Nyx / Νύξ

COLLECTIBLE SOULS (928 words)

Welcome to COLLECTIBLE SOULS.

Here you will find fragments of stories about the old gods that still walk among us today.

Some are benevolent, some are cruel, others are purely selfish, but in the end, they all take what they need to survive.

Photo credit: pexels.com

Evi follows Kostas out of the convenience store and into the twilight. She watches him lock the door, his fat fingers fumbling with the keys just as they fumble with the buttons on her denim cut-offs, the clasp of her bra. No matter how many times he performs a task, he never gets any more competent at it. If she had the energy, his ineptitude would irritate her, but as it is, she just accepts it.

Like the store they work in, theirs is a relationship of convenience. Kostas is Evi’s boss, 16 years older than her, slightly overweight and extremely antisocial, but he brings the security of an apartment and a paycheck. Shacking up with him had seemed preferable to living with her alcoholic mother. It was supposed to be a base to start from, rock bottom, but she’d stayed there.

Evi’s friends tell her she’s too good for Kostas. They don’t have to—she knows it. But at 22, she’s already too tired to pull herself together. She knows she shouldn’t write herself off so soon, tries to remind herself that life is a gift, but it seems like a sentence she has to endure.

Kostas fumbles with the keys to his apartment too, and Evi examines the peeling paint of the corridor wall so she won’t have to watch. Inside, the apartment is cramped and dingy. They order takeout and watch TV. She regards his hand like a spider as it creeps closer to her, up her thigh. They brush their teeth, relocate to the bedroom, clumsily shed their clothes. It’s mechanical, always him on top, her underneath, and the result is always the same: he comes, he sleeps; she feels nothing, and then lays awake. Evi thinks of it as an exchange, just another one of her duties, like cashing up the till or restocking the shelves—something she must do in order to keep her dull, miserable life ticking over.

When Kostas begins to snore, she gets up, steps into her knickers and pulls on a Metallica T-shirt that’s hanging on the back of a chair. Silently, she pads across the cool tiles, slides back the door and steps out onto the balcony. It’s one of those summer nights when the air is still heavy and warm at one in the morning.

Evi picks up a packet and a lighter off the small table. She lights a cigarette. Inhales. Exhales.

“Kalo vrathi.”

Evi starts, almost dropping her cigarette.

There’s a woman on the balcony of the vacant apartment next door. She’s leaning on the rail, her back to the city. She’s stick-thin and deathly pale, but the hair cascading down her back is thick, lustrous and as black as night.

“Hi. Have you just moved in?” Evi asks.

“I’ve always been here. This”—the woman waves a hand to indicate her surroundings—“is my home.”

“Your family own this place?”

Evi’s never met the landlord. Kostas deals with all that.

The woman smiles at her, but doesn’t answer.

Evi proffers her the packet of cigarettes.

“Want a smoke?”

The woman clicks her tongue and tilts her head back: the universal gesture of refusal.

“Don’t smoke?”

“Sometimes I do.” She leans forward, conspiratorial, her hair framing her face. “Sometimes I set fires and watch them burn in the darkness. That’s the thing about the night—it covers all manner of misdeeds, and no one notices anything is amiss until it’s too late.”

Evi’s eyes widen, but she isn’t intimidated by the woman’s unhinged talk. On the contrary, she’s drawn to her. Something about the recklessness in the woman’s eyes calls to Evi, whispering of all the things she could have been if she hadn’t shackled herself to this mediocre life. Evi doesn’t want her to go inside and leave her out here alone.

“Would you like to see?” asks the woman. Without waiting for an answer, she places one hand on the balcony rail then vaults over it. Evi doesn’t see exactly how. She seems to move like water, flowing from one place to the other.

They’re close now, cramped together on Kostas’s sorry excuse for a balcony. Evi’s chest is tight with anticipation as the woman leans towards her, but she only plucks the cigarette from Evi’s unresisting fingers, and takes a long drag. The end glows fiery orange in the dark, and the light is reflected in the woman’s eyes. Then, she touches the burning tip to the cheap synthetic curtain billowing out of the bedroom door. Evi makes no movement to stop her. It catches immediately, the flames spreading with terrifying speed to the rug they hadn’t bothered to put away for the summer, Evi’s crumpled clothes, the IKEA furniture.

Then, horrified, Evi watches as the woman pushes her body inside, looking small and pathetic now in its oversized T-shirt. The woman swiftly steps back and slides the door closed. Evi utters a small cry, watching the shell of herself tumble to the ground, flames licking at her clothes and hair.

The woman glances at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Ti?” she asks. “It’s what you wanted. You called me here. You asked me to do this.”

Not in so many words, perhaps, but Evi knows she’s right. This is what she’s been longing for: an easy way out.

The woman flicks the cigarette over the rail and it falls, turning end over end through the darkness. She holds out her empty hand.

“Ela,” she says. “There’s nothing left for you here.”

Evi nods, takes the woman’s hand, and lets the darkness consume her.

Thank you for reading!

Do you have a story of a forgotten deity you want to add to the COLLECTIBLE SOULS INDEX? Check out this post for details of how to be a part of the project.