THE DOWNPOUR DOWNFALL OF IVO JONES by Anna Giangiordano (3rd place, Prompt Jun22)

THE DOWNPOUR DOWNFALL OF IVO JONES

Tuesday Morning

Ivo Jones decided to kill novelist Tom Nelson that very afternoon.

The idea had kindled overnight, fuelled by righteous injustice in the hours since he’d been made fully, unambiguously cognizant of  Nelson’s indifference to him, delivered in Nelson’s now gratingly languid voice. Despite, amongst other things re-analysed and mourned in those hours, that delicately engineered night in Nelson’s dorm, a drunken wonderful melding of bodies and, for Jones at least, minds.

A brief acknowledgement in the first of Nelson’s novels gave him hope that the man he’d looked up to most of his adult life held him in some regard for his (undoubtedly) muse-like status in Nelson’s  early life. He had, after all, been there at the beginning of Nelson’s writing career that had unfurled its sticky wings in the dorms leading ultimately to seven novels to date, five on best-seller lists. The characters he relished; caddish Romero; adored Guy, the paunchy hero, and even Jeff the failed hack had his place, albeit mired in empathetic embarrassment. Nelson had even fictionalised his own divorce in his search for authenticity and had been sued by both his ex-wife and the adulterating nanny (a young man with a PhD in Mindfulness and an eye for the zeitgeist, who had callously self-soothed by selling his story to a tabloid.)

Yes. They both understood the failed opportunities, the life half lived that drove Nelson to spill his torment into book after book and flay himself (and mostly others) in the eyes of the public. Jones’ own singular novel had not delivered as hoped, so he could whisper, I too, Nelson, with one hand pressed to the cover of the latest book with some depth of feeling. 

It was a devastating, damp happenstance the day before, when he learned that he was almost completely wrong.

Monday about 4pm

They had bumped into each other, one walking past, one emerging from, a café on Lower Grosvenor Place, when an April shower had others to gather like a soggy Greek chorus beneath the green and gold awning around them.

Nelson, Jones learned, was on the lecture circuit, south of the river the next day (come along, might be a seat spare), and had to dash. He made to consult his phone for taxi companies, but Jones, unwilling to be so easily dismissed, had gushed on, laughed even, when Nelson had called him Jeff, (ha ha no, sorry, it’s Jones). And when reminded of that evening in his dorm, seemed to remember it more for Moony Henderson’s (don’t mind me) interruption.

Nelson said, ‘Did you spot yourself in All Roads Lead to Romeo, then?’

‘—Did I—what?’

‘Jeff? Struggling author? Dies alone in the lav after—’

‘—stabbing himself with an umbrella,’ they said together.

‘That was me?’ said Jones, his eyes watering. ‘That was me?’ Sweat prickled on his top lip and scalp. A silent explosion was wiping his whole existence up to that moment in that fraction of a second.

His head felt too big for his body. He blinked, wondered idly if he was going to faint, and then did so.

Tuesday Lunchtime

The logistics of killing someone while they were giving a lecture to a few hundred people and being live streamed gave Jones some pause. He discounted poisons as they were simply too difficult to come by. Shooting, strangling, drowning, and stabbing were going to require the machinations of a magician to pull off. A poisonous animal would need trapping again once deployed. No. The murder was the key thing, not the elegance of dispatch. Jones wasn’t that proud.

Tuesday 1pm

He arrived early and shook his wet raincoat. He surveyed the auditorium and timed various routes  (eight seconds the best) from his selected seat (aisle, front row left).

It all came down to furniture. Specifically, the heavy lab stool tucked under the lecturer’s desk. He’d have to elbow Nelson aside, but he had his weapon.

Tuesday 2:30pm

The front row was reserved for the few members of the press that turned up. Aisle seats were cordoned off. Attendees were herded into the middle section of the theatre; Jones was seated seventh row back, third person in. A whispered argument with the two people between him and the end of the row resulted in him learning that one had medical needs that required easy egress, and the other had paid for this seat and was staying, thank you very much.

Tuesday 3pm

Jones almost bailed on his plan during the first half an hour of Nelson’s talk. He sweated. Laughter rippled across the audience, but Jones had missed Nelson’s words. He was watching his future self wriggle out of this seat, seeking the best, least precarious trajectory to the last moments of Nelson’s life and first few of his soon-to-be newly-dead status. Each step equated to one second and he settled on a new route to the stool with which he would beat Nelson to death.

If he didn’t get stuck, stopped or trip, it would be an almost balletic performance.

Tuesday 3pm and 8 seconds

The satisfaction of seeing Nelson die, bloodily and messily, was over far quicker than Jones had anticipated.

He was aware of people behind him, cries, a scream, but the stool was proving unwieldy. As a murder weapon, it excelled, but he hadn’t planned beyond the moment of delivery. He certainly wasn’t prepared for the weight of it. He teetered, the momentum of the fatal swing causing him to stagger, drop, and then trip over, the stool.

He flailed for the desk but missed and cracked his chin on the edge. His head snapped back resulting in whiplash. The floor, dampened with wet footprints and coat-drips, gave him no purchase.

His last thoughts were lost to the ether. His last sight, before he his impalement (usually survivable but unfortunately rupturing his jugular vein) was the upturned spike of Nelson’s umbrella, open, wedged beneath the desk, drying.