tales of Suchita

Kilney is aping a fish quite well at the moment. The story he has heard is so implausible and yet every day, his head is spinning and he has broken out into cold sweat.

He’s trying to understand why he’s so discomfited. It takes him a moment. The story he heard has been delivered to him in a monotone, with no inflections to speak of.

“What is this supposed to teach me?” he asks.

He’s in desperate need of sugar to arrest the shock his system seems to be experiencing. To his chagrin, a cool glass of lemonade appears before him almost instantaneously. He wishes it was whiskey but gulps down it nonetheless.

Ramshackle tries to get a read on Kilney. The house may have no trouble catering to his whims but for Ramshackle, reading the man is proving difficult. As someone whose very trade depends on his ability to read people and provide for their desires, he finds it unsettling.

He says once Kilney has finished sucking every drop of lemonade from the glass, “It’s supposed to teach you that I did not force Gimble to sign the contract. She did it of her own free will.”

“See,” he says, still holding the glass. It is solid in his hand. He does not know why that information is vital but it is. It tells him this isn’t entirely happening in his head. It is real, as strange as that sounds. “I don’t agree. You tell someone you can deliver on their desires, that in itself is coercion.”

“How so?”

Kilney flails the glass in his hand and drops it. It rolls off the carpet and clinks on the hardwood floor. It doesn’t break but disappears. He blinks, shakes his head and turns back to the man in front of him. He tries to picture him in a burgundy suit but is unable to do so. Gimby had always said to him that he was bad at differentiating colours. Maybe if Ramshackle told him what burgundy stood for…he could picture it.

He shakes his head. What were they talking about? Right. Coercion.

“Everyone wants their desires fulfilled. And if someone says to you that they can help without you having to deal with the consequences of those desires being made public, that’s a hell of a sales pitch. No one can resist it.”

Ramshackle frowns. “It’s not a sales pitch. I don’t advertise. People who need my services find me.”

Kilney laughs. He knows it sounds hysterical but he cannot help himself. To his horror, tears spring to his eyes once again and before he can give them permission or turn away, they roll down his face, soaking into his collar. 

“Perhaps,” says Ramshackle carefully, “you’re asking the wrong question.”

Seeing him unperturbed by the tears, Kilney gets angry. The other option is curling into a ball of sobs and Ruidan Kilney does not cry. He jumps from the chair when he sees another glass materialize out of thin air onto the table. This time, he picks it up and throws it. It shatters with a loud bang but it gives him no satisfaction.

Ramshackle does not bat an eye at the show of violence. He says, as polite as ever, “Perhaps the right question Mr. Kilney is, what about you could Gimble no longer tolerate.”

He opens his mouth to speak but a sob tears through his throat instead. He slaps a hand on his mouth and runs out. The house removes all furniture from his path to aid his mad dash.

He is bawling now…heartbroken. Where he’s headed, he does not know. But he knows he cannot look at Ramshackle’s blank face any longer.

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5 of 26 of an ongoing series The Dream Maker. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.

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