Leave the coffee stains on the table. The staff will clean it up.
Cots are set up in the hall if you need a place to sleep, but
please don’t disturb the bodies.
Audio provided for all fiction in the vault. Break the
headphones and you buy them. Otherwise everything
here is free.
3D glasses are optional, but recommended.
Washrooms are located to the right, down the hall and past
the secret laboratory.
Good luck.
Short-listed for the Dark Eye Glances anthology
I said, this is long-term.
I said, it’s under my skin.
I’m dead, no you’re alive.
This is long-term.
Darkness in my eyes,
(I want to kill her and I want her to die)
Pity in my veins,
(I want to live and I don’t want her to die)
I said, this is long-term.
I said, skin crawling germs.
You try, court hearings and lies.
You deal with,
A woman who will kill you before you die.
Morphine, heroin and whiskey,
never good enough.
I said.
This is long-term.
© Lily
Appears in Dark Eye Glances, issue#2
http://darkeyeglances.com/issue-02/issue-02-lily/
I can see the faces before me,
In the neon sky.
O mother please leave me be,
In the neon sky.
Captain I never asked why,
Just lay me down to die.
Don’t save me just want to see,
In the neon sky,
All the beauty I should be,
In that neon sky.
Captain I never asked why,
Just lay me down to die.
© Lily
Appears in Dark Eye Glances, issue#2
http://darkeyeglances.com/issue-02/issue-02-lily/
Depart violently, my melting violet,
Depart bleeding, I want to see you go,
Depart violently,
My melting violet.
Don’t leave quietly,
Don’t patronize me,
You should scream,
Your eyes should bleed,
Give me noise,
Says I, the boy.
Her cheeks are mascara stained,
Her eyeliner bleeding green,
Into my skin,
I was only seventeen.
Depart violently, my melting violet,
Depart bleeding, I want to see you go,
Depart violently,
My melting violet.
© Lily
Appears in Dark Eye Glances, issue#2
http://darkeyeglances.com/issue-02/issue-02-lily/
You looked so young from so far away.
I wish I could travel those miles,
Without the distance,
Having its’ timed effect.
I wish I could give you everlasting daisies,
Infinity lilies and immortal roses.
But I know,
And you know so well,
You can’t bring a dead rose,
Along with your travels.
© Lily
Appears in Dark Eye Glances, issue #1
http://darkeyeglances.com/june-2010-issue/june-2010-%e2%80%a2-lily/
The child runs.
Up the hills down the tree,
Through your eyes and back to me.
Are you running now?
Is it up to my head,
Or down to my knees.
Is to the tower,
Or to the tree.
The man runs.
Up the plains down the tree,
Through your eyes and back to me.
Are you running now?
Is it up to my head,
Or down to my knees.
Is to the tower,
Or to the tree.
The old fool runs.
Up the grave down the tree,
Through your eyes and back to me.
Are you running now?
Is it up to my head,
Or down to my knees.
Is to the tower,
Or to the tree.
Are you running,
To the tower or to the tree.
Are you running,
To the grave or to me.
Are you running,
Are you going to run to me?
Are you running,
Are you going to run to me?
Are you running,
When are you going to run to me?
© Lily
Appears in Dark Eye Glances, issue #1
http://darkeyeglances.com/june-2010-issue/june-2010-%e2%80%a2-lily/
My bones grow old before my time,
Sacs of flesh, the pale dry flesh,
Red drinks of wine, intoxicates me,
You screamed quietly.
Soft my sweet, save your feline voice,
We have only lived three lifetimes,
Save your reaping, weeping willow,
I am already entangled in your branches,
And soon, soon,
We shall multiply.
My face wears an animated mask;
I do not wear my mask for disguise,
I do not wear my mask to hide behind,
My mask wears me as a costume divine.
Tricky as a snake, dividing now two,
Slithers inside and infects your apple core,
A fang slices and consumes us all,
Inside in, reverse it all out,
And soon, soon,
We shall multiply.
My hair is thick, sickening vines,
A crown of leeches,
In the shape of my lover, black widow, you:
Fear not those icy thoughts,
I will not love you less,
When I catch your animal scent
And my tongue screams with painful pleasure.
Oh I will not love you less, but more,
And soon, soon,
We shall multiply.
My bones grow old before my time,
Burrs of years grasp my eyes, rosé tears,
Breaks that crack down my mask;
Yet drink up my friend, three cheers for death
And if my bones inevitably turn to dust,
And my flesh holds nothing but ashes, then,
The myth of mind will breathe on and on,
And we,
We have multiplied.
© Lily
Appears in Ethereal Tales, issue#12
Buy the issue Here
Sand Crystal
She’d been waiting for years. There was only one human male who could appease her pain and avoid her hunger. One man, and a mermaid.
All the sailors and their kings had made their offerings to her, yet none had been able to stay away from their demise. She wasn’t even how she was created anymore. No more two legs, no longer separate and agile. Only the infection of scales, tracing the outline of her fused bones. One leg and deformed webbed feet which pointed both East and West.
She sat facing the North, awaiting on a treacherous rock, for the next ship that could be sunken by the sharp teeth of stone and to have her mouth filled with the flesh of a man. She was tired of the constant hunger. She was tired of waiting.
The ship was taller than expected and not as wide. So many years passed, and she’d witnessed the evolution of every vessel from masts that speared the sun and bows that cut through the black waters which surrounded her only home. She closed her eyes, her lips trembling a tune older than the rock she sat upon; older than the wind.
The words were alien to the men’s ears, unrecognizable and unlike any human language. Yet there was a timber and a lilt, and they wanted to dance while gauging out their eyes for witnessing what they believed could only be beauty attached to such a voice.
And when they opened their eyes, fear careened through their minds and flesh drooped from their faces. There was no beauty. Only a deformed amphibian creature with her long seaweed hair and eyelids encrusted with a morbid green.
A lonely creature.
The men dove into the water, ready to die in the murky depths as opposed to meeting their end at the hands of this grotesque being on a rock.
Wait,she cried with a gnarled and twisted alien tongue. Come back! The hunger will pass. Don’t leave me!Yet left her they did, their ears deaf and filling with sand as they drowned to the bottom of the sea.
One man left, a younger man, who stood at the bow of the ship. He was too young to know better and too old to know nothing. He’d seen her before, as he’d helped steer ships away from that treacherous rock. And he saw her now, as she had been before the infection, before the disease of the hunger ravaged each one of her skin cells. She’d been a woman once, pure and simple, with a lovely voice.
A lovely creature.
The man heard her, ensnared by her diamond-barbed voice, though he understood not any of her words. He swam through the waters, shedding clothes to prevent himself from drowning. Climbing the rock, he kept his eyes on hers and kissed up her rough tail to her thigh. He wanted to taste her, feel her, knowher. He couldn’t know her enough.
A sand-crystal tear escaped and scraped against her cheek. The hunger hadn’t passed yet. The hunger was the fault of the disease, the tearing of her soul and the degradation of what once made her a woman and real. If she ate one more time, she was sure the infection would spread even more and she would go blind. If only she could have found just one man who wouldn’t be lured by her deadly voice, then perhaps she’d live.
The man familiarized himself with the curve of her sides, using both tongue and hands. She dug her sharp teeth into her lip, filed down from years of men’s bones, until her lip bled dry.
I love you, she tried to tell him with her garbled words. Just this one last time, I love you. And I’m sorry.
The man smiled, and kept smiling even when the jagged edge of her teeth and her serrated long nails tore at the flesh of his throat. Rich and dark blood covered the rock and spilled into water, to join the other men who weren’t as brave, who died as cowards at the bottom of the sea. For they never could have loved the Loreley.
More sand-crystal tears followed as she lay her weathered face on the carcass, blood in her eyes from a man that was now deformed and beyond recognition. No longer man, pieces of him dripping from her teeth and a bleeding heart in her mouth. One last breath, she closed her blind eyes, the pain of hunger ebbed and she breathed no more.
She loved them all.
Because that was her nature.
Sand Crystal copyright 2009 © Lily
Appears in Ethereal Tales, issue #9
First place winner in the Ethereal Tales Christmas Competion.
Buy the issue Here
Tearing the Wings
Light refracts in strange ways – in broken shards or symmetrical arcs evenly split into seven colors. The true color of Ilma’s eyes is, by definition, terracotta. Reddish brown. But our eyes deceive us, produce optical illusions when eye color is combined with daylight or darkness. By day, her eyes are diminished to a pale sepia. By night, a glowing red like two perfectly round fire opals. Compared to her white hair, which perpetually hung in wilted curls, her eyes look as pink as albino mice. In truth, the only accurate word to describe the color with our own flawed human eyes, is sepia. Like an old photograph waiting to be remembered.
Ilma runs, not voluntarily and certainly not without pain. She had been wearing shoes when she started to run but they weren’t her shoes and they were miles too big for her. Man-sized boots, to be accurate. She kept on running, not missing a beat even after the black leather boots fell off her dainty, white feet. The sidewalk cement didn’t scrape the delicate soles of her feet. They are covered with slippery ice and a thin layer of powdery snow, which is falling fast now. Her feet are turning blue and red though, sending violent shivers up to her shaking shoulders. She’s only wearing a man’s white dress shirt, after all. She glides to a halt in front of the door, which she almost missed in the pitch black night. Grey metal, adorned with colorful graffiti, the door is heavy and Ilma is struggling with the cold handle. Finally, the door opens just enough for her to slip through unseen. She looks over her shoulder once more before she slithers into the abandoned warehouse, and disappears forever.
The first level of this building is hugely intimidating. The floor is covered with dust and fallen plaster and the only light comes from neighboring buildings which shine all night long. There are no stars or a moon this night, this Christmas eve. The sky is covered by a blanket of storm clouds threatening more snow. Light fixtures dangle uselessly in an organized pattern from the ceiling. Most of the bulbs are broken, looking like razor sharp teeth ready to devour a prey.
Ilma shudders unconsciously and walks to the nearest dark corner with exhaustion. She floats down, tucking her icy feet beneath her. She pulls the shirt down over her knocking knees and lets the cuffs of the sleeves cover her stiffening hands. She didn’t plan to run like that. She’s not a stupid girl, she was just caught unawares and dashed through the streets like a frightened deer. Her strong wings she always kept hidden fight beneath the cotton of the dress shirt. In one sudden movement, they rip through the back of the shirt and sprout like eager spring flowers.
Didn’t I mention she has wings? Oh yes, beautiful, strong wings the same colour as her eyes with veins of burnished copper. There were others like her, back home on their beach between the forest and the sea. Now, she is only one, though not completely alone. After Man had come with Machine and invaded their home with cannons of pollution and ships bleeding billowing smoke, most of her kind were wiped out by surprise. Only three survived, thrown into the air by the blast. They flew in a gentle arc and fell to the bottom of the sea. Three slept there for an unknown amount of time, to wake up in a different land and a different time. Three remain in the world, Ilma and two siblings. One born wingless with a fish tail while the other had black eyes without pupils. I could tell you grand tales about her siblings and their ferocious nature, more monster than myth. But this isn’t their story, this is Ilma’s.
The three children (though almost adults), agreed to separate and look for more of their kind. The plan was to rejoin on the pacific shore where they had awoken, after they had learned more about this new world. Ilma traveled to the center of this new land and found herself in a place she later learned was called, City. Some might say she shouldn’t have gotten involved with the man, whose shirt she now wears. But those people don’t believe in romance, so let’s ignore them. She did get involved, lived with him in his loft apartment for months. It’s getting colder as she remembers the details. In retrospect, the events that took place were predictable at best. His wife came home from a business trip. There was too much screaming for Ilma’s small, slightly pointed ears. Threats were thrown in her direction far too enraged to be rational. But don’t fault Ilma. She was just trying to survive.
A small piece of frostbitten flesh the size of a dime falls off her left cheek and lands on the dusty floor with a sickening thump. I told you it was getting colder.
She stares at the white-blue flesh for a moment, trying to understand. It was never cold back home. She puts an unsteady hand on her flawed cheek and wonders what could be done. Her wings curl around her and their heat almost burn her skin. She reaches with one hand and grabs hold of the tip of one wing, closes her eyes tightly and takes in a deep breath. Rip! The pain was fierce but passes quickly. She opens her eyes and slaps the torn piece of the wing on the pulsating wound on her cheek. Blood from the wing seeped into her white skin and she began to have a vision. Say what you will, she is a fairy and does have gifts beyond human understanding.
The wall to her left faded and revealed a clear image of her beach. The rolling waves of the blue-green sea licking the shore. Beyond the shore is the cave where the bones of consumed passing sailors lay to rest around a constantly burning fire. There her father sat, an imposing figure when standing with black eyes that shone intensely. In the not that far distance, lay the thick forest of pine, birch and oak trees. Her father tells tales to a circle of his children and grandchildren. Great great great grandchildren, but who keeps count of these things, really? The last droplet of copper colored blood seeped into Ilma’s cheek, and the vision vanished.
Another piece of her flesh falls off, this time from her right cheek. Without hesitation, she rips the other tip off her wing and slaps it on the newly made wound. The wall faded again. She sees the man, sitting at the table in his classic black and white kitchen. He’s reading a newspaper with his morning coffee. No need to describe his charming looks, this is still Ilma’s story. He glances up and sees her shivering in the dark. He smiles.
“Tell me a story,” she whispers. The man puts down his newspaper. “The dwarfs in Snow White can be easily explained,” he begins the conversation they’ve had before. “Back in the day, people were poisoned by working in the mines. Some died, some produced deformed children, like dwarfs.” He nods. “But the dwarfs from Snow White exist, right?” she asks sadly. “Well, no,” he replies. “They’re a myth. It’s just a story, Ilma.” Her cheek fully absorbs the last of the wing blood, and the scene vanishes.
There’s an odd experience that comes with freezing to death. Yes, you lose all sensation which makes it an almost pleasant experience. However, the body still wants to fight, a never ending battle between the immune system and the outside forces that are beyond anyone’s control. When the body has suffered one blow too many, there comes a great shudder, beginning in Ilma’s near-dead toes, rising up to her spine and exploding into tiny white stars in her eyes. There’s only so many nerve signals the eyeballs can take though, and hers promptly fell out of their sockets. They are now rolling across the floor.
Blind, Ilma freezes in white terror and fumbles around for her wings while listening to the awful thumping which signals many pieces of flesh raining to the ground. Like a child pulling at their hair, she grabs two large chunks of wings in tight fists. The sound of ripping grated her teeth. She takes each chunk, rolls them into balls between her palms and shoves them into the empty eye sockets. Once deep red, now eyes of golden copper, oozing out tears of blood, running down her face in quiet trickles. Inside, a great amount of blood seeps into her brain. She looks down at herself and madly begins patching each wound with scraps of wings, ignoring the vision shining on the wall.
Finally covered in most of her wings, she looks over and sees her father, staring at her through the dancing flames of the cave fire. “Father,”Ilma whispers, “are any of these visions real?” Sadly, he shakes his head, never taking those round, black eyes away from her. “Did any of this really exist?” she asks, a rhetorical question. Her father smiles, speaking in his reverberating voice that she rarely heard when he was alive. “All of that is real.” He waves toward her. “It’s you who doesn’t exist. You’re just a story, Ilma.” Then her father smiles, warm and beautiful, so full of love for his unnatural creation. “Father, take me with you!” she cries. “I tire of this new world, of humans, and I want to go home to the beach, the warm cave and the sea.” Without a word, her father reaches through the wall and pulls Ilma gently into the vision, cradling her by the cave fire. In the nearby forest, the birds hovered above, singing songs of warning, while the forest animals scampered quickly to their hiding spots. The sea is calm.
* * *
The local street kids (some with homes but they wanted to look cool) find Ilma the next morning in their favorite hangout. Stunned and unsure of what they’re looking at, they just stand there, staring and searching for words. The sunlight pour in from the glittering winter wonderland outside, casting a faint spotlight on the unmoving figure.
If any of them spoke, which they didn’t, they would have agreed what they’re seeing is an ice covered, plushie, patchwork fairy doll, with shredded wings and copper flesh for eyes. After a moment or two, or maybe five, they decided against spray painting more graffiti art in the old building and getting some hamburgers at a nearby joint instead. No one saw it was a real creature that sat there, frozen with death. They didn’t see the words written on the dusty floor, made out of icy white flesh. Nor did they even recognize the strange objects as words. She became an unconscious memory, never to be spoken of again.
Some say this is a horrifying, tragic tale of a creature who just wanted to live in the new world. But we’re ignoring those people, remember? In truth, as forgotten as the last fairy is, she is far happier now than she ever could have been in a world without passion, ruled by machines. Just like the words she made out of her own flesh as she thought of her two siblings trying to survive somewhere. With a blue tint and childlike letters, the words say: We Don’t Exist.
Humans celebrate the winter holidays in so many different ways. Ilma, the last fairy, went home.
Tearing the Wings copyright 2009 © Lily
Appears in Ethereal Tales, issue #5
Buy the issue Here
Bleeding Apple
“Go to hell,” she says, “maybe then you’ll understand.”
His eyes fill with tears. “Maybe I don’t want to understand,” he tells her.
There’s a knife, lying next to her moon face. Seven inches, gleaming steel. His fingers around the black handle, stiff and cold. Eyes closed, words of encouragement whispering out of her barely moving, pale sapphire mouth. Is it his resolve that’s stiffening even more or his fingers? He touches her long hair with the tip of the blade, and it gets caught. She shouldn’t have used such cheap black hair dye. He sighs, his brow creasing into a worried frown.
“Now, for me,” she whispers urgently.
He looks at the knife through a blur , and his tears drop on her breasts. He moves the knife to her thin throat and presses down. Blood. Hot and steaming, explodes into his eyes, up his nose, into his screaming mouth, screaming, too much blood, screaming black.
On the first morning of Peter’s death, he didn’t wake with a gasp or a shout. He only had an overwhelming feeling of resentment. He turned his head to the nightstand. The alarm clock should have woken him up. It would have if Peter had set it properly, which he never did. He bought the small red alarm clock on the advice of a co-worker. An overpriced device from Tokyo, he was positive he spent far too much money on the damned thing. He still hadn’t figured out all of the functions and, of course, its failure was always stupidly obvious. He set it on snooze instead of buzzer. He set it on six p.m. instead of six a.m. He stared at the empty spot next to him on the bed. His wife hadn’t returned from the hospital, he realized as the early morning fog faded. Yes, the alarm should have woken him up. Inanimate objects were so uncooperative.
Peter sat up abruptly, then immediately flopped down, feeling drained and light headed. With effort, he rolled violently off his bed, dragging the navy blue sheets to the floor, entangling his ankles. He lay on his back for a moment, taking in deep breaths and placing his hands on his eyes. He could sense a monstrous migraine developing behind his lids. If only he had gotten drunk last night. Hangovers were so much easier to deal with, especially during winter mornings. Going to work while it’s still dark outside was confusing enough but he could handle it if he still had some alcohol in his system. He suddenly sat up and thought, shower. Yes, that was all he needed. He rose, pulling up his beige pajama pants, tripped over an electrical cord and sauntered to the bathroom. He left the light on.
The sleek blade scrapes down his neck, over that vulnerable spot under his chin. A shiny, red bubble sprouts as he nicks his adam’s apple.Shit,he thinks, twenty years of shaving and I still cut myself.Peter studied his image in the steamy bathroom mirror. He flexed his muscles, wishing they were more pronounced. He analyzed his shaggy dark hair, still dripping water, his caramel skin flushed by the heat. He remembered how his boss always told him to get a haircut. He smiled. He sighed. He brushed back his hair with both hands, preventing more water from dripping into his eyes. He adjusted his towel, wrapping it tighter around his waist. Another glance at the mirror and he noticed a slight dribble of blood was running down his throat. He leaned over the toilet and grabbed a fistful of paper from the almost empty roll. He wiped away the blood wearily. He’s tired of his adam’s apple always bleeding.
Peter enjoys multi-tasking. He firmly believes he had no time to waste on the mundane aspects of life – eating, shitting, shedding. If he could rid himself of all these mind-numbingly tedious yet necessary activities, he would be a very happy man. He demanded careless perfection in his every move. He threw two slices of bread into the toaster while turning off the coffeemaker. He put on his tie while he poured a trickle of ripe milk into a mug, draining the contents. He tossed the empty carton at the kitchen garbage can only to realize a second too late he forgot to put in a fresh garbage bag. Damn. He’d deal with it later. His boss would fry his ass if he showed up late for work again.
Peter stood in the front hall and did a last minute check for all his necessities. Briefcase, files, keys – he slapped his forehead. Garbage. As much as he tried, he could never achieve perfection. It was his biggest lie. He dropped his briefcase and hastily ran back into the kitchen. He roughly tied up the full bag, ran back to the front hall, grabbed his briefcase and left for work.
He stood in front of his door, staring at the nailed carcass. Streams of blood once dripped down the door but had long since dried. A mangled snow owl, stiff with death, was fastened underneath the peephole. Its eyes stared without movement, begging questions that would never be asked. Both wings were stretched to their full length, small, broken bones protruded from the white feathers. With a grunt, he pried the corpse loose, untied the garbage bag and stuffed the owl inside. He stood on one knee as he attempted to close the bag, pushing the contents further down. The rip began on the bottom left corner and spread rapidly. Everything spilled out of the garbage bag in a noisy explosion. He sighed.I’m going back to bed,he decided.My boss can go to hell.
Her eyes are wide, a milky blue, but they don’t move. It scares him. She’s a willowy woman with round eyes, her blond hair dyed black to match his. He’s never understood that. She likes wearing long, spaghetti strapped, white silken gowns that cling to her figure. She likes calla lilies. She can lie there for hours, holding a bouquet up to her chin, her eyes closed.
“Kiss me,” she whispers.
His lips barely touch hers before he recoils – they are ice cold. He flops down on the floor beside the bed. “I can’t do it,” he mutters.
She sits up abruptly and violently throws the flowers down. “We’ve talked about this so many times! What is wrong with you?” she shrieks.
He looks at the scattered flowers beside him sadly. He paid a lot at the florist. “I can’t make love to you while you’re pretending to be dead,” he says to the flowers softly.
She leans toward him and kisses his cheek. “Then let me do it to you,” she says coyly.
On the second morning of Peter’s death, when he opened his eyes the stucco ceiling seemed to mock him in the darkness. He looked for his wife next to him but only saw an extra pillow. Right. She was staying with her mother. He really didn’t feel well. He looked over and glared at the alarm clock which was annoyingly blinking twelve a.m. He searched for the electrical cord with his eyes and fell out of bed. Crawling on his hands and knees, he found the cord behind the oaken nightstand unplugged. He cursed and threw it down. “Fuck you, too”, he muttered at the cord and stomped to the bathroom. He left the light on. Again.
There’s a line you have to draw between simply making a mistake and utter stupidity. Peter cursed endlessly under his breath as he dabbed at the dripping blood on his throat with a warm washcloth. He leaned on the bathroom sink and looked up at his reflection. Piercing gray eyes stared back at him passively. He sighed and looked down at bloody water that filled the sink. The blood overflowed, spilled onto the white tile floor.I’ll have to clean that up later, he thought. He reached into the diluted blood and pulled the plug. A pause, then all that red water ran gurgling down the drain.
He removed the terrycloth towel from his waist and dropped it to the floor. He walked out of the bathroom naked and began hunting for his cotton pajamas pants. Hereallydidn’t feel well, and his wife still hadn’t returned. He didn’t care about his boss. Now that he was thinking about it, he didn’t care about anything at the moment. He clumsily yanked the pajamas pants up to his navel. Something was wrong. He surveyed the modern penthouse, the only light coming from the bathroom. Definitely wrong. He decided a shock of reality would do him some good. He picked up the cordless phone and began dialing his work number.
The phone didn’t ring. He disconnected and listened. There wasn’t a dial tone. He checked the battery which was definitely plugged in and fully charged. He tried dialing the operator. Nothing but silence. Blood dripped down his throat, running down his chest and into his navel. He threw the phone at the hardwood floor of his bedroom and walked to the wall phone in the kitchen. No dial tone. He became frantic. He would be out of a job if he didn’t talk to his boss, and good advertising companies were hard to come by. He wandered in circles around the kitchen with a heavy frown and rubbed his temples. He stopped. Waited. No, he really didn’t care.
A knock on the door didn’t startle him but did give him pause. Someone was knocking consistently. Thump thump, rat a tat tat, thump. He dropped his right hand, the phone sliding to the floor. Bounce bounce, rat a tap tap, bounce. He moved slowly to the front door. Thumping, thump thump. He begrudgingly opened the door and saw the oldest man alive on the other side. Dressed in a black hemp robe and barefoot, the old man was so thin that he could easily be mistaken for a walking skeleton. Skin riddled with liver spots pulled tightly over his skull, which was too large for his small frame, at least two heads shorter than Peter. Behind the old man was not the familiar art deco hallway, but a winter landscape complete with a howling wind and three snow covered mountains in the distance.
“I have a lot of questions,” Peter said doubtfully, eying this old man with suspicion.
“Of course,” Charlie replied, waving off the comment. “Ye all do, loads of questions.” He continued, distinctively sounding like a pirate, “He can answer them all, no worries.” His toothless grin widened impossibly. “But I can’t keep holdin’ yonder boat for too long. Got others to pick up, ya know.”
Peter looked away. The sight of the old man was making him feel ill.
“What have you done with my wife?” he asked through clenched teeth.
Charlie quickly lost his grin, and his colorless eyes bulged in shock. Slowly, he smiled, his head bobbing as his lips spread.
“All right.” His accent faded into a undistinguished monotone, “you have questions. You want to go there.” Charlie pointed at the symmetrical mountains, so minuscule in that distance they looked like tiny triangles. Peter glanced in that direction with his eyes and quickly looked back to the old man. He nodded several times distractedly, a little perplexed and more than annoyed.
Charlie smiled balefully and regarded him with sadness. “Too bad,”he shrugged and he turned around. Peter watched the old man walk stiffly away and disappear into the landscape.
He suddenly started coughing uncontrollably and spat a huge ball of blood on the welcome mat. The one his wife made out of multi-colored felt during her stay in the psychiatric ward, after the third suicide attempt. He scowled as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and closed the door.
He had preparations to make. He had to find his heftier outdoor winter clothing in the back of the front hall closet. He found his olive green wool coat and heavy winter boots. Unable to find anything better, he grabbed a silken scarf and wrapped it tightly around his neck several times. Feeling fully prepared, he walked out of his home, purposefully neglecting to lock the door.
To say the wind was howling would be an understatement, as Peter discovered immediately. These winter boots were too heavy. They only wore him down, forcing him to plod through the snow hunched over.So uncivilized, he commented to himself. He looked up at the mountains for the hundredth time, wondering why they hadn’t changed size. Sure, they looked far off, but it seemed to him that a day’s walk should have been enough. He patted the left breast pocket and felt the box of matches and cigarettes. He quit smoking years ago, but liked having a pack at the ready. He could smoke anytime he wanted; he simply chose not to. Maybe he’d camp out for one night.
A tickle on his throat started up again. More than a tickle, a searing burn. He clamped his throat and unconsciously yelped in pain. Blood came pouring through the silk scarf, between his fingers, and splattered on the crisp snow. He glanced behind him and realized he left a bloody trail all the way from the front door, a tiny rectangle in a blizzard.
“Ah, screw it,” he said to the blood seeping into the snow. Just one night. Failing to find any fire wood, he warmed himself with a lit cigarette. After the last smoke was reduced to the filter, the stench of burning glue filling the air around him, he fell asleep sitting up. He dreamed.
They’re making love and the knife is there. “Hold it up to my throat,”she hisses. He can’t. “Then choke me,” she pleads. She wants him to strangle her until she loses consciousness. He won’t. “You promised,” she cries. And he did. Necrophilia in exchange for suicide attempts. She begs, she spits horrible taunts at him, angering him as much as she can until he grabs her neck in a blind fury. She lost more than just consciousness. He froze, horrified at himself for what he had done, crying at her pale, still face, disgusted that he couldn’t stop making love to her until he ejaculated in painful spurts. He’s lying on top of her quiet body, crying into her hair. Then, he’s calm. He has no more feelings. He stands up, naked, and walks into the bathroom. He turns the water on at the sink. He doesn’t feel it, seven inches of steel. Nor does he hear the sound, the crunch of the blade against his adam’s apple as he slices his throat from ear to ear. He’s not sorry.
On the third morning of Peter’s death, he opened his eyes, squinting, and tried to interpret what he saw. A tiny white triangle. The mountains never changed size because they weren’t far away. They were just very small. He pushed himself up, glanced beyond the mock mountains, and saw a frozen lake. A marble statue was sitting on a frosty log, holding a stick, a piece of string dangled into a perfectly carved out circle in the ice. Peter stood shakily, still half-asleep, and stumbled towards the statue. Snow covered oak trees faded in around the lake and he found it harder and harder to walk. He managed to step around all the trees and sat down on the log beside the statue, who smiled
Not really a statue, but a figure sitting incredibly still. His skin looked like marble with light blue veins. Finely chiseled features, each muscle smoothly curved. Full lips of a deep sapphire, indigo fingernails and majestic wings, white and shimmering blue. Peter scanned the winter scene. The snow sparkled, falling down from tree branches, and ice glittered on the small lake.
“Dante was wrong,” said Peter in awe.
“Indeed,”replied Lucifer without emotion.
“Why didn’t Charlie tell me?” Peter wondered childishly.
Lucifer shrugged, raising his beautiful wings up and down. “He probably thought you already knew.”
Peter regarded the makeshift fishing rod. “Why are you ice fishing?” he asks, facing the statue.
Lucifer turned his empty eye sockets to Peter, icicles drooping from his marble eyelashes.
“Patience,”he smiled.
“How long have you been waiting for me?” Peter asks with a worried frown.
“I am always waiting for souls. Humans think I seek them out, yet all I do is wait for them to come to me,” he answered sadly.
“Why has this happened this way, a tundra, ice fishing, why like this?”Peter questions.
“Denial,”replied Lucifer with a faint smirk.
Peter nodded several times, understanding lighting up his face. He rose to his feet, removed the wool coat, boots and pajama pants. He dropped the clothing on the log and they instantly vanished. He walked, naked, into the now dense forest of snow covered oak trees. He pause in front of a tree and stared. A human form could be barely seen within the depth of the tree. A form with bleeding slit wrists. He looked at another tree, a figure with rope burns on the neck. A common experience – if you notice one, suddenly you see them all. The figures squirmed and moaned, reaching out hands through the bark. Trees move closer, closer, too close. Peter couldn’t breathe.
He whipped around and yelled at Lucifer through the forest. “No, wait -” emerged before the many hands clamped over his mouth. His eyes stared wildly as a tree moved in from behind him, branches piercing every orifice. Peter screamed.
Lucifer didn’t watch him. He kept his eyes on the fishing rod that never moved. The screams echoed for a few minutes around the lake, a sound he was too familiar with and barely registered in his ears. He looked up and smiled at the newly formed oak tree in the forest, a squirming form with a slit throat inside. He noticed its lips moving, the word”why” was emitting soundlessly.
Predictable,Lucifer thought gently and he glanced back to his fishing rod.They always have the same questions, those damned souls.
Bleeding Apple copyright 2009 © Lily