Part 2. Due to overwhelming demand!
April 26th 2008 05:19
Well,
the demand wasn't quite overwhelming.
But I was certainly whelmed.....
slightly.
The POINT, is. I'm going to post some more anyway.
Taking it up from where we left off.
----------------------------- ----------------------------- ----------------------------- -
Flash.
Hester felt grave robber was a dirty word. His Mama always taught him against dirty things. And if Hester did nothing else, he remembered what his Mama said to him. Mama used to say, her bony fingers wagging in his face, “Hester, boy, you don’t go playin’ in any dirt now. Or you know what’ll happen.”
Hester never did know what would happen. He never had the chance to find out. He was always a good boy. Always following directions, never an independent thought gracing his mind. So after his Mama died suddenly, and Pap left (found months later, face down in a lake), Hester fell in with what his Mama always said to be the wrong people. Hester had never met any wrong people before, and so came upon them without even realising. Crazies and the like, she'd always said. No good for company. Mama always thought they should be locked away.
That rung a bell with Hester. Crazies? Someone else had said that to him. But Hester knew he had to concentrate on the task at hand.
So it happened that Hester was creeping through a cemetery in the dark, with a shovel. He felt a creeping sense of dread, clawing its way from his bowels upward. His Mama had warned against cemeteries. He remembered her croaking voice so vividly as if she was crouching behind a tombstone with him, “Hester, boy, magic is real. Don’t go foolin’ with it cause you ain’t smart nor tall enough to understand (Hester didn’t understand that part) and dark things prey on stupid people.” Though Hester never had seen any dark things, his Mama was right.
Hester climbed slowly over a slippery, moss covered wall. Inevitably, as He had terrible coordination on top of everything else, he fell. With a flurry of short, stunted limbs he tumbled to the ground. Hester sighed. Feeling cold and tired he looked upward to the angel statue he was narrowly missed. Gazing up, with his eyes un-focused, the statue looked puzzlingly like his Mama. Well that just couldn’t be true.
Could it?
“Hester!” the statue said, ”Stop foolin’ around.”
Eyes wide with a disbelieving stare, Hester groaned to his feet.
“Mama?”
“Boy, course it is”
In the place of the weeping angel now stood Hester’s Mama, her faded yellow nightdress flapped slightly in the slight breeze. Hester could even smell the damp, mouldy odour that constantly followed her around. He was quite fond of the odour, having kept most of her clothing after he buried her; he was quite used to the rotten smell.
“Hester, boy, what’re you doin’ out this late in a cemetery? Don’t you remember what I told you about cemeteries?”
Hester did. He remembered everything his Mama had told him.
“Yes Mama”, Hester mumbled, “I remember everything you told me.”
“Well get outta this cemetery, toot sweet.”
Hester’s Mama had always fancied herself an educated woman. Always slipping French words she had overheard (but never understood) into her sentences. Hester always thought they stood out like rotten fruit, though he’d never say this to his Mama. He had a mixture of fear and respect for Mama that changed from day to day. Even after she died, he dressed her in her best Sunday outfit, dusted off her sickly pink hat she liked to wear to church and buried both Mama and her hat deep in the woods behind Mama’s house.
“Hester, boy, you listenin’?”
Hester was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the scene. Though Hester mightn’t have been the smartest boy to walk the earth he wasn’t a vegetable and had a solid grasp of what was perceived as normality. His mind was at a stretch to comprehend the situation laid out before him and it was taking its toll on Hester. Sweat was dripping down from his (already thinning) hairline into his eyes making it even harder to keep his disbelieving eyes on his Mama. Hester was confused. He looked down at his hands and wondered why they look so frail? Like bone with skin stretched across it. He had always been a pudgy boy and this only compounded his confusion. The skin was yellow and look as though it was in the process of dying.
Dying?
Hester felt fine, if a little scared.
His mind gave up on trying to register the possibility of his Mama’s return from the grave since dealing with the problem years ago. Hester had hardly thought of the night up until now and, despite his strange hands, it was coming back to him with full force.
Hadn’t he buried her deep enough?
Memories flooded back into the barren landscape in Hester’s mind. His face tightening was the only indication of the struggle going on inside him. It had only been 8 months ago. Could this possibly be true?
Had he really done it?
Hester’s already overloaded mind registered his Mama’s question very last, after the night he had confronted his Mama played through his head.
“No, Mama.”
“What?!”
Mama’s surprised outburst struck out in the thick silence.
Hester never talked back.
Not ever. Not once in the twenty four years she had been taking care of that boy. Though, as far as Mama was concerned, Hester’s outrageous incident the day she died was completely forgotten. Mama did have some trouble remembering detail about her life. The jagged hole in the back of her skull made her memory fuzzy.
As Mama gazed at Hester with fury glowing in her eyes, her hands drifted upward towards the gaping, collapsed section of her head. Her finger found their way through the tangle of blood caked hair and edged across the bare bone of her skull. Wincing, Mama’s nails struck the jagged edge of the hole and sent a shiver down her spine that she would remember for the rest of her death. Most of her skull had been broken away or collapsed when the sledgehammer collided with the back of her head.
“Boy, are you talking back?” Hester’s Mama screamed, “To your own Mama?”
“No”, Hester stated, “Cause you ain’t my Mama, my Mama’s dead, I saw her die.”
“Die?” Mama said, her voice wavering with confusion, “Die? I’m not dead.”
Hester’s Mama glared at Hester as if she could change the fact. Hester knew he was right. He had watched his Mama’s crushed skull ooze onto her carpet, eyes fluttering and her mouth gasping like a fish out of water. Hester’s memory of the moment was oddly vivid. He could remember the pattern his Mama’s spilled brains had made on his white hospital robes as he stood, watching the last traces of life drip from her.
Hospital robes?
Hester had never worn anything like that in his life.
The floor was unfamiliar, too. Where had the white tiles come from? Hester had never been anywhere expensive enough to afford clean white tiles. The thought boggled his tiny mind. The day was coming back to him frighteningly strong now, his spade gone, replaced with the cobweb shrouded sledgehammer Mama kept out back. He raised the handle above his head and savoured the moment. His first rebellious act. But the tiles...
“Hest-“
Hester cut her sentence short with a strong well placed blow. Hester’s Mama fell off of her chair like...well, Hester had never seen anybody do that before or since. She just fell off of her chair quite hard. Hester took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and concentrated his mind away from the stench rising from his Mama. Pushing back to the present, Hester could hear his Mama saying something to him.
"Hester, get down from the table."
Hester's brow furrowed and he look at his mama in puzzlement. But his mama wasn't there anymore, a stern looking woman in a white coat, and one of those silly hats nurses wore, was frowning at him. She looked like a woman who knew how to frown as well, she took pride in her frowning. Making up for all the jovial people in the world. Hester immediately felt a deep powerful sadness and desperately wanted to get off the table. Though he knew he wasn't even standing on a table.
"Sir, remove yourself from the table at once. We cannot have such silliness here. You're exciting the other patients."
Eventually I usually get down from the table. Usually, when I get back, I'm standing on a table or sitting in a sink, or any other odd combination of ways to sit and body parts to sit on. I don't really get a choice.
So I get down from the table and sit down in the spare chair.
Sometimes by trips, I can tell they're fake. It usually means its a memory, or something I should think about.
But other times, they are real. I can tell they're real because I can see them, which makes sense to me. Nobody else here seems to believe me.
Tabi waves from the corner and some of her coffee spills to the ground.
Nobody minds because only I can see her, well thats what she tells me.
She seems awfully insightful, so I am usually inclined to believe her, and she's only slightly dead.
She tells me, she's a god. The Mayan god of suicide. Which, as you can imagine, means she has alot of time of her hands. Not much call for that sort of job anymore. See Tabi, as I call her, Because of her job, looks like a hanging victim. The rope still tied around her neck. Her eyes bulge, always on the edge of bursting.
Hi, she says. She's so jovial. Sometimes I just can't stand it. What with the moods i go through. Though she swings from mood to mood as well. Sometimes she acts as though we're old friends.
Sometimes lovers.
Sometimes she comes to me in the night and whispers I should just end it right now. Save us all the trouble. Wouldn't it be easier?
Hey, she says again, waving a limp hand at my face.
It used to bother me, her coming to see me at all hours. But not anymore, I never sleep anyway. She's just a little disconcerting. I gaze at her sunken eye sockets, filled with bulging eyes. The rope around her neck makes her voice sound painful. When she talks, its like pieces of glass grating together. You get used to it, but it takes a while.
The most startling thing, to me anyway, about her, she is completely naked. Lucky nobody can see her because that might be too much for some of these people to stand.
Like the other odd things about her you get used to, at first the palest skin of smoothest silk is something to admire. She's perfectly shaped, tall and precious features, and radiates an unnatural appeal that is the one thing I could never get used to.
But you look closer, when she's standing next to you and you sneak a peek at her perfect back or the line of her collar, you notice the bruises. All around her neck and jawline. Horrible purple, yellow and green bruises with mottled flecks of blood and bile shifting under the surface.
It detracts from her aura, as you can imagine. Whatever she is a god or not, shes undeniably beautiful.
But i'll only know her for 3 more months.
Anybody want more?
the demand wasn't quite overwhelming.
But I was certainly whelmed.....
slightly.
The POINT, is. I'm going to post some more anyway.
Taking it up from where we left off.
----------------------------- ----------------------------- ----------------------------- -
Flash.
Hester felt grave robber was a dirty word. His Mama always taught him against dirty things. And if Hester did nothing else, he remembered what his Mama said to him. Mama used to say, her bony fingers wagging in his face, “Hester, boy, you don’t go playin’ in any dirt now. Or you know what’ll happen.”
Hester never did know what would happen. He never had the chance to find out. He was always a good boy. Always following directions, never an independent thought gracing his mind. So after his Mama died suddenly, and Pap left (found months later, face down in a lake), Hester fell in with what his Mama always said to be the wrong people. Hester had never met any wrong people before, and so came upon them without even realising. Crazies and the like, she'd always said. No good for company. Mama always thought they should be locked away.
That rung a bell with Hester. Crazies? Someone else had said that to him. But Hester knew he had to concentrate on the task at hand.
So it happened that Hester was creeping through a cemetery in the dark, with a shovel. He felt a creeping sense of dread, clawing its way from his bowels upward. His Mama had warned against cemeteries. He remembered her croaking voice so vividly as if she was crouching behind a tombstone with him, “Hester, boy, magic is real. Don’t go foolin’ with it cause you ain’t smart nor tall enough to understand (Hester didn’t understand that part) and dark things prey on stupid people.” Though Hester never had seen any dark things, his Mama was right.
Hester climbed slowly over a slippery, moss covered wall. Inevitably, as He had terrible coordination on top of everything else, he fell. With a flurry of short, stunted limbs he tumbled to the ground. Hester sighed. Feeling cold and tired he looked upward to the angel statue he was narrowly missed. Gazing up, with his eyes un-focused, the statue looked puzzlingly like his Mama. Well that just couldn’t be true.
Could it?
“Hester!” the statue said, ”Stop foolin’ around.”
Eyes wide with a disbelieving stare, Hester groaned to his feet.
“Mama?”
“Boy, course it is”
In the place of the weeping angel now stood Hester’s Mama, her faded yellow nightdress flapped slightly in the slight breeze. Hester could even smell the damp, mouldy odour that constantly followed her around. He was quite fond of the odour, having kept most of her clothing after he buried her; he was quite used to the rotten smell.
“Hester, boy, what’re you doin’ out this late in a cemetery? Don’t you remember what I told you about cemeteries?”
Hester did. He remembered everything his Mama had told him.
“Yes Mama”, Hester mumbled, “I remember everything you told me.”
“Well get outta this cemetery, toot sweet.”
Hester’s Mama had always fancied herself an educated woman. Always slipping French words she had overheard (but never understood) into her sentences. Hester always thought they stood out like rotten fruit, though he’d never say this to his Mama. He had a mixture of fear and respect for Mama that changed from day to day. Even after she died, he dressed her in her best Sunday outfit, dusted off her sickly pink hat she liked to wear to church and buried both Mama and her hat deep in the woods behind Mama’s house.
“Hester, boy, you listenin’?”
Hester was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the scene. Though Hester mightn’t have been the smartest boy to walk the earth he wasn’t a vegetable and had a solid grasp of what was perceived as normality. His mind was at a stretch to comprehend the situation laid out before him and it was taking its toll on Hester. Sweat was dripping down from his (already thinning) hairline into his eyes making it even harder to keep his disbelieving eyes on his Mama. Hester was confused. He looked down at his hands and wondered why they look so frail? Like bone with skin stretched across it. He had always been a pudgy boy and this only compounded his confusion. The skin was yellow and look as though it was in the process of dying.
Dying?
Hester felt fine, if a little scared.
His mind gave up on trying to register the possibility of his Mama’s return from the grave since dealing with the problem years ago. Hester had hardly thought of the night up until now and, despite his strange hands, it was coming back to him with full force.
Hadn’t he buried her deep enough?
Memories flooded back into the barren landscape in Hester’s mind. His face tightening was the only indication of the struggle going on inside him. It had only been 8 months ago. Could this possibly be true?
Had he really done it?
Hester’s already overloaded mind registered his Mama’s question very last, after the night he had confronted his Mama played through his head.
“No, Mama.”
“What?!”
Mama’s surprised outburst struck out in the thick silence.
Hester never talked back.
Not ever. Not once in the twenty four years she had been taking care of that boy. Though, as far as Mama was concerned, Hester’s outrageous incident the day she died was completely forgotten. Mama did have some trouble remembering detail about her life. The jagged hole in the back of her skull made her memory fuzzy.
As Mama gazed at Hester with fury glowing in her eyes, her hands drifted upward towards the gaping, collapsed section of her head. Her finger found their way through the tangle of blood caked hair and edged across the bare bone of her skull. Wincing, Mama’s nails struck the jagged edge of the hole and sent a shiver down her spine that she would remember for the rest of her death. Most of her skull had been broken away or collapsed when the sledgehammer collided with the back of her head.
“Boy, are you talking back?” Hester’s Mama screamed, “To your own Mama?”
“No”, Hester stated, “Cause you ain’t my Mama, my Mama’s dead, I saw her die.”
“Die?” Mama said, her voice wavering with confusion, “Die? I’m not dead.”
Hester’s Mama glared at Hester as if she could change the fact. Hester knew he was right. He had watched his Mama’s crushed skull ooze onto her carpet, eyes fluttering and her mouth gasping like a fish out of water. Hester’s memory of the moment was oddly vivid. He could remember the pattern his Mama’s spilled brains had made on his white hospital robes as he stood, watching the last traces of life drip from her.
Hospital robes?
Hester had never worn anything like that in his life.
The floor was unfamiliar, too. Where had the white tiles come from? Hester had never been anywhere expensive enough to afford clean white tiles. The thought boggled his tiny mind. The day was coming back to him frighteningly strong now, his spade gone, replaced with the cobweb shrouded sledgehammer Mama kept out back. He raised the handle above his head and savoured the moment. His first rebellious act. But the tiles...
“Hest-“
Hester cut her sentence short with a strong well placed blow. Hester’s Mama fell off of her chair like...well, Hester had never seen anybody do that before or since. She just fell off of her chair quite hard. Hester took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and concentrated his mind away from the stench rising from his Mama. Pushing back to the present, Hester could hear his Mama saying something to him.
"Hester, get down from the table."
Hester's brow furrowed and he look at his mama in puzzlement. But his mama wasn't there anymore, a stern looking woman in a white coat, and one of those silly hats nurses wore, was frowning at him. She looked like a woman who knew how to frown as well, she took pride in her frowning. Making up for all the jovial people in the world. Hester immediately felt a deep powerful sadness and desperately wanted to get off the table. Though he knew he wasn't even standing on a table.
"Sir, remove yourself from the table at once. We cannot have such silliness here. You're exciting the other patients."
Eventually I usually get down from the table. Usually, when I get back, I'm standing on a table or sitting in a sink, or any other odd combination of ways to sit and body parts to sit on. I don't really get a choice.
So I get down from the table and sit down in the spare chair.
Sometimes by trips, I can tell they're fake. It usually means its a memory, or something I should think about.
But other times, they are real. I can tell they're real because I can see them, which makes sense to me. Nobody else here seems to believe me.
Tabi waves from the corner and some of her coffee spills to the ground.
Nobody minds because only I can see her, well thats what she tells me.
She seems awfully insightful, so I am usually inclined to believe her, and she's only slightly dead.
She tells me, she's a god. The Mayan god of suicide. Which, as you can imagine, means she has alot of time of her hands. Not much call for that sort of job anymore. See Tabi, as I call her, Because of her job, looks like a hanging victim. The rope still tied around her neck. Her eyes bulge, always on the edge of bursting.
Hi, she says. She's so jovial. Sometimes I just can't stand it. What with the moods i go through. Though she swings from mood to mood as well. Sometimes she acts as though we're old friends.
Sometimes lovers.
Sometimes she comes to me in the night and whispers I should just end it right now. Save us all the trouble. Wouldn't it be easier?
Hey, she says again, waving a limp hand at my face.
It used to bother me, her coming to see me at all hours. But not anymore, I never sleep anyway. She's just a little disconcerting. I gaze at her sunken eye sockets, filled with bulging eyes. The rope around her neck makes her voice sound painful. When she talks, its like pieces of glass grating together. You get used to it, but it takes a while.
The most startling thing, to me anyway, about her, she is completely naked. Lucky nobody can see her because that might be too much for some of these people to stand.
Like the other odd things about her you get used to, at first the palest skin of smoothest silk is something to admire. She's perfectly shaped, tall and precious features, and radiates an unnatural appeal that is the one thing I could never get used to.
But you look closer, when she's standing next to you and you sneak a peek at her perfect back or the line of her collar, you notice the bruises. All around her neck and jawline. Horrible purple, yellow and green bruises with mottled flecks of blood and bile shifting under the surface.
It detracts from her aura, as you can imagine. Whatever she is a god or not, shes undeniably beautiful.
But i'll only know her for 3 more months.
Anybody want more?
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