The Villa of Medication

The Villa of Medication

The walls were painted black which immediately struck Samuel as a nice touch, an appropriate detail. The surface of the swimming pool shimmered almost imperceptibly in a faint breeze.
Here we are, in the villa of medication, he murmured aloud and then wondered why he had said that. The words seemed almost no to have emanated from within himself. He felt feint embarrassment but Sigorney seemed not to have noticed. She was as inscrutable as ever in her black shades, lips slightly pouted, straggly hair. Her skinny arms encompassed by a mass of over-sized t-shirt. But then:
Why did you say that? she asked suddenly in a chilled North American accent.
An unseen audience exploded in mirth.
The walls of the buildings were painted black evoking a sense of an ancient evil looming before them. But there was something comforting about the eeriness. Tranquil Satanism.
The sky was white. Samuel observed an interesting tableau by the swimming pool: A sullen adolescent girl, an aloof teenage girl and a simpering young man with a flushed face. The man seemed furtive and vaguely anguished, a constitution he tried desperately to hide with a pained smile.
Keep ye hands to yeself! the adolescent girl screamed in a Northern English accent. The teenage girl smirked caustically. The young man seemed even more anxious now and he grinned even harder to compensate. He and the adolescent girl were standing either side of the teenage girl who lay prone in a sun lounger. She wore shades. She seemed annoyed. Samuel wanted to dry hump her. On a hill. During a humid summer afternoon. The words 'parched' and 'chafe' flowered in his mind.
All at once he realised the furtive young man was himself and the aloof teenager was Sigorney. Who was the shrill younger lass then? And why was she levelling such unsavoury allegations?
A black Labrador plodded along the tiles leading to the edge of the pool. It gazed at Samuel beseechingly, slowly swishing its tail.

Smoke Emanating from Semi-Erect Penises

Samuel left the villa complex to go the supermart. He planned to obtain some cold, refreshing orange soda. He sauntered down the wide, unpopulated avenue, his footfall heavy in the heat. He looked suitable ridiculous in a Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda swim shorts and tennis sneakers. A ludicrous spectacle, truly worthy of denigration.
He was exhausted already. He couldn't wait to get back to the pool. He couldn't wait to see Sigorney in her bikini again, to smell the suntan lotion on her skin. He stepped up onto a pavement and his foot immediately sunk down into freshly laid cement.
In the distance loomed a construction lorry with a few workers milling around. The lorry started up and began trundling towards him, the workers regarding him from afar. He turned and began to pace quickly back towards the Villa of Medication.

I like it here in the villa, he decided.
The pool attendant was cadaverous black man named Winston. He wore black shades and moved in a decrepit fashion as if animated by vague breezes. He rarely spoke. He murmured cryptic non-sequitirs. He gave the impression of being prophet of some seething mystery.

"Swing flesh swing
Draw me into a world of the flesh."

All of a sudden the mystery had evaporated. Raymond's limbs ached.
It was 10am. A sunny, blustery morning. Seagulls swirled in the pale blue sky.
Raymond extracted himself from his semen encrusted shorts and waddled nude to the bathroom where he showered under lukewarm water. He shaved, cutting himself in four different places in the process. He affixed small torn strips of toiled paper to the wounds and gazed morosely at his reflection. He dressed, prepared a breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs. Consumed the breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs.
Walked through two inches of melting snow to the bus stop. Waited six minutes to board a city bound bus. The driver was the same cadaverous black man from his dream. Same oversized wrap around shades. They gave the impression, along with his expressionless face, that he was blind.
Took a seat towards the rear of the bus. Gazed with impaired longing at a fine looking woman.
Reached the city in 40 minutes. Alighted on Borges Street. A few yards from the bus stop was an office building. He entered, keying the door code, 2666, into the electronic lock.
He climbed a flight of stairs and entered a room with eight desks positioned together to form one large central desk. Five other men sat at these desks, engaging with laptop computers, occasionally lifting shrill telephone receivers. He sat before his own laptop machine, not acknowledging any of the other men. A window permitted a view of a rooftop and other buildings, a slim rectangle of white phosphorescent sky above.

The Villa of Medication had initially been envisaged as a place where people who felt an overwhelming and disproportionate sense of guilt could come to humble themselves. It had since devolved into a place where carefully orchestrated humiliations were devised and then carried out.
Shrill women and meek men were drawn to this place. There was a pervading sense of hysteria and hopelessness. Timid, furtive men lurked about, simpering painfully. Stocky or angular women with shrewd, pinched faces hovered around, scowling caustically.

"Visualise and then actualise," Professor Spengler explained to the assembled feckless. He carefully articulated each word.
Lucas End jotted this down in his A5 notebook, feeling a surge of potency and optimism. This fleeting sense of empowerment was what he was paying for at these seminars.
The Villa of Medication was full of people like End, people crippled by their own intelligence, their over-analysis of all life's minutiae rendering them catastrophically ineffectual. They needed all sorts of ideas and concepts to get them steamed up, to help them make up their minds.

Lucas stands in a baguette shop, paralysed by the endless permutations of filling combinations available to him.
The lassie behind the counter smirks. What an endearingly hopeless specimen she thinks to herself.
Lucas musters his nerve. He orders a decidedly unpalatable combination of prosaic fillings in a small, whimpering voice. He seems as if his eyes might tear up.

Back at the villa, Samuel is languishing on a sun lounger. It's easy to be sentimental for things that have ended or can never be reached again, he decides.
As he thinks this, he watches Rachel emerge from the pool, chlorine laced water streaming off her taut, tanned skin. He notices Winston, the cadaverous pool attendant, watching her as well. He briefly imagines a sordid threesome.
Rachel towels herself off and occupies the lounger next to Samuel. Samuel's eyes, hidden behind shades, are peering dramatically to the right to study the nuances of Rachel's drying body. He desperately wishes she would remove her bikini top. He wants Winston to see her perfectly shaped breasts.
Colour of the sky today: mustard.

The nights were very dark, black, leaves trembling in a wavering breeze under amber streetlights. Samuel sat at the villa bar, nursing his second bottle of beer. Strange, early 90s minimal techno music played. Winston, the cadaverous pool attendant, was dancing by himself on the dance floor. He resembled a reanimated corpse. A gaggle of teenage girls sat in the corner, watching him, occasionally whispering amongst themselves and giggling. Other than that the bar was deserted. It was a little after 8pm. Rachel was in the room, perhaps drowsing to cure a sun headache, perhaps reading a novel. A chronic sense of ennui had driven Samuel out to the bar.
"Bust yo shit, nigga!" Samuel suddenly hollered. Then felt panic. He had no idea where the words had emanated from. Perhaps he was developing Tourette's synodrome he speculated idly.
Winston grinned and pointed a finger at Samuel. The teenage lassies exploded in hysteria.
The beats were coming slow and heavy.
Winston gyrated his crotch in a most obscene manner. The lassies squealed and gasped exaggeratedly. Samuel nodded his head approvingly. Winston clapped his hands along with every second beat, squatting low, gyrating his hips.
Samuel finished his beer and launched the empty bottle at the table of teenagers who nervously pretended not to notice.
Now why did I do that he wondered.
He bought another beer. He approached their table.

Journal Entry of Lucas End, February 18th 2018

What a wretched man I am. Voiced reach me from an eviscerated void to remind me of this. The odour of ink and semen reminds me of this. Remembered faces of my past tormentors reinforce this.

Smother

He approached their table and sat down, busting out a gang shape with his hand as he did so. He made a face at the lassies to put them at their ease. They pretended to be at their ease. He apologised for launching a beer bottle at them. He chuckled ruefully as if it was all some amusing misunderstanding. The girls laughed nervously and bit their lower lips. Samuel sloshed beer over his hair and then slicked it back with a violent gesture.
Winston was still busting out his shit on the dance floor, a cruel dreamy grin on his face.
In an effort to impress the teenage lassies, Samuel committed suicide.

Epilogue

Insidious cruelty is an interesting thing, Lucas scribbled in his journal. A respectable woman looked over his shoulder and her face went blank with dismay.

FIN (frenzied audience applause and cheering)