insteadoflight

[insteadoflight]

progress of two years

(dead body description following.)

Two years ago, the start to a story:

There’s a dead body in the laundry hamper. Fin can’t stop staring at it—at the still gash in the neck, the half-lidded, sightless eyes, the mouth parted slightly, lips ashen and pale. The body is contorted into some deeply uncomfortable position, the head propped up where he can see and the edge of the shoulders visible. The rest is folded into the hamper, but there’s a foot sticking up behind the head. 

Contorted corpse.

Fin supposes that’s where the blood for the summoning circle he’s trapped by came from.

The soul hasn’t dissolved from the body, yet, and that’s what Fin is really fascinated by. It’s utterly, totally rotten.

“Do you have any questions?” the angel asks. She’s sitting on the closed toilet, cross legged, a computer open on her lap. 

It’s the first moment she’s given Fin a chance to speak. 

Two days ago, the start to the same story:

There was a dead body in the laundry hamper. Judah could see the head sticking out. The body’s eyes were half lidded and blood was leaking out of the partially open mouth, but the gaping stab wound in the neck was pallid and empty, giving a glimpse of the throat’s darkness and the white flash of bone. Or. Maybe not bone. But it looked like bone.  Was there bone in the neck? Judah had failed biology. Either way, there was white and black in the stabbed neck and no blood. An arm stuck up at an odd angle. The fingers were limp. The orange light from the nightlight on the bathroom wall was puddling sickeningly on the hair and turning the pale skin of the dead man into the color of rotted milk. The lips were starting to bruise. Grayish. No flies yet. From his circle in the middle of the floor, he couldn’t smell it, not yet, but he imagined he could, imagined he could taste the salting blood on his lips and that was worse, somehow. Much worse. Judah swallowed. 

It was the first human Judah had ever seen. Figured, that it would be dead. 

[insteadoflight]

example:

i'm like, only 25% of the way through the first draft of...are we calling it Local Business? let's call it Local Business. horror comic, etc, the story isn't important the point is that i'm only 25% but i want to get to drawing it already and its like, no, fin, we can't do that till we're done with this thing, otherwise it will never be done

anyway, as someone who cannot think in a direct line it is extremely frustrating to realize that the only way i will ever complete things is if...i work in a direct line.

at some point i will stop being randomly obsessed with new projects, writing two drafts, and then getting discouraged after sharing it and putting it aside

honestly? i don't know what i'll do when that happens

[insteadoflight]

at some point i will stop being randomly obsessed with new projects, writing two drafts, and then getting discouraged after sharing it and putting it aside

honestly? i don't know what i'll do when that happens

[insteadoflight]

asr, who did not wake

There’s a woman waiting at the gate. Asr doesn’t recognize her; she’s fat and in tight jeans, and sunglasses. Her shirt has the floral pattern of the sort that Asr’s mother liked to wear. “You’re late,” the woman says. “Pardon?” “You,” the woman says, and points directly at Asr, “are late.” “I didn’t realize we’d met.” Asr tries to remember meeting her, and fails, and defaults to manners. “Is there something you need?” “We haven’t met, yet,” the woman says, and approaches Asr. She’s tall. Intimidating. The sort of woman who could say she’s actually the queen of the universe, and Asr wouldn’t doubt it. “You’re Asr, correct?” “Y…yes?” Asr steps back, and the woman follows. She pushes up her sunglasses with one finger. “Sorry, really, where…how do you know that?” Because Asr is a secret name—one no one but Asr, and apparently this woman, knows. The woman smiles coldly. “It’s written all over your face.”

Asr reaches up to check and discovers, horrifically, that there isn’t a face where there should be. There aren’t hands where there should be.

Asr is just a floating conscience.

“Where…where am I?” Asr asks, looking around, again, looking at the gate that looms and doesn’t gleam and at the darkness, thick and solid. “What is this place?”

“Hell,” the woman says, and grins.

Asr wakes up.

There’s the soft pat-pat-pat of a knock at the door and Asr stands up and out of bed and is relieved to find feet where they should be, and hands, and a face to touch. A nose. Asr never realized how important it was to touch a nose.

“Coming!” Asr calls, and hurries across the room.

There’s the soft pat-pat-pat of a gentle patient knock.

There’s a wooden bar hung across the front of the door, and Asr picks it up and gently puts it to one side. The chair at the base of the door is cold wood on Asr’s legs.

The first deadbolt gets unlocked.

Asr slides chain number the bottom to one side. Chain number the middle to one side. Twists the knob for deadbolt number four.

“Open up!” The pat-pat-pat of the knock comes again, still gentle.

“Just a minute,” Asr says, and knocks the chair away from the front of the door, and goes back to the locks, fingers working and the thunk-thunk of deadbolts and clink-clink of chains noisy.

Asr yanks deadbolt number three to one side, and reaches up to the key on the hook over the door, and unlocks it. Reaches down, and pulls chain number the bottom into the open position, and chain number the middle to one side. Slide for deadbolt two gets undone, and then twist the knob for deadbolt four.

Unlock the first deadbolt.

The third deadbolt is undone by Asr lifting the thing.

There’s a harder pat-pat-pat of the door. “Come on! Open up!”

The voice has deepened.

Cold creeps up from the soles of Asr’s bare feet in realization.

Asr slowly, carefully slides chain number the bottom into the open position.

Twist the knob for deadbolt four.

Chain number the top.

There are still deadbolts and chains and a padlock to unlock, a padlock that Asr knows wasn’t there a second ago. It glints cheerfully with shining steel.

The pat-pat-pat comes again. Hard. Demanding.

“Let. Me. In.”

A hand on the doorknob. A twist of it, even with the locks still done.

“Come in,” Asr says, throat dry.

The door swings inwards.

There’s no one there. On the other side of the door is a dim hallway, lit red by the faint glow of a far off exit sign. Metal doors line the hallway, with numbers like 2839B and 7693C and 1293D and Asr pokes their head out, slowly.

“Hello?”

Asr falls.

Asr lands in a playground, on asphalt. It’s familiar—from childhood. The sun gleams bright overhead, and over there is the bodega outside of which Asr got dumped for the first time. There are the monkey bars. Asr remembers slick hands, and the painful crack of a bone. There is the metal slide, and the child at the top slams their feet against the metal and yells thunderrrrrrrrrrr

“Thunderrr,” Asr says, and stands. There’s a smear of blood on the pavement, from Asr’s knee. The sun is hot, and sticky overhead.

Asr looks up, and the sun drips down the porcelain blue of the sky, in long, think strands of vanilla ice cream. Asr reaches up and how funny is it, to reach up to ice cream instead of down, and takes a long lick from the fingertip that has the ice cream.

It tastes like salt.

Asr’s arm drops.

“Hey!” the shout is from a smoking woman with a stroller, bony. She wears sunglasses, and a tight tanktop. Her skirt is floral. She has no shoes. The sun shifts overhead, and coolness falls on Asr’s shoulders. “The hell you doing here?”

“I—I fell,” Asr says. There are children playing hide and seek around the collumns. “Sorry. I think I’m on a bad high.” That would explain the locks, and the ice cream sun.

Although how Asr knows its a bad high—when there’s no memory of pills, or of flame and smoke, no memory.

No memory.

The sun looms down, dripping fat drops of ice cream onto the asphalt. It’s yellow. Mango, maybe, and Asr reaches down to taste it and yes, this time, it tastes like sugar.

The sun is thick.

“Yeah, you’re definitely high,” the woman says, sounding furious.

But there’s no feeling of floating, or of a buzz, and Asr’s feet stomps to ensure the ground is solid and present and close by.

No feeling.

“I didn’t mean to be here,” Asr says, apologetically.

“Then get the fuck out of the playground!” the woman yells, and Asr’s ears ring.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The ice cream river carries Asr away.

There’s a tea table on this barge, and the teapot on the table steams pink steam. It smells, when it wafts over to Asr, like strawberries.

Asr has never heard of strawberry tea.

The barge horn echoes.

A voice crackles, from over an intercom: Sit, and have some tea.

Asr remembers locks, and sits.

There’s fog around the barge, thick and swirling and faintly smelling of sweet, and the steam from the teapot swirls into it.

“How do…are there cups?” Asr asks. “I need a cup.”

The barge horn wails.

Pour, comes the voice over the intercom.

Asr, not one to question strange voices from unseen speakers on a barge that vanishes into sweet smelling fog, and the faint sound of a river lapping below sounding hungry for disobedient people named Asr, picks up the teapot and tips it to pour. A cup catches it, and the cup is a pale blue porcelain. When the liquid splashes into it, the cup turns green.

The liquid, on the otherhand, is a pale orange.

“Strawberry orange tea?” Asr asks. The waves lap loudly at the barge.

Drink, the voice comes.

This time, the barge horn howls second.

The tea, if it is tea, tastes like mint, and is icy against Asr’s teeth.

The water laps at the side of the barge, and Asr leans over to look and suddenly is at the edge of the barge, staring down into fog that deepens to maroon and below is black water.

“Are you thirsty?” Asr asks. When all else fails, have manners.

The barge horn echoes, and this time there is no voice over unseen speakers.

“Alright, then,” Asr says.

The cup is emptied over the side.

Asr melts.

Asr stands in darkness. There is a gate, up ahead, and feet, down below, though with certainty Asr knows these feet belong to someone else. Indeed, when the feet step fowards, Asr is left alone, behind.

Asr, after a moment, realizes, after turning and still seeing the gate, is darkness.

A woman stands.

That was the feet. The woman—that was the feet.

There’s the woman on the other side of the gate, and a dip in the darkness.

“Who are you?” Asr calls, running without legs, without arms to pump the air this place exists without. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” The woman turns, and looks through the bars of the gate. “Have a good evening, Asr.”

And Asr falls.

And in the morning, Asr cannot wake.

[insteadoflight]

cooking

is a love language of its own.

i am six years old and my father is making pancakes he stands behind me and he teaches me to wrap my tiny, chubby fingers around the spatula handle

quick maneuver, wait, plan, flip,                                                    he says.                                                                   quick maneuver, wait, plan, flip.  a golden pancake sits on the griddle, hot.

sometimes you don’t have the ingredients. 

i am nineteen and sitting in the corner of the kitchen on a chair watching

my twin brother makes me egg for dinner.  spinach.  he’d bought it, from the grocery store, early that day.

or the energy. 

it is late and my younger brother talks my ear off as we walk the hot pizzas back to the apartment. 

no cooking tonight but-- food, when given by those who love you is always a love language. 

i hope you know that

i am seven years old and sitting at the kitchen counter and my mother is making lentils stewed with garlic, and onion, and carrot and it is my favorite food, and  i am sitting at the kitchen counter watching my mother make lentils at the stove. 

when i helped you break into the school’s kitchen

i am eight years old and  my grandmother hates cooking.  she tells me this when i clumsily make pancakes for her the way i’ve been doing every weekend for the past three months.  “i like cleaning. you can cook all you want, kid, and i’ll clean for you,”  and i sprinkle in the chocolate chips i load the batter onto the pan.  “i like cooking,” i tell her, and 

                                                                quick maneuver, wait, plan, flip.

even though i was exhausted

“i want to make pizza bread for mj,” my roommate says. 

it is late. the small hand  on the clock

inches towards twelve. 

and tired and didn’t want to and then, suddenly, i did i had a panic attack, remember, almost, under the school’s kitchen counter and you laughed at me. we clutched the loaf of bread.  i laughed, silent,  and no one found us. 

i was pissed at you for three whole fucking days i hope you know. 

we melted cheese over the bread in the toaster oven and spread the sauce on top and what do you know mj was out. they didn’t eat it. 

it was my way of saying i love you. 

the pizza bread was delicious. 

[insteadoflight]

[insteadoflight]

Drain

do you remember how

in the bathtub, as a child

the water would make the most fearsome noises

as it fell out?

a hollowness sits in my chest and

i am surprised

the baseline of the music

doesn’t force me to crumble away on the wind

i was always scared of

the monster living in the drain who sucked the life out of the tub

and now i am scared of the monster in me

that sucks my soul dry

[insteadoflight]

the soap

bar on my desk looks like candy, and i wonder if 

lately i’ve been feeling happy, in a way where the emotion isn’t a bubble about to pop and slam me hard into concrete but rather a swell of a wave, bringing me to sea, and when i’m riding it i forget drowning is imminent. 

i am riding the wave and i feel alive and--

nothing, nothing, nothing can stop me and 

i can bite it, and it is very soft,

drowning

is not as bad as a crash into asphalt, since there is no pain, no breaking bones. just slow drifting, surrounded by bubbles and salt and fading sunlight. 

and my teeth leave an imprint, and why not bite through the whole thing?

[insteadoflight]

your most recent assignment: the tiger “Hobbes,” belonging to a child named Calvin. 

Tigers, you decide, after being attacked by mutant snowmen, pelted with snowballs, shoved down a how-is-that-even-fucking-legal cliff, and also bitten by a feral child and a feral stuffed animal, are more trouble than they’re worth. When you get transmorgified into a very small insect and then come face-to-face with the dreaded Spaceman Spiff, you decide that tigers are fine, actually, and Calvin is the one to watch out for. The tiger keeps him in check. 

You’re an assassin who gets hired by parents to dispose of imaginary friends that cause trouble.

[insteadoflight]

and you’re invisible, and you can only be seen in mirrors. which makes an interesting conundrum.  and you two discovered that the makeup on her is visible in mirrors as a floating, made-up face, the way that make-up is visible on your invisible face, and-- basically, fun houses are quite an experience with you two. 

You help your vampire friend put on makeup because she can’t see can’t see herself in the mirror.

[insteadoflight]

five ten twenty five minutes ago it was nothing, no time at all

and now the world is asleep and its three am 

again

again

and in five ten twenty five minutes i will be a withered skeleton on the ground

(at three am)

(again)

three am, again

and suddenly it’s three am again 

and

fuck fuck fuck fuck its three am again

time falls up and streams past and

how the fuck is it midnight thirty?

a screen, a haze of light. soft breathing, from the other room. 

and suddenly it’s three am again,

and i’m awake again, 

and my feet are glued to the floor and my bed is so far away and 

suddenly its three fucking am again 

and ive done nothing all day and nothing 

the day before and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and 

three am, again

three am, again.

where did it even go, which drain did the time disappear down? 

[insteadoflight]

three am, again

and suddenly it’s three am again 

and

fuck fuck fuck fuck its three am again

time falls up and streams past and

how the fuck is it midnight thirty?

a screen, a haze of light. soft breathing, from the other room. 

and suddenly it’s three am again,

and i’m awake again, 

and my feet are glued to the floor and my bed is so far away and 

suddenly its three fucking am again 

and ive done nothing all day and nothing 

the day before and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and 

three am, again

three am, again.

where did it even go, which drain did the time disappear down? 

[insteadoflight]

listening

mothers and fuckers alike i welcome you to yet another disaster of 

noise

crowds in from the corners of the room and  blinds the hearing with 

stress

creeps in like frost on  a winter window pane as patterns of swirls

form

a ball with the paper that has blank lines meant to be filled in with useless 

information

is what you  glean from listening to me fuckers and mothers alike i 

bid you a pleasant evening. 

[insteadoflight]

broken glass

is on the floor in the kitchen, so please wear 

this room is fucking freezing. the windows don’t work right, don’t keep out the chill. my fingers are ice, dusted with flour, and there are cold hands gripping my shoulders. 

five ten twenty five minutes ago i was shooting up happy and now i’m falling down sad, crashing through clouds and wispy hands of smoke hoping to stop me from smashing into the dirt below and 

s  h   a     t       t      e     r   i  n  g

music plays on the radio and guitar chords are an afterimage 

and in five ten twenty five minutes i will be sitting empty, cracked glass on the floor. 

shoes and someone get the vacuum or your feet’ll be cut.  

[insteadoflight]

snores

rise from the other bed as my 

tired runs beyond feeling and into a state of being. my mother asks me for help after dinner and i respond i

“am so tired. too tired to be around people”

and she looks at me across the table with sympathy in her eyes and wishes she can do something other than stare and whisper, “okay. another time, then” and i go upstairs to my room where i will lay on my bed until now, when i am falling awake at five am and wondering where all the tired has gone.

brother sleeps through the night in the way that i cannot. 

[insteadoflight]

days these days

there are days these days when it feels like an accomplishment to be alive. water is an afterthought. breathing is a chore.

there are days these days where my heart forgets how to beat in my chest, outlined in lead and weighted with stone, and it rests solid and heavy, thudding on occasion like a dying star.

there are days these days when i think i’ve found my way home and instead i am stuck in the same place i have been for eternity, waiting on a metaphorical rainy street corner as cars turn by too fast and splash me with gritty puddle water, and oil gets in my hair. being dry is a distant memory.

my coat is soaked through.

[insteadoflight]

missiles

are weapons, and they are built for a

anger is hot in my veins. 18:15, and chilly. i walk past the restaurants with outdoor seating and the sidewalk glistens with puddles, and the urge to punch a streetlamp almost overwhelms me. the night air is thick with laughter, and smiles, and people carving lives and happiness for themselves desperately even in this time when thousands die each day in a pandemic that doesn’t seem to end. 

happiness is a miraculous thing. it blooms even on days like today, unfurling even in the dark of the evening. a defiance, of sorts. 

all the happiness i feel lately is fake. 

the anger, too, is fake. 

i am a missile falling back to earth and it feels like soon i will hit, and explode, and in reality i will lay there on the ground and all that will have exploded is my energy to get back up. i will lay there among the pieces of my own motivation, and the sky will taunt me from up above. it will be blue porcelain. it will be streaked with lines of white. 

i will feel nothing, and that will be okay.

single purpose: to destroy, to destroy, to destroy.