| abstract | - It’s funny really. You’d think, I guess if you wait long enough, and search hard enough that you’ll find someone like you. Someone who shares your pain. Someone haunted by your demons. Someone who knows the way out. But you can’t bet on it, you can’t. You just can’t. Because you don’t know, you don’t know when or how that person is going to turn up, and you better be damn ready for it. If you’ve let them in already then sorry, you’re too far gone. In the crate you found this letter in you’ll find a snub nose .357 and I strongly recommend using it. With whatever strung out, hollow fibres of your humanity you have left, take it, and blow your brains out. It’s easier, quicker. You’re not who you think you are, and whatever you think they are, they are, but much worse. You go in and out. You’ll have days and weeks you don’t remember and then you’ll suddenly come to, with a total recollection of all the horrific things you’ve done. It’s so hot in here; I need to put on a sweater. I can see him now, as I write this. No. I can’t see him. Physically. But I can see him. Right in the corner of my eye, or maybe it’s my mind; I can’t decide. He looks so comforting. His arms outstretched; long and welcoming. That smile. Lipless, toothless, mouthless smile. His eyes are warm, inviting and soothing. I could stare at them all day. So sweet and pleasant. His eyeless face wouldn’t be complete without those eyes. Such a shame mine aren’t as pretty. I could stare at them all da- He’s moving now. Like a cloud, but with legs. A legless cloud, moving without walking. He’s walking though, just not walking. I can feel him, and I’m fairly certain he can feel me. I want him to, I just… hate him. I hate him with such blind and immeasurable fury and unspent rage. His blood is boiling. It flows calmly through him. Surging and coiling through the blackened charred vessels of his puckered skin. Arms around me; pacifying my hatred. The tranquillity descends again, and I can rest in his embrace, blanketed in warmth, and safety, and malice. Oh how I hate him. He had been such a welcome escape in the past, arrived not long after the… no, wait. Never mind that. He’s got his hooks in me and I don’t like it. I love how it feels, but I can’t be this way. No one can. Finger on the trigger. I’m so sorry. Sorry, not sorry. It was only a cigarette. My thirty-fourth of the day, nothing special. Nothing amazing. It tasted normal, sickly sweet, thick in my heavy throat. I was so tired. So tired. Wide awake and exhausted, slumped over the dirty couch. My skin crawled but I just turned over and ignored it. Work in the morning. The first licks were almost pleasurable. My dozy, half-awake subconscious had jested with me about the tickling. Just on my forearm, tickling. ‘It’s just a fly or a spider, swat it away.’ Work in the morning. I just went back to sleep. I think it had been a day or two before I woke up again. Or maybe it had been a few minutes. My watch was upstairs on the bathroom. I’d had to take it off to have a shower. The black stuff wouldn’t come off my skin, so I had to use a scouring pad from the kitchen. Bit of bleach, no problem. Fetched it off after a few hours. I ran my hand over my arm, feeling the wet bloody muscle protruding from just below my shoulder. Had to scrub extra hard there. It tickled. Back to sleep. Work in the morning. My arm jerked in response to the cackling neuron that goaded me in a dream. A stray thought, a little idea, some spark of stupidity and life, faded from nothing into obscurity, then into history. My dead arm, dead from being hung over the edge of the sofa, hit something. Just a jerry can. Still so tired. Work in the morning. Better wake up. Those noises outside are getting louder. Like a rhythmic thumping from the front door. Oh look, bright lights, and men. I tell them not to forget my jerry can, can’t go anywhere without that. Something cold around my wrists. I think I’ve left the grill on. I think. Or maybe the kettle. Probably the kettle. The grill is full of clothes that were too dirty to wash. Waste of a Ted Baker suit if you ask me. I ask them if I can log into the Sims and send them to work for the day. Gordon has been slacking lately; needs to get his act together or the bank is gonna foreclose his house. Dammit Gordon, stop screwing your pathetic life up, no wonder your wife left you! I think they couldn’t hear me. The weird smell must be distracting them. I waved goodbye to my son; he ignored me. Little git had been ignoring me all night. The brain is clicking and cracking at me, attempting to shatter through the barriers; cold and rusty brain connections that refused to jump-start into life in this early hours. The next few weeks; I can’t remember. Vaguely. I met him during that time though. When I was in that… room. It was so cold! I had to take my shirt off usually, because of the heat. Then again, I was very near to his body as it burned. Fire is hot! I shivered in the cold of the room. I met him then. In the cold. He always, from day one, forgave me. He knew why. I hated him for it, but he forgave me. I think that’s why. When you love someone that much, when someone becomes such a deep and meaningful part of your life, you do anything for them. He had saved me from myself, from my misery, from my happiness, from endless torturous hours spent on the park, and parent’s evenings, and all those damn waste of time PTA meetings and school trips. He’s saved me. I hated him for it, but like I said, when you love someone that much. It hadn’t even been difficult. That night, when he came to me, eyeless eye’s beaming, mouthless mouth smiling, the scruffy tangled mass of black hair that grew from his bald hairless head. His beautiful face, his beautiful soft skin, that perfect pale white skull. He told me, whispered in that scream of his. I listened, deafened already by the screaming. I strained to hear the whispering. I remembered. That bitch! It’d put it inside her, it grew, and she gave birth. We made it! We made it, we made it and she left it. Left us. Left him. It was so cold I had to take my jacket off in the room so I didn’t sweat to death. I giggled. ‘Sweat to death’. Ironic. Back to the anger. She left! Without a moment’s notice. Apparently you ‘can be too unemployed’. ‘Employment is an absolute’ I had told her. ‘You’re either employed or you’re not’. Dumb bitch. I recalled that night being more difficult that the one a few weeks ago. She was taller for a start, stronger. She had put up more of a fight. It’s all rubbish that about the toaster you know. She still struggled, naked and wet. Wasted all that water and a perfectly good toaster. I mean maybe plugging it in would have helped but Google didn’t tell me to do that, so whatever. I had to grab the first thing I could get my hands on. I remember buying this, I had mused, my son’s electric toothbrush in my hand, and the other hand around her throat. I wasn’t squeezing hard; I don’t see all the fuss to be honest. Took a few tries but the end eventually broke off. Clever. It was pretty sharp now. A serrated metal strip jutting from a rubber handle. I guess it’ll do. I focused on the stomach mostly. I pulled each part of the intestine out and draped it over the shower curtain rail. This was messier than in the movies. All the while I heard his whisper in my ear. It was so happy. I was so happy. Merciless and smiling, I felt like a kid in a candy store. Bloody kid, bloody store. She didn’t seem too bothered about me cutting. I mean, when the toaster didn’t work in the water, he'd had a good idea. Raise my arms, bring them down. Raise my arms, bring them down. Her face didn’t actually look much like her after the she and the toaster had met rapidly and repeatedly. Useless old toaster had cracked as well. Remind me to write to Tesco about that. Might even get a voucher! Maybe go buy another Sims expansion. Only needed 6 more and I would have them all! Gordon you useless waste of space! I had been sat at my computer for almost two hours. Gordon had been gardening. I need to do some gardening. It’s getting hard to hide them now. After a heavy rainfall sometimes you can see a knuckle or a toe poking through the dirt. Dammit Gordon! Your gardening is crap! I set him off dancing for four hours. Hope he has a heart attack. Better have a shower. Work in the morning. This room is getting colder. Trousers coming off now, before I actually boil, no joke. I remember that scream waking me up. My son. Our son. My son. I hoped he wasn’t mad at me for breaking his toothbrush. He wouldn’t even hug me and let me show I was sorry. He just kept throwing up. I went to put some toast in the grill for his breakfast before school but the grill was full of bloody clothes. Waste of a Ted Baker suit. I should have changed maybe. Maybe not. I shouted to him that maybe if he was throwing up he should stay off school for the day. It was parent’s evening that night and I didn’t particularly fancy the thought. There weren’t even any hot teachers, so no eye candy. He’s picked up the phone. Dialling. One digit, two digits, three digits. Silly boy. Pranking the authorities was a naughty thing to do. I didn’t even hit him hard. Not too hard. The phone receiver had cracked on his skull after ten or twenty blows. Or maybe it was fifty, I don’t know, I had lost track of time after the first 20 minutes or so of beating. What was up with all this shoddy equipment! First the toaster, then the phone! Tesco would be receiving a very unpleasant letter. On the plus side, two Sims expansions! Dammit Gordon, you’re gonna wish you were dead if you don’t sweep those leaves! Back to the kitchen; I hadn’t had breakfast. Lazy son was lying on the kitchen floor. I asked him twice to make me a coffee but he just ignored me. He was heavier than I thought, but I threw him into the living room and turned on the TV for him to watch. Top Gear. He liked Top Gear. Maybe it would make amends for the whole phone situation. He came to me in the kitchen. Told me it wasn’t enough. I was tired and too hot, so I put on a woolly jumper and went out to the garage. He took me by the hand to the back of my car. The boot was a bit dirty. Dammit I forgot to replace the spare tire! Ugh, I hate forgetting things like that. It was such a struggle to get the tire cover from my boot. My daughter just kept getting in the way! I would have to push the festering mangled corpse further into the boot to make way for the new spare tire when I get around to fetching it. The jerry can. Yeah that’ll do. It's only half empty. Should be enough. I think I got some on the sofa when I was pouring. His clothes soaked most of it up. My head was swimming from the fumes but I just giggled. He waited, watching me. He put his fingerless thumbs up, on the end of his handless arms. Matches! Never any matches in this house. Everyone knows I smoke so I don’t know why there are never any matches. I don’t even smoke, so that probably explains why there are no matches. A lighter will do. There’s one under the kitchen sink. The living room smells so strongly I’m almost passing out! Back on the couch. Warm fire is in now. I think someone is cooking meat outside, maybe a barbeque. I ask my son if he knows if anyone is having barbeque but he doesn’t respond. He just sits there, sizzling with anger. Ignorant git. Better get some sleep. Work in the morning. I honestly don’t know what these men were making such a fuss about. Or why they had tossed me into that van, then into this cold room. I tried to tell them about him, and all the things I did for him, but they didn’t listen. They never listened at all. Bit ignorant if you ask me, but hey. I was in the cold room for a few weeks I think. Or maybe it was half an hour. He kept me company. He looked after me. He comforted me. This is a new room now. I think I’ve been here before. I’m sat at a desk. I wonder how Gordon is doing back home. I miss him. Dammit Gordon. I miss you. He’s here. In front of me. Smiling his mouthless grin of joy. He makes me happy. There’s someone else here too. I think he’s a police inspector. My eyes don’t leave him, despite the police inspector’s intrusion. I never want to leave him. The inspector is standing directly behind him. He speaks in unison with him. “Why did you do it?” The inspector, a look of shock and revulsion on his face. Him, smiling peacefully, speaking playfully. I smiled at him and at the inspector and spoke. "Because you told me to." He nodded. Because you told me to. Because you told me to. Written by CynicalSloth
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