It held me fast and cold with a grip on my heart and a fist upon my lungs. I could hardly breathe in such cold. My heart could hardly summon the the strength to breathe. My chest could not summon the will to rise. My body was worn and bereft of the energy needed to live again and for some short time I resolved to die and fight the spirit upon its own ground. The Netherworld, I was capable, able and filled to the very brim with hate. This beast, this shade, this succubus would feel my wrath and feel it tenfold. I would destroy this leech, i would suck the power from it that it garnered from me.
Another short tale from me. It Is Dark Now, I hope that you like it.
It Is Dark Now
It is dark now. He sits with the lights dimmed the fire unlit.
He stares at the dead television. He has not switched it on for he frightened of what he might see.
He has not watched television since this started and has no intention of finding out if it works even on television. Even though he knows or at least feels that it will not he does not wish to take any chances.
It is his curse and he doesn’t want to know any more he wants to know nothing. Not for the first time he considers suicide but knows he will never do it he has not the guts for it but the release of death feels appealing to him.
This is the only time he feels safe locked in his small apartment alone his oasis, the place where he does not have to see anyone, he doesn’t have to touch anyone.
If the door goes he will just ignore it.
He had made the mistake of ordering pizza a few days ago and touched the delivery boy while paying him, he shudders at the thought but at least he knows the boy will live a long life though the manner of his death will be horrible at least he has a life in front of him.
He will never order pizza again. He will never answer the door again. He will never touch anyone ever again. If he can avoid it he will never even see anyone again.
He has only ever had it once while looking at someone, it seems to need touch for him to see but he doesn’t want to take anymore chances.
He wishes he did not have to work. If he didn’t need the money he would just sit here till he dies, never leaving the safety of his apartment. Never seeing anyone, never touching anyone.
But work he must for eat he must and he knows he will never end it all, he will never kill himself for he already knows the manner and time of his death.
It was the first thing he saw.
He has years to wait, years to wait for death to take him, the thought fills him with dread.
But he knows he must wait, he knows he does wait, he knows he endures this for a long time. A very long time.
He longs for death, he wishes for death, he courts death and cannot wait for it to come to him. You are a fool he thinks to himself and laughs quietly to himself, you are in love with death. Perhaps that’s what made you this way in the first place, perhaps that is why you see.
He pushes his head back against the backrest of the chair trying to relax and forces himself to breathe out and try to think of nothing.
Perhaps I shall sleep for once he thinks.
Please let it be so he thinks of clasping his hands in prayer but does not he doesn’t believe.
He of all people doesn’t believe, he laughs, he doesn’t believe when he knows it to be true. Oh the decadence of this race he thinks.
1.
He begins to drift into sleep and that is the worst thing that could have happened as he started thinking a very foolish thing to do, he tries so hard to keep the memories at bay, so very hard but when you start falling into sleep you mind has a tendency to wander, to consider and to extrapolate. It was a foolish thing to do and he will regret it as he always does when he is lucky enough to sleep.
But he will do this again and again.
The shock first hit him in the morning, the morning after it had rained heavily the night before, he remembered watching it fall from the window and thought the streets will be clean for once finally. The rain was so heavy it bounced from the streets and fell in sheets.
He liked watching the rain, especially downpours such as this, especially when he was inside and looking out.
He knew it would be cold outside, he could hear the wind and watched it driving the rain against his windows.
He watched a couple running down the street arm in arm trying to keep an umbrella in front of them but the wind kept blowing it inside out.
They would be as well giving up and just accepting that they will get wet he thinks, he smiles at their misfortune and thinking that they will have so much fun getting warm when they get home and strip off their wet clothes.
He smiles at the thought, it has been long since he was part of a couple and he wishes for it still. The thought pulls him back to wakefulness for his wish was granted and granted in a way that very night.
He shakes his head as though trying to rid it of the thought but it will not go, he smiles ruefully and rests his head back closing his eyes.
That was the first night he saw her.
He watched the couple and smiled but his eyes were drawn back to the street outside his apartment for a girl stood there unconcerned by the rain.he watched it run down her face and soak her hair. She seemed to be looking back at him but he knew she could not be for he was ten stories up and no one would see him looking out, especially through his rain covered window.
She wore a beige raincoat with a belt tied at the waist, her blond hair plastered to her face, he could see her grey skirt stopping just above the knee below it and could see she wore a red sweater for the top of the raincoat was undone.
She should fasten it to the neck he thinks and then realises that in this rain she will get soaked anyway so shes probably right, it wouldn’t make any difference.
Even were you to wear oilskins tonight you would still be soaked.
He has a momentary vision of the couple from earlier stripping each other of their wet clothes in front of a roaring fire.
He shakes his head to clear it again of such thoughts for those thoughts are of no use to him anymore.
2.
He tries to fall again into sleep for he needs it, he has seen the bags below his eyes and the dark rings that surround them due to lack of sleep.
He forces himself to try again he knows that even if you lie still you will get some rest and will feel better for it for that is one of the things he has learned while being unable to sleep.
She is there once more before him and he looks down on her from his window.
He is thinking that she is pretty, though it is difficult to tell from this height when a lightening flash lights the sky and almost blinds him. He imagines that it narrowly missed his window but he knows that’s probably silly lightening doesn’t hit windows or people that are inside.
But he smiles at the romance of the thought.
He was not smiling the next day, he didn’t think he would ever smile again.
He woke knowing both how and when he would die.
His memory was unaffected he thought but he just knew, it was not a feeling or a silly thought it was an understanding.
He knew exactly when he would die and how it would happen.
Too soon he thought at the time but he would come to wish for it sooner and would regret that it did not take him immediately.
But it did not and so he still sits in his room and wishes for something he knows will not come for some time.
It was a day like any other; the rain had stopped though the clouds still hung dark and grey in the spring sky. He rose and made his toilet and consumed a slice of buttered toast whilst slurping too hot coffee and rushed out of the apartment on his way to work as was usual.
He dismissed that knowledge, for it was foolishness only.
The streets are still wet but he splashes through the puddles without thinking on his way to work and cannot get the thought to leave his mind.
Fuck I am stupid he thinks, it was just a silly dream
For some reason he knows he is just fooling himself, that it is true and he knows.
He thinks of the girl in the rain while walking, could she have been looking up at me? He knows as he thinks it that he is being silly but enjoys the fantasy anyway.
Funny though now he thinks of it he cannot remember seeing her after the lightening strike.
Oh well he was so dazzled that she probably just walked away, it was ten minutes before he could see again.
He was fine till Tony tapped him on the shoulder and said hey rob we need some more work done on that drawing.
You?
3.
Tony lay in bed, he was much older or at least appeared so to Rob, his eyes fluttered his face was blue, a pallor hung onto him like mustard on bad ham. His breathing was heavy and many people stood around him. A woman with grey hair cried kneeling beside the bed; her hands would not leave him.
It came so suddenly that he never knew what to do, never knew how to cope with it but he learned, oh how he learned and became a master of it, a master of condolences, a master of saying the right thing at the hardest of times, for he had to.
After a while he avoided the touch of others and taught himself to ignore all that he saw he still had a life, went to a bar with his friends on a Tuesday just made sure he didn’t touch them in anyway. As things would happen he knew how they would both die but both would live long lives and die with their loved ones and so he did not feel so bad.
He went to the movies by himself on a Saturday, for lovers were no longer something he wished for, he had tried once but saw her cut down by a skidding bus and worse it was not going to be long, he would never take a lover again.
He was so glad he had not had children, he thought of that often and could not stand the thought, to know how our children die is worse than death itself.
One day he shook hands as you do with a friend.
He collapsed on the spot unable to breathe correctly
He had seen it and knew it to be true as always his friend would die that very night
And die he did exactly as had been foreseen
He attended the funeral a week later though he dreaded it as he would have to shake hands with so many for you must greet at a funeral to confirm to the living that they still do
And they do
He saw so many things that day and felt drunk with knowledge for he saw how they all died and knew when
Not many did he know which was lucky but some hurt so bad that he did not even notice when he shook hands with her.
Tears covered his eyes which is not unusual in those circumstances so no one noticed when he shook hands with the girl from the rain storm.
He laughed like a fool the tears clearing as there was nothing?
Nothing, he could feel nothing, not her death, nor her pain nor age
He was surprised that she had not worn black for the funeral but indeed had on the same clothes that he had seen her in: in the rain that night.
She smiled back at him her blue eyes betraying no tears.
I am so sorry for your loss he says as a matter of course for his mind was on those he had shook hands with before hand
4.
She just smiled back at him her teeth white her face perfect.
I have seen you before he says one day in the rain
Yes you have and you will see me again
Sorry?
But the queue pushed him onto other hands and other sights.
He felt almost sick by the end.
He will never go to another funeral he thinks
But it happened again and again he needed to go
He will not let friends go so easily
Rage rage against the dying of the light, Dylan Thomas said about the death of his father and rob felt this too he was not going to let a friend pass without paying respects
So he went, knowing the pain it would cause him
He followed the line as usual and shook hands with all as is always the case, no matter how much it hurt.
She stood in the line again and he shook hands with her eyes downcast as he felt so bad from those before, but feeling nothing startled him into awareness
He looked up at her.
Her hair was still plastered to her face as though she had been soaked again; he saw the shape of her breasts through the wet red sweater she wore.
Their hands had not parted as he shook with her.
She said; you are mine
And he said; everyone is eventually
Yes but you are mine, she said and when you come to me we will be as one.
He had years to wait, bad years full of knowing death and all that was to happen to everyone, many many years but he wished for death, he wished for death.
And would wish for her till he died
It Is Dark Now
It is dark now. He sits with the lights dimmed the fire unlit.
He stares at the dead television. He has not switched it on for he frightened of what he might see.
He has not watched television since this started and has no intention of finding out if it works even on television. Even though he knows or at least feels that it will not he does not wish to take any chances.
It is his curse and he doesn’t want to know any more he wants to know nothing. Not for the first time he considers suicide but knows he will never do it he has not the guts for it but the release of death feels appealing to him.
This is the only time he feels safe locked in his small apartment alone his oasis, the place where he does not have to see anyone, he doesn’t have to touch anyone.
If the door goes he will just ignore it.
He had made the mistake of ordering pizza a few days ago and touched the delivery boy while paying him, he shudders at the thought but at least he knows the boy will live a long life though the manner of his death will be horrible at least he has a life in front of him.
He will never order pizza again. He will never answer the door again. He will never touch anyone ever again. If he can avoid it he will never even see anyone again.
He has only ever had it once while looking at someone, it seems to need touch for him to see but he doesn’t want to take anymore chances.
He wishes he did not have to work. If he didn’t need the money he would just sit here till he dies, never leaving the safety of his apartment. Never seeing anyone, never touching anyone.
But work he must for eat he must and he knows he will never end it all, he will never kill himself for he already knows the manner and time of his death.
It was the first thing he saw.
He has years to wait, years to wait for death to take him, the thought fills him with dread.
But he knows he must wait, he knows he does wait, he knows he endures this for a long time. A very long time.
He longs for death, he wishes for death, he courts death and cannot wait for it to come to him. You are a fool he thinks to himself and laughs quietly to himself, you are in love with death. Perhaps that’s what made you this way in the first place, perhaps that is why you see.
He pushes his head back against the backrest of the chair trying to relax and forces himself to breathe out and try to think of nothing.
Perhaps I shall sleep for once he thinks.
Please let it be so he thinks of clasping his hands in prayer but does not he doesn’t believe.
He of all people doesn’t believe, he laughs, he doesn’t believe when he knows it to be true. Oh the decadence of this race he thinks.
1.
He begins to drift into sleep and that is the worst thing that could have happened as he started thinking a very foolish thing to do, he tries so hard to keep the memories at bay, so very hard but when you start falling into sleep you mind has a tendency to wander, to consider and to extrapolate. It was a foolish thing to do and he will regret it as he always does when he is lucky enough to sleep.
But he will do this again and again.
The shock first hit him in the morning, the morning after it had rained heavily the night before, he remembered watching it fall from the window and thought the streets will be clean for once finally. The rain was so heavy it bounced from the streets and fell in sheets.
He liked watching the rain, especially downpours such as this, especially when he was inside and looking out.
He knew it would be cold outside, he could hear the wind and watched it driving the rain against his windows.
He watched a couple running down the street arm in arm trying to keep an umbrella in front of them but the wind kept blowing it inside out.
They would be as well giving up and just accepting that they will get wet he thinks, he smiles at their misfortune and thinking that they will have so much fun getting warm when they get home and strip off their wet clothes.
He smiles at the thought, it has been long since he was part of a couple and he wishes for it still. The thought pulls him back to wakefulness for his wish was granted and granted in a way that very night.
He shakes his head as though trying to rid it of the thought but it will not go, he smiles ruefully and rests his head back closing his eyes.
That was the first night he saw her.
He watched the couple and smiled but his eyes were drawn back to the street outside his apartment for a girl stood there unconcerned by the rain.he watched it run down her face and soak her hair. She seemed to be looking back at him but he knew she could not be for he was ten stories up and no one would see him looking out, especially through his rain covered window.
She wore a beige raincoat with a belt tied at the waist, her blond hair plastered to her face, he could see her grey skirt stopping just above the knee below it and could see she wore a red sweater for the top of the raincoat was undone.
She should fasten it to the neck he thinks and then realises that in this rain she will get soaked anyway so shes probably right, it wouldn’t make any difference.
Even were you to wear oilskins tonight you would still be soaked.
He has a momentary vision of the couple from earlier stripping each other of their wet clothes in front of a roaring fire.
He shakes his head to clear it again of such thoughts for those thoughts are of no use to him anymore.
2.
He tries to fall again into sleep for he needs it, he has seen the bags below his eyes and the dark rings that surround them due to lack of sleep.
He forces himself to try again he knows that even if you lie still you will get some rest and will feel better for it for that is one of the things he has learned while being unable to sleep.
She is there once more before him and he looks down on her from his window.
He is thinking that she is pretty, though it is difficult to tell from this height when a lightening flash lights the sky and almost blinds him. He imagines that it narrowly missed his window but he knows that’s probably silly lightening doesn’t hit windows or people that are inside.
But he smiles at the romance of the thought.
He was not smiling the next day, he didn’t think he would ever smile again.
He woke knowing both how and when he would die.
His memory was unaffected he thought but he just knew, it was not a feeling or a silly thought it was an understanding.
He knew exactly when he would die and how it would happen.
Too soon he thought at the time but he would come to wish for it sooner and would regret that it did not take him immediately.
But it did not and so he still sits in his room and wishes for something he knows will not come for some time.
It was a day like any other; the rain had stopped though the clouds still hung dark and grey in the spring sky. He rose and made his toilet and consumed a slice of buttered toast whilst slurping too hot coffee and rushed out of the apartment on his way to work as was usual.
He dismissed that knowledge, for it was foolishness only.
The streets are still wet but he splashes through the puddles without thinking on his way to work and cannot get the thought to leave his mind.
Fuck I am stupid he thinks, it was just a silly dream
For some reason he knows he is just fooling himself, that it is true and he knows.
He thinks of the girl in the rain while walking, could she have been looking up at me? He knows as he thinks it that he is being silly but enjoys the fantasy anyway.
Funny though now he thinks of it he cannot remember seeing her after the lightening strike.
Oh well he was so dazzled that she probably just walked away, it was ten minutes before he could see again.
He was fine till Tony tapped him on the shoulder and said hey rob we need some more work done on that drawing.
You?
3.
Tony lay in bed, he was much older or at least appeared so to Rob, his eyes fluttered his face was blue, a pallor hung onto him like mustard on bad ham. His breathing was heavy and many people stood around him. A woman with grey hair cried kneeling beside the bed; her hands would not leave him.
It came so suddenly that he never knew what to do, never knew how to cope with it but he learned, oh how he learned and became a master of it, a master of condolences, a master of saying the right thing at the hardest of times, for he had to.
After a while he avoided the touch of others and taught himself to ignore all that he saw he still had a life, went to a bar with his friends on a Tuesday just made sure he didn’t touch them in anyway. As things would happen he knew how they would both die but both would live long lives and die with their loved ones and so he did not feel so bad.
He went to the movies by himself on a Saturday, for lovers were no longer something he wished for, he had tried once but saw her cut down by a skidding bus and worse it was not going to be long, he would never take a lover again.
He was so glad he had not had children, he thought of that often and could not stand the thought, to know how our children die is worse than death itself.
One day he shook hands as you do with a friend.
He collapsed on the spot unable to breathe correctly
He had seen it and knew it to be true as always his friend would die that very night
And die he did exactly as had been foreseen
He attended the funeral a week later though he dreaded it as he would have to shake hands with so many for you must greet at a funeral to confirm to the living that they still do
And they do
He saw so many things that day and felt drunk with knowledge for he saw how they all died and knew when
Not many did he know which was lucky but some hurt so bad that he did not even notice when he shook hands with her.
Tears covered his eyes which is not unusual in those circumstances so no one noticed when he shook hands with the girl from the rain storm.
He laughed like a fool the tears clearing as there was nothing?
Nothing, he could feel nothing, not her death, nor her pain nor age
He was surprised that she had not worn black for the funeral but indeed had on the same clothes that he had seen her in: in the rain that night.
She smiled back at him her blue eyes betraying no tears.
I am so sorry for your loss he says as a matter of course for his mind was on those he had shook hands with before hand
4.
She just smiled back at him her teeth white her face perfect.
I have seen you before he says one day in the rain
Yes you have and you will see me again
Sorry?
But the queue pushed him onto other hands and other sights.
He felt almost sick by the end.
He will never go to another funeral he thinks
But it happened again and again he needed to go
He will not let friends go so easily
Rage rage against the dying of the light, Dylan Thomas said about the death of his father and rob felt this too he was not going to let a friend pass without paying respects
So he went, knowing the pain it would cause him
He followed the line as usual and shook hands with all as is always the case, no matter how much it hurt.
She stood in the line again and he shook hands with her eyes downcast as he felt so bad from those before, but feeling nothing startled him into awareness
He looked up at her.
Her hair was still plastered to her face as though she had been soaked again; he saw the shape of her breasts through the wet red sweater she wore.
Their hands had not parted as he shook with her.
She said; you are mine
And he said; everyone is eventually
Yes but you are mine, she said and when you come to me we will be as one.
He had years to wait, bad years full of knowing death and all that was to happen to everyone, many many years but he wished for death, he wished for death.
And would wish for her till he died