The Trail.

Alice was getting ready for the evening. The black coffee she’d made earlier was slowly cooling in the pearly white ceramic cup. She was brushing out her amber locks, staring at herself in the mirror. Rowan was sitting by the window and watching her every move. He knew in his heart that this evening would be just like all the others but he tried to hope for a different outcome. He wanted to stand up and walk over to her, put his arms around her, feel the warmth of her body, but he knew she wouldn’t like that. It might irritate her.

‘Ok, I’m ready. Is there something we still need to do or get?’

‘No, we’re good. Come, sit by me and have a breather,’

Alice looked at him suspiciously but did what he asked. Rowan put his arm around her waist and they sat there for a while in silence. He saw it as a good sign. She was next to him and not running away.

Smoke and conversations swirled within the room. People were squeezed one next to the other so that they could hear what was said over the noise of the music. Alice was mingling with everyone. She floated through the room saying hello to people and asking them very direct and targeted questions that demonstrated how much she remembered about all of them. Meanwhile, Rowan had found one conversation partner and stuck with her. Diana was a timid girl with shiny eyes that reminded him of photos of guilty puppies. He was trying to come up with interesting topics to discuss but could only pull a few sentences from her on each of them. The only thing keeping him going was that he had taken one of the bottles of whisky and was pouring himself drink after drink each time his glass was about to be empty. Throughout their conversation, he kept watching Alice who was chatting away casually to a man he didn’t know. Rowan didn’t want to admit it but he couldn’t look away from this scene, from the way Alice was talking to someone else, touching his arm when laughing, showing her interest in him; an interest which Rowan thought belonged only to him.

The parquet floor was sticky with spilled drinks and, because of the din, Alice couldn’t hear the cosy squeak it created when people walked over it. While she was talking about the current rise in dangerous nationalism with Henry, an incredibly good-looking man, Rowan appeared at her side seemingly out of nowhere. He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. Henry gave Alice a slightly baffled look because she blushed. She couldn’t think of what to say and it seemed as though Henry realised he had wasted his time here. Alice felt uncomfortable and said she’ll go for a smoke on the balcony to get some air, once again disappearing from Rowan’s grasp. Clearly he had been right in thinking that this evening would be like all others. As always, Alice was running away from him, making him feel like his company was repulsive to her. This happened every time they were out in public at social events. Alice seemed to constantly seek out other people to entertain her and, unfortunately, most of the time those people happened to be men. Rowan would be angry, would break up with her, if there wasn’t the other Alice.

The other Alice told him that she loves him and when they were alone together she stroked his beard softly and whispered the nicest things to him. Rowan was unable to leave that woman because he loved her so much, even if her alter ego hurt him so deeply.

Now he once again found himself face to face with a random man who looked at him not with envy but with a slight grin, amused and feeling pity for him. Rowan felt humiliated and left without saying anything. He didn’t understand if Alice was doing this on purpose. He had brought it up with her before but she had always successfully changed the conversation to something else entirely.

The party came to an end when a faint trace of sunlight could be seen from the window. The last ones left stumbled out of the flat, drunk on alcohol and socialising. Rowan sat on the bed and was looking outside the window at the quiet scene in the garden. A light wind was moving the tall blades of grass while the trees stood firm. Alice came into the room and smiled at him.

‘Let’s go to bed.’

This was so concise that Alice hoped that Rowan hadn’t noticed that she was feeling awkward and didn’t know what to say. She knew that he had definitely noticed her behaviour tonight. However, Alice was trying to reassure herself that she had done nothing wrong, that her behaviour was out of her control. Rowan was important to her. He loved her the way she had always wanted to be loved, but her heart was trying to escape this love every time it saw an opportunity.

‘I hope you had fun tonight,’ She said as she got into bed and put her hand on his back.

‘Why do you always run away from me?’ Alice was not expecting a confrontation just now. Rowan looked broken and she had a strong urge to give him a hug, yet she refrained. ‘You won’t even hold my hand.’

‘Rowan, stop. That’s not true,’ She took off her nightrobe and threw it on the floor. Rowan’s clothes were on the floor too, feeling abandoned, waiting for someone to show them care. Alice pulled the fluffy blanket around her and waited for him to join her and embrace her as if nothing had happened. However, Rowan stood up and went to the living room.

He poured himself another drink and smoked cigarette after cigarette trying not to think about how cold Alice was, how distant she felt even after all these years together. Alice was sleeping deeply when he returned to the bedroom. He lay down and stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come, wanting to wake up to a different reality.

*

When Rowan opened his eyes all he could see were trees; a sea of brown and green stretching out before him. He felt the rough dirt beneath his feet and listened for any sounds but it was eerily quiet. There was a putrid smell in the air. It hit him suddenly and he placed his hand over his nose and mouth. As he turned around, he realised there was a sign behind him. It was a plain wood plank with an arrow on it, pointing in the direction of what looked like a guided nature trail. Despite the fact that he was confused and anxious, he moved towards the path, as if he knew that there was no other way to go.

He walked for what felt like hours. The path seemed never ending, all the trees looked identical. Rowan knew that if he strayed away from the trail he would never find it again. The sky didn’t seem to change, it remained a shade of in-between dawn and dusk. Finally, he noticed something in the distance. It stood out against the monotone colours all around him. Whatever it was, it glistened bright and pink. As he got closer, however, the colour changed, becoming more and more grey. Rowan stopped in his tracks when he could finally see what it was. Placed on a tree stump on the side of the path were a pair of breathing lungs. However, that was not what shocked him. Attached to those lungs was a mouth. The mouth was screaming. A silent scream that could not be heard but with every breath the scream was palpable and sent out a plume of smoke into the air. Rowan moved closer and smelled the unmistakable scent of cigarette smoke in the air and despite how repulsed he felt, he couldn’t help but wish for a cigarette at that very moment. He reached out his hands to touch the slimy surface of the organ that was doing its best to keep up with the breaths of the mouth but the moment he touched it, it vanished.

He knew he should be horrified, that he should panic, but instead he felt calmer than he had in a long time. He knew that something about this was right, that he needed to go on and see what else this trail had in store for him. The forest no longer seemed frightening. It seemed to offer the answer he had been so desperately seeking. Once again, Rowan had to walk for a while before he found his next answer. On a wide and mossy rock he saw a liver. It had been pink in the distance but, just as before, when he approached it, it slowly turned a shade of yellow, shrivelling into something grotesque. Rowan tried to make out what was on it. It looked like there may be holes in it or a pair of buttons sewn to the tissue but then he realised that there were eyes on it. He tried to stomach the scene. The eyes stared at him desperately, pleading, and tears fell from them, trickling down over the dying liver. Rowan closed his own eyes and reached out his hand to touch it. He wanted it to disappear just like last time. And it did.

Something about those eyes had shaken him, because he realised that they looked just like his own. He had heterochromia so it had been unmistakable. This felt like more than he bargained for and he started to realise just how important it was that he was here.

His steps became more cautious. As much as he wanted to know the rest, it was still a lot to take in. The message was already clear but he felt like he was not done just yet. He knew that it would be obvious when he had reached the end.

The object stayed red and shiny even as he got closer to it. It’s as though time stopped when Rowan knelt down before the tree hollow. Inside there was a human heart, beating with all its might. It was held in the palm of a hand. With every beat the hand seemed to squeeze the heart a little tighter. Everything around him was still quiet and the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat and it seemed to match that of the heart in the hollow. The hand started to contract harder, fingernails digging into the tissue of the heart, leaving specks of red under them. He recognised the hand from the cigarette burn next to the middle finger which he had gained after a night of particularly heavy drinking. The hand kept squeezing until the heart gave out, sending splatters of blood against his face as it surrendered to its fate. As it let out its last beat, Rowan felt like his body gave up on him. He stumbled back and fell to the ground. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes were the treetops which seemed to reach up to the heavens themselves.

*

Rowan jolted awake. The clock on the wall told him it was midday. This made sense given they had only gone to bed as the sun was rising. Alice was already up, sitting by her vanity and drinking coffee. She looked at him and he could tell that she had been crying. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face slightly puffy.

‘I think we need to end this,’ Her voice broke and Rowan could tell that for a moment there she had wanted to take back what she had started to say, ‘I think I need to let you go.’

He thought he would become agitated, beg her to reconsider, but a kind of serenity had taken over him. There was nothing he wanted to say so he was quiet for a moment, noticing that Alice was waiting for him to speak, so he said the only thing that he felt.

‘Thank you.’