Albatross

By Ana Linden

There are no villains and no heroes, only people caught in a pivotal moment of their existence. Nothing is absolute, no one is only good or entirely evil. One’s life course can be deviated in an instant, and choices are often made instinctively, unconsciously, not only rationally, under socially acceptable terms. Imperfect, damaged characters struggle with their duality and evolution. Their reactions are the product of violence, physical and emotional abuse, neurosis, depression, but also of love, hope and melancholy. Fear is what they all have in common.

The past leaves visible painful scars, which determine present behaviour varying from melancholic introspection and nostalgia, to escapism, claustration, hatred and violence. Some of the characters portrayed in the six short stories are deeply marred by trauma and fear, but also motivated by hope and love. Understanding and forgiveness are part of life, just like murder, rape, deception, crime and punishment.

Ambivalence is prevalent. Violence can bring people together as an act of love and support; but its victims rarely stand a chance to thrive. Betrayal can make a relationship stronger; but the people it separates don’t always find their way back to each other. Childish simplicity is magical, but deconstructed childhood myths lose their charm, and not all children have a chance to enjoy a carefree life, protected by their parents. “Albatross” is a world of lost innocence, populated with common, complex people torn between their dual nature and the relativism of their values. Even behind ghastly, mortifying acts there are relatable reasons, and the focus is on those weaknesses and feelings triggering such behaviour. Existence is a balancing act and everyone is one false move away from disaster and darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ana Linden
• Release date: Jun 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463897300

Ana Linden

Ana Linden has a BA in Foreign Languages and Literature.

Book preview

Albatross

By Ana Linden

Published by Ana Linden

Copyright 2018 Ana Linden

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any way without the author’s permission.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Also by Ana Linden:

Parallel Lives

Glass Slippers and Stilettos

Table of Contents

Albatross

Grey

Neighbours

Us

Mother

Freedom

Other Books by Ana Linden

Connect with the Author

Albatross

He closes the notebook and places it on her desk without a sound. His fingers linger on the cover. It's soft and for a second it seems to emanate a surreal, magnetic heat… just like her skin. Then a gust of wind blows the light white curtains, bringing in birdsong and a faint smell of jasmine, only to leave the curtains deflated a moment later, in their usual limp, lifeless position. He's back on his feet, roughly pushing the chair and the carpet underneath.

Ten years older and tired, that's how he looks this morning. His eyes meet hers as she stands in the doorway, blankly observing him. Her back presses against the frame, her entire being reluctant to feel the shiver of his touch or that current of heavy air displaced by his sudden moves. His eyes pin her there. Her eyes are calm and vacant, but somewhere deep sparks a glimmer of satisfaction or fear. She realizes he sees her either for the first time or for the last.

He turns and leaves without a word, his eyes finally letting her go. His hand seems to brush against the hallway table in a ghostly fashion, picking the car key. Walls shudder as the door closes behind him and she can finally allow her lungs to exhale and relax, breathing freely.

There's nothing worse than a good man – a good man who thinks it's enough to be a good man.

She touches the words on the first page, fingers taking in the essence of their own writing. Has he started with the first page or has he pried right in the middle of her inky thoughts? The purple leather binding still preserves the heat of his hands in those places where he grasped tightly to his revelation… to her real being. Has he only read this one or have his eyes glanced over her whole naked person, spread on the pages of several colourful notebooks?

Screams follow screeching tires and that metallic thud heard at least once by all city dwellers. Some have experienced it personally and survived to be haunted by the memories. Minutes later the sound and flashing lights of an ambulance flood the room, replacing the now silent birds. Curiosity pulls her to the window. She sees the crumpled front of the van that failed to avoid the driver's side of a small convertible that was probably attempting to turn into the main road. I have a car just like that, she can't help thinking, watching them pull out an inert, bleeding body from the driver's seat.

These things happen every day…

The curtains hang still, covering closed windows. Enough with that stale, humid early summer breeze... She takes in the familiar smells of her home, fresh linen and coffee… and something else…the roses in that vase on her desk need fresh water, she remembers. She breathes in her home and her life once more, free and relieved, thinking of that car looking just like hers.

It wasn't me today.

*

The ancient mariner started it. A mysterious kind of passion took over her every time she was talking about something she had read and had provided her with some sort of eye-opening revelation or confirmation of her own thoughts and values. He loved to hear that fervour in her voice, even when he neglected to notice he had stopped triggering it. Buoyed by her memories, she was telling him about the albatross and the cursed mariner in a poem she had read as a child. First she paused before naming Coleridge as its author. But he didn’t notice. Then later at home, she proceeded to look up the poem, only to discover her memory had rudely betrayed her. Ode to the Ancient Mariner was Rime of the Ancient Mariner and she felt time starting to work at unravelling the rich tapestry of her memory. But he didn’t notice anyway…

Purchasing that first notebook and walking home with it made her understand how it must feel to have the albatross slowly begin to loosen its grip and slip from around one's neck, she remembered.

She started forgetting because there was no new experience worth remembering, and those old ones were starting to slip away from her dull, predictable, mechanical existence… that existence into which he charmed her with promises of love and security. So those first words wrote themselves in a purple notebook, removing the burden of denial pressing heavily on her lungs, refusing them the air they craved.

Perhaps there weren't any more new experiences worth remembering, but there had been. All those moments, thrills, revelations, laughter and tears were inside her, they were her self – a self she would not allow to vanish. Instead they would fill colourful notebooks. They would live again. Tears would smudge their ink and quiet laughter would blend in with the noises of the small home office, that space belonging only to her.

She would live again.

*

He presses the pedal furiously, as hard as he can, making the small sports car growl loudly and pointlessly. Fingers clutched on the gear shift whiten from pressure, still angrily undecided. Once more his foot presses the pedal, producing no other result than lots of noise. How fitting… With one violent move, his fist seems to punch the car into gear, this time the engine roaring with power and determination. The old red, somewhat feminine, convertible screeches its tires and makes its way into the main road with surprising precision and speed, blatantly ignoring everybody else. How fitting he should be driving her car, instead of his own brand new, elegant sedan…

*

A man like him asks you to marry him, you eventually say yes. There's nothing else you can do. But what you don't know is that by sharing your life with such a man, you stop being alive.

All trespassing signs are gone from the cool, air-conditioned room. The aroma emanating from a steaming cup of coffee she carefully places on her desk blends with the lily of the valley scent of the air freshener.

Words, feelings and tears she didn’t know still resided within her were sprawled on several of the purple notebook's pages before she knew what she was doing. One by one, lively moments, heart-breaking and heart-warming memories floated to surface. They had been pushed somewhere deep down in her being with an incredible force and determination she had no idea she possessed, or rather she hadn't suspected could also be used to that particular end.

The wife wasn’t always a wife. She used to be a person at one time. She was a girl, she was a woman, and she explored. An adventurer who jumped without looking, not waiting to be caught, learning and devouring every new thrill… and there were new thrills at every step, there was pain and there was happiness. I know it, I remember it well. I remember it because I was her. But now she is me, and I don’t know who she is.

Closing her eyes, she inhales that powerful coffee smell, only afterwards rewarding herself with a sip. She doesn’t need to read the words in order to see herself at her desk, in a blue summer dress, writing them down like a woman possessed. Not yet, at least. Just because they had been put on paper to prevent blinding forgetfulness and to awake the dead, that doesn’t mean their time has come. They don't need to jolt anything or anyone back to life, because the simple process of letting them flow freely restored the power to live again. She had yet to lose that will and memory… and now he knew it too. There was curious joy in it.

If you let it, everything gets stale. Even a first kiss. All that emotion, fear and anticipation that used to make it a unique, rewarding moment, are now gone. How many times have I not wondered if I was going to be kissed, fearing that I would, dreading that I wouldn’t? That back and forth, when for some reason you can't really tell if he wants the same thing, if he shares your fears and emotions, that’s just magic. Most experiences pale in intensity in the face of two pairs of innocent lips getting closer and closer, while they speak words nobody hears… will they finally touch or will eyes meet, will heads turn away, rejecting before being rejected, pride taking over? Then they eventually melt together, finally realising the other has desired you all along. At no point do you feel more wanted, more aware of who you are, what you represent, while getting lost in the other person.

Only later can you understand, that is not the beginning, but the end of everything magical. You can only have so many first kisses. Then they are just kisses. The faces behind the lips become nameless and irrelevant. It didn’t take long to learn how to read their looks, their gestures, their thinly veiled emotions and desires. It took even less to learn how to trigger them, how to be in control and offer myself who I wanted. All that fooling around, the game, the pursuit mixed with bluntness, that kept it all new and exciting for them. Keep them on their toes, right? That's all well and good for them, but how about me?

When something new wears off, all you can do is provide yourself with something else, replace it with a new and improved version. What they don’t tell you is how jaded and bored you become, how you reach a point when nothing is new anymore and you're sick and tired of trying. Just because you struggle to remain who you are while reinventing all the experiences you can offer them and yourself, that doesn’t mean anybody else will bother to do the same for you. So all lips taste the same. All bodies become boring, uninteresting, identical, no longer a source of delight and discovery.

The frantic search began. So did the stories. In order to know what she craved, she needed to remember what she had had. From all that, what was worth re-experiencing? Aside from all that… what was left for her aside from all that? Then there was the future… what she envisioned was a distant future, a time she would have lived, no longer able or willing to wish for yet another something new or attempt yet another one more time, one more try. In some nondescript space, she would sit comfortably, tea cup in