Luscious lets the world bleed out.

This is my first short story. It's a bit abstract. Feedback please!

Luscious Thatcher sat alone at the bar nursing his wounds with a sodium tongue. He lamented the loss of a life he knew by venting his sorrows to a bottle, which was patient and always had been a good listener.

Soon, the door creaked open and amongst the flood of evil summer sunlight walked in a figure who seemed to be of otherworldly decent.  He took a seat next Luscious and ordered a drink.

After a glance, Luscious quickly deduced that the figure seated next to him had the color, shape, and form of which could not be described using conventional language. He started to feel the figure gazing at him.

 

“Why does your face look like that?” asked the mysterious entity.

 

            Luscious was dumb-founded initially before realizing that he most likely had the look of a man who had spent the entirety of his day watching his world descend to dead ash, which he had. He also remembered that he had been sobbing uncontrollably not too long before the guest had entered the bar.

 

            “Listen buddy no offense, I’m not in the mood for chatting. Today has undoubtedly been the worst day of my life. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d just like to sit here and silently drink myself into submission. Maybe afterwards, I’ll go back out into that sinister world of ours, find a nice ditch, and die in it so the rest of the f*****g vultures in this world can have something to pick at.”

 

            “Fair enough,” the figure blandly replied.

           

            “Alright if you must know, I lost my job today. Compile that with the fact that my wife is a filthy, debaucherous w***e, my drug addicted daughter cant stand the sight of me, and I’m over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt. I don’t have an answer or a solution to any of my problems and after careful examination, it has become quite apparent to me that there is absolutely no way out of this cyclical hell.”

 

            “You shouldn’t worry so much,” Luscious’ new acquaintance flatly states.

 

            This almost threw Luscious into a complete frenzy. The nerve of this f****r, he thought. Luscious’ life has suffered irreparable, terminal tragedies and he’s supposed to “not worry so much”?

 

            “Excuse me, but how could you possibly consider that to be a viable tactic in my circumstance?”

 

            The figure was silent and instead had turned its attention to a fly in the corner of the room. After a minute, Luscious’ maddening fury turned to reflection as the two sipped their drinks amongst the silent screams of the bars aborted memories.

 

            “ Well what about you? How do you deal with it?” Luscious asked after a moment.

 

            “Deal with what?”

 

            “The Terror.”

 

            “I get by,” the figure nonchalantly states.

 

Luscious changes the subject. “Why does your face look like that? I mean, like, where is it?” he asks.

 

“It’s locked away at home where it belongs. I used to wear it all the time, but I started to realize it had some serious drawbacks. When I had it on, it inherently separated me from everything else. It gave me some bland identity and people started to expect certain things of me, because they thought they knew who I was. So I don’t wear it anymore. Plus it’s itchy as hell.”

 

Luscious only partially understood but nodded in agreement anyway. The two sat in silence for a moment longer.

 

 “Doesn’t it all feel so empty?” Luscious asked the entity.

 

“If it feels empty why don’t you fill it up?”

 

“It just seems like there’s something missing.”

 

“Well, maybe you should consider going out and finding it before it’s too late.”

 

Luscious paused.

 

“I wouldn’t know where to look.”

 

“I’m sure it’s hidden in plain view,” replied the thing.

 

The fly was all ears now, and listened in a state of deep thought.

 

“I’m lost,” Luscious replies.

 

“I think it’s safe to say you’re not alone”

 

After a few seconds Luscious vented once more. “It all just seems like too much you know?”

 

The figure gives another cold blank stare to the fly before tucking in his chair and finishing his drink.

 

“I’ve got to go now.”

 

“Wait where are you going?” Luscious shoots back. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t throw it.”

 

And with that, the mysterious figure walked back out into the fire, leaving Luscious alone with his perspiring bottle again.

It would take Luscious several more hours of drowning and disinfecting his soul before he was numb enough to go out and face the night. Maybe on the walk home he would stumble upon a nice ditch, he thought.

Rounding the block, Luscious daydreamed of luxurious ditches in which he could retire. In an instant, he was met with a jolt of searing pain in the back of his head followed instantaneously by an eternity of blankness. The figure had waited there to bludgeon Luscious and now stood over his lifeless body. He looked at Luscious with the same cold, blank stare he had given the fly hours earlier.

In that moment, somewhere under the stars, Mrs. Thatcher was humping the spirit out of some poor fellow while Luscious’ daughter was shooting up for the very last time. The ripples in the water would never slow into secession and after that night, nothing would be the same again. But we already knew that.

Under the street light at the corner, a black cat crosses the road, making sure to step on every crack along the way, before giving a wink to the apathetic moon. The very same moon that illuminates the glow of blood on the mysterious figures face, which he is now wearing, as he feasts on Luscious’ brain.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

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