On the Last Day

On the last day, at eleven o'clock, the sun stopped moving. It was
four-thirty before anyone noticed.

Around midday, Sophia quickly steps clack-clack-clack along the grey,
dust-scraped, gum-spotted pavement. The sky is blue and white. The air
is redolent with exhaust fumes, asphalt, and the smell of hotdogs from
a nearby stand. A pneumatic drill burrows into tarmac, timbre shifting
as it nuzzles deeper then pulls out, rapid tintinnabulation to sated
putt-putt-putt, stentorian woodpecker judder to teeth grinding burr.
Burr-burr-burr. Putt-putt-putt. Clack-clack-clack.

Sophia struts purposefully beneath the weight of an angled frown. She
wears a white blouse, a navy jacket, a navy shirt. A black leather
handbag bounces against her thigh. She swerves to avoid a boy coming in
the opposite direction, teeters, stays on course. She knows where she
is going. Sophia always knows where she is going.

Engines and long blasts of car horns like birdsong. The clip-clop and
pitter-patter of busy feet. Paving slabs are pitted, snapped, cobwebbed
with fissures that force her into an elaborate dance of crack
avoidance, all hops and skittish sidesteps. She does not like her
shoes. At first what she takes to be an exuberant shout, just a hail or
hi bursts in a radial pattern and blossoms into sharp-edged words, into
a dialogue with two distinct interlocutors, a male and a female. Sophia
stops. She looks up, pedestrians flowing around her like murky stream
water round a rock, sees that the voices come from an open window two
floors up. There is a green window-box fringed with dead flowers.

"Shut up!" It is the male voice.

"Why don't you hit me?" The female. "Why don't&;#8230;" Crying.
Sobbing. Boo hoo hoo. "Why don't you just cut me, or burn me? Why don't
you-"

"Shut up!" It is a torn yell. Sophia feels her larynx tingle in
response.

"Just kill me!" A clatter of something being thrown, something being
pushed over. "I hate you!" The scream is bloody and raw. "I hate you!
Why don't you just kill me?"

"That's enough!" The #@*! slam of a heavy door. That seems to end it.
Sophia watches a moment longer and two objects strike the edge of the
window-box one after the other, drop two floors and land pat-pat on the
pavement directly in front of her. The flow of people widens to
accommodate them. A pair of straw dolls, each as big as an adult
hand.

Sophia gazes at the defenestrated twain and her frown tilts to become
one of perplexity rather than burden. The dolls are rough, faceless
likenesses, bundles of straw tied into five-pronged stars, but they are
clearly male and female. The male has a blue and white checked shirt,
blue cloth trousers and a cap. The female has a blue frilly dress with
white polka dots. Sophia bends at the knees and picks up the female
doll. She stands up. She begins to turn the doll over in her hands. Her
thumb and forefinger can circle the waist. She glances up towards the
window. The argument seems to have abated. The flowers are still
dead.

Sophia leans over and picks up the other doll. She holds the pair for a
second, then places them in a windowsill, propped up side by side
against smeared glass. As she steps away, she realises she has a piece
of straw caught beneath her thumbnail. She pulls it free and moves to
toss it aside, but stops. A motorcycle with a broken exhaust pipe rips
past. She opens her handbag and drops the straw inside. The bag closes
with a perfunctory click. Sophia returns to her walking, but the frown
has faded into a mask of vapid inscrutability. Clack-clack-clack. She
steps on a drinks carton and it pops.

* * *

Anders sits drumming three fingers against the blue and white checked
restaurant tablecloth. The table is circular. He is sitting outside, a
restaurant umbrella above his head. A menu stands to rigid attention
within a perspex frame. It wobbles as he drums. The sound is like
galloping, like a three-fingered canter. Anders inhales through flared
nostrils and smells perfume. The scent is floral, defuse. It reminds
him of something, and the memory, though tantalisingly vague, is
unpleasant. He thinks that women should always buy at least two
distinct perfumes, and alternate which they use. And, he thinks, they
should use the perfume sparingly, not douse as if it were a disguise,
not scent as if to smother their spoor. He thinks if they only use one
fragrance, that fragrance may evoke negative associations within
potential mates. It may be the perfume of an elderly relative, or of an
ex, an unattractive lover. Anders hates to smell females approach. He
hates to sniff and know before he sees. His fingers rap harder.

Sophia rounds a table, rounds a waiter, rounds a standing bearded
diner. He watches her pull out her chair, sit, draw the chair in. He
waits. She looks up at him. The napkins are folded like hats, like
paper boats. Anders reaches across and presses the blue arm atop his
the chess clock. The white hands of the face nearest to Sophia begin to
tick like a cricket as they move. She draws breath slowly.

"So&;#8230; have you ordered?" she says, staring into the
tablecloth. She presses her side of the chess clock arm. The hands on
her clock face stop, those on Anders' start. The ticking seems louder.
Anders rubs at the corner of his eye with an index finger. He lifts the
menu, looks at it. He puts it down.

"No," he says. He presses the chess clock arm. The clock ticks.
Tick-tick-tick. Sophia watches the hands. She worries at her forehead
with her fingertips. She can hear the clut-clatter of crockery being
stacked, the tink-rattle of cutlery. She remembers to breathe in.

"How about a coffee?" Her middle finger drops onto the button. Now
Anders is ticking. She arches her back, places her palms flat against
the table. Her fingernails are painted pastel blue. Her knuckles are
almost white. Her fingernails have been chewed. The skin around her
fingernails has been chewed. She chews her lip.

Anders chews his lip. He peers into the round glass ashtray in the
centre of the round table. The brown squashed butt of a cigar capped
with grey ash.

"Yeah&;#8230; okay. What are you having?" He presses the
button.

Sophia shrugs. "Cappuccino." Anders' clock starts again.
Tick-tick-tick. He leans back, looks about him, half-raises an arm
before catching the eye of a waiter. The waiter crosses. He has no
moustache. He has pink, glistening gums. He is tall, and the tendons
stick out on his neck. He nods, but no words.

"Cappuccino," says Anders. "Cappuccino." He and the waiter stare at one
another for a moment. Clut-clatter. Tink-rattle. Tick-tick-tick. "Two
cappuccinos." The waiter nods and wheels round in a flurry of blue and
white checked apron. Anders looks round at the chess clock, then raises
the heel of his palm and gradually lowers it onto the button. The
button clicks as it sinks in and the one on Sophia's side rises.

"You like cappuccino?" asks Sophia. Her countenance is still an opaque
Rorschachian blot, an unreadable stain. She touches the clock. Anders
allows his head to wilt forwards until it rests in his right hand. He
heaves out an ultimately quiet sigh.

"I don't feel like talking," he says, and with his left hand presses
the clock. Sophia, scratching her head, looks away. She looks
back.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she says. She reaches for her button then
hesitates, her fingers hovering a whisper's breadth from its surface.
"I think we ought to." She presses the button.

Anders shifts backwards in his seat. He adjusts the collar of his
jacket. He wears a navy blue suit, a navy blue tie, a white shirt. He
wears a frown, a hesitant frown, a headache frown.

"I'm not in the mood," he says. He taps the clock with the flat of his
hand. He does not tap hard enough. The button remains up. He taps
again, harder. Sophia's side begins to tick, the white hands begin to
twitch. Her white-knuckled hands begin to twitch. She lifts her palms
from the table, steeples then threads her fingers, brings them close to
her chest as if imploring then slides them apart, returns them to the
table. She slides them to the table edge, starts to drum her fingers.
They do not drown out the chess clock.

"Anders." She stops drumming. She looks at him now, holds the gaze. The
skin at the corners of her eyes is pinched and creased. "We need to
talk." She continues to stare as she pushes down the button.

Anders turns his head askance. He rose early that morning, shaved
early, left while the streets were still cold and quiet and frail. He
knows his face is coarsened with stubble. He has run his palm across
his chin, glimpsed his reflection in the perspex menu. Diners gabble
and murmur. He can smell gravy, very rich gravy, and cigarette smoke.
He can hear engines and car horns, and a distant pneumatic drill. He
can hear people hurrying, he can hear high-heels against concrete.
Clack-clack-clack. Burr-burr-burr. Putt-putt-putt. Clip-clop.
Pitter-patter. Tink-rattle. Clut-clatter. Tick-tick-tick. The sky is
blue and white.

Two cappuccinos arrive. Sophia remains staring at Anders. Anders turns
to his wide, white cup, hooks his index finger through the handle,
lifts it to his mouth and sips. He places the cup back down onto the
saucer. He takes a sachet of brown sugar from a silver dish, tears it,
pours it into his drink. He takes a white plastic stirrer, stirs the
sugar in. Sophia is staring at him. He places the stirrer in the
ashtray, then lifts his cup and sips again. He lowers it back into the
saucer, looks straight into Sophia's eyes.

"I love you," he says. She is staring at him. "You really upset me." He
strokes the white handle of his cup with his fingertip. "You&;#8230;
I am ready to give up. I have a lot of strength but I am ready to give
up. There's only so far I go and then I will give up. That is just me."
She is no longer staring at him. "Sophia?" She is no longer staring at
him. "Sophia!" He looks from her to the chess clock, then to her, then
to the clock, then he slams his fist down on the button. Sophia is
distracted. She is gazing into the sky. As if in a dream, she lowers
her head, looks at him. Her expression is troubled. She glances at her
watch. She looks up slowly. She looks around her. She looks at
him.

"What time is it?" she asks. She presses the chess clock.

Anders is staring at her. "You're a bitch," he says, each word
deliberate, each syllable an artefact he spits. He places his palms
against the blue and white checked table cloth and gets to his feet. He
turns and walks away, the surface of his cappuccino quivering. Sophia
watches him leave, rises as if to follow and then sinks back into her
chair. She can say nothing. The surface of her cappuccino quivers. The
chess clock ticks.