Shiuli is a media student who writes evocative stories laced with poetry. About her piece, Shades of Black, she says, “As a writer, I take efforts to create a sense of visual imagery with everything I write. This particular piece is inspired by Dexys Midnight Runners’ Come on Eileen. This song never fails to get me tapping my feet. So when my shuffle decided to play this one on a night where I sat down with my pen, I knew it was going to lead to a story. There are currents of a sense of exhilaration throughout the story, which is exactly what the song evokes in me.”
SHADES OF BLACK
Bottles of whisky in hand, we dance to cheap numbers. The dingy lights in the pub flirt with raucous laughter. I clutch my skirt as the music embraces my being. You call out to me, “It’s time to go home.” We lie back in the car, the world passing us by, moments being daintily plucked from time. The sky melts into varying shades of darkness as we stumble out of the car in a haze of alcohol and bokeh.
“Come back to my place,” I whisper in your ears.
Mischief settles itself in the upturned curve of your lips.
Dexys Midnight Runners sing ‘Come on Eileen’ as I throw back my head, every nerve of my body lets go, slowly and intensely. Your hands come to rest on the curves of my body, clocks continue their lazy detour. Two whisky-laced tongues become one, drinking away the last traces of alcohol. You cup my face in your hands, your tongue cages mine.
I trip, I take you down with me. The weight of your desperation mounted upon the fabric of my seduction, sparks of friction igniting them. My laugh stops midway as your gaze catches it off guard, my words ignite themselves. Your fingers are weaving into my hair, stringing along the beats of my thumping heart. Your lips find mine, echoing your desires.
Somewhere, the night casts a net, capturing the momentum of our pace.
We move against each other; a synchronized pace of the wild. Whispers of moans escape my lips; you fan them with your growls. My hands clutch the fabric of my skirt, urging you to lift it higher. The pregnant silence is momentarily disturbed by the clinking of buttons against the cold floor.
“Why waste the whisky?” you say with a glimmer of mischievousness in your eyes. Warmth from the golden liquid flows through our parched beings; your lips brushing away the droplets from my lips. Parts of your name escape my mouth, my being drowning in a rapidly flooding field.
The sky outside rebels with its shades, strokes of black flooding its canvas. It pounds and mounts the canvas till nothing remains, no trace of its blankness. Every inch of space has been filled with its abundance, every stroke of brush, completed.
The sky looks beautiful tonight, doesn’t it?
