The Broken Hearted one..... comments encouraged

imasmeasmecanbe

Katy knocked once then twice and then opened the door wide to see the scrawny Paul, half naked crouching over an old leather suitcase. He wore a pair of blue denims he had long since outgrown; the torn and tattered ends crawled up his shin bones like ivy reaching towards the sun and he was using some manner of garden twine to hold them up on his meatless hips.
Paul Cohen was sick of the monotonous drudgery of his failed acting career. Audition after audition had gone down the drain along with his dreams, to this day if he thinks about it he can still hear the girls tittering “Good bye Paul, we’ll call you”, but no one ever did. Now as he packed everything he held dear to him into a stolen leather-bound suitcase he had a look of deranged determination about him. Paul’s soul had been yearning for something new, something unknown, something to help him escape his monotony. He was bored with the same the same places, the same friends, the same drinks and cigarettes. His life had become a play repeated daily and he knew it by heart. From when the curtain opens mid afternoon as he sits down to a breakfast of coffee, two sugars and a mysterious swirl of milk. Until the grand finale, stumbling home drunk and alone, he falls asleep on the top bunk with no one underneath as always.
Yes his soul had been yearning for quite some time and now at last his body had given in to its spiritual counterpart. As he left these fair shores that day he took his life in his own hands, heading out into the great unknown to carve a future from nothing and to make a name for himself in the vast expanse that is the acting world. He left that day with naught to his name but a stolen leather-bound suitcase and twenty “Johnny Blue”.
Katy stood aside and let the love of her life walk out the door, content in the knowledge that he would be back in a matter of days, weeks at the most. She got on with her own monotony. Waking, working and wishing daily. She spent her days hard at work in the local nursery school and trying to forget the man who walked out on her. She was convinced that if she busied herself with work and the likes that soon Paul Cohen would be nothing but a memory. Banished back into the realms of her subconscious never to be seen again. The days turned to nights, nights so cold and lonely that Katy daren’t breathe for fear of disturbing some sleeping spirit. Then the cocks call and dawns break heralded in another day of loneliness. These days and nights turned to weeks and months and the weeks and months rolled easily into the seasons and eventually the years.
It’s been five years since he stole her dead mother’s suitcase and left her in the lurch but at last the memory of Paul is exactly that to Katy- a memory and nothing more. Sitting on the top bunk that once belonged to him so many years ago she can hear the sheer Autumn winds whistle around the two bed roomed bed-sit they once shared together. The aluminum letter box on the front door angrily beats out the sound of a million undelivered letters in time to the wailing winds. An out of time flap and the sweeping of a letter on the wooden floor awakens her from her day dreams, she throws on an oversized dressing gown-one of the only remnants of Paul’s time in the house and saunters down the hall to the front door, crouching down she picks up the letter. Scrawled across the front in his familiar writing it says
Ms. Katy Flaherty
56 Beach Road
Sandymount
Dublin 4
Ireland

His handwriting as familiar as ever yet it seems to have something else to it now, an edge. It is more than just a collection of words on an envelope it speaks a secret language that only Katy and Paul could ever understand. Katy tears the envelope open at the seams and scrutinizes its contents, some sort of ticket and a letter. She reads it aloud to herself as Paul's voice swirls around her head like the wind about the house.


Grath mo chroi,
As the motion sick pirate once said, long time no see. How have you been keeping? I bet the village has gone to the dogs without me there to get drunk and protect its prestige. Please excuse me if I am skipping the usual formalities but I’m not just writing to see how you are and although any news from you would land like little drops of heaven on my heavy ear drums I must confess that I have ulterior motives. Do you remember that day I left all those years ago. Five years…. Can you believe that? Anyways remember what I said when I was walking out the door about how I was going to make a name for myself? Well I was going to try anyways and then I’d send for you to come and join me?
If you’re reading this then you have obviously already opened the envelope and no doubt seen the mysterious ticket. It’s a ferry ticket, Katy I want you to come and join me. I have a small place here in New York; I’m sharing a bed-sit in the East Village much like our own old dwelling with a friend I met at an audition. He’s moving out on Friday though so after that the box room is all yours, if you want it that is.
I know you no longer have any obligations to me or our relationship, they went out the door with me but please I never knew how good our monotony was and now as I am living the life I always wanted, leaving you is the one thing that I regret. Your face it dances as it haunts me and there is no amount of alcohol that can drown your ethereal presence.
Unfortunately I must be departing now; I have to go to rehearsals. Did I forget to mention that I got a part in a Broadway Musical? I did? Oh well there ye go everything’s finally coming together. I went to the liberty of putting my phone number on the back of the tickets so please call me when you have made your decision.
Hope to see you soon,
Paul

In a desperate attempt to recapture Paul’s spirit she raises the letter to her face and sniffs it. It is him. That unmistakable smell of cigarettes and whiskey but now cut with a hint of aftershave. “Aftershave”, she thought to herself- what in the hell was that mess doing wearing aftershave. The world really had changed him. Either that or he was subtly reinventing himself in the scrutinous eye of his new found audience.
Katy was now left with somewhat of a moral dilemma; this man that she hadn’t seen in five years was asking her to move to America to be with him. How could she be sure it was even the same man she had fallen in love with, not only was he making a name for himself in the acting business but he was also wearing aftershave. Aftershave!
She turns over the ticket and notes the phone number into her little black book. She’s going to ring him; she wants to and knows she should its just going to take sometime. How does she even start to explain to him that no matter how good there life was together she can’t leave her new life just for him? Did he really expect her to just pack up and leave at the first sign of news from him? Why did it take him so long to write? Maybe something had happened to him. How could she tell him?
It was over this last question that Katy was pondering while she sat down to a poor mans breakfast of jam and toast one dismal October morning. She had somehow managed to convince herself that it was the right thing to do. She rang him after breakfast. Ring, ring, ring- no answer. She slammed the receiver down and checked the number. Taking extra care to key in every digit correctly as she dialed it the second time.
-Hello?
-Paul?
- No sorry it’s his secretary. Can I take a message for him?
-Not really, I need to talk to him now.
-Well I’m sorry Madam but that’s just not feasible at the moment. You see Paul Cohen is a very busy man these days.
-I know but could you lease just yell him that it’s Katy? I need to talk to him now.
-Katy? Is this about the “Wheetamunch”, advert? We have made it quite clear that Mr. Cohen will not degrade….
-NO! My name is Katy Flaherty from Ireland, ‘Mr. Cohen’s’ first love. He wants me to leave my home and my life for him and I have to tell him that that is just not feasible at this present moment in time.
-I’ll pass on the message.
The pone went dead and Katy collapsed on the floor in an emotional train wreck. She cried deep dark sobs. She cried until her eyes hurt and sobbed until her chest ached. She now knew that the days of girls tittering behind Paul's back at failed auditions were over. He was now so busy that he didn’t even have time for Katy herself the one person that believed in him. He owed her everything and couldn’t make a few minutes for her to explain why they were ending. Why there was no hope for any future relations. She blamed herself for standing aside and letting him leave and he was so overwhelmed by his new playboy lifestyle that he didn’t need to blame anyone. He was glad that he left and built his life up from the dirty side streets. He didn’t need Katy anymore; he was in the worlds favour and there would be plenty more “Katys” for him in the near future. But it was over for her, her parting words from her one true love came by way of the same snobbish secretary she had left hers with. A simple “suit yourself”, was enough to erase all memory of her from Paul's brain. Now he is a superstar making millions a day, and she is alone on the top bunk with no one underneath as always-The Broken Hearted One

oclugg

Yaaaawwwwnnn....

supertramp

Well written, but the story was lacking ( for a guy's point of view).

Sorry for nit-picking, but why would he sleep in the top bunk, after staggering home. If I staggerred home I would be in no mood to climb a bunk bed.

Also, why is the character so upset about the secretary answering? The story said he didn't have time for her call. How would he have known she called if the secretary answered?

Your writing is very good though, the way you say it.

WunderGirl

I definitely like the style of writing but I too had problems with the secretary piece. I don't see why she would be so shaken by the secretary answering. Stranger, still is that if Paul had wanted her to join him, why he would give her a work number instead of his personal one? It seems a bit odd to give a work number to a person you are inviting to live with you. The letter was the only part that I thought could be cleaned up a bit. A few of the sentences are a bit awkward but other than that it's a nice story. Makes me wonder what will happen next - and after all - isn't that the mark of a good plot and writing? Hope to read more! Cheers ~ WunderGirl