The City of This

by Alex Boast

  There they are.

  Hope and Destiny.

  My girls; I’ve missed them, and it’s only been a week.

  Hope’s wearing white, and Destiny black.

  They stand together, silent, under the bridge, smoking their skinny menthol cigarettes.

  Tiny handbags hang from their delicate shoulders, chosen to match their tiny clothes as the wait for customers continues. It won’t be long now. It’s never long.

  Hope’s hair is a matted, tangled mane of blonde, big and bushy to make up for her short stature – despite the seven inch heels and long legs. She sways a little from side to side, and her handbag slips down her shoulder into the crook of her arm. Little rectangular packets of all different colours spill out as she curses and bends to pick them up, revealing a white thong under the white mini-skirt to anyone that might be happening to look.

  Me.

  Destiny is different; she has short dark hair that accentuates her naturally dark features. It is sharp and curves around her face like some angry snake. Through the little grey cloud hovering in front of her face I see what I’m looking for, as she releases me from my vigil.

  She winked at me.

  She knows I exist, and I love her for it. I pretend to leave, but take a sneaky detour and circle back, from behind.

  I approach the girls as quietly as possible and slip a £10 note into each of their little handbags, careful not to make any noise or acknowledge the other contents.

  Maybe they could buy some better clothes that cover them up more. It’s freezing out here and I can see a lot of their goose-pimpled, pale flesh.

  I flee, circling back towards the church, to the nicer parts of town, feeling immediately better, warmer, happier, but still crushingly sad. It’ll be better when I’m there.

  The Church – Afternoon Prayer:

  I’m there, standing outside, black scarves and white hair all flapping in the chill wind.

  I always have to build up my courage before going in for the 3PM afternoon prayer so I use the time to examine the building. My anxiousness focuses my vision and I benefit, taking in all the details.

  The church is of the Gothic Revival style, and tiny. In fact, it’s so small that its grey bricks erupt from the side of a much bigger building, jutting out into the road, along with a turret and a big, uninviting, heavy wooden door. It doesn’t look much like the sort of place you’d want to go to be closer to God.

  On the inside you’re immediately greeted by more slopes and spirals, a twisting staircase that makes me dizzy every time. You can hear the organ playing and smell the scented candles as you work your way up.

  It puts me at ease and I feel lighter as I float upwards.

  Defeating the narrow, carpeted steps I spill out into the interior and drop £30 in the collection box, before quietly taking a pew at the back, careful not to alert anyone to my presence.

  It’s very narrow. Only two people can fit on each of the cushioned benches on either side. There are seven rows of benches in front of where the priest will stand, under an enormous stained glass window depicting biblical kings and prophets, between two mighty candles, each six foot tall and casting a strong light around the darkened room.

  The size of the church is no problem, as there are rarely many people here.

  Today is a rare day, though. I can count thirteen bodies in here, including my own.

  Me, probably the most out of place, but not the only person here alone, I notice.

  I’ve been coming here for months now and recognise everyone:

  The young family of three sit right at the front, instantly recognisable by their large hats. A trio as gothic as the church we sit in. The mother, father and their young son are always completely silent and respectful: their ostentation is visual. All three have bent their heads, either in prayer or reading the bibles left under each seat, I can’t really tell.

  Then there’s the girl – woman - who wears too much makeup.

  The object of my affections, I see the beauty beneath her disguise. Her face is alabaster white – like mine – but I feel confident hers has actual alabaster covering it in a thick, creamy layer. Her lips are as red as the meat back in the Butcher’s and stand out in this tiny church.

  The carpets are purple, the walls are grey, and the area in which our preacher stands is dark and shrouded in shadow, despite the circular illumination of the large candles on either side of him. The pale light filtering through the stained glass window creates a swirling, angry rainbow of bright colours right in front of the podium.

  This girl – who’s name I don’t know – reminds me of me, in that her whiteness is contrasted with the darkness of her clothes. She’s in a black dress with a black scarf, wearing a hat of voluminous hair that billows down her back like smoke, her face a lonely iceberg in the dark sea of my love.

  Maybe today she’ll notice me. She’s occupying the back row too, but on the right whilst I have sat on the left, and am trying to stay very still, looking forward, not at her.

  I wonder if she’s happy. I steal more glances at her, and all I can see is her mystery.

  The twins got here just before I did. I saw them slowly guide each other, arms linked, through the heavy door and up the stairs. They don’t know I held it open for them, but one of them paused for just a second, before entering.

  These jovial, chubby old ladies are full of smiles and Jesus’s love. The blind nuns have a matronly quality that makes me wish I could talk to them, hear their stories, tell them what Ekko looks like. The nun’s habits they wear contrast starkly with his religious attire.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a dirty, hacking cough.

  The man in the spoiled clothes. His damp, muddy scarf and jacket make him immediately recognisable to me as he shifts in his seat at the front, near the young family, who seem disturbed by his audible interruptions to their silent thoughts.

  He must travel a very long way just to come here, perhaps through one of London’s smaller parks.

  He sounds terribly, terribly ill, and I notice not for the first time that he is only wearing one shoe. From the other foot dangles a muddy, blood-stained sock, only halfway on his foot.

  The woman with trembling hands is here, too, sitting in her usual place, uncomfortably close to the others. She pretends to be reading one of the sermon pamphlets as it shakes like leaves blown in the wind, shooting heart-breaking smile after soul-wrenching stare towards the three little girls she sits a few feet away from.

  There’s no way she’s as old or as tired and she looks – definitely not old enough to be the mother. Probably, she desires children of her own. Yes, that must be it.

  The three little girls simply must be sisters of differing ages. I reckon five, seven and nine. They stand and frolick in summer dresses – despite the cold - holding a long piece of string between them, an umbilical sort of tether.

  Eventually they sit, in ascending order of height (and likely age). He is ready to begin.

  Him – Ekko, the Baptist Priest – dark, beautiful and frightening as he stands before us in the centre of the podium.

  I am fascinated by, obsessed with this man.

  Dressed in a traditional Nigerian vestment and standing at an incredible six foot and seven inches, he is an intimidating and awe-inspiring figure. More so, even, than the kings and rulers of men depicted on the glass above his head.

  The right side of his vestment is torn, exposing a solid and well-muscled dark arm, as thick as a tree trunk, with which he clutches the large wooden cross that he is never without.

  It is beautiful, and huge, like the arm that holds it.

  The cross is adorned with gold decorations and symbols that reflect the colourful light inside the church, creating a dreamy disco ball effect that captures the attention of the audience.

  Ekko never speaks.

  We all watch for what happens next. I can feel the Baptists physical presence as if he was an inch from my face, not thirty feet away.

 
; With slow, deliberate, powerful movements, he bends down onto one knee, propping the cross up in front of him with his strong dark arm and resting his forehead on its surface.

  In unison, we bend our heads and shut our eyes, each of us in a prayer unique to ourselves. Perhaps this is how preaching should be done, I don’t know. But it’s been working for me.

  I think less and less about the nightmares, and more and more about her.

  Turning my increasingly rapid heartbeat into quantified courage, I open my right eye and steal a glance over at her.

  The heartbeat stops for a good three seconds: she’s staring directly at me.

  I watch at first in joyful ecstasy as a smile creeps across her face, revealing sharp canine teeth as she starts to change, transform. Her eyes become dark, upside down triangles of shadow, and a thin, serpentine tongue as red as her lips snakes out of her mouth to wave hello to me.

  I start to feel fear as her hair begins to rise of its own accord, and I shut my eyes tight, trying not to understand what I’ve just seen, only to remove it from my mind.

  The church is silent, save for the thumping of my heart, and the shallow breathing of the other bodies.

  Until, a new noise knocks on my ear drums.

  I should feel incredible – she looked at me, she’s noticed me – maybe girls just look scary when you’re getting used to them, head fuzzy with attention, but my anxiety levels are rocketing and I long to be back in the Butchers, with George Lazenby perched safely nearby.

  The sound instils dread within me, because it’s a sound I know. I’ve heard it before, in the dreams that haunted my nights as I lay, fidgeting on the floor of the Butcher’s, under the till area with only newspapers and my jacket for comfort and shielding.

  It is exactly the same as snapping a crisp in half. A crunchy, tearing noise and I know I have to see it. I cannot help myself. What was that I said about curiosity earlier?

  Yes, it’s her face, as I knew it would be.

  She’s moved right to the end of her pew, and is clutching the wooden end of the cushioned benches with small claws, the crimson of her nails extending from well beyond her middle knuckles. Leaning towards me, to loom and leer as her hair stands up on end, strands of it dancing like a thousand writhing eels – like the gorgon head of medusa - as deep cracks erupt in her painted, metallic face, red blood spilling from her dry and crusted cheeks and down her chin, welling into a reddish white goatee of horror.

  It is a scene of absolute terror, and I feel an overwhelming sense of violence emanating from her to me. Is she hurting herself to hurt me? Yes, I think so. I’ve got the message: I am not wanted here.

  Time is standing still in this church, and nobody has heard the loud cracking and tearing as the skin of her face peels and melts from the bones beneath, slipping from them and hitting the carpeted floor with a wet thud.

  I cry out audibly, but nobody notices my loud fear, and I flee from the scene, throwing myself down the spiralling stairs and through the heavy door, out into an empty street.

  It had been darkening when I entered at 3PM, heavy December clouds waging their pre-ordained war against the failing Sun, but it was pitch dark now, the occasional passing car the only source of illumination as I stumble and cry and flail down the road, wondering what had just happened. Why is it so dark? Where did all the streetlamps go?

  Why wouldn’t anyone help me?

  The Butcher – Outside:

  The walk has got longer. The roads have lengthened. The air has got heavier, like it too has betrayed me.

  Stretching, stumbling further into the dark, I reach out with my strong white arm, like it might offer some bulwark or defence against the unknown beyond.

  I thought I was getting better. I thought I’d stopped having the nightmares. I must have been wrong. Am I sleeping now?

  The sound of distant crying and nearby gushing torrents of water infiltrate my mind as panic takes over and the world beings to spin: I re-live every recent nightmare.

  People think they know nightmares. I hear them talk. I hear a lot when I am on my walks.

  Snakes, spiders, falling, drowning. Nonsense.

  Even the serious fears, rooted in ancient English folklore, like ‘The Hag’, who sits on your chest whilst you sleep and sucks your dreams, or the ‘Shadow People’, who linger menacingly, dark in the periphery of vision as you enter the hynagogic state. All nonsense, I don’t believe in these things, no.

  Not me.

  I just have the fingers.

  Thick, hard, and strong.

  Burned charcoal sausages, powerful, gripping my neck so tight as I thrash myself awake on a nightly basis. Ever since I started going to church, it must be. A nightly larynx crushing, choking the life from me as I buck like a shotgun blast.

  Every night.

  Every, single fucking night.

  I thought being recognised was important. Now I wish I was invisible again. Something’s seen me, something alive and real.

  Clearly I’m not welcome with the living, in the holy places. I belong with the dead, back in the cold storage.

  I long to be back in my familiar crevice, the only space that I can call my own (and even that, I borrow from a higher power) with my friend George Lazenby, the pigeon.

  I start to run through the streets, stumbling in the shadows, my mismatched shoes inviting themselves into every cold wet puddle, splashing the grime up the legs of my tattered, ripped jeans.

  I notice the sky is quiet but it’s raining on me anyway, from my eyes. I’m shaken to catatonia from what I’ve seen, both awake and asleep. The woman – the girl – the monster, she is what scared me, but all I can think about is Ekko.

  How can someone so big, so powerful and strong, be blind to the horrors? How could he not protect the weakest, most lost lamb in his flock?

  He’s all I can think about.

  Until I can see the Butcher’s from down the road. Lit up by a solitary street lamp, something’s wrong. I know immediately, in my heart of hearts.

  Oh no.

  No.

  Please.

  I’ve dreamed about this before, too.

  I don’t enter, instead running around the side of the building, to the right side, by the window, kicking empty crisp packets and tins of Special Brew out of the way as I go, past the wet rubbish and towards the myriad splatterings of dark, blood.

  I find him there, frozen in place. A pigeon out of time. The spikes must have been replaced whilst I was at the church, and as George came to land, given his heaviness, he must have impaled himself on them.

  They skewer him in multiple places. I count four of the thick, sharp spikes, driving straight through him. Holding him there like some sort of ritual sacrifice. One of them, it seems, went straight through his little heart. I hope he didn’t suffer.

  Carefully, slowly, delicately, I lift him up and off the spikes, cringing as little spurts of his dark avian blood splash my hands and face. It’s still warm. I must have only been a few minutes too late, and now George has paid the price.

  I cradle his cold, football-sized body to my chest and cry, tears rolling from my white beak onto his pink one. I will bury him with his favourite snack: crispy bacon, in the dumpster where I throw the off meat once a week.

  Maybe George’s end is my beginning.

  Maybe he taught me how to be alone. I spent so much time waiting for him, I had to get used to being on my own.

  Surely I’m strong enough now.

  Strong enough to go back to church, and confront the horrors that are waiting there, if my dreams really are coming true, I don’t have much time before the dark arm gets me.

  I’m so tired though, and sad. I need sleep and sustenance.

  I let myself into the empty shop after ritually laying George Lazenby to rest, washing the blood off my hands in the sink below the counter. I leave the sign on the glass door as ‘Closed’ even though I’m sure it’s still opening hours – we open till 9PM during December – and the hon
esty of the clocks face tells me it’s only 8.

  There’s a small plate next to the sink: a link of Cumberland sausages, pork and apple, and a stale hunk of bread with a couple sachets of mustard.

  There’s a note too. In the Butcher’s crooked, pencil handwriting:

  “Destiny called.”

  I wake from the usual nightmares a few hours later, clutching my throat. This time, I wasn’t here on the shop floor being choked, I was back in that same little church, surrounded by smiling faces, with the sound of a child crying and rushing water flooding my ears.