Bryce Hara-Crockford
Her flat was on the second floor. A man was watching her balcony from a bench in the park below. He was well-dressed in expensive linen clothing, doused in cologne, and wore an obnoxious pure gold Rolex. He watched for a sign that she was home. Her balcony was the only one with custom, diamond-shaped fencing over the railing, most likely an enclosure for her cat. In the top corner of that fencing was a section that had fallen off its supports and slanted inwards, such that the pigeons could perch there. The man waited for some time. He didn’t mind at all. There was too much going on in his life at the moment; however, unlike most people, work was not a concern. He was on the board of directors for his parents’ munitions company and needed to do very little. It was his private life that weighed on him: his wife was distraught by the recent revelation that he was seeing this other woman, and his best friend’s sister had just passed away. It was only a matter of time before the man would have to pay for his role in that event. He’d have stayed sitting in the park forever if he could, even with two children screaming behind him, fighting because the older one refused to share the game on his phone. Yes, he’d rather that than have to think about his problems. Luckily, he had the alluring woman on the second floor. Sooner or later a sign would come from her and he would relinquish all responsibility. He needed that his next actions were of no consequence.
The younger of the two children started to cry. Peering over his shoulder, the man saw that the older boy was holding the game up too high for the other and drowned out his brother’s wailing with the pops and dings of his entertainment. The game’s flashing lights and incessant noise reminded the man of The Big House. He and his wife had gone there with some friends to celebrate the New Year, and it was there that he met his mistress—this woman. While his wife mingled with the others, he’d caught a look at the woman’s beautiful legs, which had escaped through a well-placed slit in her dress. Other than those legs, it was hard to pin down what the man even liked about the woman, but he watched her intently all the same. She jumped between the same two pokies: a wild west machine and a travel-themed one with a beckoning cat. She slapped the main button again and again with a stiff, no-nonsense motion. There was something about this woman and her mindless behaviour that tapped into a based desire within him; the way she gambled away hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes without hesitation; the way she either failed to notice or simply ignored the rest of humanity who counted down the final seconds of the year; the way she had no motivation in her eyes to win but just to feel the machines spin again. Later that night, before the man and his wife were leaving, he found himself waiting outside the bathrooms next to this woman, who was in line for a nearby ATM machine. That was when it all started.
The man blinked and an hour went by, and the midday sun had shifted some degrees closer to the horizon. Those noisy children were gone, replaced now by a silent reader. The pigeons came and went like shift work, and it was only now that the man had noticed the ginger cat on the balcony. It watched the birds silently and never dithered its gaze from that opening in the fence where they perched—not even when the woman came out to get some fresh air. She looked as if she’d just woken up, still wrapped in her suggestive nightgown and wearing an expression of laboured alcoholism. She scanned down below and met his gaze, motioning him up with a finger. The man rose from his bench and made for the flats. Though built with brick, the building had a strange inability to contain the smells of its resident’s cooking inside and, so, it smelled as if each floor had its own restaurant somewhere down the hallway. This may not have been such a bad thing if not for the flies that it attracted. There was never any escaping their incessant buzzing around as one ascended the stairs. The second floor had only one inhabitant—the woman—and, so, only ever smelt like Thai food. He always visited the woman on a full stomach because he could not handle the spice in her cooking. He once watched, mortified, as she sweated and teared through a bowl of somtum, and wondered how in the world she could find that delicious. He hadn’t eaten with her since then but that wasn’t the point of their meetings anyway. Despite knocking a number of times, there was no answer at her door. He turned the handle to find the door was unlocked. The woman was not one to worry. She was waiting for him on the couch, with her crossed legs in full display as if her nightgown was a curtain drawn back. And, so, their plans for the day began on the couch, before eventually migrating to the bedroom.
He woke up around dusk. Facing away from the woman, his first sight was not of her but of the ginger cat on the balcony; he could see its silhouette through the sliding glass doors. What little light that remained was hued in a velvet blue matte and all shapes and figures around were bathed in it or by shadow. He could tell the cat was still looking up. There was a pigeon flapping its wings inside the balcony’s enclosure, trying to fit through the opening in the fence. It had wandered in and found it could not go back. The man watched, half expecting it to figure out a way through, and half immobilised by his semi-conscious state. He watched the bird fall to the floor, and saw the cat approach, but he still believed nothing would happen. It was only when the cat pounced, did he fully realise—the round silhouette strung out into a vicious tendril that coiled itself around the hapless pigeon. There were no details to make out but it was clear the cat had made a kill, and it was clear that it had begun to eat. The man rocked his mistress awake and pointed her to the scene, asking if she could believe what they were seeing—what should be done? But she didn’t care. The pigeon was already dead, and she wouldn’t have to feed the cat now; instead, she jumped him with a kiss. All thoughts of the balcony disappeared as they embraced again and, when he woke in a daze a few hours later, a midnight darkness had veiled the entire balcony. An unfamiliar voice croaked. It sounded like an old lady. Her voice, sounding of airways filled with smoke, pleaded for some money. She insisted it was for her bills. She promised there was no food left to eat. The man, feigning sleep, came to realise the woman was on the phone. After a moment of talk, the old lady gave profuse thanks for ‘the help’ and ended the call. With a tired sigh, the woman left the room. The man waited, frozen by his confusion and fear, until the front door opened and closed, and the air went completely still.
The man turned on the lamp on the bedside table to find the cat staring up at him. His mistress was gone—so too was his wallet. He got a scare when he turned around to find a face looking back at him, a framed picture of the woman’s son. There was gore on the balcony: a decapitated pigeon, with most of its insides thoroughly excavated, surrounded by a mourning party of its own feathers. The flat was dead inside. Sensing he must have imagined the old lady’s voice, the man went after his thieving mistress. Food aromas wafted around the stairwell as usual but unaccompanied by any flies. The man spotted a large spiderweb at the bottom of the stairwell, littered with those missing flies that were now part of the spider’s cooking. As for his mistress, he knew where she’d be: The Big House. He found her as a haggard old woman. She was in her usual spot at the travel-themed pokie machine with the beckoning cat. Her hands, now wrinkled and trembling, still slapped at the button with mindless conviction. The man wasn’t sure what he was seeing: sure, it was her, but had she always been that way? He couldn’t much remember now. She saw him and paid no mind. Even when he approached and confiscated his wallet from her purse, she ignored him. There was no point in arguing, his wallet was already emptied of all its cash and she had already lost it all to the beckoning cat. The old lady walked away, angered by the man’s unlucky and overbearing presence. They’d had their fun and he should leave her in peace, she cursed; grumbling as she left the man to wake from his bad dream. His credit card was rejected at the bar—he should have expected as such. He grumbled his own curses to the woman and left The Big House, wandering aimlessly through the night until he got a call from his wife. She asked for a divorce.
Bryce is an aspiring writer living in Brisbane. He comes from a scriptwriting background but recently started writing stories in a more traditional format. Bryce is drawn to writing with symbolism and prefers not to worry about realism, stemming from his love of new-wave cinema styles. His goal is to write meaningful stories while avoiding an air of preachiness. Other than writing, he is currently studying psychology and would like to pursue a career in creative therapies.
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