by Mav Skye
I looked around the room for my crucifix and chain. The cross had been given to me by my father; a beautiful Orthodox piece with an anguished Death God Christ stood atop a skull and crossbones. I loved that object of faith, a faith now lost somewhere down the back of the stained and dirty sofa of concrete beliefs waiting to be found like that tenner that saves your life. It was not in my jeans’ pocket, where I had left it as my clothes had been shed off my body by a woman ten years my junior. I vaguely remembered that she, who shall be known as S, had taken a keen liking to it.
I could see it no more.
It was gone.
S for slut, slattern, strumpet and hussy.
Panic set in as the klaxons of a traffic jam directly outside my window blew into my growing alarm. I began dismantling the bed covers and opening drawers; shuffling and ripping at tax returns, bank statements and thoughts strewn over the floor. A hundred car horns screeching in the wintry downpour. Vlad The Bastard had begun to mewl, all sorrowful and famished.
It was gone.
A flashing sense of sightlessness absorbed me. A howling wind in my head followed by abrupt silence. A sudden emptiness welled up inside my ribcage. Knees collapsed along with a wave of loss and I seemed to experience the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief in under a minute. The prisoners and lunatics slammed their fists, severed limbs and broken toes into my cerebral walls and jeered, whistled, threatened, wept, tore the hair out of their bleeding scalps and stamped their feet onto broken light bulbs.
“Nah, she couldn’t have… Really?”
“Fuckin’ thieving pikey cunt. I’ll gut her…”
“Did I get her number? Maybe if I contact her she can…”
“Awww… man, I really adored that cross. The last thing from my old man.”
“… Huh? That’ll teach you. Stop fucking whining, pussy.”
The blindness and tunnel vision passed.
I tried to reason that we all had to pay for those passing instants of happiness any way that the fates deemed worthy. Rubbing my sore and knackered cock, I rationalised that, well, I had certainly been worked over in many ways. As the self bargaining finished, the noises inside became increasingly distant, becoming a faint electric hum.
The anger never quite leaving me all alone.
My immediate concern was that the lack of a thing hanging around my neck, a necklace, a noose, made me perceive myself as naked to the world outside my head. Fragile. Like a paper skull. Like the wings of a Death’s Head Moth. I had worn something around my neck everyday since I had burst into double figures. They had given a feeling of protection against the baleful gaze and evil eyes of others. I even felt invisible to the ubiquitous CCTV cameras that littered every shadowed corner of our lives.
Ominous emotions sneaked back into me usurping the intellect, as remembered images of the cross swirled around my head. That cross had been the last object my old man had given me before the Skinny Girl had whisked him off to his next mysterious cosmic postcode. The last connection to a past life now vanished into the air.
That was mine.
My own property.
No.
Not any more.
* * *
Smoking a roll up and sipping at my comforting thick black coffee, I caught my reflection in the window. A shadowy simulacra that appeared gaunt and angular. Flesh hanging on bone. It reminded me. The magpie bitch (known as S) had also taken an interest in the small statue circled by candles of the Mexican folk saint, Santísima Muerte.
Our Lady of Last Resorts.
Glancing over, I saw that the Bony Lady was still there. Thank the suffering Christ on a scooter. Still there, Most Holy Death lovingly gazes out from her hollow eye pits. Staring into those empty sockets, deep and dark, how would you feel inside? Nothing? A disconnect? A revulsion at your impending doom? Perhaps, a trickle of enlightenment as you realise for the first time in your brittle life that one day, far or soon, you are indeed going to die no matter how many jogging miles you clock up?
We had never met, had we?
However, if we had and I had told you stories of my life, you would comprehend my affection for the diminutive statuette on my window sill. Stood on a larger skull, the skeletal figure was clothed in a white monk’s cowl, giving the impression that Her eternal reaping is the grimmest of all harvests. In her hands, she bore the world manifesting Her dominion over the orb, and a scale proclaiming her dedication to equity. She took the weak and strong, rich or poor. None of us got out of this world alive. One could believe, or not, in God. Not with death. There was no freedom of choice for that transformation of state.
I stood up and stumbled over to the statuette, half-smoked cigarette clenched tightly between my right hand’s first and middle fingers. Smiling into her death grin, I made the Sign of the Cross on my forehead with my smoking hand. Then, taking three drags, I blew the acrid smoke into Her fleshless face. She liked tobacco, marijuana too, but it was a late Sunday morning and I had duties to perform. A marketplace to plunder. Money to move. A quick petition for a blessing and a curse, then onwards to confront a day already clouded with ruination….
* * *
About Jason Michel
Jason Michel is a writer of penny dreadfuls, such as the wildly experimental, TOTALITARIAN DRONE GROOVE, the weird noir, AND THE STREET SCREAMED BLUE MURDER! the long out of print, yet acclaimed, CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK DOG and his up and coming Neo Noir, THE DEATH OF THREE COLOURS. He is The Dictator over at the irreverent and unique ezine, PULP METAL MAGAZINE, and is fascinated by heretics and futurists of all kinds. On a self-imposed exile from his native U.K., Jason has lived all over the world, yet currently resides in Italy. For the chianti.
Go Find Jason at:
@pulp_metal
PulpMetalMagazine
https://paranoidvoice.wordpress.com
About Mav Skye
When Mav Skye isn't turning innocent characters into axe murderers, refinishing old furniture, chasing around her spring ducklings, or reading the latest horror novel, she's editing at the mighty Pulp Metal Magazine. She adores puppies, pirates, skulls, red hots, Tarantino movies and yes, Godzilla. Especially Godzilla.
Hit me up!
@MavSkye
MavSkye
www.mavskye.com
[email protected]
Also by Mav Skye
Novels
Wanted: Single Rose
Supergirls Series
Supergirls 1: Behind the Black Door
Supergirls 2: Night without Stars
Supergirls 3: Ghost of a Chance (Release later this year)
Tales to Chill Your Bones series:
Scarecrows
Witches
ShapeShifters
BunnyMan
Abyss
Tales to Chill Your Bones, Boxset 1-5
Graveyards
Deadly Women
Werewolves
Short Stories
The Undistilled Sky
Harvester of Days
Bibliography
The Stories in this collection were first published in the following publications:
Reynardina, Howl: Dark Tales of the Feral and Infernal, paperback, © 2010 by Jason Michel
The Wait, Howl: Dark Tales of the Feral and Infernal, paperback © 2010 by Jason Michel
