Introduction
Lost in the conundrum of a childhood full of lies, distorted memories, pain, and regrets, Sable Wakefield chooses to isolate himself from those who care for his well-being. Reality, an aging, mid-sized city going through the throes of transitioning into the modern era, has little appeal for him anymore. Instead, he chooses to immerse himself in a fantasy of the mind, where he feels safe to express himself. But even there, he finds himself coming face-to-face with his own demons, driving him on a path of destruction until he is forced to confront his past.
Recently...
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"Stories," began another voice, "will only serve to delude him further." This one did not lack the finality of a story's end and also it held the frailty of an infant. David appeared, not at all the Biblical hero, but instead a child. His features seemed... worn, for his age. He seemed sick and pale in the sparse light, and and atop his head sat a scoop of messy blond hair. His skin was pale but unblemished, and his clothes were in miraculously decent condition. He had been hiding in a box, but the hazardous weather had thrust him into view. Raindrops drummed their silent beat into the earth and jagged bolts of electricity flashed throughout the sky in amethyst bursts -- but anyway... David. No other feature of his was particularly remarkable, save the eyes. They were deep-set and foreboding, the color of emerald. He parted his mouth, drew his tongue to wet his chapped lips, and spoke, "Welcome to the graveyard, enjoy your stay."
His hand rested on the limestone sarcophagus, as though he needed something to support him. The young boy hyperventilated, as though breath had been suddenly stolen from his lungs and cast far, far away. Nevertheless, his gaze persevered. It scrutinized Sod's every detail, but found nothing, and he was confound. A moment of silence. The deluge outside seemed to end abruptly, as though the entrance of this new character in the play was a grave thing indeed. Pale shards of moonlight painted the landscape, and David's energy returned. The stars had reinvigorated him, given him the necessary uplifting so that he could indeed enter this tragedian drama and put an end to it. An assortment of expressions passed his face. He was, of course, cycling through his very scarce collection, searching for the right one to describe the times. He settled on knitting his brows together and frowning, projecting the image of a stern father, perhaps scolding his immature daughter for staying out past curfew. Or maybe she had done drugs with her friends and had come home on a high.
Did it matter?
He sat down on the grass. It undulated softly, still tickled by the wind. That, coupled with the perfect black outside, made David feel lost at sea. Well, it was not too incredibly far from the truth: he was indeed lost, and the Dark Atlantic waited above, always. So his roll began.
His hand rested on the limestone sarcophagus, as though he needed something to support him. The young boy hyperventilated, as though breath had been suddenly stolen from his lungs and cast far, far away. Nevertheless, his gaze persevered. It scrutinized Sod's every detail, but found nothing, and he was confound. A moment of silence. The deluge outside seemed to end abruptly, as though the entrance of this new character in the play was a grave thing indeed. Pale shards of moonlight painted the landscape, and David's energy returned. The stars had reinvigorated him, given him the necessary uplifting so that he could indeed enter this tragedian drama and put an end to it. An assortment of expressions passed his face. He was, of course, cycling through his very scarce collection, searching for the right one to describe the times. He settled on knitting his brows together and frowning, projecting the image of a stern father, perhaps scolding his immature daughter for staying out past curfew. Or maybe she had done drugs with her friends and had come home on a high.
Did it matter?
He sat down on the grass. It undulated softly, still tickled by the wind. That, coupled with the perfect black outside, made David feel lost at sea. Well, it was not too incredibly far from the truth: he was indeed lost, and the Dark Atlantic waited above, always. So his roll began.
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As sunset molds a chilling hallow from a peaceful glade, Sod’s environs decay to a midnight barricade bristling with garish pine spears. At the ready, they haphazardly lean from crumbling furrows and offset dusk in an insidious display of oozing red and slumping, pale flesh. Awareness slinks in, the now-realized scent of death intermingling with rotting barley flaring his nostrils and teasing his hackles to rigid spines trembling with cold and a warning. Lightning sears the monochrome image of hell on his soul, then abandons it to the black.
Yet he snorts, groundward gaze callous, sullen; the abrupt vicissitude sterile in his mind, despite his tense reaction. Yes, palpitations agonizingly batter his ribs; yes, sweat splatters frigidly beneath his arms; yes, his body absurdly disregards his commands and his throat ridiculously refuses to form a piteous wail of frustration—but his mind scoffs at the crudeness, the audacity of this manipulation! Then Sod’s frailty sponges away the passing moments with the tenderness of a rake, shredding the mice, the story, and this dreamy hell from his consciousness.
“Welcome to the graveyard; enjoy your stay?” taunts the unseen thunder, polluting innocence with a threat.
My eyes twitch, but don’t close. Darkness gathers depth, and objects, once imperceptible, come into bleary focus. My side aches, but it is just my weight on her gravestone. My gravestone.
Sitting up with a tired grunt, I squint at the night. Tearcrust distorts my vision, so I rub it away. It is no longer raining, but I can’t stop shivering and the water pooling on my lap from the creases of my jacket doesn’t help. Funereal monuments stand out from the night as stark reminders of my nightmare. This is a place of peace, of escape, of her, and I feel violated. Not like it would be the first time.
Thrusting the thought aside, I try to concentrate. With a sigh, I rub the back of my neck. The hairs are on end.
“Enjoy your stay?” hits my ears, and I drop to all fours with a yelp. In my periphery is a voyeuristic little punk with his arm draping a tomb. Before thinking, I furiously shout, “What the fuck kid? Why are you out here this time of night?”
Yet he snorts, groundward gaze callous, sullen; the abrupt vicissitude sterile in his mind, despite his tense reaction. Yes, palpitations agonizingly batter his ribs; yes, sweat splatters frigidly beneath his arms; yes, his body absurdly disregards his commands and his throat ridiculously refuses to form a piteous wail of frustration—but his mind scoffs at the crudeness, the audacity of this manipulation! Then Sod’s frailty sponges away the passing moments with the tenderness of a rake, shredding the mice, the story, and this dreamy hell from his consciousness.
“Welcome to the graveyard; enjoy your stay?” taunts the unseen thunder, polluting innocence with a threat.
My eyes twitch, but don’t close. Darkness gathers depth, and objects, once imperceptible, come into bleary focus. My side aches, but it is just my weight on her gravestone. My gravestone.
Sitting up with a tired grunt, I squint at the night. Tearcrust distorts my vision, so I rub it away. It is no longer raining, but I can’t stop shivering and the water pooling on my lap from the creases of my jacket doesn’t help. Funereal monuments stand out from the night as stark reminders of my nightmare. This is a place of peace, of escape, of her, and I feel violated. Not like it would be the first time.
Thrusting the thought aside, I try to concentrate. With a sigh, I rub the back of my neck. The hairs are on end.
“Enjoy your stay?” hits my ears, and I drop to all fours with a yelp. In my periphery is a voyeuristic little punk with his arm draping a tomb. Before thinking, I furiously shout, “What the fuck kid? Why are you out here this time of night?”
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“Hush. I will appreciate it if you would not speak to my son in that manner, young man,” an apparition scolds me, drifting from behind a large limestone monument and wrapping her hands defensively around the boy’s shoulders. Thin and fragile though she is, I am taken aback by the gentle weariness of her words. They are spoken tenderly, as a rebuke to cherish, and with reluctance I understand why—she spoke to me as she would to a child.
My cheeks flush with embarrassment at the realization.
Brushing the back of my hand across my face, I sputter an apology. No, a pitiful explanation. “He terrified me,” it sounds, reeking of shame. Of weakness. In revulsion, I avert my gaze back to the grass, gray amongst the shadows. So strong a word, so repulsive. Why had I used it? Because it was true, I was terrified. The jaundice complexion of the boy glowing eerily in mixture of moonlight, starlight, and streetlights is a picture of death; even now.
Yet, he is as upset as I, huddling into the warmth of his mother’s embrace as though he might draw strength from her mere touch. Forcing the dark memory down into the black confusion of half-thoughts, I return my focus to her. A light blue jacket with three-quarter sleeves clings to her arms and her wavy auburn hair shimmers under the halo of a distant street lamp, contrasting the pale skin stretching over her throat and brow. She is the image of her son, but so nonthreatening. Then again, neither is he; just mischievous, albeit melancholy. And why shouldn’t he be, at a time and a place such as this? It is a graveyard, after all.
The woman’s features soften—not from hardness, but a release of anxiety—and she asks me, “You’re soaking wet and trembling. How long have you been here?”
“Hours, maybe. I fell asleep,” is my answer. I am sitting on the grass. It is time to stand, and doing so releases a hundred pools dammed in the creases of my jeans. They’re uncomfortable, chafing even, but just as well.
“You were having a nightmare,” she points out.
As I think it I say it, although I know not from what twisted well of my heart it rises from, “This is the time and place for nightmares.”
At first she won’t speak. I see her lips draw into a tight line, sealing away some knowledge I’m unwilling to receive. The moment is awkward, because of me, so I put an end to it, “What time is it? I should go call a cab, head home.”
“Past midnight,” she says, but there is more in her eyes. Fine. I’ll wait. Fighting is always too much effort when there is nothing worth fighting for. “My name is Edna. Now,”—she patiently reaches for my name, and I acquiesce— “Sable, you will catch pneumonia if you stay here in the cold, and there is no cab service this late at night. We live a short walk from here. Please, come dry yourself and get warm.”
Her son glances up apprehensively, but with excitement gleaming in his eyes. The look of a child with few friends and less company. With a ruffle of his hair from above, he lightens from ghoul to just a kid. It would be cruel of me to deny them this offering.
“Okay,” I say.
“My name is David,” he chirps.
Somehow, I already knew.
Our walk is short, quiet, peaceful. We don’t speak. Doing so would be unnecessary, perhaps sacrilege amongst these markers of loss. Then, before I’m ready, we’re gone, passing through an opening in the rusty spike fence surrounding Hope Cemetery. Opposite, the street is still, with a few old cars along the curb and even older trees straining through the crumbling sidewalk. A thin brick building with an awning, bay windows, and double doors, like one of those old time stores, is directly across from us. We don’t enter through them. Instead, David leads us into an unlit alcove and up a flight of stairs barely visible off the side of the building.
From darkness to light, Edna’s living room is small, with a Goodwill couch and no television. Seeing the yellow wallpaper is what does it for me. This mother and her son aren’t just poor, but ascetics. Probably the religious sort, although there aren’t any observable crucifixes or statues. I take another look, and see a pile of books in the corner and some toys in the middle of the room. Well, not toys, but rudimentary art. This mother’s prized possessions; her son’s labor.
“David, please show Sable to the washroom while I put on some tea,” Edna says.
If I weren’t so cold, I might protest, but instead I follow David around the corner that is their hall and into a little bathroom. He flips on the light, and a fan turns on with it; loud enough to block out most thoughts. Like the living room before, this room is also cast in a yellow pallor, from the tiles on the walls to the obscenely-large light fixture. David pulls a towel from underneath the sink cabinet and sets it on top. It is a dark green terrycloth towel. Probably their best one. Next he pulls back the shower curtain and turn the water on, making sure it is at the right temperature.
“We aren’t suppose to take too long,” he reminds me, then steps out, closing the door.
“Thanks,” I call after him, loudly enough to be heard over the exhaust, and then toe my sneakers off. Gazing down at them, I realize David and Edna had removed theirs at the door. Edna’s carpet is probably a mess thanks to me. Not wanting to waste their running water ruminating on how poor a guest I’ve already proven myself, I peel away my socks, jeans, and the rest. Everything in a pile on same chilly tile floor my feet are sticking to. That’s enough. I step into the shower, pull the curtain shut, and close my eyes. Warm liquid rushes over my face and steam fills my nostrils.
While the cold rain of the graveyard had brought dreams of death, these hot streams stinging my chest recall memories of life. The idea of bathing in another person’s home always freaked me out. Even at my best friend’s house, when I was the same age as this woman’s kid, my buddy would sit on the toilet seat and talk to me to keep me calm. Sometimes he’d jump in, romp around, mess around, and facts like us being naked and me being claustrophobic disappeared into the vapor. That had gone on for a few good years.
Memories like that can send a handful of minutes crashing against a wall, compressing them so they feel as if not even a moment has gone by. I’m not cold, my teeth aren’t chattering, and that means my time in here is up.
Turning off the water, I pull the curtain aside, and bite down on my lip to reign in torrent of profanity bashing against my skull. The kid is sitting on the toilet next to me, feet not even reaching the floor, with a stack of clothing folded on his lap. My pile is gone.
“Mommy said you can wear these while she washes yours,” David explains, inspecting me shamelessly like boys his age do. Of course I’m upset with him, but it is my fault for not locking the door. Back at school and even now in college, guys with younger siblings would complain about their privacy being violated on a regular basis. Nevertheless, carefully reaching across David for the towel, I feel dirty. Like I should scrub myself until my flesh is raw.
‘Just wait a few years, kid,’ I snarl inwardly, but regret the sentiment. He isn’t hurting me. With only a mother as a parent, he is probably afraid and confused, like I was at first.
“What’s that?” he asks. Following his gaze down, I frown. “Something to keep me safe.”
“A band around your ankle keeps you safe?” he presses, incredulous.
His answer is a bop upside the head, and then I grab the pajama bottoms from his lap. The floor is warm now, and feels as good against my feet as the cotton does around my waist. David hands me the plain white T-shirt and I flip the light switch down.
“Your mom is waiting, kid,” is my best muster.
My cheeks flush with embarrassment at the realization.
Brushing the back of my hand across my face, I sputter an apology. No, a pitiful explanation. “He terrified me,” it sounds, reeking of shame. Of weakness. In revulsion, I avert my gaze back to the grass, gray amongst the shadows. So strong a word, so repulsive. Why had I used it? Because it was true, I was terrified. The jaundice complexion of the boy glowing eerily in mixture of moonlight, starlight, and streetlights is a picture of death; even now.
Yet, he is as upset as I, huddling into the warmth of his mother’s embrace as though he might draw strength from her mere touch. Forcing the dark memory down into the black confusion of half-thoughts, I return my focus to her. A light blue jacket with three-quarter sleeves clings to her arms and her wavy auburn hair shimmers under the halo of a distant street lamp, contrasting the pale skin stretching over her throat and brow. She is the image of her son, but so nonthreatening. Then again, neither is he; just mischievous, albeit melancholy. And why shouldn’t he be, at a time and a place such as this? It is a graveyard, after all.
The woman’s features soften—not from hardness, but a release of anxiety—and she asks me, “You’re soaking wet and trembling. How long have you been here?”
“Hours, maybe. I fell asleep,” is my answer. I am sitting on the grass. It is time to stand, and doing so releases a hundred pools dammed in the creases of my jeans. They’re uncomfortable, chafing even, but just as well.
“You were having a nightmare,” she points out.
As I think it I say it, although I know not from what twisted well of my heart it rises from, “This is the time and place for nightmares.”
At first she won’t speak. I see her lips draw into a tight line, sealing away some knowledge I’m unwilling to receive. The moment is awkward, because of me, so I put an end to it, “What time is it? I should go call a cab, head home.”
“Past midnight,” she says, but there is more in her eyes. Fine. I’ll wait. Fighting is always too much effort when there is nothing worth fighting for. “My name is Edna. Now,”—she patiently reaches for my name, and I acquiesce— “Sable, you will catch pneumonia if you stay here in the cold, and there is no cab service this late at night. We live a short walk from here. Please, come dry yourself and get warm.”
Her son glances up apprehensively, but with excitement gleaming in his eyes. The look of a child with few friends and less company. With a ruffle of his hair from above, he lightens from ghoul to just a kid. It would be cruel of me to deny them this offering.
“Okay,” I say.
“My name is David,” he chirps.
Somehow, I already knew.
Our walk is short, quiet, peaceful. We don’t speak. Doing so would be unnecessary, perhaps sacrilege amongst these markers of loss. Then, before I’m ready, we’re gone, passing through an opening in the rusty spike fence surrounding Hope Cemetery. Opposite, the street is still, with a few old cars along the curb and even older trees straining through the crumbling sidewalk. A thin brick building with an awning, bay windows, and double doors, like one of those old time stores, is directly across from us. We don’t enter through them. Instead, David leads us into an unlit alcove and up a flight of stairs barely visible off the side of the building.
From darkness to light, Edna’s living room is small, with a Goodwill couch and no television. Seeing the yellow wallpaper is what does it for me. This mother and her son aren’t just poor, but ascetics. Probably the religious sort, although there aren’t any observable crucifixes or statues. I take another look, and see a pile of books in the corner and some toys in the middle of the room. Well, not toys, but rudimentary art. This mother’s prized possessions; her son’s labor.
“David, please show Sable to the washroom while I put on some tea,” Edna says.
If I weren’t so cold, I might protest, but instead I follow David around the corner that is their hall and into a little bathroom. He flips on the light, and a fan turns on with it; loud enough to block out most thoughts. Like the living room before, this room is also cast in a yellow pallor, from the tiles on the walls to the obscenely-large light fixture. David pulls a towel from underneath the sink cabinet and sets it on top. It is a dark green terrycloth towel. Probably their best one. Next he pulls back the shower curtain and turn the water on, making sure it is at the right temperature.
“We aren’t suppose to take too long,” he reminds me, then steps out, closing the door.
“Thanks,” I call after him, loudly enough to be heard over the exhaust, and then toe my sneakers off. Gazing down at them, I realize David and Edna had removed theirs at the door. Edna’s carpet is probably a mess thanks to me. Not wanting to waste their running water ruminating on how poor a guest I’ve already proven myself, I peel away my socks, jeans, and the rest. Everything in a pile on same chilly tile floor my feet are sticking to. That’s enough. I step into the shower, pull the curtain shut, and close my eyes. Warm liquid rushes over my face and steam fills my nostrils.
While the cold rain of the graveyard had brought dreams of death, these hot streams stinging my chest recall memories of life. The idea of bathing in another person’s home always freaked me out. Even at my best friend’s house, when I was the same age as this woman’s kid, my buddy would sit on the toilet seat and talk to me to keep me calm. Sometimes he’d jump in, romp around, mess around, and facts like us being naked and me being claustrophobic disappeared into the vapor. That had gone on for a few good years.
Memories like that can send a handful of minutes crashing against a wall, compressing them so they feel as if not even a moment has gone by. I’m not cold, my teeth aren’t chattering, and that means my time in here is up.
Turning off the water, I pull the curtain aside, and bite down on my lip to reign in torrent of profanity bashing against my skull. The kid is sitting on the toilet next to me, feet not even reaching the floor, with a stack of clothing folded on his lap. My pile is gone.
“Mommy said you can wear these while she washes yours,” David explains, inspecting me shamelessly like boys his age do. Of course I’m upset with him, but it is my fault for not locking the door. Back at school and even now in college, guys with younger siblings would complain about their privacy being violated on a regular basis. Nevertheless, carefully reaching across David for the towel, I feel dirty. Like I should scrub myself until my flesh is raw.
‘Just wait a few years, kid,’ I snarl inwardly, but regret the sentiment. He isn’t hurting me. With only a mother as a parent, he is probably afraid and confused, like I was at first.
“What’s that?” he asks. Following his gaze down, I frown. “Something to keep me safe.”
“A band around your ankle keeps you safe?” he presses, incredulous.
His answer is a bop upside the head, and then I grab the pajama bottoms from his lap. The floor is warm now, and feels as good against my feet as the cotton does around my waist. David hands me the plain white T-shirt and I flip the light switch down.
“Your mom is waiting, kid,” is my best muster.
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As I walk out of the bathroom, my bare feet sink into cool, gritty carpet. A picture hangs on the wall opposite me. In it are Edna, David, and some older boy. It occurs to me that I am probably wearing his pajamas.
Exiting the hall, the trip is shorter than I remember it being, and I round a corner to find Edna waiting for me with a teacup and saucer. Separated by a small dinette and two barstools, she stands in her kitchen, itself an extension of the living room where the theme of aging joy begrimes the floor tiles and counter backsplash, miniature pink tulips decorating the latter. Whether they are hand-painted or stenciled, I can’t tell, but the acrylic shimmers underneath the uneven light spilling from a milky glass fixture overhead. Taking the shadows into account, the ceiling looks like the blurry projection of an Iron Cross. As for my host, she is wearing a terrycloth robe and lines of unease, doubtlessly reconsidering her offer. Despite this, the porcelain in her grasp is not trembling with the obnoxious indictment of insecurity. Poor though she may be, this symbolizes an enviable confidence.
It starts rattling as soon she releases it to me.
“Thank you,” I say, grateful my words are as bleary as my eyes. Shutting them, I lift the tea and deeply inhale its therapeutic curls of steam. Lack of familiarity with the scent becomes a refuge of inquisitiveness—a silly distraction to ponder while ignoring Edna’s inspection.
“You’re welcome,” she finally speaks, her tone difficult to read.
Pausing for a sip, I add, “For the pajamas, too,” doing my best to seem content as a stray pulled out of the rain ought, even managing to coerce a half-smile to my face along with some pretense of humanity.
She nods, matter-of-fact, and looks beyond me and into the living room, where David is. Following her, I see the sofa is now a bed, complete with plain sheets and pillows. The shadow of the frame, dominating the bulk of the room, obscures my tread marks across the carpet.
“Sorry about that.”
She ignores me, and calls out, “David, go to bed.”
“I am in bed,” he counters, and I detect a quaver of frustration in his voice. His manner isn’t rebellious, but entreating.
“Sable is sleeping there tonight. We discussed this.”
“The floor is fine,” I offer, but she gives me a glance that tells me no guest in her home, small as it may be—as is obvious by the fact that David’s sleeping quarters are apparently a fold-out in the living room—will be sleeping on the floor.
“I’m not a baby, and it is big enough,” David insists. Now he tinges it with aggression.
This kid must have very few friends, and is willing to take advantage of whatever he can get. As for me, it really doesn’t matter, so I try to make light of the situation, and joke, “Is he harmless?”
“Are you?” she looks me in the eyes and says, not snapping defensively as expected, but with a measure of delicate concern.
Holding a stare is not my forte, and I avert mine to the specs of debris floating near the bottom of my cup. No, only my intentions are harmless, otherwise I am an impotent, insipid child whose selfish negligence is as lethal as any killer. A shrug is my answer, but, reflecting on its insufficiency, I force out, “Nobody should have to suffer.”
In response, she takes cup from me, washes it, and turns out the lights. On her way to her own room, I hear her say, “Good night, boys.”
Standing there in the dark, I have no idea what to do. No, I know what to do—sleep. Sleep like the dead.
“Lay down, Creepy,” David chides, and I hear his fist thump the pillow beside him.
Exiting the hall, the trip is shorter than I remember it being, and I round a corner to find Edna waiting for me with a teacup and saucer. Separated by a small dinette and two barstools, she stands in her kitchen, itself an extension of the living room where the theme of aging joy begrimes the floor tiles and counter backsplash, miniature pink tulips decorating the latter. Whether they are hand-painted or stenciled, I can’t tell, but the acrylic shimmers underneath the uneven light spilling from a milky glass fixture overhead. Taking the shadows into account, the ceiling looks like the blurry projection of an Iron Cross. As for my host, she is wearing a terrycloth robe and lines of unease, doubtlessly reconsidering her offer. Despite this, the porcelain in her grasp is not trembling with the obnoxious indictment of insecurity. Poor though she may be, this symbolizes an enviable confidence.
It starts rattling as soon she releases it to me.
“Thank you,” I say, grateful my words are as bleary as my eyes. Shutting them, I lift the tea and deeply inhale its therapeutic curls of steam. Lack of familiarity with the scent becomes a refuge of inquisitiveness—a silly distraction to ponder while ignoring Edna’s inspection.
“You’re welcome,” she finally speaks, her tone difficult to read.
Pausing for a sip, I add, “For the pajamas, too,” doing my best to seem content as a stray pulled out of the rain ought, even managing to coerce a half-smile to my face along with some pretense of humanity.
She nods, matter-of-fact, and looks beyond me and into the living room, where David is. Following her, I see the sofa is now a bed, complete with plain sheets and pillows. The shadow of the frame, dominating the bulk of the room, obscures my tread marks across the carpet.
“Sorry about that.”
She ignores me, and calls out, “David, go to bed.”
“I am in bed,” he counters, and I detect a quaver of frustration in his voice. His manner isn’t rebellious, but entreating.
“Sable is sleeping there tonight. We discussed this.”
“The floor is fine,” I offer, but she gives me a glance that tells me no guest in her home, small as it may be—as is obvious by the fact that David’s sleeping quarters are apparently a fold-out in the living room—will be sleeping on the floor.
“I’m not a baby, and it is big enough,” David insists. Now he tinges it with aggression.
This kid must have very few friends, and is willing to take advantage of whatever he can get. As for me, it really doesn’t matter, so I try to make light of the situation, and joke, “Is he harmless?”
“Are you?” she looks me in the eyes and says, not snapping defensively as expected, but with a measure of delicate concern.
Holding a stare is not my forte, and I avert mine to the specs of debris floating near the bottom of my cup. No, only my intentions are harmless, otherwise I am an impotent, insipid child whose selfish negligence is as lethal as any killer. A shrug is my answer, but, reflecting on its insufficiency, I force out, “Nobody should have to suffer.”
In response, she takes cup from me, washes it, and turns out the lights. On her way to her own room, I hear her say, “Good night, boys.”
Standing there in the dark, I have no idea what to do. No, I know what to do—sleep. Sleep like the dead.
“Lay down, Creepy,” David chides, and I hear his fist thump the pillow beside him.
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Thin beams of light bleed through the shutters, a particular one, revealing the torrent of dust that floated in the air, illuminates my yellow-stained teeth as my face contorts in the facial spasm of a yawn; or so I imagined the sight. My eyelids felt leaden, gilt in the exhaustion accrued during last night's escapades, and were nearly crusted shut. A single spring in the mattress protruded most uncomfortably, jabbing my back with near viciousness. I wanted to raise my left hand to rub my eyes as I roll out of bed, smacking the snooze button to silence the Waa-Waa of the Ambulance alarm, the only sufficiently strident sound that could break my slumber, and stumble into the bathroom so I can prepare for work. I wanted to, but...
“Tiger Milk”
My adolescent love of Milk, which, like many of my habits, I never quite outgrew, alloyed with my contemptible urge to forget myself in a bottle of liquor had resulted in the curious concoction of milk and vodka aptly named “Tiger Milk”.
I try to pronounce the word, muttering my thoughts as I often do, but the result thoroughly frustrates me. My tongue seems to loll, my lips are too slack, and my jaw is hanging unhinged. My eyelids part, with greater effort than Moses used to part the Red Sea, and I was blinded. Was this some twisted caricature of heaven? Everything seemed to glow as if blanketed in a ubiquitous white effusion. It wasn’t that I really thought so, but my mind often wandered and jumbled and garbled my thoughts. It was somewhat reassuring to know that this stupor, though it made me clumsy and irritable, had not altered my mind. No... Suddenly I begin thinking of the strangest objects, and feel the urge to speak in rhyme.
“What…?” I slur, confused by the contradictions and oddities of my own thoughts, my mouth still utterly refusing to cooperate.
My vision clears, slowly becoming more and more acute, until I finally recognize the squalor and filth that was my room. A limp hand smacks me in the face, and I blink, trying to maneuver my finger just under my eye. What focus is required just to rub my damn eye. A fleeting thought crosses my mind, scampering quickly away from me as the rabbit being pursued by the hound. Everything was so sluggish, as if submerged in gelatin, but finally I make the connection. Vodka = Alcohol = Inebriate
An equation greater than Einstein’s, I scoff. With a drunken sneer plastered on my face, my throat issues some grotesque burble. I think I am trying to laugh, but it is so distorted that it seems more like the mewling of a dying animal. Fuck.
How much had I drunk?
Driven by some forgotten purpose, I am out of the bed and standing half dressed in my kitchen, battling with the spinning room to bring a coffee mug to my lips. It is bitter, straight black, but I feel a tingle run down my limbs. Reminds me of the first time I kissed a girl; what was her name? With shake of my head, I resolve to disregard such inconsequential thoughts. If this coffee doesn’t work, I might have to break out the peppermint oil, I think, reeling myself back from that tangent.
“Peppermint oil burns like hell, but it sure as hell wakes me up…” the thought of it was exciting and dreadful simultaneously, an interesting contrast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gazing at the white marble, I can feel something more than my reflection looking back at me. Could a reflection be something more, like a ghostly intimation of some alter-ego in a parallel universe? The fanciful thought is momentarily amusing, until somebody bumps into me. His words pass by me, swallowed in the incessant din of the city, but I understand his intent. I stir, walking out of the middle of the hall, as if waking from a daze.
Life has seemed more like a dream than reality lately, making me wonder if this world was a waking dream. Could this be a dream, my real life what I perceive to be a dream in this universe?
My psychiatrist seems to be determined to rid me of these so called “avoidance tendencies”. The official psycho-babble is that I’m unhappy with my life and that these “delusions” are my escape.
The elevator chimes and slows, floor seventeen. I stride quietly out of the parting door, my slacks rubbing together at the thighs; a sound that has always bothered me.
Sometimes I wonder if the psychiatrist is the crazy one. In a world of mad men, the mad man is the only sane one… isn’t that some famous quote?
“Good morning, Mr. Warren.” I nod my head slightly.
“Well, do you have those internal audit reports from finance yet, guy?” he replies aggressively, and my perfect façade threatens to crack and shatter into a sneer; I hate when he calls people whose names he cannot remember, “guy”. Images with lurid detail flash across my vision, superimposed over the endless sea of white cubicles and that somehow condescendingly polite smile of Mr. Warren. A few unpleasant thoughts cross my mind, one BDSM in nature; less because I would take sexual pleasure from it, but more because of my thirst to bask in this self-righteous imbecile’s shame and agony.
“Of course, Mr. Warren. I called them yesterday after lunch; it will be on your desk by closing.” It sickened me that I had to act and pretend every moment of the day, all in the hopes for a dollar or two raise and promotion. This perfunctory existence was maddening, and my rage threatened to explode into a crime of passion any day now. I wanted to commit a crime just to break the monotony of work, drink, sleep, work, drink, sleep.
He grunted and continued his daily patrol, harassing employees with a reserved zeal. Like a fucking cannibal slavering over the half-dead, insatiable in his quest to taste our flesh. Most of the people here looked half-dead anyway, pale and thin and weak. A man being berated by Jones had become nearly livid with embarrassment, and began typing furiously on his keyboard as if to show his sincerity.
I sigh and plop into my chair, enclosed in my cubicle. The sheer vastness of the workday ahead presses down on me, oppressive with every breath, leeching my strength. A day like any other, I suppose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crimson swirls around the drain, dyeing the water from the faucet. I wash my hands with such purpose, serenity, it is nearly unbelievable. I smile contently, as if my greatest desire has been fulfilled. It disturbs me too, my conscience poking at me indignantly, but I can not deny my actions, or deny the pleasure.
In my younger days, before I had been tied down by marriage and aged by divorce, I was a lively person and traveled often. I had been proud of my body and had been quite interested in martial arts. It didn’t seem like that long ago, seven years; I still have a little definition, the vestiges of my once toned body. Martial arts had been a hobby, a pleasure, but I had warped and twisted its purpose, yet I didn’t care, which scared me the most.
As I stare into the mirror, into the depths of my eyes, the so called window into the soul, I remember the details vividly. Mr. Warren demanded those internal audit reports, even though I received them late, and I was forced to stay after-hours, without overtime, to finish it. Down the elevator, a mumbled greeting to the security guard, out the door, and into the dark maw of the parking garage. I felt uneasy even then, walking between the isles of luxury cars. There was a pretty run-down apartment building just across the highway.
As I near my car, fumbling with my keys and pressing the unlock button, a dark silhouette jumps out. He is crudely dressed, compared to my crisp suit, but what is most disturbing is his wild look. He lunges at me with an open knife, his movements appearing slow and drawn out, adrenaline pumping through my veins. At first, I am too shocked to move, but suddenly, subconsciously, I drop my briefcase and grab his wrist between my forefinger and thumb, breaking his wrist with a sharp twist. My hand shoots out, hitting him in the throat with the webbing between the thumb and fingers, collapsing his trachea and silencing him before he can yelp in pain; the whole experience is surreal, as if I am watching someone else control my body, as if I am just a spectator. He crumbles onto the ground, eyes wide with fear, pain. But I don’t stop; I keep beating him, his blood staining my fists.
With shake of my head I dispel the images, trying to focus on the towel, on drying my hands. I was excited, yet the consequences hung dreadfully over me, and this time the contrast was not so pleasant. Numbness spreads over me, and I cannot think. I simply fall into bed, mindlessly pulling the covers over myself, letting the sweet embrace of darkness envelope me, caress me until this world left and another came.
“Tiger Milk”
My adolescent love of Milk, which, like many of my habits, I never quite outgrew, alloyed with my contemptible urge to forget myself in a bottle of liquor had resulted in the curious concoction of milk and vodka aptly named “Tiger Milk”.
I try to pronounce the word, muttering my thoughts as I often do, but the result thoroughly frustrates me. My tongue seems to loll, my lips are too slack, and my jaw is hanging unhinged. My eyelids part, with greater effort than Moses used to part the Red Sea, and I was blinded. Was this some twisted caricature of heaven? Everything seemed to glow as if blanketed in a ubiquitous white effusion. It wasn’t that I really thought so, but my mind often wandered and jumbled and garbled my thoughts. It was somewhat reassuring to know that this stupor, though it made me clumsy and irritable, had not altered my mind. No... Suddenly I begin thinking of the strangest objects, and feel the urge to speak in rhyme.
“What…?” I slur, confused by the contradictions and oddities of my own thoughts, my mouth still utterly refusing to cooperate.
My vision clears, slowly becoming more and more acute, until I finally recognize the squalor and filth that was my room. A limp hand smacks me in the face, and I blink, trying to maneuver my finger just under my eye. What focus is required just to rub my damn eye. A fleeting thought crosses my mind, scampering quickly away from me as the rabbit being pursued by the hound. Everything was so sluggish, as if submerged in gelatin, but finally I make the connection. Vodka = Alcohol = Inebriate
An equation greater than Einstein’s, I scoff. With a drunken sneer plastered on my face, my throat issues some grotesque burble. I think I am trying to laugh, but it is so distorted that it seems more like the mewling of a dying animal. Fuck.
How much had I drunk?
Driven by some forgotten purpose, I am out of the bed and standing half dressed in my kitchen, battling with the spinning room to bring a coffee mug to my lips. It is bitter, straight black, but I feel a tingle run down my limbs. Reminds me of the first time I kissed a girl; what was her name? With shake of my head, I resolve to disregard such inconsequential thoughts. If this coffee doesn’t work, I might have to break out the peppermint oil, I think, reeling myself back from that tangent.
“Peppermint oil burns like hell, but it sure as hell wakes me up…” the thought of it was exciting and dreadful simultaneously, an interesting contrast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gazing at the white marble, I can feel something more than my reflection looking back at me. Could a reflection be something more, like a ghostly intimation of some alter-ego in a parallel universe? The fanciful thought is momentarily amusing, until somebody bumps into me. His words pass by me, swallowed in the incessant din of the city, but I understand his intent. I stir, walking out of the middle of the hall, as if waking from a daze.
Life has seemed more like a dream than reality lately, making me wonder if this world was a waking dream. Could this be a dream, my real life what I perceive to be a dream in this universe?
My psychiatrist seems to be determined to rid me of these so called “avoidance tendencies”. The official psycho-babble is that I’m unhappy with my life and that these “delusions” are my escape.
The elevator chimes and slows, floor seventeen. I stride quietly out of the parting door, my slacks rubbing together at the thighs; a sound that has always bothered me.
Sometimes I wonder if the psychiatrist is the crazy one. In a world of mad men, the mad man is the only sane one… isn’t that some famous quote?
“Good morning, Mr. Warren.” I nod my head slightly.
“Well, do you have those internal audit reports from finance yet, guy?” he replies aggressively, and my perfect façade threatens to crack and shatter into a sneer; I hate when he calls people whose names he cannot remember, “guy”. Images with lurid detail flash across my vision, superimposed over the endless sea of white cubicles and that somehow condescendingly polite smile of Mr. Warren. A few unpleasant thoughts cross my mind, one BDSM in nature; less because I would take sexual pleasure from it, but more because of my thirst to bask in this self-righteous imbecile’s shame and agony.
“Of course, Mr. Warren. I called them yesterday after lunch; it will be on your desk by closing.” It sickened me that I had to act and pretend every moment of the day, all in the hopes for a dollar or two raise and promotion. This perfunctory existence was maddening, and my rage threatened to explode into a crime of passion any day now. I wanted to commit a crime just to break the monotony of work, drink, sleep, work, drink, sleep.
He grunted and continued his daily patrol, harassing employees with a reserved zeal. Like a fucking cannibal slavering over the half-dead, insatiable in his quest to taste our flesh. Most of the people here looked half-dead anyway, pale and thin and weak. A man being berated by Jones had become nearly livid with embarrassment, and began typing furiously on his keyboard as if to show his sincerity.
I sigh and plop into my chair, enclosed in my cubicle. The sheer vastness of the workday ahead presses down on me, oppressive with every breath, leeching my strength. A day like any other, I suppose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crimson swirls around the drain, dyeing the water from the faucet. I wash my hands with such purpose, serenity, it is nearly unbelievable. I smile contently, as if my greatest desire has been fulfilled. It disturbs me too, my conscience poking at me indignantly, but I can not deny my actions, or deny the pleasure.
In my younger days, before I had been tied down by marriage and aged by divorce, I was a lively person and traveled often. I had been proud of my body and had been quite interested in martial arts. It didn’t seem like that long ago, seven years; I still have a little definition, the vestiges of my once toned body. Martial arts had been a hobby, a pleasure, but I had warped and twisted its purpose, yet I didn’t care, which scared me the most.
As I stare into the mirror, into the depths of my eyes, the so called window into the soul, I remember the details vividly. Mr. Warren demanded those internal audit reports, even though I received them late, and I was forced to stay after-hours, without overtime, to finish it. Down the elevator, a mumbled greeting to the security guard, out the door, and into the dark maw of the parking garage. I felt uneasy even then, walking between the isles of luxury cars. There was a pretty run-down apartment building just across the highway.
As I near my car, fumbling with my keys and pressing the unlock button, a dark silhouette jumps out. He is crudely dressed, compared to my crisp suit, but what is most disturbing is his wild look. He lunges at me with an open knife, his movements appearing slow and drawn out, adrenaline pumping through my veins. At first, I am too shocked to move, but suddenly, subconsciously, I drop my briefcase and grab his wrist between my forefinger and thumb, breaking his wrist with a sharp twist. My hand shoots out, hitting him in the throat with the webbing between the thumb and fingers, collapsing his trachea and silencing him before he can yelp in pain; the whole experience is surreal, as if I am watching someone else control my body, as if I am just a spectator. He crumbles onto the ground, eyes wide with fear, pain. But I don’t stop; I keep beating him, his blood staining my fists.
With shake of my head I dispel the images, trying to focus on the towel, on drying my hands. I was excited, yet the consequences hung dreadfully over me, and this time the contrast was not so pleasant. Numbness spreads over me, and I cannot think. I simply fall into bed, mindlessly pulling the covers over myself, letting the sweet embrace of darkness envelope me, caress me until this world left and another came.
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The couch wasn’t particularly uncomfortable – well, it had been at first, but David had gotten used to it. He overheard the conversation between Sable and his mother. Of course, comprehension never dawned on him: he was young, and with youth came an impenetrable barrier between the real world and the imaginary one that built itself in his mind and freed itself through his eyes and ears and mouth. “Lay down, Creepy,” David chided, and his fist thumped the pillow beside him. “I don’t bite.” He grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
Sable grunted and complied. David felt somewhat claustrophobic. He scooted as far away as the couch fold-out allowed to give his guest as much space as possible. Then, when he had situated himself and deemed it as comfortable as was possible, he said, “I used to have a brother and a father.” There was only a very distant semblance of sorrow hidden in his voice. He tried not to think about them. Kenneth, his older brother, had died a year or so before, but he had been made a true martyr. David’s father Stuart had been a drunk and a psychopath. He had regularly abused the three of them, and then wasted what little extra money they did have on beer and drugs.
One day, in one of his inebriated tantrums, he had punched Edna so hard she hadn’t gotten up. He had laughed, the pig-headed swine, and it was clear he wanted to rape her. Kenneth had landed a blow to his face, but Stuart had been older and more powerful even in his graceless fury. Kenneth had been brutalized and stabbed, and with the last of his strength, he had retrieved the family’s gun from their bedroom. He had missed, however. Stuart, sobered into a mirthless insanity, removed the gun from his son’s clutches and shot him. David still remembered watching from the hallway, seeing that blood pool under Kenneth’s body, watching his brother’s fading eyes locate him and his broken lips whisper a wordless goodbye. Then, he had been gone, and Stuart had proclaimed, “Lost my mind? No, I left it all over the wall!”
Bang.
And that he had. David voiced this to Sable, to Creepy. He remembered the flashing lights of the ambulance and Edna’s shriek and the men in uniforms who had come. He remembered the rainy day and the black umbrellas and the gray field and the tears and the holes and the casket and the solemn ‘goodbyes.’ He remembered it well. It had been the last time he’d ever cried, that day in the rain, and no one had seen it, but no one had assumed it was just the raindrops landing on his face as he stared up into the sky and the invisible dusting of stars that hung there.
And he voiced that to Sable, too. And then he sat there, quite cozy in his little spot there, and he slowly drifted off to sleep. He dreamt about the cold stares of those around him, and how he returned those stares with his inquisitive emerald eyes that held within them the hidden knowledge of something so distant, and he dreamt about the devil, and he dreamt about Dante, too, locked in the devil’s fiery embrace. From the hallway, Edna watched with those vigilant, intelligent eyes of her own. She had a certain natural distrust that made itself known to anyone who had ever met her.
She heard David’s soft snoring. He was a good boy. A bit disillusioned by recent events in his life, sure, but he was still a good boy... That monster she had called a husband had wrought so much of his hatred into tangible being; a single crystal tear slid down her cheek. She bit her lip, and began to ponder over the situation of their unexpected visitor. She couldn’t cast Sable out, she knew, for to do so would be too cruel, and he had, after all, said so righteously and so correctly: nobody should have to suffer. Unfortunately, the world and all its people had different plans. She looked at the clock in her bedroom. 1:07. She sighed, took her pain medication and her stress/relief pills, and slipped under the covers.
Within moments, the world had faded to black.
Sable grunted and complied. David felt somewhat claustrophobic. He scooted as far away as the couch fold-out allowed to give his guest as much space as possible. Then, when he had situated himself and deemed it as comfortable as was possible, he said, “I used to have a brother and a father.” There was only a very distant semblance of sorrow hidden in his voice. He tried not to think about them. Kenneth, his older brother, had died a year or so before, but he had been made a true martyr. David’s father Stuart had been a drunk and a psychopath. He had regularly abused the three of them, and then wasted what little extra money they did have on beer and drugs.
One day, in one of his inebriated tantrums, he had punched Edna so hard she hadn’t gotten up. He had laughed, the pig-headed swine, and it was clear he wanted to rape her. Kenneth had landed a blow to his face, but Stuart had been older and more powerful even in his graceless fury. Kenneth had been brutalized and stabbed, and with the last of his strength, he had retrieved the family’s gun from their bedroom. He had missed, however. Stuart, sobered into a mirthless insanity, removed the gun from his son’s clutches and shot him. David still remembered watching from the hallway, seeing that blood pool under Kenneth’s body, watching his brother’s fading eyes locate him and his broken lips whisper a wordless goodbye. Then, he had been gone, and Stuart had proclaimed, “Lost my mind? No, I left it all over the wall!”
Bang.
And that he had. David voiced this to Sable, to Creepy. He remembered the flashing lights of the ambulance and Edna’s shriek and the men in uniforms who had come. He remembered the rainy day and the black umbrellas and the gray field and the tears and the holes and the casket and the solemn ‘goodbyes.’ He remembered it well. It had been the last time he’d ever cried, that day in the rain, and no one had seen it, but no one had assumed it was just the raindrops landing on his face as he stared up into the sky and the invisible dusting of stars that hung there.
And he voiced that to Sable, too. And then he sat there, quite cozy in his little spot there, and he slowly drifted off to sleep. He dreamt about the cold stares of those around him, and how he returned those stares with his inquisitive emerald eyes that held within them the hidden knowledge of something so distant, and he dreamt about the devil, and he dreamt about Dante, too, locked in the devil’s fiery embrace. From the hallway, Edna watched with those vigilant, intelligent eyes of her own. She had a certain natural distrust that made itself known to anyone who had ever met her.
She heard David’s soft snoring. He was a good boy. A bit disillusioned by recent events in his life, sure, but he was still a good boy... That monster she had called a husband had wrought so much of his hatred into tangible being; a single crystal tear slid down her cheek. She bit her lip, and began to ponder over the situation of their unexpected visitor. She couldn’t cast Sable out, she knew, for to do so would be too cruel, and he had, after all, said so righteously and so correctly: nobody should have to suffer. Unfortunately, the world and all its people had different plans. She looked at the clock in her bedroom. 1:07. She sighed, took her pain medication and her stress/relief pills, and slipped under the covers.
Within moments, the world had faded to black.
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Sitting on the edge of the fold-out opposite David, the mattress protesting under my weight, a dart strikes my heart. Am I sinning irredeemably with this betrayal, this abandonment of ritual? The night of her funeral, an event I heard of later as I was too timid and guilty to attend, I had cried myself to sleep while clinging to the granite slab in disbelief. It was unusually clement that night, that year, comforting even, but comfort has little to do with the fact that I now should be freezing atop the barrier separating me from her. Instead, I am now warm in someone else’s home, at rest in someone else’s bed, and wearing someone else’s clothes—a departure even from my relatively normal routine where, in a medicinal stupor, I nakedly collapse atop sheets I can call my own, much to the offense of my roommate.
Needing to abandon all thought, I lean down and force my cheek against a lumpy pillow. It smells faintly of mothballs. Bedsprings bite at my side, and the unnatural sensation of sheets and garments coils around me with all the affliction their creases can inflict on my torso and neck. A few moments pass, and I shift my weight to smooth out the wrinkles, but that does nothing. Frustration creeps in, and, just as I determine to sit up and pull off this wretched shirt, a callow voice melts the stuffy air behind my back.
“Those are my older brother’s pajamas. My daddy killed him,” are as startling to me as the first words out of the kid’s mouth, and immediately any craven demand of physical appointment disperses behind a cloud of rage and sorrow. Before I can acclimate to the discussion in time to interrupt with a sincere, but utterly impotent, gesture of commiseration, he continues, flooding my mind with halting whispers of the cruel event.
It feels wrong that I am being so cold, so distant, when he is exposing so much. Perhaps he isn’t aware of it, of just how intimate these thoughts he freely shares will become in a matter of years.
As in every case, where I know what is proper, I ruminate over the implications and try to talk myself out of it—but there is no suitable evasion to withhold comfort. I roll to my other side, my legs bumping into his, and face him. David doesn’t retreat, but merely pauses in confusion, which he seems to dismiss for the sake of finishing his story. I have no idea how long he talks, but when he is done, I wrap my arm around him, say, “Goodnight, David,” pulling him him into a brief, clumsy hug.
It has been a while, but it feels right, so I allow it to continue.
A moist heat gathering over my heart breaks me out of my trance. His head is against my chest, and he is breathing evenly. By the time I gather the courage to tell him part of my tragedy, the soft, nasal whining of a snore accompanies the throaty sighs. He is asleep. Thinking better of the idea, I close my eyes, and pray for silence in my dreams, knowing I won’t receive it.
The next morning, it isn’t the oscillating blare of an alarm clock, but the persistent, high-pitch chime of a doorbell that rouses a man from his Tiger Milk coma.
Standing outside his door is Amanda Torres, just as she had been standing for the past five minutes; calmly, professionally, pressing the doorbell every minute on the minute. The angular planes of her face slope upward into a pinched mouth and intense blue eyes. Accompanied by the tight bun of auburn atop her head, her face gives the distinctive sensation of dissatisfaction and suspended belief. Straight shoulders, pulled back in a casual indifference, are held in place by a coal gray jacket that chisels the outline of her lean torso in straight lines, punishing the very notion of femininity. It drops down past her waist and flares out around her hips, hiding the top of her trousers, which are of similar lines and color.
Once more, she lifts her finger to the doorbell. It rings, and after a few moments the door opens. On the other side is a man, disheveled and unshaven. She had woken him up, evidently from a deep slumber. His pupils indicate he is hungover, although his breath doesn’t immediately reek of it.
‘A closet drinker,’ she surmises, reaching into her jacket and withdrawing her credentials. Pushing the badge under his nose, she says with a tone of sharp disdain, “I am Detective Amanda Torres, of the St. Glears Police Department. I would like to ask you some questions.”
“Huh?” the man says, clearly not awake enough to grasp what is happening.
“May I come in while I wait for you to get dressed?” she says, looking into his eyes. He is still having trouble concentrating.
“What’s this about?” he finally asks.
“A murder,” she replies, in a resolute but apparently bored tone. “This is very serious matter, and I would appreciate your cooperation.”
Needing to abandon all thought, I lean down and force my cheek against a lumpy pillow. It smells faintly of mothballs. Bedsprings bite at my side, and the unnatural sensation of sheets and garments coils around me with all the affliction their creases can inflict on my torso and neck. A few moments pass, and I shift my weight to smooth out the wrinkles, but that does nothing. Frustration creeps in, and, just as I determine to sit up and pull off this wretched shirt, a callow voice melts the stuffy air behind my back.
“Those are my older brother’s pajamas. My daddy killed him,” are as startling to me as the first words out of the kid’s mouth, and immediately any craven demand of physical appointment disperses behind a cloud of rage and sorrow. Before I can acclimate to the discussion in time to interrupt with a sincere, but utterly impotent, gesture of commiseration, he continues, flooding my mind with halting whispers of the cruel event.
It feels wrong that I am being so cold, so distant, when he is exposing so much. Perhaps he isn’t aware of it, of just how intimate these thoughts he freely shares will become in a matter of years.
As in every case, where I know what is proper, I ruminate over the implications and try to talk myself out of it—but there is no suitable evasion to withhold comfort. I roll to my other side, my legs bumping into his, and face him. David doesn’t retreat, but merely pauses in confusion, which he seems to dismiss for the sake of finishing his story. I have no idea how long he talks, but when he is done, I wrap my arm around him, say, “Goodnight, David,” pulling him him into a brief, clumsy hug.
It has been a while, but it feels right, so I allow it to continue.
A moist heat gathering over my heart breaks me out of my trance. His head is against my chest, and he is breathing evenly. By the time I gather the courage to tell him part of my tragedy, the soft, nasal whining of a snore accompanies the throaty sighs. He is asleep. Thinking better of the idea, I close my eyes, and pray for silence in my dreams, knowing I won’t receive it.
* * *
The next morning, it isn’t the oscillating blare of an alarm clock, but the persistent, high-pitch chime of a doorbell that rouses a man from his Tiger Milk coma.
Standing outside his door is Amanda Torres, just as she had been standing for the past five minutes; calmly, professionally, pressing the doorbell every minute on the minute. The angular planes of her face slope upward into a pinched mouth and intense blue eyes. Accompanied by the tight bun of auburn atop her head, her face gives the distinctive sensation of dissatisfaction and suspended belief. Straight shoulders, pulled back in a casual indifference, are held in place by a coal gray jacket that chisels the outline of her lean torso in straight lines, punishing the very notion of femininity. It drops down past her waist and flares out around her hips, hiding the top of her trousers, which are of similar lines and color.
Once more, she lifts her finger to the doorbell. It rings, and after a few moments the door opens. On the other side is a man, disheveled and unshaven. She had woken him up, evidently from a deep slumber. His pupils indicate he is hungover, although his breath doesn’t immediately reek of it.
‘A closet drinker,’ she surmises, reaching into her jacket and withdrawing her credentials. Pushing the badge under his nose, she says with a tone of sharp disdain, “I am Detective Amanda Torres, of the St. Glears Police Department. I would like to ask you some questions.”
“Huh?” the man says, clearly not awake enough to grasp what is happening.
“May I come in while I wait for you to get dressed?” she says, looking into his eyes. He is still having trouble concentrating.
“What’s this about?” he finally asks.
“A murder,” she replies, in a resolute but apparently bored tone. “This is very serious matter, and I would appreciate your cooperation.”
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Loneliness cures fear. ~ Sable Wakefield
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As realization dawns, so does sobriety and the torrent of reality that accompanies it. Memories return, floating atop waves of conscious, soaked in the spray of this destitute sea. I am nauseated, now feeling the immense gravity of my situation.
Though I am concerned, and my demeanor must surely show my unease, I attempt a smile and beckon her to step across the threshold. I turn, stumbling out of the entrance hall and down the corridor to my room. Faint red splotches adorn my knuckles, a single scabbing cut running along my left-middle-finger-knuckle. I rub them, as if to absolve myself of sin, and wipe away the evidence. My heart is beating, throbbing as I wallow in this deluge of guilt. But I know, deep down, that I am neither sorry nor remorseful; I feel guilt because society says I should. A spark of anger threatens to ignite this alcoholic haze: a paroxysm that looms ahead, a dark path of no return.
“Would you like something to drink?” I manage to shout whilst shoving my legs haphazardly into a pair of musty jeans; suddenly I realize I must not have been wearing anything but off-white briefs and a wrinkled dress shirt. A nervous laugh bubbles from my throat, as if unsure of whether to laugh or cry. Clad in casual attire, and a waning confidence in myself, I step back into the Hallway.
“No, thank you. I can wait until we get to the station.” She replies curtly, hiding behind her profession and a wall of feminist ideology, built to protect that fragile little ego. I know people like her, and their dishonesty with themselves makes me cringe with distaste.
“Well, please sit down.” I motion towards a couch, “Let me just grab some coffee and we can go.” My tone is surprisingly pleasant, deceptively calm. As my hand wraps around a mug, an impulse surges through my arm, my grip becoming deathly tight. I pour the cold, straight black coffee into the mug and quickly dodge around the counter. She has not sat down, I observe, instead fidgeting near the doorway, obviously anxious to leave.
I throw a worn leather jacket on, and step towards the door. She is already walking, and I hastily lock my door and turn to follow. I sip the coffee, grimacing from the bitter taste, boring holes into the back of her head with a glare. Already this day seemed onerous, and I could hardly imagine it becoming better. I wasn’t sure if I was scared, angry, or impassive. I seemed to cycle between them, unable to decide who I should be.
My fist ached with phantom pain, a recollection of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. My brain screams against it, reminding me of the consequences, of the rules of society. I remember once caring so much about my future and its promise, but this empty existence is tasteless and dry to my palate. The feelings and passion of the last night are growing, in memory, and at present; a phantasmagoria of spinning insanity and blood and screams.
My hand is poised to smash the ceramic mug against her pristine hair, but I hesitate, still bound by some vestige of morality. I redirect the motion into a sip, grimacing once more at the bitterness, and complacently walk at her side. With nothing to lose, I wonder, how long can it last.
Though I am concerned, and my demeanor must surely show my unease, I attempt a smile and beckon her to step across the threshold. I turn, stumbling out of the entrance hall and down the corridor to my room. Faint red splotches adorn my knuckles, a single scabbing cut running along my left-middle-finger-knuckle. I rub them, as if to absolve myself of sin, and wipe away the evidence. My heart is beating, throbbing as I wallow in this deluge of guilt. But I know, deep down, that I am neither sorry nor remorseful; I feel guilt because society says I should. A spark of anger threatens to ignite this alcoholic haze: a paroxysm that looms ahead, a dark path of no return.
“Would you like something to drink?” I manage to shout whilst shoving my legs haphazardly into a pair of musty jeans; suddenly I realize I must not have been wearing anything but off-white briefs and a wrinkled dress shirt. A nervous laugh bubbles from my throat, as if unsure of whether to laugh or cry. Clad in casual attire, and a waning confidence in myself, I step back into the Hallway.
“No, thank you. I can wait until we get to the station.” She replies curtly, hiding behind her profession and a wall of feminist ideology, built to protect that fragile little ego. I know people like her, and their dishonesty with themselves makes me cringe with distaste.
“Well, please sit down.” I motion towards a couch, “Let me just grab some coffee and we can go.” My tone is surprisingly pleasant, deceptively calm. As my hand wraps around a mug, an impulse surges through my arm, my grip becoming deathly tight. I pour the cold, straight black coffee into the mug and quickly dodge around the counter. She has not sat down, I observe, instead fidgeting near the doorway, obviously anxious to leave.
I throw a worn leather jacket on, and step towards the door. She is already walking, and I hastily lock my door and turn to follow. I sip the coffee, grimacing from the bitter taste, boring holes into the back of her head with a glare. Already this day seemed onerous, and I could hardly imagine it becoming better. I wasn’t sure if I was scared, angry, or impassive. I seemed to cycle between them, unable to decide who I should be.
My fist ached with phantom pain, a recollection of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. My brain screams against it, reminding me of the consequences, of the rules of society. I remember once caring so much about my future and its promise, but this empty existence is tasteless and dry to my palate. The feelings and passion of the last night are growing, in memory, and at present; a phantasmagoria of spinning insanity and blood and screams.
My hand is poised to smash the ceramic mug against her pristine hair, but I hesitate, still bound by some vestige of morality. I redirect the motion into a sip, grimacing once more at the bitterness, and complacently walk at her side. With nothing to lose, I wonder, how long can it last.
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“Wake up” a familiar, unwelcome voice snarls in Sod’s left ear.
A sharp boot to his ribs emphasizes the command.
Cracking open his eyes to permit a sliver of light the penetration of his weariness, Sod examines the shadow on the ground. Stout, with a mess of spiky hair made hard with lime. A battle hatchet dangling from a broad belt. Yes, he does know this fool.
“Hello, Kylun,” he acknowledges unhappily, dragging his chest out of the mud and adjusting his view to take in the angry, red, bulging silhouette. Wiping the front of his tunic off, he observes that the rain was not entirely his imagination. The mice are gone, but the pine stakes outlining the perimeter of the compound remain, and the time is—ah, who knows or cares of that triviality anymore? It is light, which means it is day, which means there is drudgery to endure.
“Aye, and to you, he who cannot settle on a name, and instead identifies himself with his role. When you left us, you were Scout. Then we called you Traitor. Well, now you are Prisoner. It suits you, don’t you think?” he hears Kylun inelegantly boast.
“I suppose it does,” Prisoner humbly replies.
“Hah! It certainly does. Well, Prisoner, you thought you could just defect and get away with it, eh?” Kylun asks of him, but—without the courtesy of awaiting a response—grips the scruff of Prisoner’s neck and compels him to his feet. His strong hand fills with the wooden haft of a short sword, the blade rusty and dull. “We’re marching, and if you don’t fight and die, we’ll kill you like the traitor you are.”
“Who are we fighting?” Prisoner asks.
“You damn well know who. We’re fighting the City.”
“Why?” Prisoner almost presses while automatically tucking the gladius into his belt, but stops short. Kylun will have no information as to the real purpose behind these conflicts; instead, he will vomit some nonsense about fighting because they are told to by their betters. Instead, Prisoner satisfies himself by declaring, “Something is terribly amiss.”
“Nevermind that,” Kylun answers with disinterest, “we’re moving out now.”
Indeed, Prisoner is not alone, nor had he been. Eyes of terror and resignation gaze up at him from pits in the ground, from which they cannot escape due to the seal. Other eyes, wide with horror and rage, but long since dead from impalement, peer skyward in a plea to any benevolent force capable of guaranteeing salvation—if not in this life, than in the next.
He cannot decide who are less fortunate, but his pity extends to those whose doom is a slow death by starvation.
Further away, beyond the fence, a body of soldiers is decamping. The trail of his boot prints matures toward that formation, beside which are those of Kylun. It is a mangy sort of assemblage, half nomad and half marauder, wearing inexpertly skinned and tanned animal pelts—still bloody—, belts of chain-link, and colorful wool—all held together with gristly pins of bone. Not out of necessity, but choice. To think these are businessmen, pastors, musicians, and politicians who deign to embrace this special degradation. Yet here, without absolutes, they choose to urinate, defecate, and spit tobacco openly before their comrades, male and female alike. Prisoner has no doubt the meat they engorge on as they secure their trappings may very well be what remains of some of their less fortunate captives.
“Why do I yet live?” Prisoner demands, not arrogantly, but necessarily.
He watches Kylun shrug absently, as if trying to recall an esoteric peculiar, then the rogue finally answers, “That”—there is a gesture toward the corpse-heavy stakes—“abuse means nothing when done to you. You delight in it, as though through the pain you might find redemption. Hah! You are an imbecile, I say, but one without will. Better to force you—but nevermind that! Did you hear, he was executed?”
“He who?” Prisoner instantly questions, his words reeling with an unnameable perturbation.
“Professor Cimerreau,” Kylun laughs.
Prisoner suddenly ejaculates “No!” and does not hear or say anything for a long while.
When he sees again, the daystar is burning hot against his neck, bodies are marching thick around him, the air is putrid, and a newsprint is in his hands. Kylun is saying, “It is gibberish, I dare say, but read it anyway and curse your life. Hah!”
He reads:
“The last words of Professor Arties Cimerreau, prior to his execution, follow.
‘Metaphoric of a parent deceiving a child to the belief that they may exceed their highest expectations in life, this world turns to a variety of Gods and prays its hollow petitions for perfection; a goal only resulting in the decimation of entire cultures, where hopes are dashed, spirits dwindle to ghoulish memorandum, and backs are stained with the vitae of a best friend’s melancholy betrayal. Emotional and spiritual genocide sweep the globe: a sphere menacingly turning on a spindle of hate. Created Gods, insinuated Gods, Gods cast into the abyss of fallacious denial, and wraiths echoing behind the footsteps of prospect, ever holding us back, pushing us forward, and casting us aside like rags. This is Mortal mind.
Where is the line drawn between possibility and insanity, crushed spirits and bruised knees? Foolishly leaping off cliffs with dreams of flight when walking has only recently been mastered, our aspirations are set far too high. Death or insanity are the only possible culminations of such extravagant goals. To dream, and to believe the dream, are two entirely separate realities. Mortality has suffered the consequences of such fool-hearty notions. Again, our goals are set to high. The result will be chaos, painful defeat, and in the end the clutch of darkness.
A deadly rift opens beneath our feet, subjecting us to an unbearable decision: shall we lower the bar or raise it? One hand is blackened with the lie that we can surpass our prior goals; goals we could not touch the heels of. The other holds a hammer yearning to descend on our unsuspecting forms, and dash us to pieces with the bitter reality of failure. Balance was lost when Justice removed her blindfold, when truth became subordinate to desire, when dust became flesh and flesh became lightning. So now, faced with this plight, where do our actions lead us? Into denials and distractions—anything to prolong the eulogy that keeps open our tomb.
Now standing a hairs-breadth away from the void of reason, the edge of a knife under our feet, and nothing preventing us from plummeting downward, the collective folly is realized. All the lies fed compulsively to one another lifetime after lifetime have ceased. Silence, prolonged and agonizing silence, holds the floor. We have fallen.’”
Prisoner gulps, and a tear inexplicably traces the pallid contour of his cheekbone. Yet, with an air of ignorance, despite the hole in his throat, he betrays, “What of it?”
Kylun, with great oratory dexterity, stemming from his acquisition of authority over Prisoner, confides, “Nobody knows! Devil take him, but he was nevertheless executed for it in the same clinical manner that he euthanized countless others for the glory of the City!”
“Something is terribly amiss,” Prisoner repeats.
“Nevermind that, I said!” Kylun spurts. “We’re almost there. See the lights? Those monstrosities of nature looming ahead of us?”
“You’re insane!” Prisoner gasps, realizing where they are and their intentions.
“There are thousands of us, trust us, Prisoner, we will make a dent in their pride,” Kylun asserts, his tone stern and for once actually threatening, a departure from its typical mirthful vulgarity. Certainly, their numbers are greater than before, and a swarm of brown, green, crimson, and pale yellow stretches out around him.
“This isn’t real,” Prisoner reassures himself, turning aside so as not to be heard.
‘Cooperation, but there is something creepy about this guy,’ Torres determines, securing the rear passenger door behind her lead. No cuffs, but the security cage is sufficient to keep him from pulling a reckless stunt. At the very least, it will keep her safe from him during the commute to the police station a few minutes downtown.
“Is it necessary to lock me up back here, lady?” he asks, just as every other civilian had, for the last fifteen years, inquired of her on the event their of first time in the back of a police car for non-recreational purposes.
Brief, sharp eye contact hammers her canned response home: “It is for your own safety.”
He rolls his eyes, and she makes a mental note of it.
After locking the passenger door, Torres walks behind the vehicle to the driver’s side, visually scanning for any inconsistencies. Nothing is out of place. Sliding in, she adjusts her rear view mirror so she can observe him and the road simultaneously. The compartment smells of cleaning product and is pristine; there are no food wrappings or bits of dust desecrating the hard plastic dash and fake leather bucket seats. No excess baggage, like the string of partners and relationships she had left behind the day she made detective. She stands tall on her own merits, now. The ridge between her eyes crinkles in a bizarre substitution for a smile, and she turns the key and starts the engine.
A sigh of satisfaction wouldn’t be unearned, but she settles for tensing the muscles of her jaw.
‘Best not to let him think I’m a pushover,’ she muses to herself; ‘It is better to appear hard than weak.’
Traffic is uneventful, and the red lights are less temperamental than usual. Most people are already where they aught to be at this hour of the morning, she realizes. Half past nine. The sky is overcast, threatening rain.
He asks a few questions on the way to the department, but she remains as grim as possible, expertly deflecting his curiosities with noncommittal verbiage. If he is guilty, let him sweat it out with worry; otherwise, if he isn’t, he has nothing to worry about, and this is just a minor inconvenience from whatever boring ritual he no doubt calls a life.
Six minutes later, she pulls to a stop in the parking lot behind the police station: an old, deteriorating, three story relic of grander times with red—some darker than others—brick construction, concrete reinforcement around the windows and atop the turrets at its four corners; the town’s initial armory and militia headquarters, when such concepts were necessary. For those not familiar with the building, it stands as a brutal fortification recalling to mind those ancient times when castles were red with the blood of opposing serf and yoemen armies and the shrieks of political opposition rang shrill in unsanitary dungeons.
To her, it is an immovable symbol of justice; a monument to security in uncertain, modern times.
Torres lets her charge out of the vehicle and escorts him beneath the keystone with the nigh-indistinguishable engraving St. Glears, 153rd Militia. She signs in, drops him off in an observation room, and promises to be back soon.
A sharp boot to his ribs emphasizes the command.
Cracking open his eyes to permit a sliver of light the penetration of his weariness, Sod examines the shadow on the ground. Stout, with a mess of spiky hair made hard with lime. A battle hatchet dangling from a broad belt. Yes, he does know this fool.
“Hello, Kylun,” he acknowledges unhappily, dragging his chest out of the mud and adjusting his view to take in the angry, red, bulging silhouette. Wiping the front of his tunic off, he observes that the rain was not entirely his imagination. The mice are gone, but the pine stakes outlining the perimeter of the compound remain, and the time is—ah, who knows or cares of that triviality anymore? It is light, which means it is day, which means there is drudgery to endure.
“Aye, and to you, he who cannot settle on a name, and instead identifies himself with his role. When you left us, you were Scout. Then we called you Traitor. Well, now you are Prisoner. It suits you, don’t you think?” he hears Kylun inelegantly boast.
“I suppose it does,” Prisoner humbly replies.
“Hah! It certainly does. Well, Prisoner, you thought you could just defect and get away with it, eh?” Kylun asks of him, but—without the courtesy of awaiting a response—grips the scruff of Prisoner’s neck and compels him to his feet. His strong hand fills with the wooden haft of a short sword, the blade rusty and dull. “We’re marching, and if you don’t fight and die, we’ll kill you like the traitor you are.”
“Who are we fighting?” Prisoner asks.
“You damn well know who. We’re fighting the City.”
“Why?” Prisoner almost presses while automatically tucking the gladius into his belt, but stops short. Kylun will have no information as to the real purpose behind these conflicts; instead, he will vomit some nonsense about fighting because they are told to by their betters. Instead, Prisoner satisfies himself by declaring, “Something is terribly amiss.”
“Nevermind that,” Kylun answers with disinterest, “we’re moving out now.”
Indeed, Prisoner is not alone, nor had he been. Eyes of terror and resignation gaze up at him from pits in the ground, from which they cannot escape due to the seal. Other eyes, wide with horror and rage, but long since dead from impalement, peer skyward in a plea to any benevolent force capable of guaranteeing salvation—if not in this life, than in the next.
He cannot decide who are less fortunate, but his pity extends to those whose doom is a slow death by starvation.
Further away, beyond the fence, a body of soldiers is decamping. The trail of his boot prints matures toward that formation, beside which are those of Kylun. It is a mangy sort of assemblage, half nomad and half marauder, wearing inexpertly skinned and tanned animal pelts—still bloody—, belts of chain-link, and colorful wool—all held together with gristly pins of bone. Not out of necessity, but choice. To think these are businessmen, pastors, musicians, and politicians who deign to embrace this special degradation. Yet here, without absolutes, they choose to urinate, defecate, and spit tobacco openly before their comrades, male and female alike. Prisoner has no doubt the meat they engorge on as they secure their trappings may very well be what remains of some of their less fortunate captives.
“Why do I yet live?” Prisoner demands, not arrogantly, but necessarily.
He watches Kylun shrug absently, as if trying to recall an esoteric peculiar, then the rogue finally answers, “That”—there is a gesture toward the corpse-heavy stakes—“abuse means nothing when done to you. You delight in it, as though through the pain you might find redemption. Hah! You are an imbecile, I say, but one without will. Better to force you—but nevermind that! Did you hear, he was executed?”
“He who?” Prisoner instantly questions, his words reeling with an unnameable perturbation.
“Professor Cimerreau,” Kylun laughs.
Prisoner suddenly ejaculates “No!” and does not hear or say anything for a long while.
When he sees again, the daystar is burning hot against his neck, bodies are marching thick around him, the air is putrid, and a newsprint is in his hands. Kylun is saying, “It is gibberish, I dare say, but read it anyway and curse your life. Hah!”
He reads:
“The last words of Professor Arties Cimerreau, prior to his execution, follow.
‘Metaphoric of a parent deceiving a child to the belief that they may exceed their highest expectations in life, this world turns to a variety of Gods and prays its hollow petitions for perfection; a goal only resulting in the decimation of entire cultures, where hopes are dashed, spirits dwindle to ghoulish memorandum, and backs are stained with the vitae of a best friend’s melancholy betrayal. Emotional and spiritual genocide sweep the globe: a sphere menacingly turning on a spindle of hate. Created Gods, insinuated Gods, Gods cast into the abyss of fallacious denial, and wraiths echoing behind the footsteps of prospect, ever holding us back, pushing us forward, and casting us aside like rags. This is Mortal mind.
Where is the line drawn between possibility and insanity, crushed spirits and bruised knees? Foolishly leaping off cliffs with dreams of flight when walking has only recently been mastered, our aspirations are set far too high. Death or insanity are the only possible culminations of such extravagant goals. To dream, and to believe the dream, are two entirely separate realities. Mortality has suffered the consequences of such fool-hearty notions. Again, our goals are set to high. The result will be chaos, painful defeat, and in the end the clutch of darkness.
A deadly rift opens beneath our feet, subjecting us to an unbearable decision: shall we lower the bar or raise it? One hand is blackened with the lie that we can surpass our prior goals; goals we could not touch the heels of. The other holds a hammer yearning to descend on our unsuspecting forms, and dash us to pieces with the bitter reality of failure. Balance was lost when Justice removed her blindfold, when truth became subordinate to desire, when dust became flesh and flesh became lightning. So now, faced with this plight, where do our actions lead us? Into denials and distractions—anything to prolong the eulogy that keeps open our tomb.
Now standing a hairs-breadth away from the void of reason, the edge of a knife under our feet, and nothing preventing us from plummeting downward, the collective folly is realized. All the lies fed compulsively to one another lifetime after lifetime have ceased. Silence, prolonged and agonizing silence, holds the floor. We have fallen.’”
Prisoner gulps, and a tear inexplicably traces the pallid contour of his cheekbone. Yet, with an air of ignorance, despite the hole in his throat, he betrays, “What of it?”
Kylun, with great oratory dexterity, stemming from his acquisition of authority over Prisoner, confides, “Nobody knows! Devil take him, but he was nevertheless executed for it in the same clinical manner that he euthanized countless others for the glory of the City!”
“Something is terribly amiss,” Prisoner repeats.
“Nevermind that, I said!” Kylun spurts. “We’re almost there. See the lights? Those monstrosities of nature looming ahead of us?”
“You’re insane!” Prisoner gasps, realizing where they are and their intentions.
“There are thousands of us, trust us, Prisoner, we will make a dent in their pride,” Kylun asserts, his tone stern and for once actually threatening, a departure from its typical mirthful vulgarity. Certainly, their numbers are greater than before, and a swarm of brown, green, crimson, and pale yellow stretches out around him.
“This isn’t real,” Prisoner reassures himself, turning aside so as not to be heard.
* * *
‘Cooperation, but there is something creepy about this guy,’ Torres determines, securing the rear passenger door behind her lead. No cuffs, but the security cage is sufficient to keep him from pulling a reckless stunt. At the very least, it will keep her safe from him during the commute to the police station a few minutes downtown.
“Is it necessary to lock me up back here, lady?” he asks, just as every other civilian had, for the last fifteen years, inquired of her on the event their of first time in the back of a police car for non-recreational purposes.
Brief, sharp eye contact hammers her canned response home: “It is for your own safety.”
He rolls his eyes, and she makes a mental note of it.
After locking the passenger door, Torres walks behind the vehicle to the driver’s side, visually scanning for any inconsistencies. Nothing is out of place. Sliding in, she adjusts her rear view mirror so she can observe him and the road simultaneously. The compartment smells of cleaning product and is pristine; there are no food wrappings or bits of dust desecrating the hard plastic dash and fake leather bucket seats. No excess baggage, like the string of partners and relationships she had left behind the day she made detective. She stands tall on her own merits, now. The ridge between her eyes crinkles in a bizarre substitution for a smile, and she turns the key and starts the engine.
A sigh of satisfaction wouldn’t be unearned, but she settles for tensing the muscles of her jaw.
‘Best not to let him think I’m a pushover,’ she muses to herself; ‘It is better to appear hard than weak.’
Traffic is uneventful, and the red lights are less temperamental than usual. Most people are already where they aught to be at this hour of the morning, she realizes. Half past nine. The sky is overcast, threatening rain.
He asks a few questions on the way to the department, but she remains as grim as possible, expertly deflecting his curiosities with noncommittal verbiage. If he is guilty, let him sweat it out with worry; otherwise, if he isn’t, he has nothing to worry about, and this is just a minor inconvenience from whatever boring ritual he no doubt calls a life.
Six minutes later, she pulls to a stop in the parking lot behind the police station: an old, deteriorating, three story relic of grander times with red—some darker than others—brick construction, concrete reinforcement around the windows and atop the turrets at its four corners; the town’s initial armory and militia headquarters, when such concepts were necessary. For those not familiar with the building, it stands as a brutal fortification recalling to mind those ancient times when castles were red with the blood of opposing serf and yoemen armies and the shrieks of political opposition rang shrill in unsanitary dungeons.
To her, it is an immovable symbol of justice; a monument to security in uncertain, modern times.
Torres lets her charge out of the vehicle and escorts him beneath the keystone with the nigh-indistinguishable engraving St. Glears, 153rd Militia. She signs in, drops him off in an observation room, and promises to be back soon.
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Characters
Charles played by Astral Weave
An aging man who, amidst despairing for his deteriorating body and thankless job, rediscovers his darker side and is liberated by it.
Sable Wakefield played by Circ
An ordinary boy, searching for meaning in a life that is almost an allegory.
The Orphanage (Soon.™)
These poor, unfortunate souls were once a part of this great world, but have been abandoned. Why don't you consider viewing their profiles and making a decision on whether or not you can roleplay them accurately?
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Duplicate Multiversal Character
Places in Almost an Allegory
Life
The container of experiences that a living creature goes through, whether asleep or awake.
Reality
St. Glears, a town of the post-modern era, dilapidated by time, is barely large enough to justify its hospital, university, and skyscraper.
Imagination
A product of thoughts, dreams, pain, and desire - imagination is a world where any expression is possible, but vividly expresses the taint of human depravity.
Activity
- 37 posts here • Page 1 of 4 • 1, 2, 3, 4
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lacking across the shale jutting from the mossy façade of the stream-swept hillside are hind’s hooves, a cadence intimating that barren souls ought not fashion a pursuit, nor the selfish, nor the shallow, nor the inept.* A crescendo of cloven limbs dashes through a pool ahead, accentuating the rubato and pulling the ardent nearer, but the flickering afternoon light and a grainy, gray ledge obscure the scene. The clamor of hooves diminishes.
Intermission; horsetails flick overhead and toy with merciless bands of bright, translucent gold.
Laying print to rest, I ponder the meaning of that fleeting image, which had cut a path through to my consciousness. What was I feeling at the time? I wonder, reflecting back on the nonthreatening chirping and calming trappings of nature, and then swiftly realizing that I had been feeling a bit adventurous and at peace with myself. My mouth curves into a grin, my eyelids touch, and instead of darkness, as one might expect, there is the confluence of emotion and fantasy.*
Write what you feel, I think to myself and anyone who happens to be listening. Then, furtively, as a warning, lest this take on too great a life, Figuratively, of course.
Rustling, originating in the brush and scrub higher up the hillside, disturbs the stillness of the setting that had slumbered for a handful of moments. Again, the clack of hooves, dislodging pebbles and scattering them so they tumble violently downward and into the short grass growing sparsely along a narrow plateau between two slopes. Hunter is there, listening and waiting, allowing the air to billow through his patchwork hood and his cloak. Hunter, not his name, but what those who see him call him by, much like the titles Father, Lord, and Murderer. All are familiar monikers.
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Thickening clouds melt the sky into a bronze basin, the molten fumes lapping tumultuously along the edges and daring light to break beyond the turgid brim. Sporadic, lucent breakthroughs ebb away within the hour, and tiny orbs of rain cast long, thin tethers from vault to vale, as through in a sort of melancholic proxy to the bright bands that did dominate the landscape beforehand.
Beneath all this sits Hunter, still bewildered and transfixed by the sheer audacity and falsity of his title; after all, he does not track beasts, nor slay nor skin them, nor anything even remotely similar. The fact he had, an hour hence, been curiously pursuing the click-clack of hind’s feet was merely a coincidence. One he had put behind him the moment of his failure in executing even that menial task. Now his cloak, already burdened with the sweat of the hunt, is further laden with precipitation. Still, the evening is warm, young, and the rain is not wearisome, nor the blinding shards of plasma exploding to leave vaporous pillars in their wake. He lies on his back in the wet grass and lets the now-heavy globules strike his face.
Disgruntled with the name Hunter, he casts it aside, and elects instead to call himself Sod, for he is sodden and, in his own hazy mind, fits the innumerable meanings that word presents.
Beneath all this sits Hunter, still bewildered and transfixed by the sheer audacity and falsity of his title; after all, he does not track beasts, nor slay nor skin them, nor anything even remotely similar. The fact he had, an hour hence, been curiously pursuing the click-clack of hind’s feet was merely a coincidence. One he had put behind him the moment of his failure in executing even that menial task. Now his cloak, already burdened with the sweat of the hunt, is further laden with precipitation. Still, the evening is warm, young, and the rain is not wearisome, nor the blinding shards of plasma exploding to leave vaporous pillars in their wake. He lies on his back in the wet grass and lets the now-heavy globules strike his face.
Disgruntled with the name Hunter, he casts it aside, and elects instead to call himself Sod, for he is sodden and, in his own hazy mind, fits the innumerable meanings that word presents.
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At first nature had been welcoming. The open grassy plains, the blossom covered hills, the dew tipped grasses; all had conspired to instill in me a sense of otherness, of freedom.
"This is not a city life of human confines," I had thought as myrtle eyes surveyed the lighter green of nature.
Indeed, how could one feel imprisoned when so far away from looming walls of ancient brick and rules more archaic than the stones that cobbled the streets? Life away from the city was free. Open. The explosion of colour that the natural world provided had been such a contrast to the greys of my masonry-filled town that I could only barely restrain my excitement when leather sole first met vibrant plain.
And it was with a similar sense of wonderment that I had first approached the forest. So many trees and so much greenery--seemingly untouched by human hands. It begged to be explored and I had blithely assented; the trees seemed only too happy to direct me onwards.
Gracious hosts indeed.
However, as the days had worn on, the trees and their knitted branches had begun to choke my sense of liberation as much as the bastille that was my home town. What little food I had packed was already dwindling and the life of an idle city girl had not schooled me in the methods of hunting. Indeed each plotted, each advancing, each labored footfall had slowly chipped away at my resolve that now, now I was free.
Then the rain had started.
Oh, to others it may have been a refreshing pitter of raindrops, but, to me, in that moment it was an abrupt deluge into the clear skies of my mind. The sudden chill that it brought had halted my movement, bringing me an understanding of sorts. As my cloak hugged closer to my body, the encroaching droplets impinged upon me the realisation that despite my swift departure, I had not, in fact, managed to outrun my problems.
The falling water had become another layer of bars sealing me into the past: transient bars, perhaps, but through weary eyes the rain seemed all the more damning for it. The rain would leave. It would be forgotten, replaced by the warming sol, and discarded from thought. For a day, or a week, or a month... but then it would would return just as abruptly to remind me of troubles past, stirring memories that I had deemed better left untouched.
Damn it so! I was not in the mood for an epiphany, not when so far from home, from friends and from shelter. These sorts of stark realisations were best revealed huddle under comfortable delusions in warm beds, not in weathered forests shrouded in precipitation. My footsteps needed to be measured with a serene sense of unquestionable purpose; doubt was a weakness, a flaw, a sin and one in which I did not wish to bemire myself. Stopping now would be tantamount to giving up, to acknowledging defeat but I possessed a raw form of stubbornness; the sort that only a youth of fifteen years can possess. So, forced out from between blue-tinted lips were well reasoned words, if not wholly insincere ones:
"I am sure there will be some place to stay up ahead." A slight pause in voice, though not in movement, before:
"It's cold and I shall become ill if I stop," to punctuate the sentence and give credence to words devoid of true affirmation, I nodded.
The reverberating of thunder pulled me from my thoughts and, after raising my head, I realised that thick trees had given way to shrubbery and hill. Yet my first feeling was not one of relief at having escaped the forest nor fear at the sound of rolling thunder; it was mere confusion.
"Why is that man laying in the rain?"
"This is not a city life of human confines," I had thought as myrtle eyes surveyed the lighter green of nature.
Indeed, how could one feel imprisoned when so far away from looming walls of ancient brick and rules more archaic than the stones that cobbled the streets? Life away from the city was free. Open. The explosion of colour that the natural world provided had been such a contrast to the greys of my masonry-filled town that I could only barely restrain my excitement when leather sole first met vibrant plain.
And it was with a similar sense of wonderment that I had first approached the forest. So many trees and so much greenery--seemingly untouched by human hands. It begged to be explored and I had blithely assented; the trees seemed only too happy to direct me onwards.
Gracious hosts indeed.
However, as the days had worn on, the trees and their knitted branches had begun to choke my sense of liberation as much as the bastille that was my home town. What little food I had packed was already dwindling and the life of an idle city girl had not schooled me in the methods of hunting. Indeed each plotted, each advancing, each labored footfall had slowly chipped away at my resolve that now, now I was free.
Then the rain had started.
Oh, to others it may have been a refreshing pitter of raindrops, but, to me, in that moment it was an abrupt deluge into the clear skies of my mind. The sudden chill that it brought had halted my movement, bringing me an understanding of sorts. As my cloak hugged closer to my body, the encroaching droplets impinged upon me the realisation that despite my swift departure, I had not, in fact, managed to outrun my problems.
The falling water had become another layer of bars sealing me into the past: transient bars, perhaps, but through weary eyes the rain seemed all the more damning for it. The rain would leave. It would be forgotten, replaced by the warming sol, and discarded from thought. For a day, or a week, or a month... but then it would would return just as abruptly to remind me of troubles past, stirring memories that I had deemed better left untouched.
Damn it so! I was not in the mood for an epiphany, not when so far from home, from friends and from shelter. These sorts of stark realisations were best revealed huddle under comfortable delusions in warm beds, not in weathered forests shrouded in precipitation. My footsteps needed to be measured with a serene sense of unquestionable purpose; doubt was a weakness, a flaw, a sin and one in which I did not wish to bemire myself. Stopping now would be tantamount to giving up, to acknowledging defeat but I possessed a raw form of stubbornness; the sort that only a youth of fifteen years can possess. So, forced out from between blue-tinted lips were well reasoned words, if not wholly insincere ones:
"I am sure there will be some place to stay up ahead." A slight pause in voice, though not in movement, before:
"It's cold and I shall become ill if I stop," to punctuate the sentence and give credence to words devoid of true affirmation, I nodded.
The reverberating of thunder pulled me from my thoughts and, after raising my head, I realised that thick trees had given way to shrubbery and hill. Yet my first feeling was not one of relief at having escaped the forest nor fear at the sound of rolling thunder; it was mere confusion.
"Why is that man laying in the rain?"
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At the foothills of midsummer evening, Sod, as he, through a whim, has taken to calling himself, awakens to his foolhardiness. There he lies, amongst wet spines of grass, cold seeping into his bones with each chilly orb of moisture wept by the shimmering white eye rising into the mesh of an encroaching night. Worse yet, those miniscule droplets mix quietly with his own tears of self-pity - not for the present strait he has placed himself in, or even for the inward emptiness of life, but for the merciless axis of physical and emotional turmoil besieging him.
Such a predicament is not lethal, but, as one given to creature comforts, the trembles racking his body are increasingly unacceptable, and irrational, morbid fancies become the locus of his thoughts. As the benefits of death over life weigh in his analytical mind, an exertion of common sense eventually pushes them aside, but his feelings of sadness do not subside so easily. He realizes he is more fool than adventurer, enslaved and enervated by the frailty of his own mind. So he cries, perhaps for the worst but most sincere reason anyone can. He cries for himself.
He is in that pathetic condition when the loneliness of dusk is broken by another figure striding up the hillside.
Distracted from his self-immersion by the sound of water drumming against another person’s clothes, he inclines his head in their direction and efforts to espy them through the fog and the rain. Yet, blurry-eyed as he is, there is little he is able to define. Then, for reasons he is unwilling to dissect, the burning rash of embarrassment creeps into his face as it occurs to him the shadowy form is that of a woman. Thank God for the rain he thinks, recalling his tears. He then props himself up on his elbow to get a clearer view of the woman and, after choking down his first attempt, hails them with the words: “A pleasant evening, is it not?”
Such a predicament is not lethal, but, as one given to creature comforts, the trembles racking his body are increasingly unacceptable, and irrational, morbid fancies become the locus of his thoughts. As the benefits of death over life weigh in his analytical mind, an exertion of common sense eventually pushes them aside, but his feelings of sadness do not subside so easily. He realizes he is more fool than adventurer, enslaved and enervated by the frailty of his own mind. So he cries, perhaps for the worst but most sincere reason anyone can. He cries for himself.
He is in that pathetic condition when the loneliness of dusk is broken by another figure striding up the hillside.
Distracted from his self-immersion by the sound of water drumming against another person’s clothes, he inclines his head in their direction and efforts to espy them through the fog and the rain. Yet, blurry-eyed as he is, there is little he is able to define. Then, for reasons he is unwilling to dissect, the burning rash of embarrassment creeps into his face as it occurs to him the shadowy form is that of a woman. Thank God for the rain he thinks, recalling his tears. He then props himself up on his elbow to get a clearer view of the woman and, after choking down his first attempt, hails them with the words: “A pleasant evening, is it not?”
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The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had come, the dark thunderheads rumbling into the distance. She stood there, her clothes clinging to her like a second skin, dripping, as she watched the woman's hair dance solemn nocturnes in the current.
She was thankful for the rain, for moments before, she had killed someone. There was no blood to wash off, no weapon to cast off, instead, the drenching storm disguised the river water that sopped her clothes where she plunged the woman's head beneath the turbulent current.
It was foolish to do so in savage daylight, under the flickering cover of bending horsetails, whose shadows were like black tributaries, spreading out into the true tributary where the woman's hair exploded underwater like a macabre Medusa under my straining arms. Broad daylight, an act of desperation. I clutch the weapon to my breast, my handprints on her throat. I'm soaked. She drifts. I run.
I am fleeing from it, this gauzy doppleganger come to visit my fantasy. I ponder this act of murder safely hidden in the ether of imagination, this clarity that comes with crises of the existential kind, with sharp desires to rid yourself of the old. This is the point of one's life, balanced on the edge of a knife, at once looking forward and back, Janus-faced.
A tapping, like horse hooves.
"Hello? Mel?"
I open my eyes to find him tapping a pencil against the glass desk. Their eyes are on me.
"Do the human-interest story. The local one about the dog driving a car?"
They're watching me, sepulchral, blood-sucking, but I say, Damn it. Damn the human-interest story. My life is suddenly balanced on the edge of a divine blade, so damn these cramped cubicles, smell of toner, eyes reflecting the non-photo blue of computer monitors, "... please accept my resignation," my indignation, my refusal to write lines to spin lies on the human condition.
I, Janus-faced look back with eyes of flint and look ahead with clear-eyed excitement of adventure and quest and journey, the clarity of untethered imagination. I, fleet-footed, pass through the glass doors into the Elysian fields of fantasy. I, lynx-eyed never look back.
I clutch the weapon to my breast. My handprints are on her throat. She drifts. I run. Reborn in the river, every act of creation is, at first an act of destruction.
She hadn't noticed her hair clinging to her skin in dark rivulets. Her breathing harsh. But when she rose, lightning illuminated her surroundings, casting her eyes eternity-blue, eyes that could see forever, for she had changed her destiny. Where it would take her, she did not know.
With each unfolding step, she leaves it all behind her: the river runs, the horsetails bend, and a woman's hair dances solemn nocturnes in the current, her eyes non-photo blue.
She was thankful for the rain, for moments before, she had killed someone. There was no blood to wash off, no weapon to cast off, instead, the drenching storm disguised the river water that sopped her clothes where she plunged the woman's head beneath the turbulent current.
It was foolish to do so in savage daylight, under the flickering cover of bending horsetails, whose shadows were like black tributaries, spreading out into the true tributary where the woman's hair exploded underwater like a macabre Medusa under my straining arms. Broad daylight, an act of desperation. I clutch the weapon to my breast, my handprints on her throat. I'm soaked. She drifts. I run.
I am fleeing from it, this gauzy doppleganger come to visit my fantasy. I ponder this act of murder safely hidden in the ether of imagination, this clarity that comes with crises of the existential kind, with sharp desires to rid yourself of the old. This is the point of one's life, balanced on the edge of a knife, at once looking forward and back, Janus-faced.
A tapping, like horse hooves.
"Hello? Mel?"
I open my eyes to find him tapping a pencil against the glass desk. Their eyes are on me.
"Do the human-interest story. The local one about the dog driving a car?"
They're watching me, sepulchral, blood-sucking, but I say, Damn it. Damn the human-interest story. My life is suddenly balanced on the edge of a divine blade, so damn these cramped cubicles, smell of toner, eyes reflecting the non-photo blue of computer monitors, "... please accept my resignation," my indignation, my refusal to write lines to spin lies on the human condition.
I, Janus-faced look back with eyes of flint and look ahead with clear-eyed excitement of adventure and quest and journey, the clarity of untethered imagination. I, fleet-footed, pass through the glass doors into the Elysian fields of fantasy. I, lynx-eyed never look back.
I clutch the weapon to my breast. My handprints are on her throat. She drifts. I run. Reborn in the river, every act of creation is, at first an act of destruction.
She hadn't noticed her hair clinging to her skin in dark rivulets. Her breathing harsh. But when she rose, lightning illuminated her surroundings, casting her eyes eternity-blue, eyes that could see forever, for she had changed her destiny. Where it would take her, she did not know.
With each unfolding step, she leaves it all behind her: the river runs, the horsetails bend, and a woman's hair dances solemn nocturnes in the current, her eyes non-photo blue.
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A more simple part of me wanted to run forth and embrace this man; this anchor to civilisation. Another wisely noted that I was a lone, scrawny teen, shaking from hunger and dancing droplets doing their best impression of icicles, as well as not being very well equipped to fight off a mad man. For surely this man was mad, I reasoned. After all, what sort of person would lie in the midst of a thunderstorm, apparently unperturbed by the piercing cold and the arrows of incandescent light that carved their way through the firmament?
"One that was either in the midst of dying, already dead or insane," I replied to my unspoken thought; I wasn't entirely sure which I would prefer to deal with.
It took a few moments for me to realise I was moving towards the recumbent figure. This comprehension trickled up to the mind that was only now acquiescing to my bodies demands. Trapped inside my head, time had simply continued it's incessant march without me and I was certainly suprised to discover my legs had strode forwards to greet the stranger, seemingly of their own volition. Oh well, when in roam-I was about to offer a greeting when it occurred to me that the man had propped himself up on his elbow. Well at least he's not dead.
“A pleasant evening, is it not?”
Insane. The man was definitely insane then. Soggy, auburn hair clings unyieldingly to my neck and rain trickles down from my brow. It stops but for a moment, as if preparing for it's journey down my gaunt cheeks, before it continues onward to join it's comrades in my top. Or possibly my boots. Lightning crashes in the distance, illuminating the sky for a moment, before darkness rushes back into the hole created by it's absence. An empty stomach is a stark contrast to my overcrowded head and it's all I can do to keep my trembling body in check and my tears at bay. To say nothing for the biting cold that now pierced my scrawny frame. How could anyone call this pleasant?
A thought drifted up from the base of my mind to the ethereal string of consciousness: Reply, it's only polite. Which, if I had been in a more stable frame of mind, would have surely begged the question; why, of all things, is politeness more important than my own safety? I was getting lost among my thoughts again. If I kept this up no doubt the man would infer that I was mute. So strained upwards through my throat, out along the conveyor that was my tongue and onward through chattering teeth, was a sentence that had barely survived the gauntlet of my mouth:
"Uh... um... no?"
Oh, typical; my lips had failed me yet again. Mentally I cursed, and tried vainly to regain what little composure my currently disheveled state afforded me. As I inched closer towards him, I hastily offered the man another half-thought sentence;
"Well, I mean it's rather..." I stumbled around my own tongue, searching for the word that would succinctly explain my predicament.
"...wet." Well, that went well, I snidely thought, before wondering why on earth the opinion of a man I had just met would mean more to me, right now, than shelter and a hot bath.
"One that was either in the midst of dying, already dead or insane," I replied to my unspoken thought; I wasn't entirely sure which I would prefer to deal with.
It took a few moments for me to realise I was moving towards the recumbent figure. This comprehension trickled up to the mind that was only now acquiescing to my bodies demands. Trapped inside my head, time had simply continued it's incessant march without me and I was certainly suprised to discover my legs had strode forwards to greet the stranger, seemingly of their own volition. Oh well, when in roam-I was about to offer a greeting when it occurred to me that the man had propped himself up on his elbow. Well at least he's not dead.
“A pleasant evening, is it not?”
Insane. The man was definitely insane then. Soggy, auburn hair clings unyieldingly to my neck and rain trickles down from my brow. It stops but for a moment, as if preparing for it's journey down my gaunt cheeks, before it continues onward to join it's comrades in my top. Or possibly my boots. Lightning crashes in the distance, illuminating the sky for a moment, before darkness rushes back into the hole created by it's absence. An empty stomach is a stark contrast to my overcrowded head and it's all I can do to keep my trembling body in check and my tears at bay. To say nothing for the biting cold that now pierced my scrawny frame. How could anyone call this pleasant?
A thought drifted up from the base of my mind to the ethereal string of consciousness: Reply, it's only polite. Which, if I had been in a more stable frame of mind, would have surely begged the question; why, of all things, is politeness more important than my own safety? I was getting lost among my thoughts again. If I kept this up no doubt the man would infer that I was mute. So strained upwards through my throat, out along the conveyor that was my tongue and onward through chattering teeth, was a sentence that had barely survived the gauntlet of my mouth:
"Uh... um... no?"
Oh, typical; my lips had failed me yet again. Mentally I cursed, and tried vainly to regain what little composure my currently disheveled state afforded me. As I inched closer towards him, I hastily offered the man another half-thought sentence;
"Well, I mean it's rather..." I stumbled around my own tongue, searching for the word that would succinctly explain my predicament.
"...wet." Well, that went well, I snidely thought, before wondering why on earth the opinion of a man I had just met would mean more to me, right now, than shelter and a hot bath.
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A vivid, sawtooth strobe illuminated to Sod a creature shivering in the torrent, her pallid skin streaked by a blood-like weave of dank, copper ropes from her crown to her neck. The fractal radiance dissipated back into the deep gloam, but gears of judgment whirled in his mind as he evaluated her façade via the external fragments he had gleaned during that brief moment of luminescence. Would I marry her? he thought, along with such doubts as Is she beyond me? and She seems so frail...
Sod truly hated himself for the patterns of analysis that plagued his consciousness, but his efforts to stop them had failed ever since his exodus from the cocoon of child-like innocence. He hardly knew her, and already his mind sought to discredit the woman as a potential mate. Absurd! He was not so base as to consider a woman only for the sake of ... he was not even sure of what. However, those gears came grinding to an abrupt halt at the sound of her voice.
“Uh… um… no?”
His unmasked disingenuousness stabbed back through his own heart at her candid words. Her honesty was beautiful and brutal. Of course it wasn’t a pleasant evening. It was a ghastly, wet, stormy maelstrom of an encroaching night. Yet, that wasn’t the point, was it? The weather was completely unrelated to how he felt, or so it should have been; yet, it seemed to more accurately reflect his soul than the duplicitous words cast off his tongue. He had masqueraded as man content with himself when, inwardly, he was in agony.
His blush had subsided during his self-condemnation, and he had completely missed the last few things she had said.
“You are right,” he quickly admitted, pulling his miserable flesh to its feet.
Lightning revealed her shivering form again, arms wrapped around her to no effect. A reminder of how cold he, too, was. For as much his own as her benefit, he said, “Come, let us take shelter.” It was several steps later that it occurred to him that he should take her arm and help her up the hill toward a small overhang he had seen before dusk where, if nothing else, they would be out of the rain.
Sod truly hated himself for the patterns of analysis that plagued his consciousness, but his efforts to stop them had failed ever since his exodus from the cocoon of child-like innocence. He hardly knew her, and already his mind sought to discredit the woman as a potential mate. Absurd! He was not so base as to consider a woman only for the sake of ... he was not even sure of what. However, those gears came grinding to an abrupt halt at the sound of her voice.
“Uh… um… no?”
His unmasked disingenuousness stabbed back through his own heart at her candid words. Her honesty was beautiful and brutal. Of course it wasn’t a pleasant evening. It was a ghastly, wet, stormy maelstrom of an encroaching night. Yet, that wasn’t the point, was it? The weather was completely unrelated to how he felt, or so it should have been; yet, it seemed to more accurately reflect his soul than the duplicitous words cast off his tongue. He had masqueraded as man content with himself when, inwardly, he was in agony.
His blush had subsided during his self-condemnation, and he had completely missed the last few things she had said.
“You are right,” he quickly admitted, pulling his miserable flesh to its feet.
Lightning revealed her shivering form again, arms wrapped around her to no effect. A reminder of how cold he, too, was. For as much his own as her benefit, he said, “Come, let us take shelter.” It was several steps later that it occurred to him that he should take her arm and help her up the hill toward a small overhang he had seen before dusk where, if nothing else, they would be out of the rain.
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“You are right,”
I was? Well yes, I suppose I was. Still, I had expected his words to be more heavily laced with bewilderment at my intellectual faux pas. Maybe he had not heard? Ahh... one could hope, though maybe he was simply used to people saying odd things. I suppose, if he is mad, then he would hear a myriad of strange things quite often and be rather accustomed to them by now.
The man drew himself rather wearily to his feet. The slight strain with which he did so was not that odd considering current circumstances and yet I felt as if his limbs moved with more fatigue than tiredness or rain alone ought to induce.
Perhaps he carries some ponderous burden with him- No sooner than that thought had finished meandering across my frontal cortex, lightning bore through the stratosphere once again.
The way in which it lit up the man was rather jarring, yet it was this that galvanised my mind; it reminded me of the crudeness of such mawkish thoughts. To think that I could infer such things from subtle body language when all was so lowery? That such a nascent bond would ripen so, when the mans name was not even known to me?
In truth this was simply just what I wished for; to pretend he was someone with whom I could share my pains and my worries, regardless of my problems actual worth. To pretend that he was a brother or a friend, instead of the unknown quantity that he was. It was comforting to see him in this fashion. Yet any such thoughts were soon suppressed when the man spoke thusly;
“Come, let us take shelter.”
An idea I could certainly get behind. Yet I stayed still, unsure what to do; both this mans motives and actions were terribly abstruse to me. He, however, seemed to have no such qualms about walking through the rain with a stranger--he had begun his ascent up the hill. A few dozen thoughts clouded my mind once again, the foremost of them harping on about the importance of not following strangers at night, but the lethargy that attacked my limbs and the barrage of raindrops that pelted my clothes forced one thought forward:
Honestly, what is the likelihood of meeting anyone more desirable out here?
My reasoning was sound enough and so the line of consciousness continued: I should follow him. This thought earned plaudits from my limbs as they began their oddly alacritous ascent upward with a steady march. It seemed company and respite from the rain were more important to me than I had realised. Certainly more than my own safety at least.
After several steps I realised that the distance between us had receded partially. It was certainly not due to any haste on my part: my movement, although steady, was slow and lethargic. In fact, it was because the man had stopped. Maybe in thought?
My actions were once again cast into doubt, though I daren't stop moving lest I become unable to start again; I merely slowed down as the distance receded more and more. After a quick internal monologue I decided that simply passing him would be foolish when I had no idea where this shelter was, so instead I would stride beside him--at a safe distance of course--and suggest we not stop.
Although first I decided that offering my name would be the polite thing to do. So, rapidly approaching his side, I did just that:
"Charlotte..." hesitation caused partially by doubt and partially by the realisation that such a sentence would only force more clarity to be sought, I added:
"...my name." I quickly decided that the completed sentence I had cobbled together was rather confusing, so I rushed out another:
"I mean: that is... my name."
"Charlotte," I affirmed again due to the fear that originally my voice not been heard. Although, oddly enough, I neglected to speak louder the second time.
I was? Well yes, I suppose I was. Still, I had expected his words to be more heavily laced with bewilderment at my intellectual faux pas. Maybe he had not heard? Ahh... one could hope, though maybe he was simply used to people saying odd things. I suppose, if he is mad, then he would hear a myriad of strange things quite often and be rather accustomed to them by now.
The man drew himself rather wearily to his feet. The slight strain with which he did so was not that odd considering current circumstances and yet I felt as if his limbs moved with more fatigue than tiredness or rain alone ought to induce.
Perhaps he carries some ponderous burden with him- No sooner than that thought had finished meandering across my frontal cortex, lightning bore through the stratosphere once again.
The way in which it lit up the man was rather jarring, yet it was this that galvanised my mind; it reminded me of the crudeness of such mawkish thoughts. To think that I could infer such things from subtle body language when all was so lowery? That such a nascent bond would ripen so, when the mans name was not even known to me?
In truth this was simply just what I wished for; to pretend he was someone with whom I could share my pains and my worries, regardless of my problems actual worth. To pretend that he was a brother or a friend, instead of the unknown quantity that he was. It was comforting to see him in this fashion. Yet any such thoughts were soon suppressed when the man spoke thusly;
“Come, let us take shelter.”
An idea I could certainly get behind. Yet I stayed still, unsure what to do; both this mans motives and actions were terribly abstruse to me. He, however, seemed to have no such qualms about walking through the rain with a stranger--he had begun his ascent up the hill. A few dozen thoughts clouded my mind once again, the foremost of them harping on about the importance of not following strangers at night, but the lethargy that attacked my limbs and the barrage of raindrops that pelted my clothes forced one thought forward:
Honestly, what is the likelihood of meeting anyone more desirable out here?
My reasoning was sound enough and so the line of consciousness continued: I should follow him. This thought earned plaudits from my limbs as they began their oddly alacritous ascent upward with a steady march. It seemed company and respite from the rain were more important to me than I had realised. Certainly more than my own safety at least.
After several steps I realised that the distance between us had receded partially. It was certainly not due to any haste on my part: my movement, although steady, was slow and lethargic. In fact, it was because the man had stopped. Maybe in thought?
My actions were once again cast into doubt, though I daren't stop moving lest I become unable to start again; I merely slowed down as the distance receded more and more. After a quick internal monologue I decided that simply passing him would be foolish when I had no idea where this shelter was, so instead I would stride beside him--at a safe distance of course--and suggest we not stop.
Although first I decided that offering my name would be the polite thing to do. So, rapidly approaching his side, I did just that:
"Charlotte..." hesitation caused partially by doubt and partially by the realisation that such a sentence would only force more clarity to be sought, I added:
"...my name." I quickly decided that the completed sentence I had cobbled together was rather confusing, so I rushed out another:
"I mean: that is... my name."
"Charlotte," I affirmed again due to the fear that originally my voice not been heard. Although, oddly enough, I neglected to speak louder the second time.
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Once adrift in the bewildering currents of social norms, he had not realized that the woman was struggling to his side until she had nearly passed him. And, as absurd as it may seem, the fact he had taken time to consider whether or not he should perform the gentlemanly act of assisting her somehow made it solicited and, therefore, unbearably awkward. He decided instead to walk wordlessly alongside her, and quietly cursed himself for his hapless pause and odious moment of perplexing consideration of what should have been an effortless gesture.
Then, of course, she opened her mouth and spoke.
In the lady’s parade of syllables, he had gleaned a useful parcel. Charlotte. Yes, her name. Something that paled in comparison to how she uttered it in unsure, fractured half-sentences. Every tumultuous, harmonious stumble of her tongue caused Sod to feel veritably elated and his own unease melted away. There was more than one gauche vagabond who splashed up the loathsome hillside, and a peculiar comfort dwelt in that sentiment, however maleficent. So, while his conceptual embrace was momentarily jarred with guilt, he nevertheless chose to succor confidence from Charlotte’s insecurity. After all, who can resist the lure of false strength?
At any rate, morality be damned, and may she never know! whispered his mind to his soul.
So, for a few moments, his steps felt lighter, despite the ruggedness of the slope, breathing came easier, despite the stuffiness of the evening air, and then … then he realized it was his turn to offer up a name on the altar of politeness. Unprepared, he chose not to say anything at all, lest he lose his tentative self-confidence.
It was at the end of that undulation of dark emotion that the rain stopped falling on them, as they were beneath the ledge.
“We are here,” he said, as if such a thing were not obvious. Then, to somehow assuage her of his poor manners, he mumbled, “I am sorry.” His spirit, encouraged by the admission, assailed him with a condemning deluge: I am sorry for my selfishness, for my lack of history, honesty, integrity, or anything that makes one relish life. Were more than a single moment given to how you came to this point, you may realize it has more to do with being lonely and crying in the rain.
His back was to her, as he had turned to gaze out over the faintly glowing valley.
Then, of course, she opened her mouth and spoke.
In the lady’s parade of syllables, he had gleaned a useful parcel. Charlotte. Yes, her name. Something that paled in comparison to how she uttered it in unsure, fractured half-sentences. Every tumultuous, harmonious stumble of her tongue caused Sod to feel veritably elated and his own unease melted away. There was more than one gauche vagabond who splashed up the loathsome hillside, and a peculiar comfort dwelt in that sentiment, however maleficent. So, while his conceptual embrace was momentarily jarred with guilt, he nevertheless chose to succor confidence from Charlotte’s insecurity. After all, who can resist the lure of false strength?
At any rate, morality be damned, and may she never know! whispered his mind to his soul.
So, for a few moments, his steps felt lighter, despite the ruggedness of the slope, breathing came easier, despite the stuffiness of the evening air, and then … then he realized it was his turn to offer up a name on the altar of politeness. Unprepared, he chose not to say anything at all, lest he lose his tentative self-confidence.
It was at the end of that undulation of dark emotion that the rain stopped falling on them, as they were beneath the ledge.
“We are here,” he said, as if such a thing were not obvious. Then, to somehow assuage her of his poor manners, he mumbled, “I am sorry.” His spirit, encouraged by the admission, assailed him with a condemning deluge: I am sorry for my selfishness, for my lack of history, honesty, integrity, or anything that makes one relish life. Were more than a single moment given to how you came to this point, you may realize it has more to do with being lonely and crying in the rain.
His back was to her, as he had turned to gaze out over the faintly glowing valley.
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Soon™.
Places in this Post
Soon™.
For a moment I stand there with my back toward the building and look unseeingly out onto the parking lot where the cars glitter with raindrops from the passing storm. My toes hang over the edge of the curb and my bag thumps dumbly against my thigh as I hesitate and wonder, What have I done?
The back of my neck tingles, half-expecting a blast of air-conditioning as he rushes after me. He would touch my shoulder and turn me around with those fingers always stained with ink from writing memos on the back of his hand. He would be too close, smelling of coffee and cigarette smoke. He would ask, "Mel, what the hell happened back there? What do you think you're doing?"
Nothing of the sort happens, of course, and I am suddenly hyper-aware of the silence, the vacuum of sound sectioned off by a pair of glass doors, behind which clatter keyboards and voices chatter over the drone of printing and xeroxing and faxing and the white noise of humming computers and rustling papers. I have to consciously stop myself from looking back, almost yearning for the familiar monotony, but my pride saves me from the chagrin.
She pulled herself away from the river, where the body had already drifted away. The mire sucked at her feet, and the bracken clawed at her clothes and hair, but she made her way steadily onto the river's bank. There was no rush in her actions, each motion spare and unwasted, but the fluorescent glow of rabid emotion and adrenaline was already fading from her limbs. Stumbling into a clearing, with a trembling arm, she released a fist of snow-white salt onto the ground and let it fall around her in an arc wide enough to encircle her body. She curled up in its center, but it remained unfinished, another handful of salt lying inert in her still palm.
I close the car door, hermetically sealing myself off from the mute indifference of the parking lot. I catch my reflection in the rear view mirror and notice my hair frizzing from the dampness of the weather and futilely try to smooth it down. My eyes lock onto their reflections for longer than they should, long enough to assess the following: my roots are showing, my lips are chapped, my skin wane, dark shadows under by eyes. I reach out to flick on some tripe on the radio and find that my nail polish has chipped, and make a note to myself to patch those up as well as redo my roots, do something about my skin and the dark under-eye circles. Suddenly I feel so tired. The thought of these acts of vain self-preservation tax me, all of these insignificant details adding up--and adding up to what? I lean my head back and close my eyes.
She let herself fall asleep. After one commits a crime, one ought to run, ought to cut one's hair, change one's clothes, ought to slip into another identity, but these worries are tranquilized by velvet somnia, for, as her yawning consciousness rationalized, in the middle of nowhere there was nothing she could do, no one from whom to run, no where to which to go. After all, what dominion does one's identity have in the wilderness? She might as well have been the grass or the rock or the brook. She was nothing but a strange animal here.
The back of my neck tingles, half-expecting a blast of air-conditioning as he rushes after me. He would touch my shoulder and turn me around with those fingers always stained with ink from writing memos on the back of his hand. He would be too close, smelling of coffee and cigarette smoke. He would ask, "Mel, what the hell happened back there? What do you think you're doing?"
Nothing of the sort happens, of course, and I am suddenly hyper-aware of the silence, the vacuum of sound sectioned off by a pair of glass doors, behind which clatter keyboards and voices chatter over the drone of printing and xeroxing and faxing and the white noise of humming computers and rustling papers. I have to consciously stop myself from looking back, almost yearning for the familiar monotony, but my pride saves me from the chagrin.
She pulled herself away from the river, where the body had already drifted away. The mire sucked at her feet, and the bracken clawed at her clothes and hair, but she made her way steadily onto the river's bank. There was no rush in her actions, each motion spare and unwasted, but the fluorescent glow of rabid emotion and adrenaline was already fading from her limbs. Stumbling into a clearing, with a trembling arm, she released a fist of snow-white salt onto the ground and let it fall around her in an arc wide enough to encircle her body. She curled up in its center, but it remained unfinished, another handful of salt lying inert in her still palm.
I close the car door, hermetically sealing myself off from the mute indifference of the parking lot. I catch my reflection in the rear view mirror and notice my hair frizzing from the dampness of the weather and futilely try to smooth it down. My eyes lock onto their reflections for longer than they should, long enough to assess the following: my roots are showing, my lips are chapped, my skin wane, dark shadows under by eyes. I reach out to flick on some tripe on the radio and find that my nail polish has chipped, and make a note to myself to patch those up as well as redo my roots, do something about my skin and the dark under-eye circles. Suddenly I feel so tired. The thought of these acts of vain self-preservation tax me, all of these insignificant details adding up--and adding up to what? I lean my head back and close my eyes.
She let herself fall asleep. After one commits a crime, one ought to run, ought to cut one's hair, change one's clothes, ought to slip into another identity, but these worries are tranquilized by velvet somnia, for, as her yawning consciousness rationalized, in the middle of nowhere there was nothing she could do, no one from whom to run, no where to which to go. After all, what dominion does one's identity have in the wilderness? She might as well have been the grass or the rock or the brook. She was nothing but a strange animal here.
- 37 posts here • Page 1 of 4 • 1, 2, 3, 4
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Almost an Allegory: Out Of Character (OOC)
Most recent OOC posts in Almost an Allegory
Re: Almost an Allegory (OOC)
For those of you watching this ... I've moved Almost an Allegory into the RolePlay tab, under the "Life" place - since the subsets are kind of intermingled and there is no way of splicing things. I also wouldn't want to do so, either. So, please make future posts through there, making sure that the place selected is "Life."
roleplay/almost-an-allegory/places/life/
Also, please submit a character. It doesn't have to have a huge profile; in fact, I prefer something sufficient and brief. For that information, you can click on Main Page, Characters from the link above.
roleplay/almost-an-allegory/places/life/
Also, please submit a character. It doesn't have to have a huge profile; in fact, I prefer something sufficient and brief. For that information, you can click on Main Page, Characters from the link above.
Re: Almost an Allegory (OOC)
Wut ... RPG is pissing me off now; I had that damn thread bookmarked so that I'd get alerted when a new post arrived ! Aw, fuck sake ...
Re: Almost an Allegory (OOC)
Selothi wrote::lol:
Dates, dear friend, dates ...
I'm not sure I follow. I did make a few posts to the IC lately, but I guess nobody noticed. ;o
Re: Almost an Allegory (OOC)
Not really mate. If the RP recruitment thread doesn't work, there's not much else. Not like you're gonna advertise this thing through mass PMs ! Either that, or edit the tags to contain more info about the RP, so as to draw more people. Other than that, fingers are to be crossed.
Re: Almost an Allegory (OOC)
I attempted to garner some modicum of interest by soliciting in the "Roleplayers Wanted" area, but I received no response. And because there is a rule against double-posting, I can't bump the thread. >.>
Selothi, do you have any ideas about prospective methods of recruiting new members? I think we need to get a couple more Roleplayers that will consistently participate, other than myself, you and Circ.
I'm not sure what you mean by driving force, Circ, but certainly a small group of active players could resurrect this RP; or, if need be, recreate it from scratch.
Selothi, do you have any ideas about prospective methods of recruiting new members? I think we need to get a couple more Roleplayers that will consistently participate, other than myself, you and Circ.
I'm not sure what you mean by driving force, Circ, but certainly a small group of active players could resurrect this RP; or, if need be, recreate it from scratch.
Re: Almost an Allegory (OOC)
Well, I don't know about driving force, but if the people already in the RP are willing to start back-up, surely this thing can live on for a while more, aye ? Like I said, I'd love to be a part of this thing, if ever it can back on track, it's just such a unique idea.
