Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

is struggling to fit his heart into her chest, so he helps her, pushing and pressing until the heavy trembling organ remains in place, knotted beneath a net of veins, and then, together, they close the opening and seal his heart inside.

When they are both shut, her heart in him, his heart in her, they embrace, she so small, so delicate in his broad arms. There is no weakness to him; her heart has made him stronger, for all its tender fluttering. Eve, too, grips tighter than he has ever known her to, as if she might sink into his skin and become him, return from whence she came. Eden’s bright sun sinks, and Eden’s silver moon rises, and as dusk becomes night becomes dawn becomes day, the snake coils around them both, tighter and tighter, like rope, until they are bound so closely together that Adam no longer knows where he ends and she begins.

I

Cinema still seems strange to Adam. He’s always been a great admirer of literature, but he still struggles to get his head around moving pictures. The problem, he thinks, is that he’s too used to the ambiguity of naked words – the way that he’s allowed to be the director of the story when he’s reading it. Watching a film is like watching someone else’s idea of how a story should look, and he prefers the pictures he makes in his mind.

The film he’s watching is about a group of plane crash survivors, marooned on an island. The characters are covered in layers of artfully arranged filth, and when they grimace their teeth are pearly white. They deliver lengthy monologues, and die handsome deaths, and Adam becomes preoccupied with the scars across the backs of his hands, shining in the light cast by the projector.

White rivers through dark skin.

Eventually, a scene draws his attention. One of the survivors has whittled a spear out of a stick, and is standing waist deep in a river. The survivor lashes out with his crude harpoon, and raises his catch triumphantly. The camera zooms in on the fish, speared and still flailing, its shining scales refracting the sky into all kinds of colours. The camera pauses on the fish as it suffocates, and Adam realises that he feels as if the spear through the fish is jutting through his chest as well. The scene changes, but the sensation of being skewered does not fade.

Today, Adam is working security. He has been charged with escorting a young actress by the name of Cassandra Coleman, whose real name is Sally Ainsley, to and from the film’s premiere. From here, he is able to see her, sitting between a grizzled-looking veteran actor and the film’s writer, whose name is Damon Darcy. Cassandra is doing a stellar job of ignoring the way Darcy keeps brushing his leg up against her own; the black trouser of his impeccably fitted suit against the silvery scales of her dress. Whenever she has a scene, Adam watches the way she mouths along with her lines, eyes glassy.

“Adam,” she says, when the curtains have closed. “I want to go home.”

But of course, they can’t go home. There’s still the after-party. So, Adam becomes her shadow and guides her there. Cameras flash and microphones are thrust into her face, and she bears it bravely, all the way to the limousine.

“What did you think?” she asks. “Was I good?” She’s looking out of the window of the limousine. Adam thinks that she was the best bit of the film, but he stays quiet because she isn’t expecting an answer. The night lights of Los Angeles streak across her face in red and green and blue, and she pulls her white fur collar up around her shoulders, and she looks so delicate that she might shatter.

The party is too bright and Adam feels exposed beneath the hot lights strung from the roof of the marquee. Champagne is flowing freely from bottles to glasses to throats, and everyone seems like exaggerated versions of themselves. The more Cassandra drinks, the smaller she becomes. Darcy’s hands rush eagerly across her shoulders and down her spine, making the scales of her dress shimmer, and she does her best to laugh at his jokes. “You and me, baby,” he’s saying. “You and me. I’ll write you in.”

She makes to turn away, but he grabs her wrist. Adam’s hand is upon his shoulder in an instant. “Hey, man,” says Darcy, trying to grin at him. “Hey now.”

Darcy squirms uneasily beneath Adam’s grip as he’s led through the marquee. His red face is reddening further. “Hey, shit. Look, man.” He struggles, jabs an elbow out and nudges a waiter, who spills a tray of champagne. Through an open archway decorated with fairy lights, they emerge into the smoking section, where Adam releases him.

“Shit.” Darcy wipes the champagne from his suit. “Look what you did! Don’t you fucking know who I am?” He digs into his satchel and hefts out an ornament. It looks like a miniature replica of a typewriter, cast in gold. He waves it triumphantly at Adam, eyes bloodshot, nostrils flared. “Do I look like just anyone to you? Anyone you can just push around? Look at you. What have you ever done? This is a fucking Golden Typewriter.” Of course, Damon Darcy takes his screenwriting award with him to parties. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he demands, trembling.

Adam takes the trophy from him. He can still feel the spear grating against his ribs. He can still see the writer’s hand, lustily caressing the scales of Cassandra’s dress.

“Hey! What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing?”

When Adam kills Damon Darcy, he feels divorced from the action, as if he is simply watching another scene from the movie. There is the motion of Adam’s arm, and the glint of gold as the typewriter flashes through the air, and the crunching of the writer’s bones. There is no passion in