Two

One night, he had a dream. He was waiting in an abandoned train station. He was dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit, with black wingtips polished to perfection. By his left side, resting gently on the cracked green and red tiling of the station floor sat a beaten leather suitcase. In his hand he held a silver pocket watch. It had red and black numbers which seemed to melt ever so delicately down the face of the watch. The hour and minute hands were missing, and the second hand seemed to move at an impossibly slow rate. He watched it carefully for several perverted seconds, and then slipped it into his right hand coat pocket. While he had no idea who or what he was waiting for, he knew he could not wait much longer. He looked around the crumbling station, saw its rotting cross beams high overhead, smelled the dead smell of abandonment, and heard the eerie memory of steam whistles as long since arrived trains pulled in. He took his watch out of his pocket and noticed that the numbers had almost entirely melted away. He was running out of time.
Away in the distance he heard the shout of a whistle. His heart beat faster and he felt a sudden flurry of excitement, although he could not say for sure where it came from. He ran to the edge of the platform and looked out onto the ruined tracks to see a long black steam engine limping towards its destination. It arrived impossibly fast, and he ran back from the track and waited eagerly for the passengers to disembark. The station filled with steam and the doors to the passenger cars opened silently. He waited, patiently clutching his beaten leather bag and breathing quietly through his nose. She walked out of the train and onto the platform, dressed in a black knee length pea coat and simple high heels. The steam obscured her face and he struggled to find an angle past it. She walked towards him slowly, clutching a loose leather suitcase in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. Her face remained obscured by the steam. He walked towards her, rabidly searching for her face, until finally the steam enveloped her completely. He ran to where she had been standing last, but all was steam and rotting wood. A breeze whipped through the station, chasing away the fog and leaving only a man in a blue pinstripe suit.
When he woke he did not remember the dream, although he did recognize the bitter taste it had left in his mouth. He turned over in bed and fixed his gaze upon the empty pillow beside him. His dream came back to him in a short hiccup and was once again lost, as dreams half remembered usually are. He sat up and stretched his arms high over his head. He looked about his bedroom and was surprised to notice the lack of humanity present in it. While it was true that there was a human (himself) present within the room, it was also true that the bedroom he had slept in for the past year or so was devoid of humanity. The walls were painted an off white, the floor was a standard hardwood of no particular value, his sheets were cream and his quilt a light blue. Absent on the walls were the framed paintings of Monet, Dali his mother had given to him; absent were the maps of France and Canada he had stolen from a bookstore; absent were the subtle touches he had so readily taken advantage of. He lay back in bed and shifted onto his left side. On his nightstand sat the dried out skeleton of an orchid a woman had sent him. As he recalled, she had sent a letter along with it. It had come in a plain white envelope and inside had said the usual things a fan of short stories and poetry would write. At the time he had received it, it had not meant more to him than any other letter. The orchid had been a lovely gesture however, and in return he had sent this woman an original poem ‘for your enjoyment only.’ She had not written back.
He stepped out of bed and found his tattered, yellow bathrobe. Delicately, yet with a sense of strange urgency, he put on the robe and waded out into his kitchen. He stopped and looked around himself, his eyes fully open for the first time since the death of his fish. The condition of the kitchen was deplorable. Hiding amongst wrappers and half eaten sandwiches he saw cockroaches scurry and earwigs slink from one crumb laden home to another, searching for the perfect residence, for the perfect crumb. He became disgusted with himself, and felt a lump of self pity form in his throat. The thought of self pity however, transformed this thought into the much more manageable emotion of self loathing.
He walked to the sink and reached up towards his cupboard where, hidden in his stack of unfinished writing, lay the letters that served as his only contact to the outside world. They were relics though, for he had not felt the need to hear or speak to the outside world in weeks. He carefully opened the doors of the cabinet. Slowly he slipped his hands inside and let his fingers grope around for the familiar feel of paper. He felt something smooth and cold and realized he was touching the fishbowl. His fingers followed the perfect curve of its glass downward until they came to a soft rest on a large pile of neatly stacked pages. He carefully brought them down. A stack of letters he had kept sat on top of his work. He plucked them off and gingerly set his writing on the countertop next to the sink. Staring at the letters, he walked to his kitchen table and sat down. He slowly read the names on the envelopes, one by one, until he found the name he was looking for.
Ophelia Glass.
He said the name quietly to himself, afraid that someone might hear. He said it again, this time louder. He opened the envelope carefully and read what she had written him. Her handwriting was strange, a rare swirling calligraphy that suggested refined habits, and yet it was just rough enough to taste flakes of tobacco and shots of gin. He closed his eyes and sighed. He longed for her company, longed to hear her voice. It was certainly not out of the realm of possibility to meet her, but he knew that this would be a mistake. The Ophelia he imagined would never be the same Ophelia that had written the letter. He felt another lump of self pity and loneliness creep into his throat, and this time he let it stay. He folded the letter up neatly and placed it back into the envelope. He read her name again. Ophelia Glass. He said it aloud again, tasting the syllables as they fell out of his mouth, Ophelia. Ophelia Glass. He needed her; he needed Ophelia Glass to be real, to be with him, to love him.
With a sudden movement he lurched away from the table and back into the kitchen. He found a pencil and grabbed a piece of paper from his stack of unfinished work. He began to write quickly, creating her as best he could. He wrote about her rough past; how her father had been killed overseas and her mother, a starving artist, had given her to an orphanage. He wrote of the terrors of the orphanage and her subsequent escape. He wrote of her teenage years of her time spent in libraries reading every book she could get her hands on. He gave her individuality, a fiery spirit and a passionate heart. He described her dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, her long slender frame and femme fatale style. He poured everything he had left into Ophelia Glass, and when it was gone, he collapsed like a limp doll onto the trash covered floor.
He lay on the floor for quite some time, soaking up the coolness of the kitchen tiles until finally, he opened his eyes. Ophelia Glass was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at him with a bemused look on her face. She sighed and smiled.
“Oh my dear, you have done quite a nice job creating me, although I think I would have preferred green eyes to blue.”
He stood up and adjusted his bathrobe.
“Sorry about the apartment…”
She laughed and crossed her legs. Her laugh was elegant and tainted with a hint of smoke. He coughed and sat down next to her at the table.
“Yes well, messes can be cleaned up,” she said “so let’s not dwell on it.”
“So…I could give you green eyes if you’d prefer,”
“No, no darling I was merely pulling your leg is all. Blue is quite a charming color I believe. Now, I think that introductions of sorts are in order, don’t you?” He nodded. “Good, I’ll start,” she cleared her throat and stuck out her hand. “Hello, my name is Ophelia Glass, how do you do?” He grasped her hand and shook. “Nice to meet you Miss Glass. My name is Eli. Eli Mersault. Have we met before?” She laughed, “Perhaps once.”