It is impossible to say how long they had been insane. The madness was a
black pool in which they had, long, been drowning. It was toxic, yet it
seemed to give them an almost ethereal loveliness. A tainted beauty
enveloped their house and clung to them like so many flecks of ivory
colored mud.
He had been a soldier. The blood stains of war could
be seen beneath the slowly cracking facade. He lost himself somewhere
in the torn jungles of a foreign land and between the legs of a
beautiful, young, girl with soulless eyes. His infidelities, to both his
wife and himself, often stirred the fires of madness to the point of a
break. He would fling himself into a scalding tub of water and scream at
God for just a moment of peace. When it had passed he would remind
himself that God had died, with him, in those war torn jungles long ago.
She
had been a victim of incestuous desires, forced to run from her home to
escape an older brother. She had run as far as her twenty dollars and
sixty-two cents could take her before she began hocking the only thing
left to her. She married the first man that asked and lied, saying she
was eighteen. She was his wife, a leash on the madness, already creeping
in, until the war. Everything changed after that. While he was gone,
she took a lover and began to drink. The scars building on her arms and
torso were just to bleed, not to kill. There was no one there to care.
After
another fifth of whatever alcohol she can find, she stumbles into his
arms. He is shaking and whispering. He looks afraid, as if he were a
wounded rabbit being hunted by something more sinister than a fox.
"God
is dead. He died between that girl's legs in those forsaken jungles.
What a waste. What a tragedy." He whispers into her tousled amber hair
as he plants a small kiss on her pale earlobe. He is speaking nonsense,
he always does after the nightmares begin. And they always begin this
time of year.
~~~
The couple next door have finished
moving in and are having a celebratory dinner. They invite their
neighbors, though they feel uneasy around them. They can sense the
wrongness beneath the calm, everyone can. At first the young wife pleads
with her husband not to invite them. There is something there that
makes her frightened. Proper etiquette and good manners win in the end.
The
evening begins, quietly, with a few casual drinks and pleasantly
neutral banter. It grows into a robust game of chess, unwitting pawns in
the world of questions. It fades into a hulking paranoia, and
resentment, as the guests are politely introduced to the door. Good
nights and good byes are given and received as they part for the night.
~~~
The
paranoia sits on his chest as he tosses and turns. He must have the
beautiful young woman next door. She is perfect, so wonderfully fresh
and new. He must have her. His wife doesn't matter, she doesn't even compare. The young woman next door is all that matters.
He
watches her, day after day. He follows her as she walks home from the
store. He memorizes her curves as he stalks her. He is waiting for the
moment to take her, the moment where she will be his alone. He waits,
patiently, for a year, writhing in the heat of his lust and the agony of
his madness.
He takes her. Takes her just as he did a young girl
in a foreign country years ago. He strings her up and rakes his hot
hands over her body. He says he will take his time, enjoy her, but
impatience is a cruel master. It drives the knife into her writhing body
over and over. It is impotence and rage, tempered with insanity, that
drives the knife. He can no longer satisfy his wife or himself. Not
since that girl in the jungles where God died. He can no longer be a
man.
~~~
She finds him in the shed in the fenced-in
backyard. He is wallowing in blood and praying to his crucified Madonna.
He is crying and has cut himself. She finds his severed manhood lying
beside the young neighbor's wilting corpse. Gently, she lifts it from
the dirt floor and places it in an empty firefly jar.
She goes to
him then. She kneels beside him and takes his head into her lap,
caressing his tangled hair. She pries the knife from his hand and twines
her fingers with his. She bends over him to kiss his cheek, all the
while murmuring words of comfort. She imagines a crown of thorns on his
beautiful head as she slits his throat.
She ties him up beside
the neighbor woman and begins to devolve into her own wickedness. Her
eyes glitter with hatred and insanity, the madness a poisonous balm to
her breaking heart. She hums an off-key melody as she lines up jars.
They are mostly empty, but in her mind they are holding the parts of
every man that harmed her.
She croons, softly, to his body as it,
too, begins to wilt. She glances into his tear-bright eyes, still wide
in shock at his sudden demise. She sings to him, as if he were a sleepy
child. Brushing a stray wisp of hair from his face, she pats his cheek.
"A
beautiful forest, a sea of green, nestled at the foot of the mountain.
God stands within, laughing at the rotting demons strung amongst the
autumn leaves. Their eyes cry out and ghosts weep, quietly. No mortal
loves his life in that forest.
"You look so peaceful," she
whispers, caressing his cooling face. His eyes seem to be screaming at
her. "so calm and beautiful. You didn't have to take her when I would
have given myself up to your knife. Was my blood not perfect for this
exorcism? Was my heart not beating for you as the blade graced your
throat?
"What a waste. What a tragedy. What a beautiful blush the
harlot has upon her snowy cheek. She fell in love with you, even as you
wielded your blade against her. She parted softly with your name, a
hallowed prayer, upon her bloody lips. She was a rose and you stole her
petals, a goddess in flesh and you freed her from imprisonment.
"What now, my husband? What now, my love?"
She
sees him stir at these last words. A strangled scream escapes her mouth
as he sways toward her. His hands, once secured, now reach out to choke
her, to deny her breath. She claws and gnashes her teeth, sinking into
his cold flesh and tearing it. She hears him howling, like a werewolf,
his screams beating against the drum of her skull. All her struggle is
in vain.
~~~
They found her with her own hands wrapped
around her throat. Red teeth marks and torn flesh lay in abundance. The
two bodies, hung from the rafters, seemed to be in a lover's pose. A
bloody heart was drawn on the wall behind them.
When she was
revived all that could be discerned from her garbled speech was
"heaven." They led her away from the scene in a white coat, given to her
by the nice man also in white.
What they could not understand she knew all too well.
She had tasted heaven in her final scene.
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