Accurate Intervals – Short Fiction

Edmond was ready to kill himself, and for an indecisive person like him, it was quite an achievement. He lived in an unimportant city on the Mediterranean coastline, where the warm nights lingered lazily only to become harsh boiling days. But he didn’t care much for the days, since he was sound asleep. He worked nights as a clerk in a second rate hotel. He sat behind the reception desk for eight hours, serving drunken walk-ins that were looking for some midnight action with imported Russian hookers. He looked like a young Max von Sydow behind that desk – a frozen expression of numbness. His tormented soul just stood in line, waiting to be extinguished. But this was not Sweden, and Edmond decided he could no longer wait.
The clock ticked in its never-ending boredom. The pendulum was swinging back and forth like a hanged man. The small green lobby was empty, and only the cheap smell of recently cleaned floor was ever-present, hovering above the lobby like the Holy Spirit. Edmond gazed at it with a blank stare. He sat still behind the desk. Dark circles of sleeplessness were hanged under his eyes, making him look even more grotesque. He wore a cheap suit and a cheap tie, and a nametag. The walls were thin, and the paper walls were flowery, trying to give a fake European chic to a dying establishment. Edmond hated the hotel, but more than that, he hated himself for not quitting his job. He worked there for ten years, since he was twenty.
Edmond walked to the back room which was a windowless cube. Sets of drawers covered the walls from the floor to the ceiling, making the room to appear even smaller. Edmond opened one of the drawers and reached for a hammer. He climbed up a small chair so he could touch the ceiling. He took a nail and a metal loop out of his pocket, and started to hammer the loop into the ceiling. He banged the nail in accurate intervals, like the rhythm of the pendulum clock. As he finished attaching the loop to the ceiling, he got off the chair, and observed his creation for a moment. He went back to the front desk, and pulled out a rope he carried in his bag. He made a noose in one end of the rope, and tied the other end to the metal loop. Everything was ready now. Edmond sat on the chair in the back room. The noose was above him. He closed his eyes and thought about his mother.
After a few moments Edmond climbed up the chair. He put the noose around his neck. The adrenaline was rushing through his veins as he felt the rough touch of the noose around him. Then he heard the sound of the entrance door being opened, then a giggling couple, then the reception bell rang.
An old bald man and a young hooker stood in front of him at the reception desk. The old man smoked a cigarette, and used the floor as an ashtray. The hooker was a beautiful tall blonde, with strong cheekbones. She wasn’t Russian like the rest of them, and her gaze made Edmond feel uncomfortable, like she was trying to penetrate his shell. He pretended to ignore her, and gave the old man a room. The couple went up the stairs, leaving Edmond behind staring at their crooked drunken walk. He was staring long after the couple disappeared to their room, trying to postpone his doom as much as he could.
The hooker reminded him a girl he once knew - a tourist that stayed in the hotel for one week. He had always imagined what he would say to the beautiful tourist, but he never did anything. He was silent and afraid and never had the courage to say tender words, especially not to a girl that he thought was better than him in every category. Then the tourist left the hotel, and Edmond wished he could leave too. Stillness was his great enemy, but tonight it would change. Tonight he would check out for good.
Edmond went back to the noose, and tightened it around his neck. He heard the old man and the hooker having sex in the room above him. He shifted his legs back and forth a few times until the chair dropped sideways on the floor. The sex was getting rougher and rougher on the bed above him as his face turned red. The thin ceiling started to move up and down, in the rhythm of the sex, making his legs touch and not touch the chair. The old man was groaning hard as he reached his peek, and at that moment the metal loop dropped to the ground, taking Edmond and the noose with it. Then silence. The old man and the hooker ceased to exist. Edmond was lying on the floor, hearing the lobby clock in its usual beats.
It took him a few minutes to recover and go back to the front desk. He was confused, neither happy nor sad. The hooker went down the stairs, glowing like a Swedish movie star. Edmond was captivated by her walk and the sound her high heels made upon touching the floor. She left the key at the desk and started to make her way out. At the last second she turned around and stared at Edmond. Her gaze made him completely naked, defenseless, like she knew about his false attempt. The Pendulum at the lobby was frozen. She moved her lips without uttering any sound, saying, “Inte än! Inte än!” Then she turned around and left the hotel.
The clock went with its endless movements as Edmond climbed up the stairs to the room of the old man and the hooker. The door was half open. He knocked three times on the door, but no one answered. Silently he sneaked into the dark dingy room. He didn’t see anything in the darkness, but he smelled sex and death, passion and disgust. He turned on the lamp to discover the poor old man lying naked and frozen on the bed, with a smile on his face.
The next day Edmond went to the local library and looked for a Swedish dictionary. He found out what the woman said. He went back to the hotel and quit his job. He was happy because he knew it wasn’t his time, and what the angel of death told him was soothing and sweet – “Not yet! Not yet!”
Edmond considered traveling for a while, but he couldn’t decide where to go. He often took long walks along the seaside, listening to the sound of the waves. Then he thought to himself, “If I could only live and die in accurate intervals, like the waves, like the clock… To be invincible and free without feeling guilt about my meaninglessness… To stop being afraid… To stop being afraid… Then maybe to fall in love…” Then he got hungry and forgot it all.