Blood & Gristle Read online

  When the carnage is over and your murderers have started their jeeps and roared away, you are buried deep, oh so deep, in death.

  Desensitized entire.

  Skinbilepusblood.

  The retching passes after a few hours.

  The smell becomes, for lack of a better word, familiar.

  Nathan adapts and eats because he must. Must. He closes his eyes and tries to invoke memory, tries to go inward and get free. He tries to place himself in the board room, AC on full blast, his associates looking at him with envy as Boss man pats him on the back and complements him on his deal-sealing smile. He tries for recollection; respite in the cool center of his brain, but no matter how hard he flexes and strains for cerebration he can’t escape the tactility of the pit.

  It’s nearly impossible to get past a world that impresses itself upon you so forcefully. Imagine the pressures of everyday life manifest, made real, physical, woven into hunks and chunks of flesh and bone. Imagine them poking and prodding and penetrating every inch of your skin. Nathan shifts and the world shifts back: haggard female torso beneath, fleshy breasts and bony ribs supporting his weight, a gaggle of stiff children flanking his left and right, lips blue, hands frozen like claws. And so it goes: above and below, on and on and on: anatomy without discernable structure: pink-brown-red, strands of dark, matted hair, bone, a thousand eyes, filmy, dead, staring, inviting him to eat and eat and eat, to rise refreshed, reinvigorated, reborn.

  And when free?

  What then?

  What of where he has been?

  What of the flesh?

  How can he ever look at another human being in the same way again?

  He can’t, no way, not now, not ever, and this horrible thought stops him, gives the worm act pause and freezes his teeth. What would freedom, escape, a lung full of fresh air, do to his brain?

  Would it surge, effervescent lightning, animating him, plunging him, full force into the ecstasy of being?

  Or would it burn?

  Would it atomize, destroy, sear, melt?

  Would it drive him backward, hungry for the pit, hungry for death, burrowing downward, mouth wide, black-heart open, soul dilated, ready, waiting, burning to eat and eat and eat?

  Would it accelerate the rot?

  The rot manifest. The rot eternal. The rot evident. Constant.

  A dead spot in his eyes, a foul taste in his throat.

  The impetus of all desire, natural and unnatural, made big and shiny and evil, armor plating his brain, twisting his every thought towards darkness.

  Nathan’s physicality has been tainted; his physiology stained. The process of living, really a process of dying, would now arch and turn, forever changed, forever exemplifying decay, forever focusing, honing in on and centering upon death. If he actually made it, rolling up and out, on his back, searching the night skies, begging to be blinded and consumed by starlight, Nathan feared that the constellations and their exquisite beauty, their sacred glow, would be forever lost to him. Something inside told him that he would only be able to focus the dark and limitless black that surrounded the world. Should he ever emerge from the pit, he was convinced his actuality would become one of shadows.

  Cocooned within this temple of flesh, Nathan has become nameless.

  Topside, priorities would shift. Snorting, spending, conversing, loving, logging on, clocking out, all of these things no longer possessed meaning.

  Curbside, awash in a sea of people, the smell of hair gel, sweat, perfume, laptops, commerce, there would be no way to stop staring. No way to shelve this awareness, this understanding of the continual, constant internalizing, thinking thoughts like mold and for what?

  Everybody tastes the same.

  Everybody is the same inside: wet and funky and raw.

  Nothing more than intelligent fruit, genius vegetable, rational plant.

  The point here then, is that there is no point. None. Beauty is organic, biological, it’s blood and sperm and pus and sweat and bile and marrow, it’s that cool, damp, nothing space in the very center of all things, its electricity and fire. It’s everything but thought. Thought, that by which we became gods and superiors, is nothing but a senseless waste of energy. Thought does nothing but slow Nathan down.

  Repeat.

  Back to it.

  Return of the worm.

  The violence of Nathan’s motion shifted the dead pit entire. He sunk ever so slightly, crushing the torso beneath him, losing ground. Getting his teeth around what he figured to be either a hand or a foot, he readied himself. Closing his eyes tightly he began working his jaw, jerking his body, intent on carving a bloody path upward, ascension, striving for some sort of pit-side enlightenment and the cool, unlit kiss of destiny.

  THE GIRL WITH NO HANDS

  Sweat and aches and pain and unrest and more sweat and more aches and more pain and more unrest. Hurt and strain and headaches and exhaustion and more hurt and more strain and more headaches and more exhaustion.

  The Demon-Devil-Diablo-Death-Thing approaches. Its wide smile halves its head while its barbed, phallic, pus run tail wraps and unwraps playfully about his bowed, sharp, hook-boned legs.

  “Pleasantries?” It growls.

  The word resonates in cells and pores, subatomic, DNA vibrations, spilling from between cracked, fiery lips like the voice of the dead – deep, endless, soul churning. The infernal beast’s brows dip and raise, but those crackly lizard-goat lips don’t even move. Sound travels in and out and round, tickling the universe like a fetid, cosmic wind.

  The foul creature is Freaky with a capital F.

  Curly, pointed, black horns jut menacingly, casting never ending shadows over millions upon millions of miles of balled, callused, folded, dark red skin. This flesh doesn’t belong to the demon. Oh, it’s his (or hers – no telling), but it’s been harvested. It’s been appropriated. It’s been bundled and stitched and fold and worn. And worse, throughout the expanse of millions upon millions of miles of skin, millions upon millions of onyx mini-eyes blink from millions upon millions of leaking pores. Stare at these soulless little orbs and you get nothing (save for sick), but stare into the two, piercing, pale red eyeballs that take center stage and roll wild in gloppy, gelatinous sockets, and you can’t help but to forget what you are. You forget the world. You forget to breathe.

  Like our man.

  He stares and stares and his breath doesn’t stop, but it hitches erratic and expands in his chest until he has to make clutching motions as if he is having a heart attack.

  But our man does not care, doesn’t care, cares not, could care less.

  A heart attack has nothing on the ever ache. Piddly pain. Baby hurt. A trifling sting. You see, our man hurts like crazy, driven crazy by pain, and this terrible creature lording over him, arresting breath rate and heart beat, has nothing on the thrumming agony.

  It’s unfortunate, but construction will do that to a man working past his prime.

  Our man knows.

  His knees ache and his elbows scream and the tight kink in his neck never, ever leaves. But those ceaseless bills don’t pay themselves and the only thing he ever learned how to do was swing a hammer.

  Pleasantries?

  He doesn’t understand the question.

  But again, our man does not care, doesn’t care, cares not, could care less.

  All he can think about is the hurt, hurt, hurt. The bruised bones. The pinched veins. The piss poor circulation.

  What kind of a man can’t stand without groaning and grimacing?

  What kind of a man can’t sit without wincing and whining?

  Our man.

  Our poor, poor man.

  And our man can’t think beyond the pain, so this demon word, this demon question, this deep, soul rending sound (that hems and haws like the voice of the dead) – Pleasantries? – registers as meaningless. The vile beast’s gnashing question rolls like bothersome static and though our man can’t discern actual meaning, he knows of the devil’s power to gra
nt wishes, so he assumes the beast is doing what it is supposed to do and he nods his head anxiously and hopes that this is the correct response.

  “How will thee pay?” The demon leans in.

  Its breath curls our man’s eyelashes and smells almost bad enough to make him forget the ever burning in his joints.

  Almost.

  Apprehensions swim to the surface. The first inklings of fear take a swing and somehow trump pain. Our man smiles, relieved to feel something other than the burn, and this time he understands the question, but doesn’t know how to answer it.

  Payment?

  He has nothing to give.

  Nothing but hurt.

  “I have nothing to give,” he bows low and grunts, “Nothing but hurt.”

  And didn’t demons love that sort of thing?

  Hurt?

  Pain?

  Suffering?

  Wasn’t it enough?

  A fair trade, right?

  All the pain in the world.

  The demon snorts and whips its dick-tail. It extends a gnarled dick-finger. A thick, sharp, black dick-fingernail glints in the sun. “Behind your house? What’s there, I keep?” The questions hiss creepy, alive, a cancer upon the atmosphere.

  Our man looks back at his house. He squints and looks for his wife through the front window. He’d been gone all morning, combing the forest, searching for the infamous spot, praying, invoking, divining, and his beloved told him she planned on spending the day in the garden. Did the beast plan on taking her? While the pain was ungodly, he wouldn’t trade his wife for anything in the world.

  “Well?” The beast’s voice scrapes across the surface of our man’s brain like rough hewn sandpaper.

  Our man squints harder until he catches a glimpse of his wife moving through the kitchen. She disappears behind a wall and then reappears in the front room. Moving to the front window, she waves. Our man waves back and then turns. He nods at the demon. “Done.”

  “Done. Tomorrow, I’ll collect my prize.”

  Smiles.

  Agreed.

  Deal.

  The man rushes to his better half and explains. Words come fast, one after the other, and he has to remind himself to breathe, to slow down, like when he was kid. His tale careens fast and then slow, fast and then slow, fast and then faster.

  His wife frowns, but he doesn’t notice. He feels better than ever. Twenty years younger (at least).

  The aches in his elbow? Gone!

  The creak in his knees? Gone!

  The stiff neck? Gone!

  “I was so worried, my love, but this is better than I could have ever imagined.”

  His wife only looks dismayed. She doesn’t share his joy. Instead she looks out toward the backyard.

  “What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy for me? I feel fanfuckingtastic! Who cares about a lousy tree or swimming pool or dog? I’ll buy you a bigger tree or a better pool or a nicer dog!” He smiles and dances a little jig.

  His wife points to the backyard.

  Slo-mo, our man’s head tracks her hand.

  “School’s out for the week and she came to visit. A surprise. She got here when you were gone.”

  His eyes take their sweet time, adjusting extra slow, as if they understand the horror of the situation he has created and is afraid to accept it.

  His daughter.

  His lovely daughter.

  His lovely daughter kneels in the garden and hugs the mangy, family dog.

  The aches and pains of a lifetime circumvent his heart and squeeze. He drops to a knee (no pain) and buries his head in his hands. “What have I done?” Over and over. “What have I done?”

  Preparation.

  She is prepared to do what it takes.

  “I am yours father, do with me what you will.” His lovely daughter curtseys and bows her head in supplication.

  “I am not your master, I am your father. Get up.”

  She nods and repeats, “I am yours father, do with me what you will.”

  His wife cries and he tries, but despite the sorrow pecking at his heart tears will not come; he feels too good.

  Through the night that good feeling intensifies. It overpowers the fear and worry and makes it impossible to think about his daughter’s fate.

  Why should I care?

  I don’t hurt.

  I feel good.

  But these are not his thoughts. They are born of the healing grace that smoothes his gnarled bones and eases his thick blood. Our man fights them, but they are not external forces forcing his hand, they are internal notions wound tightly within the hollows of his skeleton.

  After a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes, biscuits, toast, pineapple, grits and a hotdog left over from last week, our man heads out to the backyard to see what’s what.

  His wife and daughter did not sleep.

  They spent the night researching and planning.

  Our man wanted to help them, but that part of him that felt too good, almost all of him, didn’t want to stay up and labor through ancient tomes. It was selfish and bored and wanted to sleep the first good sleep his body had had in eons.

  So it did.

  But his wife and daughter did not. They stayed up and found a solution.

  Vain attempt, he thinks as his wife and daughter prepare a chalk line pinnacle. She, his daughter, his flesh and blood, his unintended sacrifice, stands in the center. It is probably the saddest sight in the world to see her as she weeps within her prison of dust and faith while his wife mumbles and mutters solemnly walking the pinnacle’s perimeter, but the heartache is lost on him. Our man finds it all so boring.

  Drama.

  He feels great.

  Great.

  Not just his body, but his brain. His brain, the sun. His brain, an effervescent breath of fresh air. He watches his grim faced girls and thinks, Useless, but not completely, not through and through, because something at the base of his thoughts throbs and hopes to high heaven (hell) that this works.

  The demon is prompt, and though it failed to specify an hour, it arrives at what feels like the right time. One could tell, even our man, even Mr. Feelgood, that the pinnacle works. The expression on the beast’s face, confusion upending wickedness, says it all.

  Our man is relieved. He feels ultra-good, super good, too, too good.

  “What of our deal?” The demon seethes. Fire blazes in its pale, red eyes and his sighted pores smolder.

  Our man rides the uber-goodness, no fear, no worries, and tells the devil it can take back the goodness. He may be miserable from the pain, but he won’t sacrifice his daughter. He won’t. His brain begs him not to care, who cares? Who cares? But his heart can’t settle. It will not stand by and give up on love.

  The demon can see that the wife and the daughter affect the man greatly. Their collective sorrow brings everything down – the sunshine, morning noise, goodness, everything. So it bids the man away where they can talk in peace.

  “Never would have thought a bit of chalk could keep you away,” The man snickers. The joy inside jumps wild, humming free of the sad, praying women.

  The demon is less than pleased. It stares at our man and waves its claws in such a way that the man falls to his knees. It sneers and roars, “It’s the tears you imbecile! Not the chalk. Her tears are too pure! Give her some soap and tell her to wash them away.”

  The man nods and scuttles off. He feels way too good to protest.

  Like always his daughter does as she is told. She curtsies and intones, “I am your father, do with me what you will.”

  She takes the soap and the little pail of water our man has brought out to her and the moment she has finished cleaning, the demon appears in the center of the pinnacle and tries for her. It lashes out, its arms crushing behemoths, its cold, black heart a spiraling vacuum, but her tears gush and shield her from its infernal wrath.

  The hulking shape comes away with her hands for they are the only part of her unsoiled by tears.
/>   At first there is no blood.

  Relief touches all of them.

  Her stumps are clean.

  The demon frowns.

  A long silence is broken when her cleaved wrists well and spray blood everywhere. The demon’s frown turns upside down and the women screaming, the man laughing, fuels his rage.

  Our man cannot control his maniacal laughter, but senses the demon’s frustration and between guffaws pleads with his daughter to stop crying. She tries to obey her father, but is unsuccessful.

  The demon lunges again and again but can’t take the girl.

  Our man is bid away yet again, but this time he does not return.

  The wife and daughter wait in the chalk circle unaware of its impotence. After a few days they cautiously leave the comfort of the circle. The wife mends her daughter’s stumps and then they set out to look for their man. At the end of the driveway they find a small box. Inside it they find a pair of hands, his hands.

  SPIRALS (UNDEAD DESIGN)

  The sun would never die, burning hell as it did into the sky, radiating, making all that was repulsive brighter than it need be. His eyes, ashen, glazed by the unknown, been there and back, way back, held fast by creases, locked in an uncontrolled ever-squint, gazed upward and stared a long stare at the flower of lumens.

  Beheld: the brilliance of light, sheer power, found everywhere and in everything, found in the seeds of thought, found in the gestation of evil, found in the gestation of good, found in the penetrating beams of sunblaze that pushed through his sockets and flooded his body entire.

  Found, but not retained, lost.

  He shook it off.

  No pain, no stinging of the retinas, no dilation, no problem lowering his entranced gape – only a triggering of some unidentifiable sort.

  Illumination.

  Almost joy, until decay interrupted.

  Something raw in his stomach, a bloody bulb stuck in his teeth, thick protoplasm in his mouth, darkened his moment of strange clarity. Violence then, unprovoked, without reason, rose, turning all red. Lingering a moment more, just a moment more, it flattened, ebbed and then gave way to the light that had been building. The exultation resumed.