APOLLO SLEEPS

Silvan Arown Elendal

The barrel of a gun was between his teeth. It was a large, dimly glinting black thing, heavy, deadly and cold. Apollo pressed the tip of his tongue against the end of the barrel, feeling the large round smooth bored hole that swift death would be delivered through. Apollo blinked cold sweat out of his eyes, long lashes blurring his already closed vision.

Death was staring him in the face, and it had dark black eyes and smile as seductive as a panther.

Apollo, aged six, standing on the banks of the little stream that ran through the field at the back of their house. The corn stems were gold, darker than his sun bleached hair, and waved in the breeze at waist level. Tanned bare limbs and a pair of dusty blue shorts. He dabbled his toes the clear running blue water and smiled to himself.

“Apollo!”

The little boy turns and half blinded by the low sun, raises a hand to shade sky blue eyes to see a slim girlish figure in a light cotton sundress with long wavy hair running toward him over the field.

That same girl, maybe three or four years older, in hipster jeans and a red t-shirt emblazoned with some American slogan. She stands, looking cooler than ice cream on the street corner by the lamp post with the other popular kids, the centre of attention with her long her and her green glitter painted fingernails. Apollo walks by, he’s grown over the years, his hair scruffy, in baggy shorts and a ragged t-shirt, skateboard under one arm. The other kids, older than him, sneer down their well shaped noses. Big blue eyes creep up to the girl, for maybe a flash of friendship, of recognition. But she has no time for her old friend now and turns away.

The sound of the hammer being drawn back. Click, click, click.

The face above Apollo moves out of his vision, the gun barrel slips from between his cracked dry lips, banging his teeth as the figure moves away across the empty concrete floor. A parking lot, dimly lit, the halogen tube above Apollo’s head was on a constant flicker, a tiny tinging sound filling the empty space between his ears. He could no longer think. Death was coming.

Apollo with his shoulder length blond hair neat and tied back, in a tuxedo with a single white rose in his tanned hand walks up a sweeping gravel drive his polished shoes crunching every step. He’s older now, seventeen and roguishly handsome as he knocks on the glass panelled door. It is opened by a slim boy with jet black hair who seems to favour black clothes, metal studs and eyeliner.

“Hey Apollo,” He turns round to yell up the stairs, “Elaine!”

He vanishes and the young Apollo glances up inside the house to see the girl with the long dark hair standing at the top of the stairs. Her narrow body is sheathed in layers of purple and blue silk, her haired piled upon her head, falling ringlets framing her smiling face and sparkling eyes. She descends, taking the proffered rose.

“You look gorgeous.” He tells her, and she smiles a charming smile.

Aged sixteen in a new black suit that is just too large, so he can use it later on in life, standing in a pew beside his father at the end of the row. A large pine coffin is being carried past, above his head. Head on one side, with his hair allowably messy, he watches the coffin enclosing the body of his grandmother go past. He wonders why he feels so very hollow inside. The feeling passes as he gives his father a shoulder onto which to lay his grief.

Standing in front of a big double doored fridge freezer, wearing boxers and air, hair over his eyes, eyes half closed, lashes dark against his molten gold skin. He seems to contemplate the contents of the fridge, the light that floods from it is all the illumination there is, showing up the slumped figures of at least three others in the room beyond. Duvets and cushions are scattered across the floor, intermingled with empty bottle and beer cans, crisp packets and bits of forgotten chocolate. Apollo takes a six pack from the fridge and shuts the door, and the gloom is complete.

There are groans as figures rouse themselves from half hearted hangovers to accept more alcohol. There is a the suggestion of a film and the nearest person to the television fiddles with a DVD in the unnatural dark. Someone rummages for the remote and the machine flickers into life. Wan light spreads tiny highlights across the party goers, hanging on to the feeling even in the early afternoon after the Morning After the Night Before. Apollo doesn’t pay attention to the film, but curls back up under the duvet he is sharing with the lanky goth boy, whose eye liner is rather smudged. This is Apollo’s house, so he and his favourites have command of the more comfortable furnishings, and he and the goth have the big three seater suede sofa to themselves.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The cars engine cools in time with the repeating seconds as the hands are drawn slowly around the clock face as the moment of death draws nearer and nearer. Apollo cannot think what he has done to deserve this. He made mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.

The figure comes back and the gun barrel is tapped against his closed teeth.

“Open up pretty boy, it’s almost your time.”

The barrel taps more insistently and Apollo looks up through his damp limp hair to the shadowed face of his tormentor. His best friend and this is where they are. He opens his mouth.

Apollo aged eleven playing computer games with his brother and a small boy with black hair.

Elaine slams the door behind her and rounds on Apollo, who stands, looking hung over and unshaven in the morning light. The set of his shoulders and the muscles in his neck give his age, an older student, almost finished with education. The girl is angry, her hair a mess.

“What did you think you were doing!”

She is screaming at him, but Apollo just stands there, not in the conversation. He watches her rage with impassionate eyes.

Will she leave this time, on top of all the others? Apollo knows he has done wrong, but it’s not his fault, he just wasn’t thinking.

Looking nervous in a black suit and a green tie, hands behind his back as he waits before a panel of official looking people, also in suits. Apollo stares at the toes of his over polished shoes and worries. He needs this job, something do to with words. It seemed like a good idea at the time to apply. Now he’s not so sure. One of the people in suits coughs and the ripple of heads makes a pretty sine wave from Apollo’s vantage point.

Apollo at school, head bent over his desk, nose barely an inch from the book, almost asleep on a Monday morning when a hand from behind taps his shoulder and a note is passed his way from the smiling girl two rows back.

At a party, his date abandoned in favour of his friends when something with blond hair and curves walks past and flashes bright green eyes his way.

His girlfriend standing over him as her comes slowly to realise, as the world shoots sharply into focus, that he’s done it again. There is another girl curled up naked against him in the bed.

There is a tiny noise of tension as the trigger is flexed, a little, then a little more. The figure above Apollo begins to laugh.

“Any last words?”

But Apollo can’t think of anything.

The noise of the shot ricochets around the underground parking arena and the sound of his limp body hitting the concrete floor has a finality to it that defies even the maniac grin of his captor. Blood, rich and dark, spreads to the toes of his shoes and suddenly he is horrified of what he has done. He begins to turn away.

Apollo, clean and fresh, lies on a vast bed of white silk, his hair spread out like a halo around his head, his gorgeous eyes closed, dark tan against the everlasting purity. Apollo sleeps.