RAVONSKI

Not even the smell of the piss-stained stairs could detract from her beauty. Emerald eyes, check. Flaxen hair, check. She had everything I hated in a woman. But together, somehow, it worked.

I strode further into the underpass, eyes locked on her form. Her top said ‘Street Stylez’ or some such across the chest. “A sure sign of a moron,” I used to say, but not now. In the flickering gloom of the underpass it all made so much sense. She lit a cigarette with the grace of a dolphin riding a swan on a lake of caramel. I was lost in her magnificence.

Her every step created a bright spark of brilliant colour like an angel walking on white-hot coals. Yes, her trainers had lights in the heel, but the effect was nonetheless captivating. I followed my eye up the lines on her tracksuit leg until I reached the slither of cream flesh peaking out at the hip. A dash of colour marked the area and my mind raced with possibilities. A rainbow? A unicorn? Both? My mind melted with the thought of one day seeing it in its full and glorious state.

Graffiti adorned the walls. Scrawled epithets that will one day form all thinking on our fallen society. I knew not what they meant. Who is ‘Baz’? Or ‘Faze’? Where are they now? What is there message? All of these questions and more were eclipsed by her radiance. 

And then, as she came close enough to touch, she spoke.

“Give us ya wallet”.

The heavens themselves could not have conjured such a pure and mellifluous tone.

“Oi, prick! You wanna get cut?” she sang.

I could not believe my luck at having met such a divine creature, let alone being privileged enough to communicate. In the absence of any words worthy of her presence I smiled and held out my hand in a universal gesture of good will.

And then I transcended.

Time, space, colour, sound, smell, and touch intertwined, swirling around me in a vortex of ecstasy and delightful pain. I could only just make out her parting words as they played out like the final notes of an unfinished symphony.

“I fuckin’ told you! I fuckin’ warned you, yeah?”

The underpass fell dark. My soul escaped. And she was gone. 

Goodbye my sweet. Goodbye.