Perish

It's pretty much about an insane girl who hears music and a hurting boy who needs love. It's not finished but please tell me what you think THANK YOUUUUU!!!

 

 

Perish

 

The rain smothered the city with it's dreariness and cast a large dark shadow. Buildings appeared muddled and grey as though they belonged in the old grainy death, part deux photographs of the dearly departed . The air was cold and seemed to sink right through to my bones, goosebumps rose like yeast on my shaking arms and my teeth chattered noisily. I stood in the middle of a cobbled street surrounded by huge decaying buildings that looked to be built back in the 1800's. Made from the callused hands of a bricklayer, they stood proud and immovable, if somewhat deteriorated. Most of the windows were boarded up and the few that weren't had no window pane and was withstanding the full blunt of the downpour, I supposed the squatters making those buildings there temporary homes were staying away from those windows.

 

I'm not quite sure why I'm out here in this storm, allowing my body to slowly but surely slip into pneumonia. There's a disquiet inside of my mind, a vexatious lullaby of sorts. It plays harmonically but still it causes my heart such distress I almost forget my physical discomfort. The street I stand on is quiet and dark, a place no young woman in her right mind would find herself alone and unprotected. Any man could come along and ravish me, kill me if he pleases, allowing the traces of his misdeed to be washed away by the rain. There is such innate danger in this possibility, such that I should feel terror in the very pits of my stomach, but there is none. Am I a mad woman? I almost hope someone will come and slash my throat leaving me to perish in the silence of this street. The melody, it plays and plays so fluently without a flaw. A never ending ballad inside my very soul. I can't recall what it reminds me of and when I try my heart is filled with such affliction I feel I might break. But it's so beautiful, this melody, I feel as much as I grow weary of it's familiar strains I would drain my eyes of tears until dehydration took me if it left.

 

The boy was no more than that, a boy, though he'd reached the age of 17 Carlson still carried the face of youth and the glee that would vanish as the curse of age befell him. His father whom he'd never met had been a gambling salesman with a big mouth and an even bigger debt who was probably at the bottom of the sea, his punishment for inability to pay of those debts. His mother was the concubine of many wealthy merchants though Carlson rarely saw a cent of her spoils. She's have her shopping sprees and what was left he'd use to scrounge up enough food to feed them for a month. For 17 years he'd stayed under the same roof with her, a vile noisome harlot. Although she was his mother, she was also his worse enemy. When he was a child she would beat him, kick his small body and through hot water on his bare back for what she considered disobedience. Many times she's punish him til he could no longer walk and then she'd nurse him back to health only to cripple him again. She wanted to mess with his mind, wanted to make him weak and needy so that he'd always stay with her. Men forever wanted to own her, if only for a moment and then discard her like the wasted beauty she was. He, Carlson was the only thing she could have as her own, to control, her own little concubine. But he would leave, he was now 17, though he looked as he did at age twelve only taller. Merely a boy.

 

 

“Carlson my dearest lovely boy” Her voice quivered tremulous with spirits. He didn't answer hoping she'd fall back into the grips of slumber. She did not. “Carleson” She cried more vehemently and grudgingly he left the warmth of his bed to venture into the vast iniquities of her harlots den. A man lay sprawled on her bed, naked and deep in sleep, his arms and legs thrown about carelessly. Carleson thought he looked like a banker, probably with a beautiful wife and kids at home awaiting his return. She was seated on the windowsill naked as a babe covered only partially by a silk pillow in her lap which she hugged to her chest. Carlson averted his eyes, disgusted. “What is it?” He asks keeping his eyes fixed to a small coffee stain on the Persian rug. It had been his doing when he was five or so, an accident really, a naive attempt to please his mummy, it only ended in him sleeping outdoors for a week.
“Is that any way to speak to your mother?”
He can smell the whiskey on her even from where he's standing several feet away, it's strong and mixed with the smell of musk and ended passions. He wrinkles his nose.
“What is it mother dearest?” He practically spits trying to breath in through his mouth so that he can not smell the rancidness of her.

“That's better baby” She coos repositioning herself on the sill so that one breast, full and pale in the candlelight, is visible. Carleson wants her to disappear from existence, her and every other woman like her.

“I want you to do me a favor.” She's looking at him with those huge golden eyes, cat eyes they're called supposedly full of cunning and wisdom, but hers have become dull from whiskey and opium. Now they're just the eyes of an ignorant w***e, unfortunately he has those eyes as well, but they're beautiful intense, passionate. Nothing like hers.

“I want you to go to the shop and get me... us... some spirits” She gargles this last sentence but he understands her full well. Incredulous he glares at her giving eye contact so that her dull, dead ones can quiver at the sight of his vibrance. “What for? You are already more drunk than half the nation of Ireland, why is it you seek more spirits?”
“Because the more the merrier son...why not drink with us? some cheer and good people make a merry feast... someone famous said that...”

“It's Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast, Shakespeare said it” She waves a hand as though to dismiss his literary aptness.

“Just go boy retrieve my spirits” Her voice has a hard edge now. In a drunken stupor she's benevolent, almost gentle, but when the effect's start to wear off she becomes the same baneful strumpet she is during complete soberness, often worse. He glares hard at the coffee stain wishing himself somewhere anywhere else.

“Oh baby” She's sickly sweet again. Like the taste of sweets before they corrode your heart cavities and choke the life out of you. He catches a slight movement out of the corner of his eye but before he can step away she throws herself at him wrapping both arms around his broad shoulders pressing her breast into him. He stiffens and closes his eyes, revulsion pulsing through him like the very beating of his heart. “Will you go?” She asks tracing his jaw line with her finger. “For me?”
“Yes” He mutters “I'll go”

“Good” She presses her lips to his chin just below his lips and holds him there in her embrace until she's satisfied.

“Go” He hurries from her grasp and giving his room one last wistful glance grabs his coat and thrusts himself into the immobilizing cold.

 

 

 

I use to dream of beautiful things. White Knights atop valiant steeds, and crimson kerchiefs wrapped around my lovely throat. Valleys painted with vibrantly colored pastures and lush verdure. I had visions of such breathtaking scenes, portraits that could never exist in this corrupt land, that could never be captured not even by the most skilled of artists. Skies pigmented in such florid arrays it appears as though the world has exploded in a ecstasy of light and color. Oh, I would get lost in these fantasies and never wish to return. But then, the balefully beautiful music started and the scenes eventually disappeared from my mind heart and memory.

 

I am a Perusion princess, as well as a lowly peasant girl. I am a Greek Goddess and a seductress, I am a lover and a warrior I smite with my lips and fists. I am poison and it's antidote, reason and insanity. I'm a living breathing contradiction, the last of my kind I fear. The last of the women who are not afraid to live, to be something more than what society sanctions with their cookie cutter inclinations. I am alone now, here, where all of my strength and will has been vanquished by this squalid land and it's pernicious inhabitants. I am alone and so tired. I can no longer see how there is hope left, the madness of man redefines the rules of ethicality. Murder and rape seize this land corrupting it's children and creating a smog of malevolence, a miasma of such epic proportions that it seems the horror of truth belongs in fairytale. I once believed in change, but now I am but a shadow of life. All that is left to salvage of my marred soul is the song that, despite the devastation that besieges my mind, plays mirthfully.

 

 

He rounded a corner willing his eyes to adjust to the nights caliginous. The rain had died down settling into a light drizzle that froze and hung in clumps in Carlson's dark locks. He had the last of their spending money clamped in his steely grasp, and thrust deep in the pocket of his shoddy ill-fitting trousers. The idea of spending the last of their money on spirits made him froth with distemper. Though Carlson himself worked as well, he was payed very little if any at the Factories and work any where else without any significant skills was hallucinatory at best. There was one thing, he could draw, but lack of fame and prestige made that ability as redundant as clouds at night. Mostly he drew sunsets and tree's, immovable objects that lacked complexity but absorbed some of the sleepless nights. She'd asked him the draw her once. As a gift to his dear mother, but he refused. The idea of tainting the sanctity of art by portraying a Harlot made him sick. Besides, only beauty would be captured by his hands, true beauty as monotonous and tedious as it appears. Not the ersatz beauty that corrupts the vast plains of a man's sanity and a woman's virtue. Never that...beauty.

 

A few meters away by the light of a street lamp he could make out a shape. A man he was sure, sitting in the gutter no doubt meditating on his misfortune as all men do at one time or other. As he drew nearer however he realized it was not a man at all but a child, a small girl hardly past her sixth year. She was squatting on the sidewalk staring intently at something Carlson could not distinguish in the darkness. It was disconcerting to witness a child meander about while the night staked it's claim and thrashed the world with it's vengeful tempest. Besides the storm there were all manners of beasts

awaiting the innocence of youth so as to snatch it away. She looked up abruptly as he neared her emitting a tiny cry of surprise. “It's alright” He murmured in a reassuring tone he hoped evoked trust. She stood and stared at him with impossibly huge eyes, eyes the size of wormholes. Her pale skin glowed and in the gloom she appeared as an angel evanescent in her drab garb.

“What are you doing here” He asks pausing a few feet from where she stood. “Where are your guardians?”

Her lips, red from cold, formed a perfect “Oh” and she stared at him as though he's an apparition. A poltergeist calling her name and enticing her with sweets laced with poison. She's shaking visibly though Carlson's sure the clod's to blame for that and not her apparent apprehension.

“Hello...are you alright?”

The little girl blinks several times as though testing her bodies ability to react to her brains commands.

 

She reminded him of an Oil painting he'd seen before called “Paix dans l'enfer”It depicted a small girl in a sea of virulent fanged creatures of old crouched in preparation for their attack. Giant winged beasts and baneful leviathans, monstrous demons and demented ogre's with an insociable appetites. All rabid and itching to slay and devour the poor child. This in itself, would seem nothing to Carlson but a maniacal artist's attempt to vindicate insanity. But, in the middle of the monsters frenzy the cause for the creatures dementia, the little girl, is smiling. Grinning as though she haven't a care in the world, and that is when Carlson understood. The purpose of the portrait was not to exonerate madness, but to demonstrate the resilience of a child. To show that no matter what calamity is cast upon them children have the inbred ability to smile and search for hope in the bleakest of dawns.

 

It was this girl, this tiny creature who stood before him now, though she seemed less than welcoming, who shone with the same naive brilliance as the heroine in the painting. With her huge eyes and cherubic cheeks, tinted bright pink from the cold. With the street light illuminating her the way it was Carlson was once more reminded of a resplendent angel fallen from the Heavens. Whoever she was, Carlson could not allow her to perish in this place. For surely there was no other fate than death that awaited her in the shadows of the street. Whether she had parents or was a discarded ward of the state, it didn't matter. He had to take her with him, to protect and cherish her, to adore her unintelligible gibberish as all parents do and to indulge in her fanciful worlds if need be. He had to have her as his own. The words even as they formed in his mind sent shivers of foreboding down his spine, but he, being enveloped in the warmth of happiness, ignored them. He crossed the distance between them in 3 short strides and squatted down, grasping her shoulders fondly.

“Would you like to be my child?” Her eyes if possible grew even larger. Carlson could feel through he thin coat how tiny and frail her shoulders were, as though he was clutching the skeletal remains of a little girl instead of the darling child that stood before him. He waited for an answer and she took her time mulling it over, tracing the lines of his face and covering his mouth with her small hands as though to block any fortuitous chatter. Finally with a long puerile sigh of content her mouth slowly curved into a blithe grin and she leaned her head on his shoulder allowing him to gather her up in his arms and stride into the night. “Paix dans l'enfer” Peace in hell.

 

 

My name...whys it matter? Despite the fact that the taste of it's syllables on my tongue have long since faded, anyone who still lives to call me anything but nameless will undoubtedly proclaim my identity to be something much more bestial than I'd like to fathom. I've gone by several pseudo names however, most by kindly peasants who housed me on my treks from village to village. The last one I can recall was Paris, as in the cowardice Trojan who stole the Spartan Queen, Helen, from Agamemnon spurring the Trojan War. He was a man, and therefore a blunder of such magnitude was to be expected. Men are so weak to temptation, to the wiles of a lustrous woman. I cannot recall a single man in history that could withstand an offer of companionship from a attractive member of the opposite sex. And still, how can I be the judge and jury? I, who has never felt the touch of a man's hand, nor the warmth of his lips and gratification of his body. I who surpasses all else, a virgin quickly loosing her sanity. I will become one with this earth on this night, at the rising of the sun as the rooster crows. I will be devoured by the beast that is my hearts ballad, my souls song playing, portentous and alluring as the black widow spider who gorges on her mate after she's been inseminated. Such bewitching harmony there is in it's strains. I cannot pull myself away and yet, I cannot stay, I was to be the savior, and now I'm but a victim of chaos, and beauty.

 

I stand and gather my filthy skirts about me, ragged and clumped with damp dirt. I shiver, but it's a reprieve from my usually torpid state. The air appears crisper, the rain having lightened into a drizzle though the clouds overhead have not lost their dreariness nor the frigid air it's bite against my bare forearms. It is perplexing that all I seem to be able to feel is the cold, like an invisible blade cutting through to my bones. I feel not the wetness of the rain drenching my body nor the hard cobbled street pressing sharply at my bare feet. I am merely aware of them as though I am another watching myself yet still maintaining my own physical body.

 

As I stand there I'm accosted by an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Although no memories take definite shape, the idea of a memory lingers the feeling of something that has fled from the lunacy of my mind. A smell, a touch even. The feeling of something warm grassing my skin ever so softly. This recollection of senses is unbound in a location of such drudgery and causes the chorus of my minds melody to falter, only slightly, like the sudden instantaneous finger cramp in a pianist as his hands masterfully fly across the keyboard. For a moment there is silence, a moment of such blessed noiselessness that it births a lacuna from my life's habitual bleakness. I can hear the wind again, the sound of the trees rustling in unison and the plopping of rain drops on the cobbled stones. I open my mouth to speak, so I can hear my voice. Oh it's been so long I doubt I'll even recognize it's tone and pitch as my own. But just as swift as the interlude had occurred it dissipated and the noisome music reestablishes itself in the very nook of my psyche. At recollection of it's presence inside of me once more after such a brief reprieve I lose all concern as to propeity and let out a howl so animal like I'm sure the entire world will wake from their slumber and run to the window to ascertain what poor creature is being tortured. I weep, allowing the bitterness to pour out of me like the rain that falls from the sky. There was no fairness in life, no hope to cling to. What little had been left in me was now gone, lost forever to the absence of lucidity in my cognizance. I cursed the world for smiling when my happiness had been blotted out like the sun, for loving when I'd never been held nor even looked upon with affection, and for living. Living whilst I lay here awaiting the clutches of hell to claim me and drag me down to their fiery depths. I turn and run blindly towards a nothingness that had always been and would always be. Surely I will stumble opon a dead end, finally.

 

The man wears a black cloak reminiscent of a villainous cad choosing the eve of the night to strike at the unsuspecting public as they slumber in their homes. But he is no such knave, on the contrary one might compare him to a hero, a protector of the weak, defender of the poor, a guardian angel of sorts. He parooses the streets on the look out for iniquitous behavior. He wounds thieves who seek to rob you of every ounce of wealth you own, and bludgeons the man who raises his hand to a woman. No one knows of his true identity, as it should be in the case of a hero. They assume he is just a good Samaritan with romantic beliefs of grandeur. They could not be more wrong. He prowls these dark streets not with the intention of helping but of finding, who, well it appears even he is not completely sure as to the answer of that question. But one thing is for certain, there is no forgiveness in the eyes of the man who wears the black cloak, there is only retribution. He stands on the highest of buildings watching the dark streets as night walkers and vagavohns wander aimlessly. They are pathetic, but not suspicious in the least...they do what they must to survive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Well, the girls inner dialougue (spelled wrong?) may get repititious (also spelled wrong) and the flow of the story may be confusing.

Reviews

[Brooke]

I really like like the story so far, it is really interesting how it switches back and forth between the girls inner dialouge (yeah I stole that from you) and what Carlson is going through. The detailing is grat and makes me feel as though it's real, so kudos for that, and I will admit there were a few times that I didn't know a few words, but my vocabulary isn't the greatest. I can't wait for the story to go on. Good Job!!