by Neha Yazmin
Chapter 8. Needle
Even though most of the snow had melted away, the ground looked like it could be slippery, dangerous if she wasn’t careful. Crunchy ice sat in heaps here and there. The wind whipped hard against her body, prolonging her journey across London Bridge. The sun was in her eyes, dropping low in the sky, casting aside the thin grey clouds from the spot where it shone.
The multi-coloured buildings on the banks of the River Thames contrasted spectacularly with the dark green waters that stretched for miles on either side of the bridge. Admiring Tower Bridge to her left as she fought her way through the wind, she glanced briefly at Cannon Street Railway Bridge to her right.
At the south side of the bridge, she passed the ever-present newspaper stall on the edge of the pavement to her right, with its olive-toned owner boxed inside his rectangular enclosure, and the tunnel-like sheltered area on the ground floor of Colechurch House to her left.
Finding the staircase she’d been heading for, she placed her newspaper on the top step, and sat down, shifting around a little to lean against the stair-rails. Taking her lunch and water from her bag, she nestled it by her feet.
This place is nice. It was more secluded than it had been when she was last here, the day she interviewed for this job. She’d wondered around the area after her interview on that bright November afternoon, taking the opportunity to make the most of being at London Bridge, and decided to have her lunch on the very steps that she’d hopefully eat her lunch in the summer. If she got the job; the one-year contract with the potential to be extended.
The strange pointy sculpture adjoining these steps had drawn her here that day and she ignored the more conventional benches down on street level––she liked things that didn’t make sense at first, mysteries she could unravel with time. Distractions. She’d gone home and Googled until she knew exactly what this stone spike pointing at the heavens was.
The Post-Tension Needle.
A tall, pale-grey, pyramidal stone structure, leaning awkwardly at an angle, it resembled a giant abstract sundial from a distance. Up close, it looked like a long, thin pyramid, diminishing to a fine point, protruding from a fat but skewed pyramid-shaped base.
The apex of the pyramid that formed the foundation of the sculpture was a couple of metres above street level, and there was a staircase connected to it, taking you down to the sidewalk and roads. From the top of the stairs, the eye could follow the A3 road going southwest along Borough High Street.
After a couple of mouthfuls of her pasta, she reached for her bottle of water. As she twisted its lid, a wailing child in the background caught her attention. Instinctively, she looked around to place the sound. Unable to locate where the child or its parents were, she returned to her bottle.
Something had registered with her eyes in her brief scan of the immediate area, and they flickered in that direction to reassess.
A young man with thick, crazy, jet-black hair was sitting on the sloping pyramidal base of the needle sculpture, his thin, long legs dangling at the other end of her step. She couldn’t see his face––he was looking down at the can of Coke he held between his knees, tracing its rim with his index finger. Round and round, round and round.
He was wearing a light jacket, unzipped, and a white T-shirt underneath. Hardly the kind of attire one wore during the coldest January since the year Mukti had been born.
What if he wasn’t a young man, but a middle aged homeless guy? Knowing my luck, he’s probably a schizophrenic homeless guy. Sitting next to the weirdo on the bus this morning seemed a lot more ominous now…
But to her relief, when he looked up and met her gaze, Mukti found that he was a young man after all.
Convention told her to look away but she couldn’t.
The man cast his eyes down to his soda, but Mukti could barely move a muscle.
So magnificently beautiful, the memory of his face consumed all her concentration.
She hadn’t been drawn to a single face in years.
She hardly knew what the people in her team looked like.
She was aware of individual features––hair, eye colour, height, weight––but didn’t see their faces as a whole.
But this boy’s face she couldn’t ignore.
Every little inch of his face was being etched into her brain. She could feel it happen, sense it find a permanent place in her mind.
His skin wasn’t overly pale but fresh looking. He had a square face; his jaws didn’t want to angle toward his broad chin. Even his ears were flat against his head. His nose was thin, straight, fitting in well with his face.
But his eyes…
They captivated her the most. Bright blue. Not quite turquoise. Not dull and lifeless, or still and tranquil, but deep and troubled. A shade of blue she’d never seen in anyone’s eyes.
And he’s not even blonde…
Annoyingly, a man and a woman conversing in a foreign tongue climbed down the steps, momentarily hiding the beautiful boy from her view. In that moment of distraction, she remembered she was thirsty. She took a few sips of water, screwed the cap back on and put it down.
Without looking up, she picked up her pasta bowl and took a couple of bites. But her stomach twisted and she felt sick. Her eyes shifted to the boy again and found him staring at her.
For god’s sake, Mukti, look away. But she couldn’t.
Why’s he confused? she wondered about the sudden crease that formed between his eyes. Then she realised he was probably trying to figure out why an awkward girl was staring at him so blatantly.
What must he think of me…