User:The Koromo/Azreal (work in progress)

Pasta by The Koromo

I. Azreal
The surrealist nightmare had started, and would not end for another eight years or so, when a certain woman moved into a certain home off west from Grimsby, up north from London, and a few miles south from the rocky cliffs and shorelines of the North Sea, these cliffs overlooking the immortal ocean beyond the confounds of mere land.

The full moon hung silently over the small town, being the only spark lighting the night besides the glow of the dim street lights. Even at night, shoppers bustled about, though most stayed in their homes, at temporary rest. Some homeless people sat in corners and nooks and crannies and alleyways, holding up bags of nothing for money to be lent into. Some would spend this all on pot but others were completely genuine in their homelessness. The only sound audible were crickets, thousands of them chirping away in the darkness. A few minutes further up north was a beach which would, in a month or two, be frozen over.

It was approximately 11:57 PM, three minutes before midnight, that Azreal Blanchete pulled into the driveway of her new home in this particular little town, a small two-story house that stood wedged between woodland and another small and unassuming home in these suburbs.

Azreal was the tallest woman she knew and, probably, ever would know. Gigantic for a woman, standing at about a-hundred-ninety-three centimeters in height, she towered over all the women and many of the men she had met in college, and was exactly six feet by the time she was fourteen. She stood even taller than her male best friend, whom was six feet on the dot. Her hair was blond, so blond it was difficult to call it blond, and long but kept in a tight bundle by her scalp.

She stepped out of her van, cold night air of the fall encompassing her, and she shivered, pulling her arms over herself. The furniture had already been setup – all of it from her old home was to be cleaned and go to another house to be built. She looked up at the gigantic moon – it was a Supermoon this week, one of the few times it ever happened within a course of many years, and tonight was its first night. She marched up the small steps to the doorway, pressing herself up against the wood and turned the door knob, stepping in.

She turned the light on. The house inside was beautiful. There was a long spiral staircase extending from the foot of the back hallway that shot upward into the darkness above. At the end of the aforementioned back hallway there was a direct entrance to the basement, and the laundry room lay right beside the back stairwell.

Her room was upstairs, a large bedroom which had a small balcony that overlooked the downstairs of the house. To the left of her, a nice and big kitchen sat dormant (and, of course, a state-of-the-friggin’-art refrigerator) and a table for two – she lived alone and the second chair was to be occupied by any guests, as she would never throw any parties if her life depended on it. Which is why I hated college. Everyone was so bent on getting drunk and laid and being jolly that they didn’t have any time for the bullocks in life.

It was odd for a woman of twenty-four, like herself, to have no interest in getting married but as for anyone sulking over that fact, she couldn’t care less about. Always It’s not normal, you need to have someone to love! or A woman needs a man in her life!

She scoffed at that last thought. A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle, as someone great once said.

Though Azreal was a staunch feminist, she wasn’t one of the batshit insane ones and didn’t think of all men as scum. In fact, her best friend who lived in this town was Danny, Danny Boulstridge, a gent who was born and, probably, would die here. Azreal thought that if it weren’t for Danny she probably would have lost her nut by the time she had turned nineteen – she’d been friends with him since her early high school days and she did not hope that friendship to deteriorate.

As of now, Azreal was in need to buckle down. It’d been a long drive from London to this town just a little west of Grimsby, and it was nearing midnight if not midnight already and the town’s activity itself was dying down. Sighing, she marched up the stairs and into her bedroom, taking in one last look from the small balcony. There was something a bit bizarre about this house, but it would work well enough. She took to her bed and, after a few minutes, fell asleep.

The next morning she awoke prematurely like she usually did, this time though by a call from Danny Boulstridge himself. She groaned, still tired, kicking the blankets off her bed, them falling with a small plop to the floor – as much as you would expect from blankets falling. She strode over to the night table in the corner where the phone lay on the flat surface. It was an old-timey looking phone but hopefully it would do the job. She picked it up and held it to her ear.

“Ey, Azzie! New house comin’ along well?” It was Danny alright, chipper as ever despite the tragedy that had occurred in his life recently.

Azreal deadpanned in response – she was quite good at that. “Well since I’ve been awake in the house for about five minutes and asleep for about another seven hours I can’t quite say that the house is so dandy yet. What are you doing up, Dan? It’s six in the morning. And what’s more, how are you feeling?”

Danny frowned before it quickly rose into a solemn smile, though of course Azreal didn’t notice it. “I’m fine and well, Azzie. Really I am. It’s just…crap, she was so young.” He felt misty but controlled himself. He didn’t want to look bad in front of his best friend, not that she cared if he would cry or sob anyways, but it wouldn’t sound so merry on the phone.

Azreal frowned. Danny had recently lost his very close American cousin Abigail who had lived in the States to suicide and her parents to murder about a year before, and it affected him and the rest of his family very deeply. Danny firmly believed that it was the murder of Abigail’s parents that drove her to being “committed” and then eventually committing suicide by falling out of a window, and Danny swore that he would dedicate the “rest of his life” to capturing these murderers, who were never found, and putting them to justice. Azreal calmly and always told him that revenge was not the right conclusion but Danny had frequently ignored her.

Only Abigail herself knew what really happened – but that’s a story for a different time.

Azreal responded. “Stay put, mate. You’re not the only one who’s going through this, remember that.”

“Ey, I know. Oh, by the way…”

“Yeah?”

“Come out for coffee with me today. There’s a nice breakfast café I know up by the beach. It’s called Sonoma Sunrise, you’ll find it if you take a right on Mullberry. Eight o’ clock sound about good to ya? Or is that too early?”

“Nah, sounds about par for the course. Meet you there.” The two exchanged goodbyes and hung up simultaneously.

Still Azreal could not shake the bizarre feeling from her mind and body and soul, but she didn’t give it much thought. What, after all, was there to really think about pertaining to this situation?

She thought to herself that if she really had to have an honest opinion on Danny, it was that he was a tad annoying in his eagerness and chipperness no matter what the terrible event had befallen him. If something good had occurred, he was extremely optimistic and, if something bad occurred, then he was just optimistic. The more power to him, she thought to herself, but nevertheless did not necessarily understand his philosophy – it was as alien to her as mathematics more complicated than division. She had amended how he had tried to change and succeeded all those years back, but whenever Azreal herself tried to find the will to change, she would always find herself falling back on old habits and reversing what she had initially wanted to achieve.

She couldn’t really blame herself – she had grown up miserably in Blackpool and had remained hated and neglected by her mother most of her life, in addition to taking the brunt of the damage from that German bitch Annette Eisenhower throughout all, or at least most, of middle school. Her father killed himself when she was at the age of two. She guessed having a child was too much for his fat, lazy arse to handle.

She not only realized she had mentally insulted a dead person, which even worse was her father, and even worse so that he had taken his own life, but also that this inner topic was getting her depressed. She shook it off and prepared to get dressed in preparation for her meeting with Danny in two hours.

“SONOMA SUNRISE.”

Azreal stepped out of her car and into the autumn cold, looking up at the grim, depressing sight. This was the ugliest building she had ever seen, and she was sorely disappointed upon seeing that this little hole-in-the-wall would be the setting for her and Danny’s get together. As she would later find out, this place was built in 1848 under the title of a British general’s house. Sonoma – that was the name of the town. She found it was a bit despicable that the inside of a man of war’s house had been replaced with tables and coffee stands and decorations, but there wasn’t much to grieve about.

“Even if women were allowed to join the army, I wouldn’t be that stupid,” she thought aloud when a voice intercepted her.

“What’re you talking about? Women join the army nowadays.”

She turned around, startled, and saw Danny with that signature twit smile of his. It was then she realized his car parked right next to hers – dust spilled out from the back implying he had just pulled in.

“Danny. Didn’t expect you.”

He winked. “I don’t think anybody ever does. C’mon, let’s drink.”

Azreal had ordered an iced coffee slash latte and Danny a thick cup of black. Azreal stirred her straw around a bit in her drink before taking a sip. Danny just fiddled with the cup absentmindedly before taking a swig.

After a few awkward minutes, one of them spoke up. “What for?” This from Azreal.

“What for what?”

“Why you brought me to this place.”

“Ey, you say it like it’s a bad thing, Az!” Danny took another swig, before burping and not excusing himself.

“I am just wondering what the meeting’s for?”

Danny rested his chin on one of his palms. “Ah, nothin’, nothin’ particularly. I just wanna come down to your house and check it out, aye?”

Azreal was a little miffed now. “Couldn’t you have told me that over the phone?”

Danny sighed. “Look, Az. I wanna spend more time with you. These past few months I’ve seen you, maybe, about twice and talked to you over the phone for dozens. I miss you. So, I thought, maybe going out for coffee isn’t so bad. Do you understand what I mean now?” He had never said anything about “understanding what” he “meant”, but that was how Danny was, he could be non-sequitur, not Azreal’s problem.

She blinked. “Yeah. I do.” She noticed often how secluded Danny was, and right now was not particularly different. Living up in a fatherless home could do that to you especially if you were male. Now Danny, the same age as Azreal, lived secluded and alone in his trashy bottom-floor apartment further down by the bulk of the town. Azreal felt sorry for him, ever since high school when she had first met him, that pity never ceasing. She really wished it would turn into empathy some time or another – she really loathed being pitied herself, even worse than being hated.

His seclusion was coupled by the fact that he almost never went on a vacation or anything. Who was there to go with? He had only traveled via air once, to Oregon in the States to meet his aunt and uncle, and the grueling ten hour flight was so much that when he returned he swore never to travel again. And now not only was he imprisoned in England, probably never going to move out or take a trip again, he was living in a trash heap and, of course, he had lost a very close family member.

“So? Can I come to your house? Can I can I can I?” Now he was begging like a puppy and Azreal was back to being annoyed.

“Yes, Danny, you can.”

II. The Living Room
If the look on Danny Boulstridge’s face when Azreal Blanchete pulled in to her driveway with him riding shotgun was a look of awe or of disappointment, she would not know, at least until Danny revealed he had known about the house prior. So, she guessed, the look was neither – just one of blank neutrality concerning the sights beyond and above him.

The two stepped out of the car and Danny inhaled the thick autumn wind. He let it out through his nose before turning and smiling at Azreal. “Love the weather in this season. So thick, so crisp…not too hot, not too cold.” He turned back to Azreal’s house. Azreal was always more of a summer girl - she hated the thought of anything cold, despised it to the core.

The two climbed the front steps before Azreal plunged (maybe plunge was too complex of a word for it, but she couldn’t think of what the word should be, dammit) the key into the slot and turned it, creaking it open. The two stepped inside.

(jab that was the word)

“Ah, it’s…lovely,” Danny said dreamily. He sniffled as if there would be any aroma – there wasn’t, not yet, Azreal didn’t have a mess to clean up yet as far as she knew and she hadn’t used any perfume (for obvious reasons) and hadn’t given the house a spraying yet as it hadn’t needed one. He still looked happy when he found no smell, though. Happy as he always was. So damn happy, all the live-long day.

They lead themselves into the living room, where they both sat opposite eachother, Azreal on a rocking chair with a cushion placed firmly on it and Danny on one of the two couches that occupied the void spaces of the room. Azreal had not really noticed the room before – well it was difficult to not notice but she had gone straight to bed the moment she first moved in last night – but it was ridden with a few pieces of leftover furniture as fodder decoration to lighten the room up a bit, even if only by a little. The rocking chair was one of them. There was a fire place in the center of the room, non-roaring, quiet. Above the mantle was a lifeless deer head, stuffed and mounted cruelly like a playtime toy. Azreal shuddered – she would have done without that addition. Maybe she could ask a furniture company to disconnect it from the wall. Danny opened his mouth to speak but Azreal cut him short.

“So you know about this place, Dan?” Azreal asked. Curiosity lit up her eyes, though she tried to make that curiosity discreet – if she looked too eager then she would look like an ignorant child. She’d be goddamned if she didn’t hate children, or at least abhor them – they were annoying drooling slobbering brats who even after twelve years of asking moronic questions (“Is the moon hot, mommy?” or “Is the sun cold, daddy?”) would become moody, menopausal (if you were a girl), thinking-with-your-dick (if you were a guy) teenagers who did their hardest to attempt to overthrow their parents and go out with a crowd that promoted getting drunk, having sex with people you didn’t know, and basically ruining your life for the years to come. She was sure it wasn’t their fault, and of course she had never been (nor ever would be) a mother so she didn’t have much experience in the field, though she had experience with babysitting. She did find the child toys sweet and innocent, such as glow dolls or toy fish tanks that light up in the dark, and she was sure if she was a mother she would love her kid to the bitter end. However, sitting on those couches while watching a soap opera while the kid ran around and threw toys at and abused his even-littler sister had been the most grueling nights of her life, when she was around seventeen or eighteen, she wasn’t on-the-dot sure when.

Little Mickey was a hell of a boy – the worst kind of kid this side of the dull cardboard box we all call life, Azreal began to think. Mickey was the type of kid to raise hell in the worst of situations, Azreal thought some more, like maybe the type of kid to laugh at funerals or take a dump right on the gravel of his parents’ driveway – that kind of bad. She had remembered her being forced (well not forced, you agreed to it after all) by his mother to take him and his sister under her wing for a little while one night, and when she complied, she found within, oh, say two or three minutes of his mother leaving, Mickey’s sweet, sensitive child side turned into a raging five year old demon, angry at his little sister for no reason and chasing her around the house with a ball and throwing it around at her, or even worse one of those huge robot toys kids like to lug around, the sister screaming all the while, trying to escape his both unjustified and also unjustifiable anger. Azreal clearly remembered the thought that raced into her head as the night went on being in his company – Do his parents beat him or something? It was a savage thought, especially for a family she hardly knew, but goddamn did it seem ever so right – what else would have caused this behavior? Finally when the chasing of his innocent poor sweet little sister began to die down he marched over to Azreal pouting, this fake plastic frown on his face, pretending as if something was wrong when it clearly wasn’t, saying something like “I wanna hit her”, and Azreal holding back her anger said “no, you can’t”, and then giving him a piece of paper to write his feelings on it to let it all out – only to be greeted with the sight of a stick person with an angry face (looking an awful lot like his sister) and the word “stupid” written in all-caps above it, an arrow pointing down at the little character on the page.

“…So they decided to plant a little garden behind it.”

Azreal was completely caught off guard when her negative train of thought broke and she heard Danny supposedly finish his speech. She had completely forgotten what he was talking about until it hit her – the house. She scolded herself internally and asked “Beg pardon?”

“What, you weren’t listening?” Now it was Danny’s turn, justifiably, to be annoyed with his friend. “Well, Azzie, I’ll start off again.”

“Please, go on.”

Danny returned to his sunshiny smile. “Well,” he started off, “the house was built sometime in 1924, so seventy years ago, a little bit after the summer had ended I think was the story – brutal summer that year I’ve been told, the type where it was ninety-nine degrees in the shade. Didn’t help that the days were dull and grey-skied, despite the heat, most of the time. The house should be having its seventieth birthday this month, then, I guess. Anyways, moving on.” Danny fidgeted in his seat a little bit, probably getting uncomfortable with the leather of the couch he was sitting at. Didn’t take long, Azreal thought.

“The house was built by a middle-aged fellow. His last name was Elmwood, first name Casey, I think. Casey Elmwood. So basically, Casey’s house had been completely destroyed by a fire that was set in its interior when he forgot to turn off the oven when he was roastin’ a turkey. So he decided that he was gonna build a new house, a big one, way bigger than his old house, one that wouldn’t burn down too quick if it caught fire. So he got to work.”

“The house was completed in in early December, 1926. More ironic that it was cold now, as opposed to when they first began to build. When it was finished, Elmwood moved in, paying lots in the process, obviously – and mostly for his marriage, his spouse who was a fine young gal named Tammy. She was blond, like you, tall, like you but not as tall as you, Azzie. So anyways when they moved in they decided to plant a little garden behind it. Just to spruce it up a bit. That’s all.”

When Danny said nothing for over ten seconds, Azreal chimed in. “So that’s it?”

“Huh?” Danny fidgeted again. “That’s all. You might wanna check out the little garden in the back. It’s nice.” His eyes shifted but his smile never ceased.

“Well, okay.” Azreal had not noticed the garden, she’d check it out later. Suddenly before she could think anymore Danny chimed in once again.

“Hey, Azzie, can I get a glass of water? It’s a bit warm in here…” He tugged at the collar of his shirt, and it was then she indeed noticed sweat dribbling down his forehead, rolling into thick beads. Non-hesitantly she said “Sure. There’s a water and ice machine on the fridge. Use the cups on the tabletop next to it.”

“Thanks, Azzie.” He got up and turned over into the kitchen.

Azreal thought about his last statement concerning the house. “That’s all.” She weighed the statement for a little bit, correlating it with what he said before, just thinking on it, seemingly for no reason at all until it hit her. The reason was there the whole time. What he said sounded like a lie.

She fidgeted, just like him. And she looked up to see the deer head, staring dead across the way to the wall towering above her head, eyes lifeless, without any sign of pupils, motionless, something just off about it. Really off. Azreal turned her eyes away from the mantle as she saw Danny return to the room, returning to his bright smile, water in hand, ready for casual conversation. Azreal smiled and she knew it then.

I’m over-exaggerating, she thought humbly. That’s all.

III. I Don’t Think We’re in England Anymore
Danny left to run some errands about an hour later. Azreal poured herself a glass of water, grabbed some crackers from the closet and she sat down to watch a rerun of Seinfeld. She thought back on the last hour, her thoughts about Danny, the house’s history, the conversation they had. And of course the conversation they had afterwards, straying from anything serious and going off into rubbish about television, film, literature, coffee (Danny’s favorite), work. That last one reminded Azreal she would have to start working again.

Sometimes she just got bouts of thinking about how much she loved Danny, something she had not dedicated much thought to outside of these bouts. Today was one of these. She was happy to have a friend like him, a shoulder to cry on and if he needed, to cry on hers too – he was kind, a little naïve, but always sticking by, no matter how silly and carefree he could be at times. As Azreal’s mother had told her about what her father was like, “a grown man with the heart of a child”. That phrase run especially true knowing Danny, as she had never known her father – and maybe, she thought, it was better that way. She crossed her left leg over her right and emptied a handful of the crackers into her hand, popping them into her mouth one by one. When she began munching on the last one in her hand, she took a swig of water, the smoothness of the liquid soothing on her throat. The tube was playing one of her favorite Seinfeld reruns, where Jerry’s overdue copy of Tropic of Cancer needs to be returned. She didn’t know why she liked sitcoms, most of them were bloody stupid, but they gave her a warming sense of security, especially in the fact that comedy was about reveling in others’ misery. She rarely gave much thought to that aspect of humor, but when she did, she felt guilt boil in the pits of her stomach – but then seconds later she would throw this out the window and remember that it was just fiction, not real, a fantasy, and she’d laugh it off.

Thirteen years ago, though, the guilt was real.

When Annette Eisenhower was discharged from Blackpool Middle School (that was what they called either being kicked out or transferred in Azreal’s school district, and it was the latter in Annette’s case, sadly for Azreal) a new girl had moved in late that September, a girl named Mary Hulbert Smith. She was short, under four-eleven, and that was the first thing that struck everyone about her; then her chest size, which was flat; then the size of her nose, which was large and unproportional. So of course a certain clique jumped on it.

Azreal had joined that clique. She had completely abandoned her old self (one she would not get back until high school) and decided to side with those who had initially went against her, and of course they targeted poor, young, first year Mary Hulbert Smith. Azreal was tired of it, sick of all the bullocks dealing with her mother, living in the cesspit that was Blackpool, having to live with Annette Eisenhower for all of middle school until now. She didn’t want revenge; she wanted to know what it felt like to hurt someone like Annette had to her.

And it worked, oh boy, it worked.

Mary Hulbert Smith, after just two months of school, hanged herself in her bed room after attaching a noose to the disembodied hook on her ceiling. It was the talk of the school for the months following until the end of the year, but Azreal didn’t speak much after the incident. She felt her eyes begin to mist. She’d killed someone. Not directly, but indirectly, and Jesus Christ how could she have lived with it, how could she have continued knowing she had killed someone like this, taken their life, violated their rights all because of-

RING! RING! RING!

Azreal stopped crying, her chest heaving before she wiped away the mist in her eyes, and got up to answer the phone across the way. Before picking it up she turned off the television set to prevent any background noise and held the phone up to her ear, speaking into it after a sigh. “Hello?”

“Hey Azzie.” It was Danny, again. “I thought I’d drop by later tonight again. I’m not feeling so good. Is…is that okay with you?”

“Of course it is.” Danny was naïve indeed if he needed to ask a question like that to his best friend. “When do you want to come over?”

“Sometime in ten-ish minutes,” her friend responded. “It’s gonna be getting dark soon anyway…” He coughed over the phone, a hacking cough, and Azreal thought it sounded excruciating.

“So what’s wrong? Tell me.”

Danny didn’t answer. “I’ll be there, Azzie.” And he hung up.

She blinked twice, a bit confused. Then the confusion turned into sadness, the gloomy wave of pity that encompassed her, and not empathy like she had longed for it to be. Danny was so distraught nowadays; it’d been a downward spiral of a year’s worth, ever since Abigail took her own life. When she thought of Abigail she thought of Mary, and that made the rising sorrow – and anger – in her throat clench tightly and grasp unrelentingly. Two suicides. Two wasted lives. Two wasted opportunities.

She stopped thinking right there and began to look towards other matters. She figured there were still boxes in her basement; since she had nothing else to do and didn’t want to wallow in misery about the past, she figured some cleaning would be a good way to clear her mind; so she stepped into the hallway connecting the pantry hall and the living room and marched over to the back door. Seeing it was unlocked, she poised her hand to opening it.

She withdrew herself.

A sweat formed at her brow dreadfully. Fear stung her, and she stumbled backwards on her feet, instinctively further away from the door leading into the basement. She stumbled until she hit a wall, and held her hand up to her forehead wiping away beads of cascading sweat.

Christ on His throne, the bloody hell was that?

Azreal gulped, unaware of what caused the dose of fright. She rubbed her wrist on her forehead again and stumbled back over to the door, deciding that she was just being silly.

It’s a door.

She opened it. Beyond was a set of about five stairs that lead downward until it hit nothing but pitch black darkness.

How fun will this be, she thought.

By the time she grabbed a flashlight, Danny had rung the doorbell.