Mr Metus wore sludge coloured corduroy trousers that, in his current starched position, affected wavering edges. He was a man who mirrored his life with exceptional precision, as though this is all he cared for; slippered flamingo feet, agoraphobic clothes, an uncared for and deeply lined face like the terrain of the earth (which he did not care for either) and eyebrows that furrowed so far that the only light of the eyes one could see was the blue flickering flame-like fear. Every line on his forehead pointed desperately to the dull bodied book he had clenched in his clammy hands.
Mr Metus’ eyes were a microcosm of his entire brick-walled world. At a quarter past 12 in this afternoon he was positioned in the sturdy oak chair in the corner of the library, above him hesitated a shelf of brass ornaments- cultural collages of places he had never dreamed of exploring- and above that was an atmosphere of aged sludge-coloured books. There was enough information here to hold the world -and yet in Mr. Metus’ indoor mind- nothing of the earth. He was engaging every last fibre of his being into one of these books; it was teaching him of angles and depths to his 2D world.
The semi ajar, black iron barred window facing opposite Mr. Metus invited a chilling breeze from the skin of the fresh snow and yet barred the jarring white light of the day.
Mr. Metus tapped his toes to the monotonous beat of the grandfather clock and allowed his neck muscles loose enough to loll his head at a composed angle to his book. Although he dressed as though to become the library, his starch presence no-less set the books and shelf on edge; a pendulum of fear.
Beyond the black iron bars, into the land to which Mr. Metus never influenced; silence rang far louder than inside, echoing off the frost and icicles like an interminable bell. The cat sat in the ivory blood of the snowflakes, a myriad of colour against her dull surroundings.
Bound hard back books leaned at an obtuse angle to each other and sighed. Mr. Metus’ dead skin cells and bacteria casually decomposed themselves on the books faces while the silence gutted the warm room and the man read.
Like a virus the damp of the snow pressured the cats coat and clawed its way into her fur, uncomfortably she tried to lick it off but realised it may be simpler to just go back inside.
Today he had chosen to read an anthropological account of a journey from early American pilgrims to present American society, it was because last week he had read a geographical account of America and wanted to expand his horizons. His tapping toes remained in synchronicity with the only other sound in the room; the grand-father clock, together inviting a tribal beat that uncomfortably and eternally remained in its intro.
Like a heavy cataract the cloud began to dominate the clear sky and crush the landscape below as if it were the training ground beneath a soldiers boot. The sun and the warmth had been diluted and stolen and the cat easily reasoned going back inside.
In the outskirts of Mr. Metus’ concentration the library suffered a plethora of events; the atmosphere was being stirred like a cauldron by the air inviting itself in through the agape window, the ceiling was being pushed inwards by the cloud outside and every book was pulling away. Further still on the outskirts of Mr. Metus’ concentration was his own skin stretching, blood pulsing, muscles tensing and eyes being sewn closer down to the brown pages.
A disturbance of grey indents followed the cats sodden shadow like a stalker: a stranger rudely closing in on her personal space. She wormed her way back across the vast garden and pounced at the window ledge like her prey, coiling her spring body through the gap in the glass and down the other side into the hot, cramped library.
Neither the books (shifting slightly at the weight they dealt each other), nor the shelf above Mr. Metus’ head, nor the brass ornaments perched on it, nor the air in that library welcomed the cat, in a way that was as though her damp coat paralleled the elements and detonated the stasis. Everything watched her as she slunk across the floorboards to Mr. Metus’ side of the room. Everything inhaled at the sight of her tigers eyes sizing the angle from the floor to the shelf and filled their iron lungs further with the sight of her coiled predators body.
Mr. Metus on the other hand tapped his toes and read, tapped and read, tapped and read; a pendulum. His slippered flamingo foot balanced over one knee. He was briefly thinking about his past, interludes of fond indoor memories between the knowledge he sapped from his book.
At a half past 12 in the afternoon the cats damp, catastrophic body fired like a gunshot onto the shelf above Mr. Metus’ head. The backfire caused merciless spasmodic ripples of justice to convulse the shelf ,erupting the roots and suspending its body and brass ornaments in the air for the longest time Mr. Metus has ever spent in utter gutting fear, and then it fell; deafening the sound of the grandfather clock and shattering the stratosphere circling his head. The shelf was vaulted at his skull in a harpoon-like determination. His fabric body flopped pathetically. His head was slung at a strange angle to his book. His flamingo foot had stomped and rooted itself in the floor where the wet rubies could fall down his agoraphobic brown clothes, crying from a gaping scarlet cave like a mouth in the top of his head. His slimy red eyelids had glued his flickering fearful eyes closed and his mouth opened as if it to speak for the first time, but all the air had escaped through the gaping wound. He was a man who mirrored his life with precision.
vignettes 