Ghost Poetry (prologue)

A Story by Nikki_Noxio

Prologue to WIP novel

Circles and circles and my stomach wrenched flies out above me, like icy butterflies exploding upwards, cold-crisp air hanging in crystal clean haze. I do not believe my reality.

Jet black ants scuttle smoothly over her wrist, shuttling food as if she were nothing at all, her right hand half closed, resting peacefully on the harsh concrete floor. Scarlet red pools around her, seeping from her other arm, her open wounds underneath.

Usually, on a day like this, the foggy air from her mouth would be so delicate. Twirling beauty, expanding pitifully into the void, her small mouth alone open, her cheeks red puffed. Today there is simple stillness, and the memory is a million pulverising tiny needles into my already broken heart.

Her head rests against the brick block wall which protrudes from the roof. Her eyelids are motionless, closed over dead green, her face bright white, a shock of light blue sash tied around her neck to support her weight. Clean blond hair lies on her face, softly shining hair always so alive. I want to reach out, to brush it aside, I want to embrace her. I will not, I cannot, never after this frozen moment. I hang in space over her body, but the tears do not come. I am more in rage than in grief, more in disbelief than any real care. I couldn't believe it, still, after what seemed like years of hours standing there in the cold, goosebumps slowly erupting beneath my clothes, covered in icy sweat of sudden responsibility.

This was always going to be me, this was my tragic ending, my final selfish act, my poetic fatal flaw. I was always so sure, I was so sure this would never be her. She would never do this to us, not after everything... Not after what we'd done. I thought that I might be sick, but I held my heart.

I have not shivered, not once, not in this freezing cold, but all of a sudden it hits me in one, like a wave crashing onto me, my mind, trembling spine burst into pain, my senses shattered, an earthquake of shuddering cold. This was me, this was my doing, I had let this happen. Deep down I had always known: why else would I have come up to the roof? Why now? I knew, of course I knew! Oh God even then I knew, I knew that everything I touch turns twisted, slowly to death.

It was my fault, all of this, all the way down.

I stood on the roof, wisps of fog spewing fast through eery silence from my mouth, and I knew.

I knew that Carion would blame me, just like his father, I knew that the twins would understand more than they should, I knew that I would have to run, that soon Silence would be knocking at my door asking for the children, I knew that Lumen, since before he could read, had been drawing pictures of a man in a dark hat, a silouette holding a twisted cane, dreaming of figures standing in the mist. I knew that Darkness, the one I had read so much about, would come soon, for my children, for my wife's body, for everything and anything that I held dear. I knew that the only thing protecting us from the wrath of Anser's nightmares was the woman lying dead in front of me, cold corpse rotting in frozen technicolour before my eyes.

I should have left her alone.

I had tried so hard for the ones I loved, I had loved them so much more than myself, but I knew that I had failed, entirely and utterly to look after what had been given to me, that I had fallen further than I had ever dreamt I could fall, just as I knew that soon an angel would fall from Heaven into a broken field.

I knew and I looked up at the freezing sky, silently cursing in my entirety, and all at once the world around me slowly snapped. My reality was broken anew.

From far bellow this grey city roof, a booming greater than you can imagine. From the catacombs of my cave I heard confidence, I heard frailty, I heard an anxious drumroll. I heard knocking.

My right hand trembles through empty air, my mind falters, I am beyond thought.

I drift slowly downwards, emotional gravity pulling me forwards, and heat envelops me as I fall, my broken home's warm embrace. The knocker knows that I have heard, the knocker knows that I know their name, of course he does, the knocker knows everything.

I feel uncomfortably hot on the stairway, as if I have realised an embarrassing mistake, but when I consider taking off my fleece I feel frozen, icy sweat trickling over my heart. I descend in slow motion, hand caressing the bannister, every sense magnified a thousand times, every moment remembering the face on the roof's floor.

At last I enter the living room. Lumen sits watching TV, eating a packet of Salt & Vinegar crisps. I smell them from across the other side, hear the harsh crinkling. Cecelia lies on her front across the floor, torturing a flower. In front of her is a basin of water, in its centre a orchid, wilting. She tears it apart, slowly, carefully, methodically, calmly observing every detail, just as Alea used to do. Her legs kick lazily behind her, taking care to obscure Lumen's view. An angry shout, a satisfied smile, both entranced again. It is a dance they do. I see the scene repeat a hundred times over, rippling through my madness.

The smoking fire is out, the TV blaring optimistic. Obnoxious noises emanate from an overly stylised cartoon. My feet are heavy with dread, my heart is tearing its pieces to pieces.

Neither of them look up.

I walk steady into the entrance hall. Carion is standing there, Carion stands and looks out an open door. His mouth is moving, his face betraying no emotion, even at thirteen he has perfected that ancient art of ours: our internalisation, our overt refusal to lose control. I feel both proud and devastated all at once, my son an identical tragedy, who hates me.

He turns and sees his father.

'For you.' He says, curtly, as he begins to walk past me.

I say that I am sorry, he avoids my gaze. I say that I tried so hard, except that it is more of a stuttering mess. He continues walking in the opposite direction. I mutter, to myself now, that I never thought I would let this,could let this, happen. He begins to walk up the stairs, again that I am sorry, again that I am so sorry. I turn around, my body dislocated from my mind. I walk to the door and see the only man in the world I cannot bear to see.

Ridiculous, Anser, stands in the doorway, Anser Hein Jehovertson looking up above my house, a blue-brown striped umbrella clasped closed in his right hand, crossed under his left arm which points sharp down to the ground. He slowly taps his foot, raising it in slow motion, as if through molasses, as if to the slowest song imaginable.

He pretends to not realise that I am there. I know that he knows, and he knows that I know, and he sighs. He is the only person in the world that knows anything at all, the silence should snag, but that moment is as frozen as all the others. Without looking he says, slowly, simply, almost absent mindedly:

'I am sorry. I did not want this to touch you.'

I want to hug him, to hurt him, I wanted to kiss him, to punch him. How can he say that to me? How could he say this when he was the Poet, the Master, the Beyond-God? How could he stand and tell me that he did not want this for me? How could he stand and tell me anything at all without looking me in the eye?

My left hand runs through my hair, my right softly trembles.

I didn't know what to say.