Aberration

Brother Michael’s hands spasmed, tossing his cup aside, yet stayed frozen in place. His smile widened in a grotesque parody of happy surprise. Brother Thomas’ long, curved beak, like that of a black Egyptian ibis, was still stuck in his eye, connecting a macabre bridge between them. The room was quiet for a moment. Brother Michael slowly reached up and placed a gentle grip on the beak, squeezing it between his fingers as if making sure that he wasn’t imagining the situation. Then he began to scream.

“EEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!”

“You damn fool!” Linda yelled as she smacked Brother Thomas on the shoulder, which pitched him forward, digging his beak deeper into Brother Michael’s head. Blood violently spurted out of his nose, splattering the white of his shirt a deep crimson. His scream muffled, now that the curved beak was pressing against the back of his throat. His chest huffed, though, and his hands now splayed open on either side of Brother Thomas’ beak, not wanting to touch it but desperately pleading with it to be still.

Linda wobbled and heaved herself out of her seat, groaning. She hurried around the coffee table and stood above Brother Michael. She grabbed the hem of her worn t-shirt and lifted it over her chest. The space in between where her breasts sagged was separated by a slit of flesh; a moist, membranous opening. The lips of the slit shivered, and the crevice inside began to pulse with a soft white glow. A haze began to waft outward from it; a distortion of the air like the heat above a lit grill. The haze billowed towards Brother Michael and enveloped him, pushed through him. It shimmered with a technicolor appeal, covering Brother Michael’s pale skin in what looked like an oily sheen. Linda lapped her tongue around the wet inside of her mouth as she consumed his sins.

Age 5: Mommy won’t let me play with my friend outside so I left my rollerskate in the middle of the stairs. She almost tripped but caught herself on the railing.

Age 11: Brent can’t run fast and he even walks funny, and he’s so skinny and when he talks his mouth can’t even move right. I hate him; I don’t know why, but I do. It’s so easy to make him cry, too. It makes me feel good when he cries.  It’s his fault. He should be normal.

Age 14: Babysitting the neighbor’s kid again. I don’t know how anyone can stand a kid like this. And he’s so strong for a 4 year old! Thank god I have a few pills of Oxytocin left from getting my tonsils out. I’m just gonna give him one, tell him it’s a vitamin. Yeah, only one’ll do.

Age 17: An F!? That old b*****d gave me an F on the final!? He shouldn’t even be teaching! Look at him, he can hardly even walk anymore! He should have been retired a long time ago! Okay, okay, Theresa’s rubbing baby oil on her hands, right? All I gotta do is borrow the bottle, wander over behind his desk, decorate the floor a little… Hopefully I’ll be making sure ol’ Mr. Gregg doesn’t come back next y-

Brother Thomas whisked his beak out of Brother Michael’s eye, whipping it towards Linda. Blood slashed in a small, dotted line across her breasts as he shot up and firmly grabbed her wrist. Linda wrung his hand off of her and the haze dissipated. Brother Michael dipped forward across the couch, moaning; his left eye creased in anguish. Tears and blood slowly streamed onto the cushion.

Brother Thomas’ beak slowly shrunk back into his face. The torn and stretched outline of the skin where his beak was housed grew small and sealed shut, leaving not even a red blemish on his smooth, white skin. He blinked his eyes, now returned to the muddy-green.

“I’d almost be insulted.” She sneered. “One, the pretense of alla this. Two, it’s only been, what, a little ova a hunnad years since you and I last saw each otha’? ‘Thomas’,” she scoffed. “You knew I’d be onto you the moment I’d laid eyes on you. Thoth, you is trippin’ and you is tacky.” She waved a hand at him. “Ain’t nobody got time fo’ this!”

Thoth replied with an exasperated smile. His widely innocent green eyes glinted. “Linda,” he spoke, feeling out the name in his mouth.

“Come on, nah!” Linda huffed. “Why you come he’a to see me? You some type’a man…” She shook her head and waved a fist as if she were about to wallop him. “Whatchu want, Thoth? You already done messed up my couch! I been takin’ care’a this since Soul Train started on the air. I ain’t neva gonna get them stains out.”

“I brought the boy here as a gift,” Thoth answered as he stepped back and laced his hand around Brother Michael’s neck. As he squeezed blood dribbled from his mouth and nose and onto the middle cushion.

“Man!” Linda groaned angrily.

Thoth leaned down and turned Brother Michael’s lifeless body on its back. He positioned his head over his torso, hovering close. Linda pursed her lips and put a hand on her hip, shaking her head. The beak shot in and out of Thoth’s face like the needle of a sewing machine, mashing Brother Michael’s chest into a pulp. Quick wheezes escaped from out of Brother Michael’s chest as his lungs punctured and deflated. Thoth’s beak retracted for a final time and he reached his hands into the jellied mass. From the depths of Brother Michael’s chest cavity Thoth pulled out what looked like a large blue fetus. It was curled into itself, little fists closed tight. Its large head was hidden as it was buried against its knees; The ridges of its spine pressed little bumps against its sapphire back. Thoth looked at Linda and held the creature tight against his chest.

“There are still some sins in here yet.”

Linda leaned forward and shook her head defiantly. “I don’t need no more. I’ve had enough to fill me up for three days worth, ya ol’ b*****d. You give em’ to Ammet. Go on, nah!”

Thoth stretched his arms out and dropped the creature. The split second before the creature landed, the carpet surrounding it collapsed into a perfect black hole. Both Thoth and Linda peered inside as the creature landed neatly into a polished golden bowl held by two chain links holding it up, which was connected to a thin, golden pole that stretched out of sight. As the creature landed the bowl bobbed down and slightly lifted back up, and bobbed down again. Before either Thoth or Linda saw when the bowl would stop bobbing, the textured carpet corporealized inside the fill of the hole, making it disappear in an instant. Linda stepped forward and pressed her foot on the spot, making sure it was firmly carpet again.

“‘Save some for Ammet’,” Thoth chuckled. Linda pointed a warning finger at him.

After Linda recovered a plastic tarp from the garden trunk in the backyard, wrapped Brother Michael’s body and dragged it into the kitchen (all the while with Thoth sitting at the far end of the sofa sipping his tea), she doused the bloodstains on the sofa with OxyClean, pressed dry rags on them and covered it with a top layer of fresh newspapers. She slumped down on the opposite end of the sofa. A newspaper crunched beneath her. She looked at the joint she was smoking that lay on the table nearest to Thoth, a little fizzled out tatter of paper and black char, and tsked.

“I wantchu out of he’a. I don’t care whatchu came he’a fo’, but you playin’ games wit’ me an’ I ain’t havin’ it, Thoth.” Linda gave a single, solid nod and huffed out of her nostrils.

Thoth began to chuckle, hard. He slapped his hand on the armrest that he was resting his elbow on and uncrossed his legs to bow down between them.

“If I could give you a name…” Thoth sighed. “My… I would love to give you a name. That way, when you finally get out of this anonymity I can declare, ‘I have survived, on multiple occasions, the indomitable, insufferable -’ ” Thoth opened his mouth and made a swishing motion with his hand to finish the statement. “Liiinnnddaa.”

Linda shook her fists and crumpled her face in fury to hide how deeply she was blushing.

“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” she screamed. A loud thump from upstairs made them pause for a moment to look into the darkness beyond the top of the staircase. Linda heaved herself up and moved to the foot of the staircase. An uncomfortable silence filled the house. She turned back to face Thoth. “You disturbing my son.”

Thoth groaned. “He’s not your so-”

“You ain’t neva’ gon’ have him. Eva!” Linda threw her neck out at him with hands on her hips. She gave him a pointed leer and shuffled over in front of where Thoth was sitting and let out a deliberate exhale, waiting for Thoth to explain himself.

Thoth, brown hair slicked back and blood drying on his white button-up, cocked his head and gave a bored exhale back.

“May I kill you?”

Linda raised her eyebrow. “Ex-scuse me?”

Thoth smirked and lazily collapsed on his knees. “Pretty please?”

Linda lunged forward, quickly slapped Thoth across the face and jumped back to the spot in front of him. Thoth scratched an itch behind his ear.

“I don’t know how old you are. I’ve never asked. I don’t care. But I do feel concern for you. I still feel compassion for you. We may not have been the best love story this side of the Thames, but do not for a moment believe that my devotion for you wouldn’t have - easily - ended the skies and the Earth… and the heaven between the two of us.” Linda glared at him. Thoth licked his lips. “You are weary of running. You are weary of making life anew, decade after decade. Soon, there will be nowhere left to run. Technology will not allow it. You will be found out. You will be captured, experimented on; you will illicit fear and chaos in the world. You will be driven mad. Self-preservation is not meant for something like you. You acknowledge that everything I am telling you is true. There is not one thing I have told you that you have not already considered. You have thought about how to combat this. You cannot.”

Thoth leaned in. “I will not protect you. You are not a divine being. You are an aberration of flesh and spirit. Let me take you. Let me take you. If I can express my last morsel of passion for you, I will grant you my feather and assure your safe passage into my realm, and I will forevermore claim you under me.”

Linda pressed her lips together and pivoted her hip to the side, shaking her head. She looked at Thoth and nodded in serious consideration. Then her shoulders started to bob. She began to laugh. It was a horrific sound that began in the depths of her belly and climbed to a bellowing crescendo outward from her lungs.

“They will torture you!” Thoth’s eyes became shrunken and glinting again. “They will drive you mad!”

Linda had heard enough of his rambling. She was too old and too resourceful to be disrespected like this, even by a god. “Get out,” she said with a quiet fury. “I romanced you fo’ a hunnad years. I ain’t neva seen this from you, Thoth. You scared a somethin’. That’s right; you scared a’ somethin’an’ you have the fool idea to come he’a and bring this mess to me!?”

She bustled towards Thoth again, grabbed him by the side of his face and ripped out a chunk of his flesh. The skin stretched between her fingers before tearing away, slapping against her knuckles. She grabbed Thoth by his hair and pulled him off of his knees. She pushed him towards the front door. She pushed him and pushed him, her manic anger drawn on her grimaced face. Thoth slammed against the front door, knocking the small flower pot that sat on the window next to the door frame onto the carpet.

Thoth defensively pushed Linda back. Linda continued to move back until she stood, shoulders heaving, against the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. Thoth tilted his head, presenting the wound on his face. Smooth black feathers shone underneath the ragged flaps of skin. He reached up and scratched a feather loose. He plucked it from his face and twirled it casually between his fingers.

“I came a long way - ,” he started.

“Be sure to pack a lunch!” Linda shot back.

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t…” He licked his lips. He smoothed out the already-fine plumage of the feather between his fingers anxiously. In a flash, Thoth’s arm was outstretched. Linda heard a sharp chink behind her and whirred around. The feather was now punctured through the sliding glass door. The point where the edge of the feather and the glass met was undamaged, as if the glass was already produced around the feather.

Linda opened her mouth to curse. The left side of her face split apart from the part of her lips to the flesh of her jawline, creating a terrible glasgow smile. She gasped in surprise and flipped her head back around to face Thoth again. He was gone. She closed her mouth and rubbed the laceration on her face vigorously, as if she were scrubbing off make-up. Soon, the wound sealed and disappeared. She wiped away the saliva that spilled onto the outside of her cheek and rushed towards the bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet mirror, reached for the second shelf, pushed aside a pygmy carcass and a rattlesnake tail, and a grabbed a piece of black chalk. She closed the medicine cabinet and started scribbling on the mirror symbols that had long since been unused and forgotten. She dropped the chalk and screamed out a name.

“Persephone!”

The mirror shattered.

From behind the cracks Linda could see someone walking towards her from the other side. She caught a flash of wispy, black hair; perfectly straight, white teeth; kind, gray eyes. The figure moved forward until their face was as close to the mirror as they could get without pressing against it.

“Yes?”

Linda took a deep breath as she slowly got her bearings. “Baby, I think I may be in trouble.”

She grasped both hands on either side of the sink as she tried to calm herself.

“What has the power to scare an elder god?”