Read The World of the End for Free Online Page B

last ten years?”
    “Yeah,” Robert sighed, tapping the sign, “ten years I been waiting for her. I won’t take the chance of missing her when she arrives, so I show up at opening time every day. I never stray too far from the area.”
    “I take it she’s not terminally ill.”
    “Like an ox,” Robert said, shaking his head. “She’s sixty, and you know what that means? That I might waste the next twenty years, easy. But I haven’t given up. We’ll meet yet.”
    “Hats off to your determination,” Ben said, trying to raise the man’s spirits.
    “I hope she feels the same way,” he mumbled, bringing his cigar back to life.
    “I think every woman would feel that way if she knew her man waited for her for ten years.”
    “And what if she doesn’t know that you’re her man?” Robert’s voice rose from behind a wall of smoke.
    Ben caught his breath, just barely keeping his peace with the stench of the cigar. “She doesn’t know?”
    Robert closed his eyes, sucked long and hard on the cigar, and growled, “She knows nothing, that foolish woman. Nothing.” After an uncomfortable silence, he added, “So long as she doesn’t fall in love with another woman. That, I could not handle.”
    Already feeling the pull of the hopeless romantic’s tale, Ben urged him on. “Why would she fall in love with a woman?”
    Robert flicked the cigar a good distance away and let out an anguished moan. “Because that’s what always happens to them in prison. Five hundred women in one jail. How could they not fall in love with one another? All that beauty in one place … you could lose your mind. And imagine if a diamond like my Catherine arrives. They probably started circling as soon as the guard shut the gate.”
    “I don’t understand. She’s in jail? She’s a prisoner?” Ben asked petulantly, sitting down on the grass.
    Robert pointed at the birthmark—a brown star crowning his left nipple—and then whacked it hatefully. “It’s all this thing’s fault. This fucking mark ruined my life.”
    “I’ve never seen such a unique birthmark. Usually they’re like stains—plain, boring, and shapeless. But that star … it’s art.”
    “Eh, what have I not heard about this fucking star? A perfect five-point? A fantastic pentagram? In school, I told the kids I was from another planet and the pentagram was the proof. From the first moment I saw it, I felt that fate had marked me, planned great things for me in the future. That, plus the fact that I dreamed of being an actor … when you’re young you let mysterious signs lead you down the most optimistic paths. And you know why you find all of these idiotic signs? Because you’re looking for them. It’s simple. And I, I was a magnificent imbecile, drawing a connection between this shit on my chest and my future. This mark sure hasn’t made me special. It makes me, if anything, miserable. Fucking miserable.”
    Ben didn’t take his eyes off the birthmark. “Why is she in jail?”
    Robert pointed to the white doors. “How do you think I got here?”
    Ben looked at the doors, and turned his head back toward Robert, surprised. “She killed you?”
    “I’d prefer if you chose your words with greater care.” Robert smiled. “She murdered me. In cold blood. Emptied an entire magazine on me. Pumped me full of lead. I’m sure the good doctors in the reconstruction rooms were shocked when I arrived. Robert, the human cheese grater.”
    “But why?”
    “Some would say hate. I assert that the true motive was a rigid unwillingness to acknowledge love. A denial of emotions. From the very beginning she played hard to get. I had no problem with this. Everyone has their fun with foreplay. Between us, who wants a girl that gives it up on the first date? They have to make us crawl so we can feel what it’s like to fly. But what would you do? You’re a twenty-year-old who, if you’ll pardon my French, makes Alain Delon look like Louis De Funès. Sexual innuendo