The story of Kisces

It’s quite a funny story actually, as you’ll soon see for yourself. It was an ordinary day; sky, wind, oxygen, hot salty-looking pavements and a couple of houses. Almost exactly as the previous day had been save for one difference, nothing major, just the fact that Kisces wasn’t breathing anymore and her body consisted of a rather tattered looking torso, blood-tangled hair and bulgy eyes with a broken look to them. Her legs had been severed slightly below her hips, although severed seem like a far too civilized word for the description of what Kisces’ lower part of her body had gone through before finally being tugged off, by then being little more than skin surrounding a mush of pulpy flesh and splintered bones. No, not splintered, those bones had been damn near sawdusted.

I said this would be a funny story but now I might have to take that back. You see, Kisces was killed by her lover who wasn’t really in love with her to begin with. So with regards to both living and dying, Kisces was a very unlucky girl. And that’s what love is all about; a complete and total lack of luck. To put it shortly, I met someone, started to love that someone, was mistaken pretty badly, and just decided to ignore the whole thing. I didn’t get beat up and destroyed by my emotional side-stepping the way Kisces did, but in some way I still feel the need to be pitied because my heart aches and whines, resembling more than anything else a honey jar that’s stickied too tight to ever be opened again.

Kisces lover (who will continued to be referred to as such, even though he didn’t really love her) was your average guy. He never intended Kisces any harm, at least not until he stomped her kneecaps for a good half hour until they felt soft and almost powdery beneath his boot, but he also never intended for them to be together. Kisces was quite jadish and immature and far too easy to get into bed. When things got too serious she was easy to steer back in line and when things got completely out of hand she was even easy to rape, maim and leave in the woods to rot.

I don’t remember who first claimed love to be like some kind of flower (a rose, wasn’t it?) but whoever it was, they were absolutely right. Love is nice, and sweet, abundant and inevitably wiltering. We need togetherness, results, big talks, physical connection, closure, forgiveness, answers, fidelity, but we should all just shut our needy little mouths and consider ourselves lucky we didn’t meet the same fate as Kisces. Or, that we haven’t yet.

The innocence of sinners

They picked up my trail easily enough. The blood was seeping from between my legs, its pungent smell smearing off onto my surroundings every time I stumbled and was sent sprawling to the ground. How long had I been running? Hours? Days? Between the shrieks and growls coming from the pack behind me all I could hear was the increasingly painful throbbing of my own anemic heart. I could hear their panting and and the excited whines of the younger cubs, mixed with the occasional cold piercing cry of the alpha male. Our alpha male. The one closest to me in kin and sex and the one who had first spotted the blood, who had licked it from my trembling fingers and with a roar declared me an outlaw. The pain of the memory overwhelmed me and I stumbled and sank to my knees dry heaving and clutching the irrepressibly pounding heart in my chest and I cried out, calling out to my pack, to anyone who could hear me, calling out that I had stopped running and would be an easy prey to their judgement. Let them come for me. Just let it end.

Before I started bleeding I had been an alpha myself. That was back when we didn’t know the difference between our sexes and weren’t so easily distracted by the scent of each other. There was me, another female, our alpha male and roughly seven more young males in our pack. Me and the alpha male were strong and remained unchallenged, leading our pack with equally divided responsibility, sheltering them from adults such as their parents, teachers, the principal and any other grownups who could possibly pose a threat to our childhood and our games. We were happy. We were alive and living each day together, caring for each other, fighting one another. The occasional fight would end in bloodshed and scarring because we were all so young, so unaware of the strength of our fists as well as the frailty of our bodies. We were the strongest pack in the entire playground.

Then my body started revolting against me. My chest started swelling and hurting as if some alien was trying to burst through, to force my flesh to align into the curves of a woman, a grownup. The pain was unbearable at times and I would growl and snap at anyone who came close to me, particularly the other female in the pack who, while being a full year older than me, still remained smooth and unbroken. When I first noticed the blood it had leaked through my clothing and there was nothing else to do for me but run. Our alpha male who had grown to fear my temper over the last few days chased after me and when he caught the difference in my scent he immediately grew stiff, his hackles raised, and he started furiously tearing at my clothing, trying to free me from the blood and the stench, in his own childlike mind trying to save me. I clawed him, scratched him, openly challenged his authority over me and at the sound of our fight the rest of the pack came running. Soon they were gathered around me, towering over me, the female hissing and snarling, the males drooling and panting. I knew then that I was lost to them. The child they had known had grown into an unrecognizable being whom they could no longer read, no longer relate to, and all that was left was the infuriating scent of my blood and their lust, their need to kill me and to bury their muzzles in my flesh and drink my blood. So I ran.

And now I lie waiting, alone in this cold and strange world known as adolescence. There are others like me here. I cannot see them but I hear them screaming, hear the thundering of their packs gaining on them, as mine will soon gain on me. I know they’re only following their alpha, following the only thing that’s real in this place where their childish instincts are unable to discern the difference between enemy and pack, where only the smell of blood is strong enough. I wait for them in this foreign place. When they finally catch me I will bear my throat to our alpha and let him drink the life from this being that is no longer me.

Your worries are over

Robbins had missed his chance and he knew it. He should have turned tail and left the minute the first unruly patients had started attacking that nurse, he should have run like hell and barred the entrance after him from the outside. But he had realized this too late and now the hospital was already overrun. He silently snuck through the door into his office, carefully making sure the door slid close as silently as possible to avoid one of those wretched creatures hearing it. He turned the key and heard the cap of the lock give a small click. With a low gasp he sank to his knees and muttered a string of virulent curses, starting with the day he was born and working his way through his job, his staff, his ex-wife and finally his Lord and Savior.

“I knew this would happened, I knew this would happen”, he mumbled to himself as he heaved himself back on his feet, gasping a little with the effort. He walked over to his desk on shaking legs, opened the third drawer, fished around a bit inside and withdrew his hand clutching a small bottle of Branded Rose. He unscrew the cap and took a large swig of the golden liquid, choked on it but manage to not splutter it all over himself and took another big gulp from the bottle. It burned pleasantly down his throat.
Suddenly there was a high shriek and something thudded loudly against the door and he started and almost dropped the bottle. He spun around and ducked behind his desk, carefully nipping his head around the corner and looked towards the office door. It was one of them, of course, he’d known they’d find him eventually. He recognized a head of grey hair and realized that the person, no, the thing, outside was his Mrs. Winlow. Or, what had once been Mrs. Winlow. The creature that was no longer Mrs. Winlow and no longer even human stared at him through the glass window on the upper half of the door and it slid its skinless fingers along the surface, leaving bright red smears across it. Its face was a bloody mash of infected flesh and one of the eye sockets was dark and empty with something yellowish and sticky-looking trickling down from it like tears.

“Oh, doctor Robbins”, he chided himself, mimicking his secretary’s voice. “You know I won’t tell, you know it, but I worry! Please don’t drink during work hours. I worry the patients might notice, I worry!” He raised his bottle to greet the drooling, howling creature outside his door.
“Your worries are over, Mrs Winlow”, he said and giggled, his voice already slurred from the whiskey. He leaned back against the wall and watched her as she pounded her bony fists against the door, watched as the spidery cracks glinting along the glass surface grew thicker and wider and when the tinkling sound as the glass broke filled the small office he closed his eyes.

In heat

Her laughter broke the silence. It was a high pitched nervous laughter and no sooner had it escaped her than she clapped both her hands over her mouth to cover up her inappropriate outburst. This was no laughing matter and from the stern look her husband was giving her it seemed he didn’t think so either.
It was only the beginning of the summer season but already the heat of the sun had burned most of their and the neighboring village’s crops and the communal well had come close to running completely dry. Outside her and her husband’s little stone house a grey donkey and a handful of milking-goats were grazing but they had been given the last of the hay weeks ago and the few remaining strands of grass that still grew there hadn’t looked green in days. A drought was imminent and the general outlook on the future was ominous. And she was laughing. Very much against her will, but still, he had heard it and now he was staring hard at her from his entrance through the house’s only door.
“Mary”, her husband said. “I will not pretend to find your reason, whatever it may be, for interrupting my work on the village well at a time like this appropriate in any way but you have been my wife for many years now and I have come to trust that you would not disturb me without a good cause. Therefore, when I come rushing home to you I do not appreciate being met by the fitful giggles of an irrepressible girl! Speak up, wife!”
Mary swallowed down the slimy lump of fear and nerves in her throat. Their marriage had been an arranged one and she had found herself bound to this man by tradition and convenience at the tender age of 13, but even though he was 20 years her senior and head of their village council, he had always been fair with her and she had come to, if not enjoy, then at least endure her life as his wife. They slept in separate beds due to her still being a virgin and he had never once tried to force his will on her, to have her as a man is always free to have his wife.
And that was why she was laughing, why she was giggling to the point of choking on her own nervousness and why she had sent for him during his work hours. She had been dizzy and nauseous for several weeks already and even though she had been blaming it on the summer heat the truth had now become impossible for her to ignore. Her chest and feet had been feeling swollen and sore and when she discovered that she’d stopped bleeding in accordance with the moon she knew what was happening to her body and she knew she had to tell him. She swallowed dryly and cleared her throat and forced her eyes to look directly at his scowling face.

“Joseph”, she said. “I’m pregnant”.

Caught

I hated walking home in rush hour traffic. Endless streams of cars honking and people whizzing past me way too fast for comfort. I stopped at a red light along with a clump of people and I sighed, wanting to just get home so I could kick off my boots and curl into bed with the latest crossword puzzles. And then suddenly something caught my eye. A face, one which stood out in the crowd. A girl. I froze and looked at her. She was… beautiful. Not in a conventional way, she had a high forehead and a substantial nose but there was something about her that made it impossible to avert my gaze from her. Her hair was long and a golden pale yellow that framed her face and fell in ringlets down her shoulders before coming to rest on her chest, bracketing the band logo on her shirt. Suddenly, as if sensing me staring, she turned her head and looked directly at me and I felt my entire body flash hot and my face blushed, burning, as our eyes met. Hers were light greenish blue with a darker circle around the iris and her lashes were black and slightly curved. She smiled and tossed her hair, the light catching it and sending glints of copper along the strands. She held my gaze.

Enthralled I moved closer and as I did so she moved towards me as well. My heart was pounding, loud in my ears and hard against my chest as I neared her. As her smile widened she wrinkled her nose and showed a neat row of small teeth and I noticed that she had a small birthmark on her right cheek, like a fleck of dirt on the otherwise so light and fair skin. She was so beautiful. We were now standing close, our toes almost touching, and she leaned forward until our faces were only inches apart.

“My”, she said. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

I blushed even harder and stuttered something unintelligible. She cocked her head to one side and winked at me, obviously pleased with my flustered appearance.

“What’s your name?” I asked, too dumbstruck to think of anything else to say.

“You”, she answered.

“Me, what?” I said, feeling like a moron.

She tossed her head back and laughed.

“My name is You”, she said. “Y-O-U”. She winked again and coquettishly bit her lower lip. “Kiss me”.

She moved closer still and I felt myself leaning in towards her, almost as if someone was pushing me from behind. Our bodies pressed together and a low moan escaped me.

“You’re so beautiful”, I gasped and her face fogged over. I closed my eyes and my lips parted slightly and met the cold glass of the mirror.

Death of my childhood

They say that your childhood ends the minute you realize you’re going to die. That you are just a mortal lump of flesh that will (albeit incomprehensibly far into a distant future since you’re only 10 and a half) expire and only leave a mere nothingness behind. That your childhood ends when you comprehend that just as outer space is infinite, you will only live once and when you die you will be be dead for infinities infinity, for ever and ever, all the way into oblivion.
My childhood ended a little earlier than that. It happened the first time someone I held in high regard let me down. I don’t mean my parents, even if to most children their parents are infallible gods, because mine had already failed me numerous times by having wills of their own and succumbing to emotional displays of affection that excluded me, so I already knew that they could be faulty and were, close to, but not omnipotent. I’m talking about my heroes, my muses, my celebrity gods who made rock that rolled and nudged my heart like a butterfly’s proboscis and who, even though I was too young to know even a word of English back then, spoke directly to me.

The Beatles.

One day I was casually eavesdropping on my fathers adult conversation with his adult friends, while watching the pickup run along the vinyl tracks of Yellow Submarine, and I overheard the words that would slay my poor innocent childhood and spit on its remains. My father laughed and said: “Yellow Submarine, huh… You’d have to be on some really mad drugs to come up with a song like that!”
My heart skipped a beat. The Beatles… had something to do with drugs? It couldn’t be. Drugs were bad, surely the great Paul Meckarty and John Lemon would know that! It couldn’t be true, it had to be a mistake, a cruel joke, a misunderstanding. My heroes were pure and knightly and would never dabble in those dangerous things that were either chemical and looked like flour or was like those star-shaped green things that grew among my parents tomato plants out behind the shed. I wouldn’t stand for talk like that about The Beatles.

“Daddy?” My jaw set but my lower lip trembling I approached him and his friends as they sat around the kitchen table drinking amber liquid that came in cans and smelled like stale bread.

“What, sweetie?” He patted me on the head and scratched me behind my ear. He always touched me as if I was a dog, not in a demeaning way, just out of the awkwardness he felt around this little being that wasn’t yet an actual real person and who had, somehow, come from him. I knew he would give it to me straight. He didn’t believe in patronizing children and had never lied to me about anything, even when I had requested information that a child’s mind isn’t yet developed enough to process.

“Did The Beatles really take drugs?” There was no going back now.

“Are you kidding? They were completely off their heads on that shit. It’s a wonder none of them died of it!”

The disappointment made it hard to breathe. I broke down crying and threw myself into his arms while his friends hid their faces behind their hands and tried in vain to stifle their laughter at my childlike despair. My father held me awkwardly to his chest and pounded me in the back with his palm (the way men always hug their dudes) until my ribs ached and my teeth rattled. Then he dislodged himself and held me by the shoulders at arm’s length.

“Listen. Don’t ever trust anyone, don’t ever put your faith in anyone. You are responsible for your own happiness and other people’s failure to live up to your expectations will only hurt you if you let it. No one is above you.”

I was 8.