In Morpheus' Embrace

by Andy Finch

  In Morpheus' Embrace

  Andy Finch

  Copyright © 2020 Alanna Fackler

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  For the dreamers, may they never leave Morpheus’ embrace.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  Prologue

  A cawcaw. Low and unthought of.

  He brushes the sounds of the birds from his conscience. Hunters drag them from their nests, and in return, the birds come to the windows and streets of the city, and sing songs when night creeps in.

  The bird is joined by another. A crow. One of the birds sits on the power line overhead. Staring with big yellow eyes. It drops a rock; it lands a pace in front of him. Worry does not grace his mind, however, as he continues to walk to the path that leads back to the steel steps that guide him to his apartment. There was a joke sitting on the top of his head, but it stays just out of reach, but still near enough to cause his lips to part in a smile.

  He pulls in a breath of the steamy night air. The muted revelry of the bars and trap houses down the streets were behind him, he is now cast into the darkness of night. Alone. Silent. There’s the sound of mosquitoes and bullfrogs there to guide him home, but they too run quiet.

  Another cawcaw. This time closer. The birds were circling him home. He turns and looks. There is nothing but darkness. If it weren’t for the cool breeze from the Mississippi, he’d be drenched in sweat that would birth more humidity. The first pinpricks of fear begin to press into his skin.

  There was a crunch of gravel behind him. Just before he hit the light of the stairwell. He turns again. A man stands there, face covered from the night’s holy blanket. Its silhouette was human… human and something more.

  “Fuck off,” he says. Another addict, probably. No one trusts an addict, especially another addict swimming in the same substances as him.

  The silhouette draws closer. The light creeps on its face. Olive branches sit on the being’s curled hair. Behind it, still, were a pair of crow wings that matched his proportions. An angel? No, something worse.

  “I’m sorry,” the winged man steps forward, fully undressed from the moonlight, “You look sleepy.”

  “I said, fuck off.”

  “Oh, this puppy grew teeth,” the winged man takes a long-gated step forward. He stands in front of the addict, “You’re going to need this if you wish to dream tonight.”

  A syringe. Full of crystal-clear liquid. The man eyes it, opens his mouth to say something, but then realizes the winged man had disappeared into the night. The logical side of him tells him to ignore the so-called-gift now sitting in his open palm. But the hungry side wants nothing more than to press the thin needle into a vein. The liquid would bring him to the feet of a god. Lapping up morphine from the goblet of Morpheus.

  There, he would be set free.

  ✽✽✽

  The city’s lights pass through the black shades of the apartment. Cold and abandoned. The high beams of cars and red-yellow-greens from the stoplights offer no warmth to the home. They pass by unaware. The sounds mix like gumbo in the night sky. Songs of drunkards and women who have lost their husbands in the strip clubs. Cries of partygoers who must return to their abode to squeeze in that last bit of sleep before work tomorrow. The sound of music blaring from open car windows. They will not pause for breath when the news hits. The city will continue to do what it does every day, every month, every year.

  Inside, the apartment is still. The air is stale. Rotten. Decayed. In the bowels lies a body. Stiff and blue-black. Sickly sweet was the taste of death. Sickly like the bugs that began to eat at his toes and fingers. Sweet like the morphine settling in his veins. The veins that now sunk into his bottom half, blistering and bruising. If you look upon his face, you will see the marks of a smile. A smile now just as dead as the beholder.

  Morphine had claimed another victim. And the winged man came by to collect his due.

  1

  God, it reeks out here.

  A brew of the Mississippi’s warm breath and the stench of the city come together to make a perfume of all things ick. It was one of those things about downtown New Orleans. The eighth ward suffers like the ninth, wallowing in filth from the greater city. It stunk. It was dirty. If Draven was given the choice, he would name this portion of the city the dirtiest, nevermind the fact that the whole of New Orleans was already in the top fifty do not travel to cities. It was no place for two aspiring artists to be hanging around.

  Early November’s air is sticky hot. It mingles with the bits of sweat poking on Draven’s brow. He blinks. Once, twice. A bead of sweat pickled with humidity catches in the crease of his eye. The camera in his hands flutters as he snaps a picture of the mural in front of him. The city spoke in pictures and paintings. It had been an artistic city long before its founding by white settlers. New Orleans boasted a gumbo pot full of cultures and creativity. It seemed only fitting for Draven and his accomplice, Geneva, to keep the traditions by telling their story with paints and chalks.

  “Think it’ll make the front page?” Geneva asks, olive skin coarse with a spew of palette colors. In front of her stood her mural of the city. Of New Orleans. She paints a picture of hope, the lack of it, specifically. The city knows a thing or two about hopelessness.

  Draven and Geneva had known each other all their lives. Draven was the goodie-two-shoes all throughout school, Geneva was the troublemaker who stood for what she believed in. Geneva was a fire, a spark that would burn down buildings. Draven was the air fueling the flame. A silent accomplice who spoke only when needed. Together they made an unbreakable friendship, doused in kerosene and lighter fluid. They would watch the world burn together, if only for a moment's peace.

  “Every time you ask that it doesn’t make the goddamn page,” Draven furrows his brow before shooting a teasing smile. His black skin soaks up the sun. The corners of his eyes twinkle with a spark of comfort, coming from his witty remark and the presence of his friend, “Maybe. This is the best yet.”

  Why couldn’t we do this in Uptown?

  Draven was a photographer for The Pelican, a newspaper company situated right in the heart of New Orleans and it’s surrounding cities. He was the one who took all the photos from the parades and shoot-outs. It was his photographs features on the blog run by the company. It was his pride and joy, the craft. It came second in his heart only to Ian, his betrothed. Geneva, on the other hand, was a freelancing artist who tries countless times to use Draven’s position to further her own fame. It has yet to make a profit, to her dismay. She always keeps hope that this would be the one. It never is though; Draven knows it’s because she has the wrong target audience.

  The colors bleed into the wall made up of water damaged bricks and woods. The Superdome shadows the greed and hunger hiding in the painted alleys. The mural shows the common man with his black skin, starved and scared. A gun forced into his right hand and a bottle of booze shoved into his left. Behind him is his family, watching with tear-stained cheeks as the stre
ets consume another life. A common story here in this city. People are hopeless and tired. The hurricanes aren’t the ones to steal everything.

  “Stop trying to sell it to the buyers here. This shit is bred into our brains, man. Send it to some Floridian company. Get their eyes open.” Geneva throws her dried paint caked brush into the sidewalk. The cheap material making up its stem breaks and shatters into pieces. She swears something under her breath when she thinks Draven was not listening, “When you live with this kinda shit, you forget it's even there,” she speaks again, “Know what I’m sayin’?”

  Draven nods, though he’s only half-listening. Instead, he’s thinking of his boss, Mister LaVeaux, skimming through the photos of murals he’s provided. His boss’ cigar-like fingers stop on this one, the mural Geneva had painted. He would stare at it only a hint of a second longer than the others. Then, he’d toss it in the bin right below his feet. The bin had seen much too many of Draven’s work. It almost knew him by name. A smile teases the plump bow of his lips, he’d laugh if it happened in the morning. It was a miracle that he hasn’t been let go from the newspaper he works for. But, in their favor, Draven was the only photographer in the company who could illuminate all the hidden stories lurking within a photo.

  “You’re an idiot,” He says as laugh lines crinkle in the sun’s golden honey. Usually, there would be a punch in his gut by now. Or maybe a middle finger thrown in his face. Geneva is quiet, though. That is until she spits out:

  “Fuck you.”

  There’s a breathy laugh somewhere. Draven isn’t sure if it’s his own or Geneva’s. He's bubbling with confusion, brought on by the heat-sweats. The twisted knot of pent up emotions engraved on her features seems to guide Draven to a better conclusion. The word sorry leaves his tongue with a quick breath.

  The camera hangs off Draven’s sweat-damp neck. The strap rubs his skin raw, leaving it a maroon color. He makes a mental note to buy a replacement. He never does though. Not an issue with money, per se, he just never finds the time. His lips open to say something, but the words refuse to come out of his throat. They settle themselves in, burrowing in the gooey home of his vocal cord. Arguing with Geneva was something that required too much energy. Energy Draven didn’t have to spend. Or maybe, he’s lost for words. It was a combination of the two that kept the words sitting on his tongue from leaping forward.

  All around them stand empty houses, carcasses from Katrina and other forgotten hurricanes that rape the city of all it holds dear. It wasn’t the picturesque town printed on postcards anymore. The magnolia trees were dug up, the houses were rotted, the spirits were gone. Gangs have taken to storing their drugs and other illegal contraband in those walls, but even they avoid them when possible.

  The common folk respect each other here. These houses hold memories that they dare not touch. The memories of people they have lost. The memories of what life was once like. They were a reminder, too. A reminder of the city that hope forgot. It was one of those things that brought the city together, truly.

  Hands empty and sweaty, Draven finds himself laughing at a memory of Kayne West and his George Bush hates black people mini-rant that came post-Katrina.

  It was the truth, he giggles to himself.

  Brushing away the memories, Draven allows his lips to curl into a smile. It’s all he can do as he’s awash in the blues and blacks of the paint before him. Everyone turned a blind eye to this city. Even some of those who lived here.

  The sun burns down on the two as they sit in silent contemplation, soaking in the mesh of ideas. The wall birthing the mural was once home to a bar. Abandoned before the hurricane. Demolished after. This building knew what it was like to ruin lives. One minority at a time. It was one of the more common pictures adrift in this city. Addiction was everywhere. From caffeine addicts who stop at PJ’s for their morning fuel to the heroin-meth heads who clung to the abandoned nothingness in the slums.

  Draven picks up his camera hanging from his neck, putting his good eye to the screen. A sheen of sweat fogs the expensive black material. He clicks the album button to see the shot he had captured earlier. The sun illuminated the greyscale mural. Geneva’s olive skin teases along the edges of the frame of the photograph. He smiles again, flicks out of the album and into the camera button. He puts his good eye to the lens, points it at Geneva, and snaps. He gets a picture of her hair and face. Perfectly capturing the way her lips stretch with the briefest whiff of a smile. The way the autumn air flows through her brown-blonde hair. It was serenity. The golden light in the darkness that surrounded this city.

  A siren sings in the distance. Neither of them flinches. It draws closer, closer, closer. Almost deafening now. Draven stands, the camera now hanging from his neck yet again. It was the police, chasing after a beat down Chevy truck. The truck acts on a whim and turns down the street where the duo stand. Draven jumps back onto the sidewalk, his arms reflexively going to Geneva. She yips a little noise as the car comes roaring by, the sirens following it like a shadow. Unfortunately, though, the car stops a few paces up the street. A man covered in black steps out of the car, his hands go behind his head.

  Draven wonders why they’ve been chasing this poor man. Had he stolen the vehicle? Was he involved in a hit and run? Murder? Maybe he had been framed? Tears cascade down the curve of the man’s cheeks. Young plumpness still lives in his face. He wouldn’t have been much older than Draven. It made the scene hurt more in the pit of Draven’s heart.

  He tries to step out of the moment, to go about his business. The grip of his attention-seeking nature imbues his trance with steroids and Adderall. He will not miss this shot. This could be tomorrow’s headline. Even now, Draven pictures the cigar fingers tracing the outline of the officer in the laminate gloss of the photo Draven could bring tomorrow morning.

  An officer springs from his car, a gun locked in his hands. He aims for the poor man’s face. Draven sees this as an opportunity. He takes his camera, eye to the lens. He’s locked in the moment, unaware of Geneva’s nagging voice or the other officer shouting at him to drop his weapon. It was his damned photographer’s eye. The ability to put himself in a situation to get that perfect shot. Draven’s black skin acts as a filter, shrouding all the good intentions he poses, leaving stereotypes and misinformation. Officers here equated black skin to criminals. The camera looked like a glock to the officer, surely. He was attacking, defending the criminal, of course. That was what would be written about him in the morning.

  The camera flutters in his hands. Rearing for the perfect shot. The officer clicks the safety. His screams pass through Draven’s ears, falling everywhere but his brain. The camera flashes. Instantly followed by the gun’s flash. Draven almost doesn’t feel the bullet pass through the flesh right below his collarbone.

  Almost.

  His life was full of almosts. Almost landing that job, almost finding the one who got away, almost getting that shot. And now, almost flirting with the power of death. If he wasn’t clouded by adrenaline, Draven would laugh. Laugh at the story he’d be able to tell the man waiting for him at home. It was the irony of the situation. How he pictured the cruelty this city offered, only to be claimed by it. He should have seen it coming, though. The South never knew kindness to the people with black skin.

  The pain isn’t what he would’ve expected. Not at first. It was a burn, almost. A slap. Or a throb full of regret. Too much of too little. He didn’t have the cognitive function to describe the pain. Before he knows it, the ground sways with his knees. The rhythmic thump of his heart climbs into his throat as a warm maroon colors his shirt and skin. Endorphins flood his system, soaking up the pain as adrenaline does its work. His head sways, he was nauseous, too, but his body can’t act on any of his natural defenses. Sleepiness hits him. The skin, now burning with blood, shudders as a coma-like trance takes hold. The last thing he remembers is the darkness eloping his vision.

  And for a moment, the world was quiet. The restless silence that lingered after destr
uction becomes his existence. Physically, he was here, bleeding crimson rivers dirtier than the Mississippi on the cracked concrete. Mentally, though, psychologically—he was everywhere but here. Trapped in a coma of pain that forbade him the luxury to even dream.

  ✽✽✽

  His vision slowly lets the light leak inside his eyelids. The smell of rubbing alcohol and lingering death perfume his surroundings. His eyes open, now, with a quiet jolt. The skin covering his eyes screech a protest and, without given consent, shut back and blanket his mind in a blackness. A haze consorts his body, leaving him sinking in misunderstanding and dread.

  Before this, Draven had hated hospitals. The pity and sorrow that fueled these places were enough to deter him. A dream, he doggedly assures himself, you’re just dreaming. Slowly, he continues to gain consciousness. Now he’s aware of the steady beat coming from the monitor beside him. Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

  Oh god, shut that thing up.

  He’s in the hospital.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, you’re IN the hospital.