Chapter 3: Lyra

NB: I'm jumping right in with fragments from my ongoing short story by providing you with the first half of Chapter Three, which foucses on a girl names Lyra and a conversation with her dog. If you like it, let me know! Feedback always welcome.

“You know you don’t want to go,” the dog says sagaciously. It sits in the middle of the living room carpet, very poised, occasionally cocking its head at the girl sat at the table in the corner. She continues layering thick acrylic paint onto the canvas lying flat in front of her. “What are you painting?”

            “You,” she says nonchalantly, not looking up. She puts her paintbrush in the jar of water next to her, and impatiently washes the paint off. The wood makes small clinks against the glass; the water turns a filthy grey colour.

            “You don’t want to go, do you Lyra?”

            The girl shrugs. “Not really,” she dries her brush on some nearby kitchen roll before plunging it into crimson red. “But I haven’t seen them in so long, feels rude if I don’t go,” Lyra narrows her eyes and analyses the painting in front of her. It’s almost midnight, and all the lights in the room are turned off, save for a small lamp by the dog that emanates a delicate, soft glow.

            “Can you really see in this?” The dog asks, yawning and stretching itself out on the carpet. Its black fur shines in the lamplight, which also highlights the wet tip of its leathery nose. “Turn another light on, for goodness sakes,”

            “I don’t want to put another light on,” Lyra says blankly. “It hurts my eyes.” A group of guys walk past the bay window in her living room, drunk and talking loudly. For a moment, the girl watches their silhouettes resentfully.

            “Where do they want to go anyway?” The dog asks, resting its head on its paws, all the while staring at the girl at the table.

            “I think they just want to get a drink somewhere,” she answers. “Just a casual catch up. It’s been over a year since we all hung out,”

            The dog laughs mockingly. “It’s not like you missed them,”

            “I know,” the girl drops her paintbrush in the jar and pushes her chair backwards, arching her back and stretching her arms above her head until her spine cracks. She lets out a satisfied sigh before slouching back in the chair.

            “And it’s not like they missed you,” the dog continues. “It’s not like they called you or even messaged you, why should you bother?” The girl stands up, ignoring the dog’s question, and carefully lifts the canvas from the table. Placing it on an easel by the bay window, she cocks her head from side to side, looking at it. “Why should you bother, Lyra?”

            She doesn’t know why she should bother, she tells the dog, and draws the curtains over the windows. The joggers she wears are tapered at her ankles, and covered in thick streaks of paint. Some streaks are old, dry, and cracking in places; others are fresh and soak coldly through to her skin. Other than that she just wears a sports bra, because Lyra Collins is always too warm, even on this mid-January night. Her auburn hair is twisted messily on top of her head, held in place by a pencil which she now pulls out. Picking up a half-smoked cigarette from the table, she sparks up and begins making a cup of tea.

            “Do you even like any of them?” The dog persists. It pushes itself up again so that it resumes its tall, regal posture. It’s a large dog – almost as high Lyra’s waist when it sits in this way – with large white teeth that glisten when it talks. It’s critical, but the dog cares for Lyra, and in some ways it’s the best friend she’s ever had. No one understands Lyra the way her dog does.

            “Not really,” the girl holds the joint in the corner of her mouth as she spoons sugar into her mug. The kitchen is dark. The only light that comes in is through the window above the sink. It has black bars fixed to the outside, like all windows do in this area, and a grey stream of diffused light crawls in from the streetlight down the road. Lyra likes this kind of lighting the most – it makes everything feel cool, clean, and quiet. The kettle boils and steams up the window. “This is one of my favourite sounds, you know,” she muses, enjoying the water as it gurgles and splashes into her mug. She takes a deep drag.

            “If you don’t like them, why are you considering going?”

            “Aw, look at you,” the girl teases, squeezing the teabag and dropping it in the bin. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? Don’t want to be left alone?”

            The dog rolls its eyes. “Hardly,” it watches as the girl pours some milk into the mug, and makes her way over the sofa he sits beside. “I’m saving you, Lyra, from wasting your time,”

            “These days I have a lot of time to waste,” she sets her mug down on the nearby coffee table and ashes into a clay pot shaped like a lotus flower. It’s silent for a moment as the dog stares at the girl, watching as she blows grey smoke rings through the air, and slurps her still-hot tea. With Lyra slouched, the dog is taller than her in this moment, and stares down at her through narrowed, black eyes – eyes so black they’re like pools of ink, or small windows into the soul of a demon.

            “You know they don’t like you,” the dog says finally. Lyra’s face is now very serious, deep in thought as stares at the floor next to the dog. “Why would they? You’re selfish. You push everyone away from you. So wrapped up in your own little problems that you become an empty vessel floating around without a personality, without meaning, without anything to offer anyone,” Lyra’s eyes glaze with the tears she can’t cry. They look like small, spherical mirrors. The dog watches his reflection warp in them. “The more you think you can be happy, normal, the more you’re deepening your own wound.”

            “I can be happy,” there is a shake in the girl’s voice as she says this, and although she sounds determined, her desire to be strong lies on a weak, unstable foundation.

            The dog laughs its deep, dark laugh. “Can you? Then go – go for a drink with your friends tomorrow. You can sit there with that fake smile you’ve mastered so well, listening to their mundane conversations until your face hurts. And then you can remember how little you in fact care about these people, and the things they have to say, and you’ll feel hollow and jealous of all the trivialities they have compared to your own stinging tragedies; and you’ll fill that hole with whisky and cocktails, before sharing too much information again and having someone reluctantly carry you home,” the dog jumps up onto the sofa and sits next to Lyra. “Sounds about right, doesn’t it?”

            The girl nods. Her blue eyes undulated now, and heavy droplets spilled onto her cheeks and splashed the back of her hand that held her cup of tea. But her face hasn’t changed. The cold, serious expression still remains, staring at that point on the carpet. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she tried to control her breathing – but her face does not change.

            By now the cigarette in her hand had gone out. She re-lit it, sucking the last few centimetres, burning her lips slightly. The dog lays down and rests its heavy head on her lap.

            “You know I’m only telling you this because I care about you?” The girl’s hand strokes the dog’s head back and forth, between its ears and down its neck. She continues the stare forward. The steam from her mug gently rises in the air like climbing tendrils. “I’m the only one you have now, Lyra,” the dog says smoothly. “And I’ll never leave you,”

            In a whisper that seems detached from everything around her, Lyra answers: “I know.”