Off the Shelf Experiences

Part one of a short story
Just how short I have no idea yet, I'll just keep adding chapters here until the story decides it's been told.

eManul
chapter 1: displacement

Words are the end result, not the start.
Black mud, at the end of an unknown journey, on cuffs and shoes, spread by clawing fingers across cheekbones - but the story must be seen first, before the words black mud are told.

With no idea what he was doing here beside the railroad tracks, looking at his own hands, petrified, staring intently at his own filthy fingers, his mind crashing frames of unrecognized memory. In there though, repeating, is one fleeting image distinct from the rest. It is very much like a small animal scurrying in the dark, knowing it is neither wanted or will ever be accepted. Diseased and unclean, no, he will not fix his mind or his senses on that thought.

His jean pocket is black around the stitching, and ripped at the corner. Something must have been stuffed into it hurriedly, with force. Something important surely? He tries to slide his hand in, but slumped over like this he can barely manage to penetrate the hole. The body shifts without control, a leg bends but the foot gets no purchase on the ground. The pieces of him are tenuously held together, he uses the rough form of his ripped cloths like an exoskeleton, without which all shape would be lost.

Neither a rock nor a person, more a sad heap of unclassified existence.

The urgency to stand up, to move, is intensifying. The need to know is thumping its way down lines and across connections, but the noises are getting louder in proportion to the answers that can't quite be heard. He reaches out and grabs a foot rail, he jams his leg against the metal track, then with all the determination and strength he can find, heaves himself to his feet. His higher aspect is met with a sudden blinding headache that knocks him out of his body in waves of magnifying pain. He wants to cover his ears to stop the constant ringing but both hands are completely engaged in defying a sharp return to the ground. The colour of the light ricocheting from surfaces and edges around him streams relentlessly into his nakedly open eyes, while the intoxicating heady mix of tar, grass and dust bombards his nostrils.

In the distance a bell rings, which signals the end of the round to this fighter, who mercifully slumps back into his corner. Consciousness like a discarded leaflet blown against a lamp-post, will soon be carried far away from here. Instinctively drawing from the deepest root of survival process in his cortex, he stretches stiff fingers to reach his phone, to press a key for help before slipping into a frightful sub-reality. Dark and twisted are his nightmares in a falling, rotating and repeating night of the souls torment. Images of decayed youth speeding through time's destroying virus. Pleasure and beauty horribly warped with intensified contrast, consuming hope and spewing out despair.

The deserted body lays for what seems like half an age, before finally lights and a soft, stressed voice filter reality back into the veins.
"Curtis, Curtis, oh my god Curty..."
In the back of the Police car she cradles him tenderly, and the stream of courageous waiting tears are finally allowed to run free. Constantly re-wrapping her arms to touch every piece of him in reassurance of not being lost anymore. He knows only that there are two arms and a lap-belt around him.
Doctors speak words about shock and delayed sensory response, tests are postponed to allow purging of the blood by the body, cranial impact has not been ruled out so he must stay here under observation this night. She sits beside him and wont let go of his hand.

"Babe give me a hand with this, I've dug most of the roots out and it still won't shift"
"Alright Curty, I'm coming"
"Hey you got soil on your cheek.."
"Where?"
"There" laughing as he puts it 'there' with his finger!
"Oh I see, well you got some on the back of your jeans you know?"
"really, do I now?"
A giggling and grabbing battle ensues, and she does get those hand-prints on his butt, but she also gets some of his on hers too, and more on her T-shirt right over her boobs. They end up laying on the grass, she's on top of him as the laughing slowly goes quiet.
As he looks up the sun shines through her hair and shapes the cheekbones that he loves to follow with his eyes, he sees her eyelashes like a slow motion capture, fall and take flight again. Breathing in her aura feels like undressing her, while her soft breathless sighs beat the air surrounding them. She bites her lip, his engines roar, with swelling animal power inside him. The music of the moment gradually weaves and unfolds all the tender shades of passions anthem, some of their past mingles with some of their future and the amphetamine effect surges down the fuse wire igniting explosive sensations. Bodies roll against each other, wrapped closer and tighter together creating an intensified chain reaction already racing beyond their control. She grabs his clothes just before they lose balance at the very edge.
"Baby, the neighbours"
"Shhhhhh"
"oh, you, I"
Cut short by his searching kisses, intoxicating her responses in clouds of confetti petals.
She catches the dancing colours and holds them to her chest, in the shaft of space between them. Lips open and still, he tenderly reduces his tasting teases, through the lingering bars of melody. Then heavy half-closed eyes are suddenly washed open with a blow of fresh air from her mouth. A blink and re-focusing finds the depth of her stare where they meet each other, and converse in intuitive words that could never be written or pronounced.
"Lets go get cleaned up Curty, you can scrub my back in the bath, I've got a real achy spot just under my shoulder"

She gently wipes a line of mud off his cheek, its her tears that wet his face, as the long night claws at his lifeless form, tubes mechanically seeping dark fluid in and out.