Brutalist Stories #9

“Do you confess? That all this is too much for you? That you do not understand?”

He raised his head and caught her line of sight as she was turning away, but all he needed was that flash, that millisecond of contact to know what she saw. Him, and all that he had promised her, all that he had tried to do for her, all that he had failed at.

She walked to the back of the room and sat on the concrete shelf protruding from the wall, the light from the slit to her left cutting across her in a precise line, highlighting her powerful cheekbones, her ridged jaw. He remained knelt in the darkness.

Closing his eyes and gripping his fists he ran through it, every moment of it, always pursuing, always falling. You try and you fail. You try again and you fail. You continue to try and you fail. There’s the initial mistakes that can carry you for a moment. There are the fear and anxiety that pushes through your blood, holding you and giving you a second of respite. There’s the fatigue which you feel might give you brief interlude. There’s even chance, or luck, which you can seldom use, but still, sometimes it works.

Over and over there’s so much that is held on to and looked at with keen eyes and analysed with a weathered mind, but the hammer always falls. She looks down and she asks, “Do you confess? Do you not understand?” But what else is there? To stay knelt and in the darkness? To confess and watch her for the rest of time sit there in that shaft of light, how could I bear it? Staying still would be false, false to the promises made, false to the effort pursuing, false to all those failures endured.

He rose from his knee and walked over to her, taking her jaw in his heavy hand, raising her face and looking deep into her eyes as she said, “Well?”

“No. I understand,” he replied, turning away, walking and running his course fingers along the polished concrete of the wall. “I know I made a promise, I know what I have to bear, I’ll see it true before I see you stay there, sat in that light.” He held for a moment and felt her eyes on the back of his scarred head, burning the hard flesh. “No confession, not now,” and he stepped out to find his promise.

Building inspiration: The Spomenik at Kolašin