THELMA MANTEY

Parched

Nothing’s changed, the music, the heat, the crowd. Veins tremble with the ground, swollen to the point of bursting, blood roaring through. The air’s imbued with sweat and dreams. The bass—a god, answering prayers.

I have no reason to come. I know there’s nothing here but people, their desires, their fears, nothing here to find but bodies, vanishing and appearing in the stroboscopic light. You’re one among them, body, desire, fear, swaying with the music. I didn’t look for you. We’ve both stopped coming here long ago, the speakers pounding a rhythm of oblivion we’ve long since given up seeking.

I prowl, observing, blind. Water condenses on the glass in my hand. A woman offers me a drink. Later a man. The walls vibrate, pupils dilate, time passes.

I leave. The air outside—shock, relief. Bright daylight, though it can’t be later than 4 am. Cruel summer. It strips us off the darkness, the comforting gray of our furs replaced by their true, gaudy colors, hurting the eye.

I don’t wait. I’d light a cigarette, but I’ve stopped smoking. You come, pulling a leather jacket over your soaked shirt. It clings to your skin; your ribs show through. Your shoes are wet from spilled alcohol, your eyes free of surprise. All words have been said.

Before the taxi’s windows, the city passes by, a city still hours from waking, a city we once belonged in.

The car dumps us at my place like the pieces of night trash we are. You stare at one of the parched trees lining the street; it hasn’t rained in ages. “They are all dying.” Your voice—as parched as the trees, familiar, unnecessary.

We climb the stairs in darkness, swift, sure-footed. Your fingers brush the walls. They shudder under the touch.

Inside, I leave the lights off, too. Your eyes flick to the switch, lazily; you don’t reach out. You never do. Your face: pale, bags under your eyes, pupils huge. The smell of the places we left behind clings to our clothes, filling the gap between us.

I close the curtains to lock in the monsters. Other than that, we don’t waste time. Your body never seems to change, girl, boy, something in between, breakable. You never give. I always take. I don’t trace the scars on your skin. I know, most are not my doing.

Body, desire, fear. Nothing to find but what is jumping at us from behind parched trees during the day, and creeping into our dreams at night, the things that always find us.

Later, I’ll open the window. The vestiges of your presence will have seeped into the crevasses of the room, my skin. It will take weeks for them to fade. I’ll light a cigarette, inhale, slowly, feeling the smoke fill the void.

Below, the city stirs.

Thelma Mantey is a Berlin-based author. She writes literary as well as speculative fiction. In both, she’s foremost interested in the darker side of human nature, notably toxic relationships. Her dark, queer fantasy novel Ocean’s Blood will be published in late 2023.