NOW THAT I HAD LOOSENED MY GRIP FROM HER TENDER NECK, A SENSE OF PURE ECSTASY FILLED MY ENTIRE BODY. This was the moment I had dreamed of for twenty years and it felt better than I had ever imagined. And god, how many times I had imagined it! Some people say imagination is what brought humans this far. That it was this mental advantage that has made mankind the majestic overlord of the animal kingdom it is today. The storm was getting fiercer. A play starring the heavy winds and numerous lightning bolts dancing above the cornfields. The cat had crawled under the couch and I couldn’t quite figure out if that horrified look in its eyes was the result of the spectacle outside or because she had just witnessed her owner slowly being suffocated to death. I guess the cat’s brain is just not developed enough to distinguish the great poetry of death my late wife had uttered. Those wonderful last squeals were the most beautiful sounds that had ever come from between her lips. A sudden appearance in the sky caused the butterflies in my stomach to suddenly burst through the front exit. I slowly looked up from the puddle of barf to confirm what I thought I had seen. A magnificent chrome angel with huge hands for wings had now entered the stage outside, while clouds and lighting continued their choreography around it. “You know what this means.” I had no idea if the voice came from inside my head or if the cat had just spoken to me. “You are awarded a token from the gods, for the courage you have shown by carrying out your plans of liberating yourself from this demon bitch and doing it in the most honorable way: with the divine tools that made it possible for humanity to rise above every other species.” I will never look at them the same way anymore. They have forever changed my life and gotten rid of the burden that had erased every one of my dreams until there was only one left:
To kill this woman with my bare hands.
SHE HAD BEEN WEEPING UNCONTROLLABLY FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS. Every 2 hours I had to spray her with water to keep her from dehydration. However, someday soon the seed she had grown from would decide that the crop had no reason to survive anymore. That morning her usual hostile glower seemed to be absent. She wasn’t even crying that ferociously. Was today the day? Was she finally ready to tell me why she had been weeping all this time? Or was it because she felt the presence of the scyted man with the black cloak? I knew she had reconciled with the thought of a finite existence. She probably had only one goal left and it was to die. “I had a dream today,” She said, “it was about you…” I came closer to sit on the bed, listening closely, hoping to find some wisdom in her mumblings. “It was a morning like this one, and like every morning at 8 o’clock I heard the door squeaking. I knew it was you, because you had been coming in at this exact hour for the past two weeks. Only this time the door opened even slower, and you only opened it slightly over 45 degrees.” “Your head came through the opening and you had a scared look on your face. At first I thought this was it, I had finally scared you away, the last person who cared for me. My thoughts were confirmed when you said that you were just coming in to say hi, and then left with some lame excuse.” “I would never leave you…” I tried to comfort her, but she continued. “The hate I felt then was colored the darkest of blacks. But I loved it! As soon as the hate came in all my sorrows became unimportant! All the filth had been washed away!” “I wanted to get up and chase after you, to spit on you ,call you names. And to my great surprise I now had the energy to do it! I got up and busted through the door, but when I saw you…”
She looked at me and it seemed as if she would start crying again any moment now, but I urged her to finish the story.
“You stood in the hallway, crying, with a fully grown tumor on your back, same shape as mine. You know how I once said I would want to be with you again, if you could only grow the same deformation? I’m not so sure of that now… Because in the dream, I didn’t run to you to kiss you, to comfort you. I ran back to my room, disgusted, and happy I would never see you again.” We embraced eachother, and talked for the first time in two weeks. I had even seen her smile once or twice that day. That night when I came home from the hospital, I went straight to bed. I brushed my teeth, eyes closed, trying not to think of the small hand-shaped growth on my back.
“THAT’S NOT EVEN REMOTELY TRUE, I MEAN WHAT DO YOU EVEN LIKE ABOUT THOSE THINGS? There’s nothing romantic about ‘em, the way those 5 wiggly hornheaded worms are unaesthetically placed upon our wrists!” Our fifteenth beer had arrived, my cue to clarify the matter to my confused companion. “Let’s not talk about the shape for a moment. The reason you talk this way of them is only because you were taught to fall in love with the curvy graciousness of the body of a wealthy female. The visible bones subconsciously represent an image of poverty and therefore they are often viewed as unpleasant to the human eye.” I took another big drag from my filterless Gauloise and fed the Spirits of Conversation a sip of the alcoholic brew on the table in front of me. “It’s the movements they make. Over the years these tools have become true messengers of the soul!”
“Let me give you an example. You may remember I once told you about the time a headless woman entered my practice. She had been in a car accident and somehow the
doctors were able to keep her alive by placing her brain in a glass container they secured on top of her rump. This woman had been depressed ever since, for obvious reasons. She had always been the prettiest girl in school and now, as a faceless creature, she thought she would be doomed to a life without any affection, forever perceived by the outside world as a freak, seemingly unable to express herself.” My monologue was interrupted by my drinking buddy: “What a horrible story! To lose every way of conversation whatsoever! They should’ve just let the poor lady die!”
“Patience, the story isn’t over just yet…” I sneered, disgusted by his impatience.
“She was depressed, yes, but purely because of her own ignorance! The headless woman could not perceive the wonderful scene I had witnessed in the hallway: When she tried to explain her case to my secretary, every single one of the people in the waiting room, including myself, quit everything they had been doing and stared at the lady in complete awe! For the past year she had learned to use her hands so graciously to express herself, that one glance of this scene seemed more beautiful than witnessing 2 billion years of evolution!” I expected another interruption by my friend, but he remained silent.
“As for the answer to your “question”, A., our subject still had one sense you as well as she had not yet considered: her sense of touch…”
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