bottle of pills, and told him to come in every now and then for check up and refills, Eric hadn’t thought it a good idea, and had deposited the pills into a trash can outside the pharmacy.
He sat in his chair and dosed off for a little while, he awoke to the sound of the hiss of the water as it bubbled over the pot and sizzled on the stove below. He got up and turned it off he, grabbed the plastic handles of the pot and went over to the fridge, he open the door and pushed it inside, closing the door without really looking at anything inside it.
As he sat down at the kitchen tabled he wondered about what there was to do, he was no longer tired so sleep would be counterproductive, the museums had all closed by now so there was nothing to go look at, and the water wasn’t ready yet so there was nothing to cook or drink. He supposed he could go downstairs into his studio and work on his art. So he opened the door to the staircase and walked downstairs into the garage, the stairs were old and wooden; and creaked as he walked on them. Gentle moans escaping from their nailed lips.