Scarleton Series I : Before the Cult (11 page)

Although I
gnawed against the growing sense of premonition, rationality drove
me under. My arms were feeble and fluid-like against the cold
coarse surface of the premonition. Common sense would have it that
it was fitting
.
She seemed to like me although she had more
reasons not to. It did not make sense. An agenda was being carried
out at the cost of sex and pretence. She was advantageous in her
lair.

Wait…

“I don’t wanna
bore you with the rest of the whole story because I don’t think
this is what this session is about.” I glanced at the clock, 01:15.
The damn thing always slipped to 01:50 far quicker than I thought
it was fair. When the time came it always felt too soon. On the way
out my mind would be shrouded with the “what-ifs” and
“shouldn’t-haves”. Then my unresolved enigma would fester. Much
like a hangover deep in an existential crisis.

“The point is…
I got to see her that day - I mean on the date we had set together.
It was an eerie cold night. A bit windy. I wondered why she would
want to see me at night. It was just odd that she trusted me to be
with her alone in her room. Is she naïve? Was she just friendly? Am
I gonna get there and find her with a group of friends? I wondered.
I mean I wouldn’t feel safe inviting myself if I were her.” I
paused.

“You think
others shouldn’t trust you?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I
answered, incredulous. “People just assume I am a good person, I am
not saying I am bad person but I really hate that. What is it that
I do that gives people this picture? I still wonder. So I went
over. It was very pleasant. We chilled. I taught her the method and
we studied. We didn’t get to know each other enough to be
comfortable, therefore the silence in the room was just thorny.
It’s at this point where I started talking to her, asking her
trivial questions about herself in hopes that I will understand her
better. She was intrigued by me, she asked me a couple of
questions. The same kind of questions. Everything I said just
sounded like a lie to me. So I told her the truth about myself and
my problem. I cracked. She held me and told me that if I ever need
someone to talk to she will always be there to listen. I felt like
she got it, that finally I found that shoulder I could cry on. It
was too good to believe, but she was believable. Before I had only
seen stuff like that in movies. It meant a lot to me that it was
happening to me.

“As shit
happened during the week I called her. I needed to talk and stuff.
She didn’t answer my calls nor reply to any of my messages. On
Facebook she would be active but never flippen’ replied to my
inboxes. My emails were never returned. So it’s clear she was
avoiding me or ignoring me or just plain doing both. It is not like
she did not have time from the looks it, her status updates were
posted plenty of times. What is confusing is that whenever she sees
me in class she is all friendly and jolly like nothing happened.
Come the end of class she just goes on about her business like I
had just vanished from her world, like I never came into it at some
point. Even those chats are not really chats but only small talks.
This freakin’ confuses me, it makes me feel stupid. As Macfearson
would say, it smokes me up! I’m puked-up! Why is it when people
don’t like you or they don’t care about you they don’t just tell
you? Not in a harsh insulting way but in some civil or appropriate
to the situation manner. Save all of us the heartache.” I sighed.
Submerging into the ghost of those harrowing, pulverizing
moments.

My heart
sagged, malfunctioning. I felt ashamed, angry, rejected, tormented,
patronized and jizzed on. It stunk as much as it sucked like rotten
flesh, my face did a good job not hiding it. This was grief for
myself, or perhaps the
lifelings
themselves. Not that I
cared. There is no greater beast than that of human making.

Cheryl leaned
forward, making me nervous.

Don’t poke
at me lady
, I bawled inside, much aggressive than I will be
once I set my eyes on her. My defiled self cowered as it felt
exposed.

“So how would
you phrase something of that nature without being rude?” she
said.

I fidgeted.
“Well, I would say something like ‘Sandy, I can’t promise to be
your friend or be close to you, not that I don’t like you. I think
you are of value to some other people but not me and not now. But
we can always be acquaintances’ .But if the person does not mean
any of that they shouldn’t bother saying it. If the person hates me
and they don’t like me they should just say it. If they think I’m a
freak and a punk they should just say it. If they think I’m a
going-nowhere-John they should say it. That is so much better.”

She slightly
turned her face to one side, eyes still on me. “You won’t find it
rude or upsetting?”

I looked up,
formulating my answer. For a moment I got caught in the idea that I
was searching for an object to demonstrate with. “Well, to be
honest, it would be hurtful and concerning. Still better though. It
is easier to get over. No mystery, no trouble. It’s like getting
your school results only to discover you failed Math. If that is
important to you, you will be sad or stressed out for a couple of
days but eventually you will have some perspective on what to do
next. It saves a lot of time, energy and a trunk of
heartache...shock and confusion. You see? What music do you listen
to?”

“I don’t
understand.”

“Do you listen
to commercial rock?”

She shook her
head smiling. “Sometimes.” ‘some’ and ‘times’ sounded miles away
from each other in her utterance.

“Have you heard
‘Broken Strings’ by James Morrison?”

“I’m not
sure.”

“Not that it is
my kinda shit. I’m usually into more underground alternative stuff
but I like that song. It says something about the truth hurting but
the lies being even worse than that. I agree with that. I believe
more in the truth being the ultimate cure, no matter how sour. Lies
are nothing more but sweet poison. Much like ciggies, lies can
destroy you. The truth is a hard medicine to take, but it works.
Don’t mind people being honest, I love it. What I hate are posers.
Superficiality. I don’t get that. I hate that. What is the fucking
point?”

She nodded
tentatively. “I see. I understand. I am just wondering if you ever
considered that some people may find it hard to be honest with
you.”

“Yeah,” I said.
“In fact, I think they do. Anyway I was telling you this whole
story for a reason. Not because of my issues with trust and stuff
like that. What I was trying to say is that… being unique and
different puts me up for rejection, misunderstanding and ostracism.
It’s like I am a piece that does not fit
here
in this
puzzle. But a puzzle that belongs to another alien one. And I feel
the out-of-place-ness. I feel my edges bent and ruffled with so I
may fit. Even when I am finally forced in or somehow altered to, I
remain an oddity. A stain on the canvas. I am nonsense. Without
real ultimate use. The fact that I’m camouflaged into the painting
is so undeniably visible. I boil with the disprovable fact that I
don’t belong here. It’s not my place to take. If I find the
rightful piece I will gladly give it the spot it deserves. And I
hear, smell, and feel my family calling me on the other side.
Longing for me as much as my heart does. There is wind blowing
through the hole, insects crawling in and out, and dust filling in.
It’s every creature’s nature to forget and grow accustomed to
something. One thing that remembers even in the mist of
forgetfulness is the heart. The urges and emotions will soon grow
out of explanations and rationalizations. Soon the mind declares it
just a mood. From that point we are forever lost, hopeless and
helpless without even knowing it.

‘It’s just the
blues,’ we say, but the heart knows different.

‘It’s just
senseless thoughts,’ we say, but the spirit knows different.

‘Oh, it’s just
a dream,” we say, but the forgotten mind remembers.

‘It’s just a
compulsion’ we think, but our instincts know better.

It’s
the
calling
, it’s the
call
. Only you can’t comprehend it.
Some drug themselves senseless because of it. It nags and nags
until some search for answers is initiated. It’s so unbearable that
some end their lives. Then I wonder if it is out of choice, or if
they hear, believed and done what had to be done. Like taking the
right bus, knocking on the right door. Laying your life to sweet
fate.

Do you know
what my
cousins
say?” I paused, suddenly aware of how
discreetly solemn my tone is. I had zoned out.

“No, you
haven’t told me,” she said, intrigue blatant - something was also
present there too.

I stalled,
licking my lips, clearing my throat and resettling in the chair.
“They say to me ‘Blood waters the crops!’”

“You know what
it means?”

“No. I
don’t”

Silence.

“Then I see the
red fields. And some kind of a Gregorian chanting rising behind the
hills ‘This is Deathiculture. This is Deathiculture. This is truth.
The is It. The It. The it that is. The is that
is
!’” I
talked without my lips moving, I had a sensation that I was frozen
in place. It wasn’t anything disconcerting or aggressive. It was a
sweet release, an orgasmic caress of goose bumps. Shimmering and
rippling like a head rush.

Fuck me
now,
Macfearson’s voice whispered into my mind. That’s what he
always said as he had his first cigarette of the day – never in the
morning but in the afternoon.

“What do you do
then?” she asked.

“I… I just sit
there and become so… so… so something else,” my voice cracked and
trailed off.

It struck
01:40pm. Macxermillio and Macfearson waited patiently and silently.
Each romping in their own internal landscapes until Macfearson
spoke, “Mac, think you can play the game?”

It wasn’t much
of a game with clear objectives, rules and ultimately a winner and
a loser. It was an exercise. Macfearson’s remedy for his cravings
when he was removed from his lighter. It was only consisted of
imagining the most grotesque and gut wrenching possible ways to
kill a person and dispose the body.

“Hit me,
Fearson. What do you have?” Macxermillio grinned, delighted.

“Imagine if
there was a way to strip a person of all their flesh and bone and
all you have are his insides laying there. His head is still intact
and okay and somehow he is alive and you have his heart pumping
there on the table and all the juicy action,” Macfearson
initiated.

“Wow that would
be sweet. It would be like some kind of a squid with guts as
tentacles.” Macxermillio laughed, already visualizing it.

Macfearson
giggled, he was very fond of that laugh. It rarely came. “Then what
we would do is put his guts in a mixer and shred it like we making
juice for vampires.”

“With the head
stuck on top as the lid?”

“Yeah-yeah. We
gotta see that motherfucker’s eyes when we rip him apart!”

“I like that.”
A pause and a nod. “Fuck! That would be awesome!”

“There won’t be
any screams though.”

“Still cool.
Silent horror style.”

“Would be nice
to see anguish without all the noise getting in the way. High
definition fuck-up there.”

“See fear but
not hear it.” Macfearson nodded, excited.

Macxermillio
rubbed his palms together. “That would be fucking amazing to
do.”

Macfearson
squinted. “Oh my fuck! You are drooling in public.”

“An empty
waiting room.”

“Still a public
area!”

They both
laughed taken by their shared mischief.

“If the
receptionist hears this we’re going to a psychiatric hospital,”
Macxermillio teased.

“I can already
imagine CPU coming in here and cuffin’ us.”

“That would be
embarrassing.”

They went
silent, imagining what they discussed. The activity was accompanied
by stifled laughs and giggles. Macfearson’s game was a spontaneous
exchange of rare unrealistic ideas. Whether it fed our desires or
aggravated them was shunned, not to be contemplated.

“What if Sandy
walks out of that room changed? In a way this is a brainwashing
institution,” Macfearson started, the fun absent in his voice.

“You mean
how?”

“Say he comes
back and he suddenly believes he is just sick and can be treated
for a mental illness or whatever bullshit they teach here. He
starts asking us to join that little cult of his,” Macfearson
said.

“What are you
saying exactly? What are you asking of me?”

“Would you
believe him?” Eyes on the floor, his voice damp with supressed
emotion.

“With reason,
Fearson. I can’t imagine anything that will lead me to forsake
the crop
. Even God failed, for
crop’s
sake!”
Macxermillio smiled.

“I don’t trust
these people here and I am not saying this because I wanna go back
to sampling. It’s as if evil spirits roam around here. It feels
like it’s spellbound. There is a lurking evil here, and it drones.
As it drones my skin shrinks. It’s not pleasant at all. The Cheryl
looks like a goth devil worshiper.” Macfearson scowled.

“We have done
far more unpleasant things in our quest.”

“I disagree.”
Macfearson shook his head. “This is far worse. I feel it.”

“I respect your
intuition and I will keep that in mind. I will urge him to be
careful. We can’t just stop and call it off now.” Macxermillio
replied.

Macfearson’s
jaw jerked and he spoke through his teeth, “I see.”

“What is wrong
with me? Do you know what this
thing
is?” I asked
Cheryl.