Scarleton Series I : Before the Cult (19 page)

Macxermillio
held his silence a lot longer enjoying the impact it has.
Heightened emotions and Macfearson were a lethal chemistry.

Macfearson went
on. “She definitely won’t mind, she is definitely serving it up
tonight.”

“Do me a
favour. If you wake up drive your sword through her heart.
Especially when she orgasms, or faking it – I really don’t give a
damn as long as you sample her,” Macxermillio replied darkly. He
had the type of sarcasm that was hard to note because his tone did
not fluctuate as much. One had to know him to get it, perhaps that
is the difference between dark humour, sarcasm or awkward humour.
Macxermillio stood upright and gave him the glare of reckoning,
graceful in its demeanour. His tactic was mostly one of
incongruence, the opponent never gets what they expect from
listening to that voice or studying his face. Also there was a
mysterious scar which no one knew where it came from. Stories were
spun about it but none was free from any doubt. I never knew what
those stories were, never truly wanted to know – it was one of
those things about him that granted him automatic authority.
Respect a man with a scare across his face. And no , even when we
asked he never told us.

Macxermillio
ambled towards the door. “I’m not aiding you. We agreed on this.
Don’t ruin it...you know what happens when you do that.”

“Ah, do I worry
you?” I asked Kim. Puzzled by her tone as she requests I tell her
what brings me here.

“I’m quite
curious. It is weird to say the least.”

“It might just
be I wanted to talk to you. Thought it would be fun to pay you,
gives you something to talk about or think about. Mundane things
never spark any conversation, it is the most unusual of things that
do,” was surprised the words rolled off my tongue and I had no
belief in their truth or falsity. The quantum of genuine confidence
in them was feeble.

She took a gulp
from her drink and hooked her handbag on her shoulder. She sat
upright like one preparing to leave. As I studied her, questions
bombarded my mind.

“Never looked
like one in the business for just that,” she said.

“That
means?”

“It never
appeared to be your intention to be honest. Never showed much
interest in me specifically for your claim to stand ground.”

“Hmm, I have
been told that I’m very bad at expressing myself. I am awfully hard
to read. That might have been the case,” I contended, scooting off
to an argument I wish she would not follow. Some things I would
rather keep to myself, other things I couldn’t trust a
lifeling
with. Jelly is better at holding things into place
than they are. I made the mistake of disclosing once and I would
not do it again. Creatures of deceit and dishonesty these
lifelings
were, even a shove of passion between her legs
would not sway them.

“I’m not saying
your expression was absent or difficult .”

“In your view
what would constitute someone who shows genuine interest to talk to
you. How would you tell by just looking at them or reading their
face – whatever the fuck you do?”

She pinched her
lower lip. “Okay. Okay. Are you saying you can’t read people’s
faces and what they mean? ”

“I’m not sure I
can. We are not animals that is why I prefer honesty to the full.
People being blunt and straightforward. Body language is part of a
‘guise. I am not the kind for faith and making conclusions based on
it like playing a game of poker.” I paused. “Say faith !”

She frowned.
“Faith?”

“Yeah, say the
word.”

“Faith,” she
looked puzzled.

“Just saying it
tires you. Isn’t it the most tiring and monotonous word you ever
heard?”

She
giggled.

I continued.
“Now imagine having to
do
the word. It is a waste of time,
Kim.”

“Okay-okay. I
see. But if you value being direct so much why can’t you be?”

“What gives you
the idea that I’m not being direct? Is it your faith once
more?”

She gasped in
exasperation. Dropped her shoulders and glanced down. “You make it
hard for people to care for you I imagine,” she quietly said,
almost to herself.

A tinge of
emotion swelled in me, sudden and convicting.

“Why are you
saying that?” my tone was more sullen and thoughtful. I could feel
the muscles in my face droop with the weight of some grave
emotion.

She scowled,
surprise or maybe shock in her eyes. “Um… well, you never really
wanna chat or open up .This way, I just imagine it must be hard for
those who would like to get to know you or for those who know you
to be there for you,” she spoke in very impersonal manner, treading
carefully so she may not upset me. This coldness was from a warm
place though, one too familiar for my liking.

I nodded
gradually, digesting the words. I measured the conviction in her
eyes through my playful visage and I tasted the thought of crushing
her confidence.

He strolled
into the pelting rain. The door behind him shutting with all the
music and festivities it housed. The torrent a roaring monster. The
black sky occasionally electrified with tendrils of lightning
through and between synapses of the dark menacing clouds. The
street and sidewalks deserted by its patrons, the hawkers, students
and beggars. It was a forlorn tonight. A sheet of water flowed
downhill, from up campus, on the road and overflowed onto the
sidewalk itself. The water thrashed like a cold shower from hell
but he was oblivious to his garment soaking and the cold. The water
trickled down to his boots and into them. He just stood there as if
unable to move from exhaustion. Just a dark figure with slumped
shoulders and a drooping head among the shadows.

“What the
fuck?” he muttered to himself. “I feel so freakin’ numb.”

He laughed
dryly, lifeless as ever. He reached into his side pocket. Felt for
a razor blade. He was sloppy and apathetic about the matter, not
caring if he cut himself. He retrieved it. Held it in his right
hand and pushed up the sleeve of his trench coat to expose his
wrist. For a while he stared at the many scars that straddled
across his wrist. Some red and some brown, some covered with scabs
. As the rain tapped his wrist. He felt a faint throb of pain from
his fresher scars as they came into contact with the rain. Finding
his wrist and lower arm crowded, he pushed the sleeve up to his
elbow to find two centimetre gaps between several thicker and older
scars. He stopped to think of how he had always considered the
thickest one a souvenir of time long past and entrenched in his
very being and character. It was one of the defining moments for
him. He smiled and shook his head at the memories and the faint
soothing voice of his mother. In truth that was all he had, that
faint voice, he remembered nothing of her or her face. Nothing of
his childhood. All he had to remember were the pictures of a bloody
knife in a small inexperienced hand and the voice of his mother
from behind his neck and how a moment afterwards there was a dull
throb in his left hand. The scar should have faded but he kept it
alive as a memento. Some attempts not honouring the true shape of
it but acceptably close to resembling it.

He shifted his
gaze across the street thinking maybe he should walk across for his
business. With no traffic but parked cars on either side of the
road the idea was he would acquire some privacy on the darker side
of the road where a number of streetlights were not working at
all.

And so he
walked.

What the fuck
is that over there? Oh, fuck! It is just a tree shaped funny. It
kinda looks like a person is leaning on it with his pot-belly
protruding,

He laughed.

Where should I
sit? Ummm, I think under the tree will be alright. The image could
make for an interesting portrait I think. Gloomy, dark and honest
like me, not those fucking rats in there without a fuckin’ breath
of life in them.

Whoa, was that
too harsh? Fuck it, fuck them! I have always been on my fuckin’ way
and they found me on this road. Seeking my fucking guidance and
wisdom, now they think they saw God?

I could use a
cigarette in my hand right now.

No. No it’s
fine.

I just need to
sit and… and do whatever it is I am doing right now. I have no idea
what I am doing right? Can I possibly be wrong in all of this?
Let’s truly think about it and bash our heads on it. First of all
they never had a clue what was wrong with them before they met me
or what they were. Now they assume they know shit about it. Always
been a lone wolf, really doesn’t matter what the hell they decide
to do.

Guess I belong
here on the road with my logic and common sense.

What the
hell was Macfearson talking about? It sounds like the same
conspiracy bullshit spewing from the mouths of
lifelings
.
“The calling has orchestrated it” he says. It is all the same
theory twisted around, or whatever way it can be.

A drunk whore
thinks she has uncovered the meaning of life and they go drooling
over her. I see meat. Just pure fuckin’ meat. I bet Cheryl has even
a brighter idea than Ms Prostitue. Fuck the bitch, and maybe your
wits will come back. Confusing seduction and lust for a profound
life changing experience for the calling itself. Are they so
desperate to believe anything?

Why didn’t I
tell him this? Damn !

Whoah, this
concrete is cold on my- wait , I can feel the water flowing right
under my balls.

He sat
cross-legged at the edge of sidewalk facing the bar. He sighed,
“This feels pretty good.”

As his thoughts
scampered about barren territory a weight came upon his shoulders.
The air around him constricted and the roar of the rain became
muffled. Things occupying his sight grew trite and surreal. Colour
seeped away to unknown depths, with it the sense of time and being
the occupant of his own body. He felt like a smudge on the tapestry
of existence and the universe. His thoughts weakening and melting
into a meaningless and nit witted goo. All he was and his core was
unknown to him. He was not sure if he had an ability to understand
anything or conceive of anything. It was as if his being was
stretched from an agent of his own will to a spectator. Any
connection to his being was diminished to a point of almost
non-being. The universe felt small and insignificant, like a
painting with no depth or life but the illusion of it – the
pointless struggle of becoming real, alive and meaningful. He
understood everything yet felt so stupid and ignorant.

He knew, with
instinctive knowledge, what he needed to ask. Not sure if his lips
moved or the words flew from his mind, he asked, “Why didn’t
you
come to me?”

Like a trigger
the monstrous arms of the abyss swerved towards his being and
uprooted it like a whirlwind. Violent convulsions engulfed him. His
screams must have been amplified because he was convinced his
throat was tearing like dry cloth and his jaws were breaking from
the projectile spewing out of him . To his ears there was nothing
but the sound of the emptiness compressing him on a very congested
atmosphere. He could see himself from a profile view and at the
same time the sight of his physical eyes. It felt as though he had
always been there and a deep understanding consumed him, divine but
not strange.

The voice of
the calling came to him as if from the dying embers of a soul,
windy and cold, “
Wasn’t I always with you?”

Suddenly filled
with shame so deep and so unbearable, he cried , “ FATHER ! I AM SO
SORRY. FORGIVE ME!”

He wept as more
layers of his stupidity peeled and how small his knowledge is
compared to the magnitude of that beast. He needed no explaining or
talk, he could just understand it now. In these few seconds it
seems his brain had aged a thousand more years. Mentalese was the
main language here, and for that he was grateful because the voice
of the calling was harrowing. The guilt was a thousand fold in
weight.

“STOP ! PLEASE,
FATHER!”

“
Do you
see?
” the voice spoke once more into his mind.

“I SURRENDER ,
FATHER ,” he cried, a torrent of tears gushing from his eyes. “YOUR
WILL BE DONE!”

“
I bestow to
thee, my son, this,”
forgiveness rang in that tone but it was
still too painful.

He was
underserving he knew. Instantly he was elated and at peace. The
arms of the calling shook him like a hurricane and tossed him to
the street and into the torrent. It was gone, the calling had left
him once more.

He lay on his
back in the middle of the street. Weeping with joy and divine
clarity. He knew now. It was too bright for the night he noticed.
As he turned his head to his right side he could see bright
headlights approaching, probably from a big delivery truck. Too
quickly for him.

Macxermillio
smiled, filled with joy and infinite gratitude at the sight of his
bestowal. “I
am
. I am
just
. I am – “ then the
graceful wheels pulverized his head with the weight of the truck
and its load.

I glanced on my
right and Macfearson stood there. His white hair frizzled and his
bulging bloodshot eyes with crimson rings testament to his state of
mind. He was a man standing on burning coal barefoot miserably
trying to contain his pain.

“You’re puked
up. What’s wrong?” I demanded.

With his
trembling hand, he reached into his breast pocket and drew a
hundred rand from it. “Keep the bitch , okay?” he told me.

“You don’t look
good. What the hell is going on?” I asked not accepting the
cash.