I remember the
first time I did it. I remember the feeling of grit pressing against the skin
of my knees as they bore my weight. I remember the trembling that rocked my
entire body. I remember the feeling of the barrel in my tremulous hands as I
rested the butt of the shotgun on the floor- cold hard steel. I remember the
taste of that thin saliva that accompanies moments of deep fear. I remember my
clammy palms and my desperate attempts to steady the gun. I remember the fear
that I would fail even at ending my life.
I open my mouth
wide. Wide is not wide enough, and so I open wider. I begin to understand the
jokes about a career on ones knees and how one needs a very specific skill set.
The perfect balance in jaw tension is difficult to achieve with your teeth
clenching like someone fed you a live wire. Feedback is key. To bite down is
the doom of your career. Wider is just sufficient, and so I lean forward and
receive the end of the barrel in my mouth. It tastes like a dry cell seasoned
with oil and sweat. It must be as dirty as a bedpan. But it will get the job
done. And no disease can come where I’m going. YODO.
I let my tongue
dance around the edge of the muzzle. It has never experienced anything so
smooth and so solid. It is pleasantly delighted. I make a mental note to
request a larger tongue at my reincarnation. And a bigger mouth. Definitely a
bigger mouth. My tongue probes the muzzle.
My temptation to
lay down the shotgun, fetch a piece of charcoal and compare flavours is
fleeting. Suddenly a terrible heat fills my mouth. It is an eternal moment and
I am Andromeda: chained to a crag of rock, my nakedness bare before God and
man, sacrificed for the pride of one I love. How does so small a morsel satisfy
the millennial hunger of Kraken*? Still, he comes.
My cheeks inflate.
The inside of my mouth- it burns. The flaming air fills my lungs. Do not bite
down. They might need your teeth for identification. In my mind I laugh at the
thought. And then just as the wind passes, just as the shell strikes the back
of my mouth, just as I gag, just as the pain of a splitting skull begins to
sting, there comes, riding on that scorching wind, the darkest, heaviest night
I have ever known. Darkness falls.
There is nothing
pleasant about hearing your heart beating in your ears when the next sound you
were hoping for was a trumpet. The ringing and the throbbing were unbearable.
It was as if someone had taken a shotgun and blown a big chunk of my head off.
And then there was the taste of burnt plastic in my mouth. I spat out bits of said
shotgun shell, walked to the bathroom and did a thorough brushing- like I
always did when I thought there shall be kissing later. My standard two teacher
would have been proud. I felt an itch and reached to the back where most of my
head used to be. A fly buzzed off. I let my fingers trace the jagged edges of
the bone.
I cannot believe I
will have to do this again.
I lick my already
moist fingertips. Blood definitely tastes better when its fresh- and not
peppered by shrapnel. Unless of course, one is a hyena. I’m pretty sure I’m
not. I remember that I just cleaned my mouth. Reprise. This one is for you,
teacher.
I remember
yesterday desperately trying to fan him awake after the explosion. I heard it
while sitting on the window sill getting some sun, and immediately I rushed
into action. I suppose I failed because I am little. Worse still, he is a
hermit, and takes great pains to seal off the outside world. I could therefore
not go out and get my friends. We would have tried to fan him like my relations
in the wild tell me they fan dying animals. I too would have had a heroic tale
to gloat about when my out-of-town relatives visited – of a coming together of
city folk and a putting aside of their self-obsessions and love for rubbish to
save a stranger. For awhile I had rested on the table trying not to bang on it out
of frustration, lest I startle an already injured man awake. If I was to rouse
him I was going to be gentle, I decided. And so I had filled an eternal minute
or two with thoughts of daring feats and ingenious plots. As a result, my
little heart beat so hard from it that I thought it would burst. Laying myself
down on my back, I prayed that the gods would forgive my inaction. And then he woke
and stood up and I realised how selfish a prayer that had been. I wanted to ask
forgiveness for my selfishness. But I chose instead to give thanks he was alive,
and to pray he would be fine.
Slowly, almost
solemnly, a most intoxicating aroma began to spread its gentle wisps around the
room. They danced through the air like sprite-ly emissaries of a most potent
magic. It was the most gentle, most bewitching smell I had ever known. Even the
incense they burnt at the altar in the huge vaulted building last week does not
compare.
It had been my
first time to attend church. Celia had urged me on. She had insisted that a
funeral was not to be missed. I remember we staggered back together and sneaked
into my human’s house. She is a glorious specimen of a female house fly- and a
screamer.
The smell ceased
its seduction and came onto me with a terrifying violence. Its gentle wisps
became gusts of a blazing wind. Suddenly the air around me was on fire. My
countless eyes were all tearing, and I was drooling so hard I feared I would shrivel up and die. I have no recollection of what happened between my flying
off the table to follow him, and the moment his hand came at me and I flew
away. All I know is that whatever gave off that smell was the most delicious
thing I had ever tasted. It was as if the closed bud at the end of his stalk
had finally blossomed into the most beautiful of flowers. And oh! The richness
of her nectar! I would tell Celia about this.
I am back on the
window sill to get some sun when he walks in. The crimson flower is now a white
boll. He is the first human I have ever seen bloom. What a strange fellow, I
think to myself. And what sweet nectar! Maybe he’s just keeping it to himself.
Or maybe he got pollinated last night. I wonder if he will wither away and die
after he bears his fruit.
He is now seated
at the table with countless tiny bottles before him. He pours hot milk into a
bowl and reaches for the bottles. One after the other he empties the contents
of the bottles into his milk. The little pellets are such colourful things. He
reaches for the middle shelf. My heart skips a beat. The sugar is coming out.
It has been awhile since he used it- since I used it. O happy day. The sun
kisses my wings.
He walks over to
the window. I make for the sugar.
It has been long
since I chewed with my mouth open. I am alive for a moment as I listen to my
teeth grind the last of the pills, as I watch stray bits fall on the window
sill. I slurp what remains of the milk, place the bowl on the kitchen table and
wait.
The retching kicks
in two hours after breakfast. I am barely lucid. As the first hints of nausea
kick in, I race to the toilet, go on my knees, lean forward and wait. My career
on my knees continues. The foul smell only serves to urge on the sick feeling
that is building in my core. I look to the corner of the floor where I keep my
scarce-used bottle of Harpic. Nitaomba serikali iingilie kati. I do not have
the time to chuckle. The first wave is here.
An hour later, I
am still on my knees. Now I am retching small quantities of blood. There is
nothing more. I can feel the gaping emptiness in my stomach. But the retching
continues.
Four hours later,
my teeth caked in blood, my weary body lying on the cold bathroom floor, the
retching continues. Just below the sink I see a bone fragment from yesterday.
Twice I have failed. I take my phone out of my pocket and log into Facebook.
‘There is no such thing as enough Piriton in your breakfast cereal. You can
always have more’.
Nothing has been
down or up in the last six hours. Still, I am retching ceaselessly. Sometimes I
stand up and try walk to the door, inspired perhaps to climb to the roof and
fling myself down; then the retching comes on, violently throwing me to the
ground.
Innards will not
stand in my way. I steady my hand and I sink the carving knife into my bowels.
I have just made
it in through a small space under the door. Leo is nowhere to be found. I smell
sugar- and something else. Something better than the incense at the church I
took Leo to last week. We must go again. He is such an animal when he is drunk.
I make my way to
the kitchen. Leo’s human looks different today. And now he is going all out and
making himself a hole where his stomach would have been. What sick dreams has
he been having? Mine usually gets drunk and has conversations with me when he has
bad dreams. Just last week he was telling me about his love for another man. I
cannot imagine Leo with another fly. Not when he has all of me to occupy his
lonely hours. I am such a conniving little bitch. And I have him just where I
want him.
A gentle rain
begins to fall.
I meet Leo at the
door. His human has made a dash for it and I am hot on the heels of that sweet aroma. I grab Leo's hand and drag him along.
She has such soft
hands!
I hope none of my
neighbours are on the stair well. I am in no position to stop and explain my
blood-soaked hands.
And she flies with
such rhythm!
I need to keep my
mind clear enough not to trip over and fall. Just one more flight.
Suddenly we have
landed and the rain has soaked us and her wings are clinging to her sinfully alluring
curves. My mind recalls the priest and the way of His cross.
He is running
ahead of us toward the edge of the roof. The gentle rain is now driving harder.
I was tearing as
the rain beat against my face, the drops stinging me and then weaving their
weary drunken paths to their death- mingled with my tears and the dried blood and
vomit. They washed not just my skin but the deepest darkest crevices of my
broken soul. They seeped into my bilious marrow and purged me. And I felt so
much lighter as I ran, and as I flew off the edge. And then the weight of my
sin returned to me and I began to fall.
The ground is
fractions of a foot away from me. She will not let me fall. She whispers in my
ear just as she does when she comes to me in my dream. That one dream that I
have carried with me for years now- coming to me wherever and whenever I slept,
like an unrelenting poltergeist haunting its killer. She tells me that I am yet
of use to her. That she still needs a toy with which to satisfy her cruel
longings. That only my jesting brings her joy.That my floundering about pleases her. And then I hit the wet earth and
my mouth is filled with mud and blood and pieces of broken bone. I turn to face the sky and the falling rain fills the hole where my hunger once lived. I must brush
my teeth again. And visit a doctor for some repair work. And draw my curtains
and let some sunlight in. I must find me a girl to keep me happy- a muse. She commands
it. There shall be kissing.
Author’s Note
(To be read no sooner than 5 minutes after finishing the story)
*Kraken: While
the actual name of the creature that is sent by the gods to devour Andromeda
and appease their wrath is Cetus, it has been called Kraken in popular culture-
see Clash of the Titans (2010).
Also, Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory,
Season 6, Episode 1) confesses that Kraken is the only sea creature he would
even consider being to be eaten by, as the last words he would ever hear would
be ‘Release the Kraken!’
That having been
said, (long live Sheldon), I would like to point out that I find it utterly
repelling to refer to said beast as THE Kraken. It’s just Kraken. No articles
(Unless you are Sheldon Cooper, Lord Alfred Tennyson, or have bewbs. Anything is excusable with bewbs. Even manbewbs).
That way HE sounds so much more terrifying. Like he has thoughts and not just
base desires. THE Kraken is a post-Nuclear World War III solar powered American
war ship that failed to start due to a capacitor malfunction leading to the
enslavement of mankind by 4 foot tangerine loving aliens that carry imaginary light sabers nd threaten to pick our noses as torture. KRAKEN is a creature
without beginning who dwells ‘below the thunders of the upper deep; far, far beneath in the abysmal sea’ and devours the flesh of young nubile princesses (do I
hear applause from all the paedophiles in the house? Shidwo!). And yes, HE is
also not an IT. Cue the feminists who will rail against my portrayal of Kraken
as male. And to them I pose the question: ‘Is a female Kraken really worth the
fight?’ Men are already dogs in their (said feminists) book (Yipee! Stark
generalisations. The root of all ideological wars!?) . Kraken is just a small
step down that ladder.
So, a brief review
of the Author’s Note (which is beginning to feel more interesting than the
piece that promised kissing and delivered none of it):
- The monster was Cetus, but pop culture
is Kraken crazy.
- The monster’s name is Kraken, not
THE Kraken The same way the short form of my name is Nic. WITHOUT A ‘K’.
My thanks to The Lady and The Wise for reviewing this piece
