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It was time to leave.

It was still dark, the rain was falling cold and heavily outside, it unleashed its anger against the window pane.

. The room felt damp and depressing.

Anataalie wrapped her cape closely around her, and tied a scarf tightly over her long thick hair

.She opened the door and the cold air rushed in the somber room, making the old magazines to fall from the coffee table.

She looked over her shoulder as she went out quickly.

Yes, he was sleeping; she could not help but noticing the dark circles around his eyes, and the deep lines at the corners of his mouth… He moved in his sleep turning back to his dream, his body curved like an embryo, he was still crying in his sleep…

She felt pain to see him this way, reduced to be another fatality of life. He had come to her to mend his wings; he needed to feel that he still had his freedom within him.

Yes indeed it was time to leave, 7 am, he would wake up soon.

She walked firmly and closed the door behind her.

She climbed down the stairs of the small building in which she had rented a studio flat in Paris, in anticipation of her meeting him again. It has been so long since they had met. So very long.

She shivered. The rain was freezing on the street of Paris; she quickened her pace as memories flashed through her mind. Her feet were so cold, she had forgotten in her hurry to put on boots and her shoes were flooded with the grayish rainy water.

It had been five years since she saw him last. Vie Fatale was about to be for both of them in Paris. Living through survivals.

As she turned the corner of the street, a woman in her fifty grabbed her by the hair and put a knife to her throat shouting in a strongly accentuated American accent:

"Where is he?"

Anataalie felt the stabs in her chest, one after another, seven times until she lost consciousness as she let herself slide into the warm inertia of the spent blood, she felt gushing out of her wounds.She collapsed on the pavement.

As she felt the life slowly ebbing away from her body, she saw him standing besides the middle-aged woman, smiling and taking her by her thick waist, they looked such a vulgar pair.. She heard him telling her:

"Nice job Barbara. She meant nothing to me, nothing at all…"

Memories of their meeting five years ago flashed through her mind. She should have known better. But it did not matter any more. Her mind was taking her down through the web of the memory lanes of him and her both, one bead at a time........

 

One bead at a time, the words echoed painfully through her heart.

 

One

bead

at

a

time.

 

 

Excerpts from VIE FATALE

By Rahman,brigitte arlette- all rights reserved.