Ablution (first draft - worth a second?)

Blush_01

I see: In the shower tray you watch the water twirl and stain, the red diluted and spread but still twisted with pure, clear. A single drop of vodka-tainting cranberry (tainted vodka) then more and still more until your glass is flooded with red and nothing invisible remains. (This is the loss of innocence.)
I see: Wrapped in a towel and shock, you pick up the phone. You dial and when I answer - hang up. (I would have come running but your voice that had been growing stronger with each cell, one at a time, must surely have been muted.)
I see: Your mouth shapes the words and they fall from your eyes rather than your lips as your broken face leaks for hours, your knees held tight to your chin. (You are a curled kitten, injured on the sofa, spilling into the cushions. When I get home it will be done, we will be done, I will be done for. This footstep has fallen harder than the ones that fell before. The imprint on our final faces of steel-toed boots will be unsurprising. We will be strangely calm.)

I see this unfurl before me in a cup of coffee alone at 11, by the canal where we had arranged to meet at 10. I can feel your words as they spill down my face until a river tears my chin in two and my skin feels pebble dashed.

I ring home and get the answering machine. Your sobs break the happy chirp of "leave a message" just before the beep.

shiv

Definitely worth a second draft.
I like the repetiton of the 'I see.' And the brackets work.
Love the image of words falling from eyes, and like the lines 'still twisted with pure, clear' and 'wrapped in a towel and shock.'
The footstep falling harder line also moved me.

I like the removed narrative style.
I do think you could flesh it out a bit more, just to give the reader a better idea of what's going on. The flashes work, but they need to be pulled together a bit more.

Very intriguing.

Blush_01

Thanks! It's a workshop piece from yesterday, and as time for the exercise was short, that's all I could get. I'll work on it (some time! ) and post whatever comes next.