Scarleton Series I : Before the Cult (22 page)

“Let’s fuckin’
go home,” his lips stiff as his voice.

My heart began
to pound. Thoughts searing in my mind, so quick I could not make
sense of them. “Where is Mac?” I started shivering.

“He’s
gone.”

“Kim invited me
to her car.”

He pressed his
lips together and slowly nodded. He sighed. “Where is she taking
you?”

“I don’t think
she is taking me anywhere.” Somehow he had become my master. I was
getting nervous and nervous then I talked to him. Yet I had no real
reason to be, what I was feeling was just a feeling. Like the
feeling of distrust I have always had towards him although he had
never done anything to me. His sheer presence was always something
that made my spine quiver. With Macfearson you always put you back
against the wall, never towards him.

Unexpectedly he
beastly struck the railings with his knees multiple times. Stopped
and walked a few paces back, turned and drew a deep breath. He
stood tall with no sign on injury to himself, overlooking the
street. Suddenly he was so composed that his prior display of rage
was nothing but a fragment of my own imagination . I was
dumbfounded for there was no way of telling what this whirlwind was
about unless one probed. And probing had its own shortcomings in
these moments, not even the subtle and well calculated kind. That
belief however may just have been a reflection of my own
uncertainty and lack of confidence when it came to dealing with
him.

Gosh, what the
hell is it with Kim?

“What the fuck
is going on, Fearson?” I blurted. “What is it with her?”

He gazed down
at me with a dry smirk on his face, as if he was saying “You are
goddamn lost”. He said nothing, only continued with his perplexing
gaze. He was looking at the person I was not, the person I should
be at that moment. It pleased him to have this advantage I
gathered.

“You wanna fuck
her?” he spoke, finally.

“I guess, you
told me I should go with it,” I pointed out.

“You got fucked
in the bathroom and now the magic is gone. I don’t feel it anymore.
I don’t have the feeling I had about her. The presence has left
her, we got side tracked into something else. The same good old,
Sands.”

“What is the
feeling you had?”

He looked at me
for a while, then, “Doesn’t matter. Just worthless.”

How does he
know that?

“You were not
interested in this exercise from the beginning. In fact you were
against this. Then you got here and after a few minutes or so you
drive this whole expedition like some goddamn captain, to the
extent that you pulled out your sword on Mac. I think you believed
she had some answers.” I surprised myself with such confrontation.
“Maybe you and Mac fought over this matter and he left leaving you
to do this on your own because he thought what you were thinking
was stupid. Now you realize it and you are too embarrassed to even
say anything. That is why you are so angry!”

It was like
those rare moments in dreams were you find yourself intelligible
all of a sudden.

Macfearson
shook his head with a dark grin on his face, turning to face me
audaciously. “You fucking freak!” he raised his voice. “Don’t you
get it? The only reason I’m kicking the hell of those railings
instead of you is because I’m trying to be kind. You fucked up! The
plan was in play now you fucked it up. Nothing was wrong or stupid,
you were stupid.”

I flinched at
the news, not a little convinced. “Well then where is Mac?” I
snapped. “This sounds like your plan, not ours.”

Macfearson
waved his hand wearily. “Does it matter? If I am right, does it
matter? The truth is you fucked up a plan that could have saved
us.”

“How ?”

“By getting
yourself kicked out of there, freak.” He pointed to the bar,
trembling with stifled rage. Apparently the kind he was displaying
now was not enough. I suspected it was out of proportion, there was
more to it than just a fucking plan.

“How did I do
that?” I protested. “Please explain to me.”

“You expect me
to believe you got punched in the guts? For no reason?” he
replied.

“Yes ! It did
happen.” I stood on my feet so he could take a look at my face for
any trace of deception that might represent itself, spread my arms
in the I-have-nothing-to-hide stance.

He snorted and
growled, frustrated. “You fucking wit! You are socially inept that
you wouldn’t even be aware if you fucked things up. You can’t read
freakin’ social cues and you hide behind something you call
‘being genuine’
when all you do is to be inappropriate and
offensive. You know this about yourself, why couldn’t you just stay
in the safe zone with the
whore
you paid? You should die and
go kill yourself, dopey.”

Tears quivered
in my eyes and my lips began trembling with ire, shame and
anguish.

If I blink the
tears will fall and if I speak…

“You monster! I
will kill you!” I wailed, blindness seeping into me.

“You know it
too well. All you are is pain. All you bring is death and sorrow to
those around you. Frankly the world, your friends, your family will
be better off without you. If you let me I will gladly tie you a
noose because I will be doing a great service to this fuckin’
world. Although I despise this world I would choose it instead of
you a million times over. Go fuck your whore maybe that will take
things off your mind for a while, but you will awake every morning
with the truth staring you in the face. You are filth,” he
continued hammering those nails.

He cupped my
face and had me look him in his eyes, I felt his warm breath on my
face. Then he coarsely whispered, “You are insignificant. Am I
wrong?”

I just gazed at
him, unable to make a sound than cry even more.

“Am I wrong?”
he said, his voice soothing and coaxing like the clutches of sleep
when one has to wake up and they are seduced into oversleeping.

I nodded, then
added with a whimper, “Yes!”

As I dropped
myself so I may slump on the ground he caught me in his warm
vicious embrace. I made no attempt to stand, he just held me
tightly as my legs dangled beneath me. I retched my sobs into his
shoulder, an avalanche’s worth. Weakness hit as a stroke …

My fragmented
and demented thoughts screamed in layers upon layers of an elegant
chaotic notes of discord. This discomposure coming with headache
inducing throbs pulsing through my temples, alluded to what
absolute weakness might feel like. At this point my rage was turned
inward, crushing the very chamber which once produced it. I was
collapsing on the strain of my own weight and I needed an outlet,
should have found an outlet, but this felt righteously directed.
All logic and law agreed, I had no right to harm anyone anymore, I
never had. Every breath I once took had caused nothing but
suffering. A bomb explosion wave after wave and getting stronger
with each explosion. Deceiving myself that I am the sufferer
wondering why everyone takes a shot at me or flees over the
horizon. My feeling of misplacement is the calling telling me to
stop the pain, end the suffering of the true and accept my place as
an anomaly. This was the answer… to everything. The crop, the
calling and deathlings. We are death and we should become death…
and death is home, death is the crop and the calling is the
instinct to death.

It was all a
call to matter. I had to matter, become
matter
.

“You are not
real right?” I asked. Leaning on the wall of the bar. Not as cold
and cosy as I was before. There was a sense of being transcendent
to where I was. Lifted out of the confines of the universe, just a
tinge. A tinge was plenty. Lucidity inducing.

A smile forged
from the corner of his mouth, the kind that conceals a lot more
than it conveys. The kind capable of misinforming and
misdirecting.

“I told her you
are not real,” I said, hoping to elicit a response of any
usefulness. For a person who always kept his emotions at surface
like leaves floating on the water he was surprisingly and
inconceivability calm. The person gazing at me now was of another
transcendent nature, if men have seen demons taking over people’s
bodies and minds that is what it would look like. It looks as
though the person you have come to know is completely gone, another
personality has taken over peering through the eyes. It dwelt in
the little facial features, gestures and postures. Even the
presence he emitted was foul and eerie, almost cold. He stood there
unshaken like a portrait, spreading mystery and unrest to his
surroundings. He screamed ‘See me and be mystified to ultimate
concern’.

I should be
scared
, I thought.

He answered,
“Real as a character in a book, real as the meaning of the words.
Real.”

My cheeks
twitched. “So it does not matter you’re not a sack of meat like me
or in any way material. What matter’s to you is that you make
things
matter
?”

He elegantly
shook his head. “Which is more prominent, Sandy, me as the product
of your imagination or you as a product of my actuality?”

“What are you
insinuating?” my heart suddenly pounded. Ramming the breath out of
my lungs, and making breathing wheezy hustle.

“What are
you
insinuating?” He returned. “Aren’t you revealing
something to yourself here?” He smiled, obviously amused in a
fatherly way. As if he trusted me to understand, or knew that I did
understand. I needed him to say
something,
something that
would make what was to come acceptable.

“I don’t know,”
I paused, “is it okay to call you an imaginary friend? Are you even
just imaginary in the ordinary sense? You and Macxermillio?”

“Are you actual
in the ordinary sense, Sandz?”

“Does not feel
like it,” I shrugged.

He nodded.
“Well, there you go. We are both struggling to accept what we are
fundamentally. You are just a
material
, an
it
, trying
to pass by as person. And I am an idea trying to pass on as person.
Now we see. Now we understand what
she
wanted us to
understand.”

“So that we
would accept it?”

He giggled. “I
guess so. She wanted us to see it for ourselves. To see give in to
the mystery. The details weren’t important.”

“How sure are
we of this. How sure are we of what we think we know now?”

He shook his
head, wide and slow. “Not that sure, Sandz. Does not feel right or
wrong. Giving in to the mystery has been the theme of the night,
and perhaps the theme of all the hustle we have had with the
calling all of our lives. Maybe the point is we are not really
supposed to know anything else than the fact that our pains and
woes shall disappear.”

He held out his
hand so I may hold it, as if he wanted to lead me somewhere. For a
while I did not understand the significance of the gesture or what
it meant. Picking up on the clueless-ness, then he told me , “There
is a truck coming from up campus. I think we should get
closer.”

I gave him my
left hand, and we walked to the edge of road. Peacefully, we, my
remaining imaginary friend and I, waited in the rain as the bright
headlights approached from up campus.

THE END

Dear Reader

Thanks for
taking the time to read my book. I hope you enjoyed it. I love
hearing from all of you and I take the time to read the emails and
reply. Email me at
[email protected]
.
Don’t hesitate. If you enjoyed this work please leave a review and
rate it. Why? Because reviews help others find my work and that
helps me continue writing. I love knowing that someone has enjoyed
my work as well. Don’t forget to check out the Reading Club Guide
for
Before the Cult
.

Thank you

Sandy Masia

Into the Grey
(an anthology)

Scarleton Series II
: Pyre of Envy
(to be released February 2016)

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Sandy Masia is
currently a student at Rhodes University majoring in Organisational
Psychology and Philosophy. He loves music, books and all things
art. He usually spends his spare time with his siblings and
friends. When he is not at university studying he stays with his
family in Kutlwanong, South Africa.

These are just
some suggestions of points that could be discussed, they aren’t all
there is to discuss. These points of discussion are designed to
help you the reader better appreciate the novel, even at a deeper
level (from characterization, plot, themes and more). This isn’t
the definite guide and more reveals and discussions will be had on
my platforms. Enjoy pondering and appreciating!

•If Macxermllio
and Macfearson are imaginary how much of the story has happened and
what are the implications of this fact?

•What does
having imaginary friends reveal about Sandy Macxermillian’s
character? Is he divided within himself, is this a helpful coping
mechanism or does it worsen his delusions? What does it imply about
his sense of morality or conscience?