A metro high, the bilge rat that squeaks his way through the aether of sewer miasma finds his reflection in the growing green mist. I found it too. I’ve found everything, lately. All the things I haven’t looked for. All the faces we were avoiding. All the shadows that couldn’t have been made without light, somewhere, even though that somewhere is completely out of my reach. The man in leather pulls back one fingernail and shows me the putrid skin underneath.
“The things you don’t clean,” he says, “are the ones that sneak up on you and get into your blood and eat you from the veins out.” I’ve not heard him talk in years. Never thought I’d hear him again. Never thought I’d hear the syrup voice work its way through a throat that’s been torn up by too many voracious skull-fuckings, too many cigarettes and immolated vodka shots.
He’s right. He’s always right. Every little word of venom like a stabbing, undeniable arithmetic. He pulls the strap on his thigh even tighter. He clips it into a new eyelet — one I’d not seen before. His thigh is purpler than I’ve ever been unlucky enough to see it. So purple. A black eye that works its way up to his right nut.
“I want you to know that you’re not clean. You never will be. No one ever will be. There’s always gonna be another suicide bomber.”
Probably right. Probably about the Jihadis. Probably about the extremists and their feverish delusion. Probably about the virgins you get when you die. Probably about the planet you get when you die. Probably about the father you meet when you die.
Always when you die.
Never here.
I can’t blame them.
I’ve not found much of anything either.
In fact, I’ve found nothing.
“Why are you squeezing your thigh so much? What are you gonna get out of it?” I don’t mean to be rude when I ask it, but I can tell he’s taken it to heart. A tear wells up in his eye, and it sucks back in like his duct has a reverse function.
“Nothing. That’s the problem. There’s nothing to get. Why do you think that? Why do you think there’s something? Why the fuck does everybody think there’s always something. I’m so embarrassed!”
Grimoire
Another reason. Another reason not to believe the lie. Your boil burst. It burst because you picked at it with the twisted tines of the tuning fork that vibrates your stomach out from your ass in a comedy of squishing parts. A spaghetti-roll, the gator torque reversing its way into your jaw that spins on a ball joint attached to your esophagus.
Mahogany and Rites
A last hurrah. I don’t know why they call it that. It’s the guy that’s fighting his cancer — with his fists and everything, and he punches at the tumors and squeals in his sleep while he dreams about the absolution of death. His wife turns over in her sleep, grimmacing without realizing it, wondering why she ever chose to be with someone so weak. She regrets ever having said yes. His face is streaked with red lines from where weeks of tears have formed their own little pathetic rivers.
One lung collapses, then the other. He finds God, though he doesn’t quite know what that means.
Soon, every lung in the house is collapsing because he left the car on in the garage. Now everyone can sleep the endless sleep. Now everyone can enjoy the fruits of Thanatos’ labour.