by Boye, Kody
To compensate for this, I split the bones of his arms in half lengthwise, running from his elbow to the mutilated stub where his hand used to exist. I examined the bones, the marrow, the little blots that covered some of the inside surfaces. I stretched muscle, I fingered fat, I inhaled death.
Death…
In a way, it’s beautiful. For something new to begin, something old had to die; the law of nature made it so. Hundreds upon thousands of people die each day, each hour, each minute, each second of the day, and repeated that way is the birth of a human being. A man and a woman—the Adam and Eves of our generation—took each other in their arms and mated. And then—in the orgasmic bliss of a moment—life was born. Sperm met egg, egg harvested sperm, egg became fertile. Some people are destined for greatness, while others are just there to toil in the filth that is the human race. How wasteful we, the human race, are; polluting our oceans, killing our fellow creatures, destroying our planet with machines and constructs of mass obstruction.
For something new to be born, something old must die.
In killing Markus Stevens, something great would happen.
I stared at his bones for the longest while before I cut them off at the elbow, then cracked the bone at the shoulders with the hilt. It took a while, but hard work wielded results. With each strike, the bone dented, separated, reacted until, finally, chunks of bone started coming off with each strike.
When the shoulders existed no more, I cut the head off with a few simple blows.
Amazingly, we’d evolved to reveal one of our greatest weaknesses, right to the public eye. While some creatures’ brains had spread out through their head, ours existed in one simple spot, in one simple circle.
It didn’t matter though.
I’d already accomplished what I meant to do.
When Markus’ body had been broken up to the point where I could fit him in the plastic garbage bag, I tossed it near the threshold of the kitchen and living room before starting to clean up.
This mess couldn’t be left.
The neighbors would complain.
I woke up on the front lawn. Confused, disoriented, and damp from the morning dew, I opened my eyes to the twilight of early morning.
Almost immediately, I remembered Markus. Images of the brutal torture fed themselves to me in small, juicy details—the hammer hitting the chisel, the blood splashing onto my face, the sticky goo of brain matter sliding down my hands and through my fingers.
Don’t worry, big guy. I got rid of him.
“What’d you do?” I sobbed, pushing myself to his knees. “What’d you do to him?”
Isn’t it obvious?
“You killed him!”
Of course I did.
The sound that escaped my throat sounded like a loon out on the lake at night, with its chill cry that gradually rose into a silent scream.
You’re going to wake the neighbors up if you keep doing that.
“I don’t care,” I sobbed. “I’m going to turn myself in.”
No you’re not.
“And why not? What’re you gonna do? Stop me?”
No. They’d stop you. You think the police would just arrest someone who has nothing suspicious about them? What would you say? That you have proof on your computer? Hate to tell you this, but everything on it is gone.
“What?”
Magnets work wonders on electronic devices.
I hadn’t had anything of importance on that computer, other than the pictures. The pictures, though, they didn’t matter, not anymore. I’d done something too unspeakable to merit any care for a few pictures of human anatomy.
“Why?” I sobbed. “Why did you do this?”
Because.
“Because why?”
Because I wanted to.
I didn’t say anything.
The neighbor’s porch light came on.
Better get inside. You probably don’t want to explain why you’re on the front lawn, covered in dirt.
Before the next door neighbor could investigate the sound of the sobs, wails and cries, I broke into a run and stole in through the front door.
That same day, I hauled myself into a new set of clothes and took my car out to the local woods. Here, they rested on the edge of a long cliff that people liked to say ‘had no ending.’ Of course, the cliff did have an ending, but most people were too stupid to realize that the ‘no ending’ aspect came from the shadow that shielded the bottom from foreign eyes.
I parked my car near the side of the dirt road and started my search. The body of the man who had only trying to be helpful lay in the woods somewhere, protected by the black mesh of thin, rubbery fabric. It’d be hell to find in the long run, but how else would I find it unless I looked?
You won’t find it, the voice whispered.
“Why?”
Even I don’t know where it is.
“You’re lying.”
I don’t know where it is, Pansy.
I wouldn’t be getting any help from my worse half; that much had been made clear.
The woods seemed to go on forever. Although I kept to the path—only occasionally stepping off to look at something I found suspicious—everything seemed to curve around and come back together.
I had my doubts about finding my friend’s body.
Friend? I thought. Since when had Markus been my friend?
The fact that he had come over to the house had been enough to classify him as a friend, in my book.
He’s not your friend anymore, Linton. I killed him.
“Shut the fuck up.”
I tripped over my own feet.
Watch it. Don’t want to stumble and fall on something sharp.
“I could care less about what you do to me. You already killed someone using my body!”
You are weak. You are foolish. You are insolent.
“But I haven’t killed anyone!”
Better get up and find the body. Daylight’s fading.
It didn’t matter.
I could stay as long as I wanted.
The next morning—after waking in the back seat of my car—I started my search. Tired, sore, and hungry, I trudged on through the cold morning air. I didn’t shiver, not once.
The only cold I felt was betrayal.
How did I end up like this?
Had my mad desire—which had border lined on psychosis just until I cut my hand open—transformed into this… this thing, this other personality? Had I brought all of this upon myself?
Of course you did, I sighed. If only you listened to Dad.
‘And gone to medical school’ was how the thought would have finished, had I decided to complete it. After four years of living on my own, I still couldn’t face the fact that I had failed to get the rest of my high school credits.
Don’t be ashamed, my father had said. I never finished high school, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job keeping you and your mother healthy and happy.
Dad had kept me and Mom healthy and happy, and he’d kept on doing it every single day he went to work.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
I continued walking in the morning air.
That night, I found the garbage bag lying in a ditch near the scenic view on the long path. Here, the path curved to follow the railing, which prevented anyone from running off the cliff should they not be paying attention.
At first, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think anyone does know what to do when they come upon a dead body, unless they’re trained to handle that situation. The situation was made even worse because I knew I had killed him.
Go to the bag, Linton.
“I don’t want to,” I whispered. “Don’t make me.”
There’s something in there I want you to see.
“I don’t want to see him.”
I don’t want you to see him. I want you to see what’s inside the bag.
“He’s in there though. It’s a trick, I know, I…”
&nb
sp; My cut-up hand curled into a hard ball. The pain sent me to my knees.
See? it asked. I can do these kinds of things to you. I am the one in control here, not you.
So, as before, I stood and did as I was asked. I slid down the incline and into the ditch, where I hoisted the bag up into my arms.
How had I—or, technically, the ‘thing’—carried this all the way out here, especially in my body?
It’s too heavy.
“It’s too heavy,” I said.
No. It’s not. Don’t worry. It isn’t. Just bring it back up here.
Yeah, right. It wasn’t heavy. The plastic bag weighed more than anything I had ever tried to lift.
“Please don’t…”
I took three steps forward, heaving the bag up higher in the air. The muscles in my arms and my right hand flared up with pain.
I can do it for you, if you’d like?
“No.” I shook my head. “I can do it.”
Although what was left of Markus’ body weighed more than I could possibly carry, I managed to get it up the incline. After setting the garbage bag on the ground, I fell on my ass and took several deep breaths.
“There,” I gasped. “What did you want me to see so bad?”
Open the bag.
“Why do I…”
Open the bag, Linton. Do it.
The stench had already started to come clearer. Down in the ditch, the overpowering smell of mud and forest had dulled it. Now, though, death hung in the air like an ominous cloud, just waiting to let the rain fall.
“Is it…”
Close to the beginning? Yes. It is.
The bag—tied with a red garbage tie—seemed so far away. At that particular moment, I didn’t know whether to reach out and grab it, or just leave it be.
You have to open it. I’ll force you to do it if you don’t.
Of course it would…
Slowly, tentatively, I reached forward and undid the tie.
Almost immediately, the overpowering scent of rot sent me reeling back.
Don’t worry, the voice said. You can get it.
“What am I looking for?”
You’ll know when you see it.
What did that mean?
Don’t question my wants, Pansy.
I wouldn’t, if it meant that I would finally be rid of it. Wasn’t this the end of this whole ordeal? Would this be the final act in a play of hellish proportions?
I can’t keep stalling.
No. You can’t.
I opened the bag and met a man who had shown me more compassion than anyone had in a long time. But, sadly, I didn’t meet the real him. Instead, I met his bones, his meat, his flesh; the three things I had known I would see, but somehow, still couldn’t believe.
Start looking.
As if I needed instruction.
I slid my hand into the bag. Met with cold, fleshy meat and slick blood, I moved my hand through the filth. Several times, I had to pull my hand away because fragments of bone had stabbed into my skin. But with a careful touch, I could trace certain parts of the anatomy. Several times I came across the thing I thought I was supposed to be looking for, but when I tried to pull it out, found the object to be the cracked, open chest of the dead man.
The sense of reality had, up until this point, been ludicrous. Everything had been a game to me, just an obsession that had turned into something concrete. My desire to see the deeper parts of my own anatomy had driven me to commit the act of parting my own flesh. Because of that obsession, I ended up in the hospital, and because of that hospital visit, my life had been entwined within another’s.
That man had died because he had situated himself with me.
It was then and there—thinking of what I had done—that I found the object the voice the voice had wanted.
The butcher knife that had been used to dismember Markus lay in my hand.
“This is what you wanted,” I said.
Yes, Linton.
“Why?” I stared at the blade. “Why do you…”
It’s time to see what your deeds have done.
“What?”
You’re going to do what you did to Markus to yourself.
“I didn’t do this!”
Yes you did, Linton. You know you did.
“I didn’t kill him! He was my friend!”
Some friends have it in for each other. Now, you’re going to have it in on yourself.
“I’ll kill myself before I cut my own body apart!”
Try it.
The cliff lay no more than five feet from where I stood.
I broke into a run, but no more than the minute I had started, I fell to my knees.
The knife was still in my hand.
I’ll force you to do it.
“NO!”
The knife cut through three fingers on my right hand. I screamed, trying with all my might to pry the knife away. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even control myself.
Three down.
The ring and pinky finger came off next.
Good. Now, let’s cut your arm open.
I forced the knife into my arm, cutting lengthwise. Skin, fat and muscle divided easily, so much easier than I had ever imagined they would. I imagined my hand—the one that I had just severed three fingers on—and felt that excitement.
NO!
Why did I feel this way? Why did I feel that pain was the greatest salvation that would save me from myself?
The knife stopped at my elbow. From there, I slammed the blade over and over, cracking the bone until it finally lay dangling from a thin bit of muscle.
The pain…
Why hadn’t I blacked out>
You will suffer this, Pansy. You will suffer what you have meant to suffer.
For the next five minutes—as I bled out and continued to tear my body apart—everything became clear. I had brought this upon myself. The obsession had run too deep, had tainted everything, right down to my mind.
Some people might say I’m cursed. And maybe I am. But at that particular moment—as I lay dying at the foot of the cliff—I didn’t care. I would die here and, possibly, roll off the side of the cliff, where my body would rot until I became nothing more than bones.
I closed my eyes to accept my fate, and—somehow—even managed to smile.
In the end, my own eccentric ways had killed me.
What a fitting ending.
Angelita
Resting in the middle of a large, dimly-lit room and imprisoned within four walls of glass, a woman who had not seen light for hundreds of years woke. Head raised, suspended in frozen, almost-petrified animation, the world began to reveal itself slowly. First came light that hovered far in the distance, then the white of the glass reflecting said light back at her. Followed by that, the woman realized that she sat on a fabric—fur, possibly, from the horned creatures that once walked her lands, imperious of both the snow and the spears thrown at them. And finally, after sensation, sight and smell began to overtake her senses, the woman slowly began to feel her dry tendons stirring within her hands.
Slowly, as though startled by her new, bizarre world, the husk of a once-beautiful human reached out to touch the glass that surrounded her fragile being.
How had she come to be here?
Where was she?
Why, of all things, was there no snow?
With nothing other than primal instinct to guide her, Angelita—as written on the display plaque before her exhibit—pushed both of her hands forward and guided herself to her feet, trembling like a child taking her first steps.
At first, she did nothing but stand there, unsure of what to do.
Then, slowly, she opened her mouth and moaned.
Because Angelita’s vocal cords had first frozen, then cracked and dried with age, nothing more than a thin, wheezy gasp came out. Like wind on a hot summer day blowing through the cracks of dirt on an old, wooden barn, the sound echoed inside the glass, amplifying over and over again until it died out.
Somehow, the woman knew that she herself made this noise. She also knew that without any fellow humans around, no one else could have made the sound but her.
Trembling, pressing her hands to the glass in a sign of both anger and oppression, Angelita’s eyes watered for the first time in seven-hundred years.
Those tears did not freeze.
Those tears ran red.
You and I
Diana, stay with me.
I love you.
It seems like such a long time ago that I met you out by the shore. Your pretty hair, your beautiful figure, your eyes so crystal blue they could have reflected the Caribbean and back again—there was absolutely nothing in the world that could have described your beauty, for it was too great even for painters to capture. They tried, yes, and some died attempting such a feat, but every time someone looks at you, it’s like seeing the world end and be born again.
I love you.
I remember the two of us meeting out at the parlor one day. A drink in your hand, a water in mine—we could’ve been two completely opposite people coming from two completely different places of the planet. You, Antarctica; me, Iceland—we were always two beautiful spirits drifting through the world while trying to survive on just $7.99 an hour, something that seems so impossible but can be accomplished if you try hard enough. We’d starve, yes, and sometimes we’d buy cigarettes in order to curb the hunger, but each and every time I looked at you my entire world would fade from view. It’s really not hard to strike up a conversation with you. You laugh, you smile, you glow, you blow smoke rings out of your mouth and into the air like it’s some kind of art form—you were always so easily approachable in that given day in time, when every time we’d come close to each other something magical would happen.
Hello, you said, the first time we met. I’m Diana. Who are you?
I’m Joel, I would reply, and I would stick my head up as high as I possibly could in order to make myself appear taller than I was, as at five-foot-five I was always self-conscious about my height and always tried my hardest to resemble the graceful if somewhat-awkward giraffe. But you didn’t seem to care at all, and when you’d smile at me the entire world would drip away, like we were at the frozen ice caps and watching them melt—the penguins slide, the polar bears drown, the orcas hunting the baby seals in packs and tipping them from the icebergs they lay prone upon. It’s a hard thing to describe, this feeling I’m trying to relate, but in looking at you it’s almost impossible not to think about the good things in the world and the things in life that come with it. The birds, the rain, the shame, the drain, the unforgettable moment when two forces collide and they become one, much like a storm brewing in the sky or a tornado touching down in Arkansas—we were like that, once upon a time, and it seems as though whenever I look back on it and remember just how foolish I’d been that I can’t help but love the fact that you tried to stay with me even through all the pain.
