Read Online L (and Things Come Apart) by Ian Orti - Free Book Online

bed.
    Henry ran his hands under the water. “This whole marriage is sad.”
    â€œNo Henry, just you. You’re the only sad thing around here.”
    Maybe, he thought. He was hers to loathe, hers to see off every morning with the stale breath of a lover’s pipe or fresh with another’s when he returned home. He was glad to be away from her, and maybe she knew it.
    As water cascaded from the faucet, he swept her voice, and the last fragments of hair from his head toward the sucking drain.
    His eyes rose to meet their reflection in the mirror. He was tired. It was in his eyes. It was in his whole body.
    In his sleep he dreamt of waking life and awake he slept with eyes wide open, watching himself from outside of his body and listening to himself speak as though he was being spoken to. In his mind he had the energy to leave, to take L with him, to run out into the street and stand together beneath the falling snow just for the sake of it. But his body, his limbs, his heart, they would never comply.
    His breath was short. His eyes were heavy and void. There was a beauty in the eyes of others, but not his own. His eyes spoke only of something missing. Of a life gone wrong. Of a boat steered negligently into a cliff. In the lines, it was all there.
    â€œWill you stay?” L asked him. “It’s getting worse out there. And I think it’s too late to get a taxi.”
    Henry looked outside, the railings, fences, automobiles, all the jagged surfaces of the city sunk beneath mounting drifts of snow. “I don’t know.”
    L turned Henry to face her. Slowly, she unbuttoned his shirt, pressed her hands to his chest, and ever so gently, L sunk her fingers deep into his chest, deep below the flesh, cutting through the tissue, and with soft hands she pulled out his heart.
    â€œDo you love her?”
    â€œI don’t know what that is.”
    L moved closer to him. Leaned her forehead against his as both looked down at his heart cradled in her bloody palms.
    â€œNature is cruel. It lets nothing live. Seasons change, songs end, books close. Even your heart will stop beating because eventually it won’t be able to bear anymore. Everything dies. Even love.”
    â€œDo you believe that?”
    â€œI wish I didn’t.”
    His heart lay quietly beating in her hands. Then, with great care, she placed it back in Henry’s chest, and slowly pulled her fingers from his ribcage.
    â€œStay Henry. Stay one night.”

21
    â€œHOW IS YOUR GARBAGE COLLECTION COMING ALONG , Laplante?”
    â€œIn pieces. But fine, just fine, thank you Lachaise. I see there is a pocket of sunlight in the corner you have not yet obstructed.”
    â€œI plan to, Laplante, but not before you inspire me to do so with a few of your pirated excerpts.”
    â€œThere are no pirates here, Lachaise, just ordinary people doing ordinary things.”
    â€œI was referring to you, Laplante, stealing pages from the streets.”
    â€œBut these pages belong to no one.”
    â€œThey belong to the person who wrote them.”
    â€œAnd not the person who found them?”
    â€œAnd I’m to honestly believe you found them? You, Laplante? The lying liar of liars?”
    â€œIt’s no wonder you spend so much time alone.”
    â€œYour cruelty inspires me, Laplante.”
    â€œWas this conversation going somewhere?”
    â€œIt was before you decided to start insulting me.”
    â€œIt was you whom began the insults.”
    â€œIt was not you, Laplante. You I can tolerate, mostly. It was your hobby I was insulting.”
    â€œRight, right. Then where were we?”
    â€œRight here.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œOrdinary people doing ordinary things.”
    â€œOrdinarily, I would read you nothing Lachaise, only because you appreciate nothing and are therefore entitled to nothing…”
    â€œYou are tender, Laplante.”
    â€œâ€¦Yet the more I read, the less