E and Kaisha. February 2008.

The television was loud again from next door, this time broadcasting in English. I wonder why. Subtitled, I suppose. The dialogue was laughable and suggested Victorian England, all backed by strange, industrial, ambient music.

“You’re not lying to me, are you Mary,” a man spoke. “Ah Mary, if only we could all see inside each other, through each other as I do you, right now. I can see so much, so much I never knew … Oh Mary, I never knew. I should leave now. Mary? What's wrong?”

“That ... that,” a woman’s voice replied, shivering yet determined. “Don’t ever do that again to me. Ever.”

“I won’t apologise Mary. You’ll never make me apologise. Never.” 

It all sounded quite dramatic.

With my coffee mug in one hand and cigarette in the other, I sat down with my back against the wall and turned my attention back to E and Kaisha. Only the sides of their faces were visible in the dark, the glow from the uppermost X emitting the only light which touched their bodies. I had drank too much rum again, and as they swayed together to the sound of imagined music I could only catch the briefest snatches of conversation between them. What I could hear didn’t interest me, only the sight of them interested me. The sight of E laughing and smiling once again.

E whispered into her ear and in a fit of laughter Kaisha fell towards her, placing her hand on E’s arm to steady herself. E fell forward and wrapped her arms around Kaisha’s body. They fell down and were almost lost in the deep scarlet quilt which covers the bed. I looked to window and then back to their bodies. They had turned to face each other, close together, and with their hair over their faces I could no longer tell Kaisha from E. As the headlights from passing cars crawled across the ceiling and down the walls, their bodies were highlighted in sections.