When I came to you with a toddler's open heart you only saw an annoyance, another mouth to feed, a bottom to wipe. But I saw you as my only hope to fill the void after losing my mother. She fought to keep me and instead I got you, you who counted the slices of cheese and totted up your balance book. My crying was “manipulation” and my sadness was “put on for attention.” Every day you looked at the kid in front you and killed him a little more. Killed him with “professional care.” All I am is hatred, all I am is rage, and I won't give you the God damn satisfaction of seeing me at the bottom of a bottle. I'm going to ruin you, I'm gonna see that you pay. But before you look down on me with your university degree and your government stamp of approval, know that I'm working day and night to become someone with authority over you. And when I am, I'm going to be just as “professional” as you were.

 

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In quiet moments you come to me, ghost-like, a shadow of who you were. When I am calm the spectre is kind, you laugh and I recall the times I felt like you loved me. But always there is the knowledge you never did. You gave me away like I was something you were glad to be free of, not caring how my story unfolded. In that cold stare, in the salty breeze that afternoon, you bade me farewell more coldly than a bank clerk and that's when I knew. If you feel it you can't hide it, but if you don't you can't fake it. Perhaps some can, or think they can, but there are always tells aren't there my love? Not that I needed to look hard. Your face was passive, untroubled at the parting. After all those years I expected more. You fought harder to keep the family dog, you get more upset at a grocery store error. So why do you still haunt me? I want to forget you but apparently that isn't my lot in life.

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Alfred watched. He watched as if there were a rolling pleasant music quite at home within his skull. “Ben,” he thought, “appears to be doing rather well for himself.” At once the fine suit on his rigid limbs felt colder, the fabric less luxurious. The stitching that had felt so fine was clumsy. “Rita,” he said, soft and mellow; violins played, overpowering the flutes. “Rita. Do call my tailor, there’s a love. And, invite dear Ken for a cream tea. I insist. My treat.” Mr Kenneth Cotton would pay for his shabby work. Yes. He would be punished for it, humiliated. Maybe he would be so unfortunate that his business would burn to the ground. Yes. This would be a very sweet cream tea indeed. He smiled. The violins played on, their strings singing out beneath long-drawn batons. “Rita,” he said, his voice falling to a rumbling cello-hum. “Fetch me the king’s tailor! Find him. Bring him to me!”

 

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They will love me, thought Edgar. Yes. They will all love me. How tedious it is to be born so superior, what a burden it is. He let his eyes roam the street as his barber coiffed what remained of his hair. He watched the people passing: the rich, the poor and everyone in between. Cattle. Yes, they are as cattle. He laughed. No, not cattle. Sheep. Sheeple. I’ll bet no-one has thought of that before! What a pity we can’t make fertiliser from them. The price of nitrates these days is absolute murder. Hmm. Another brilliant idea by me. I should be mayor; they don’t deserve my genius but with great ability comes great responsibility. 

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Behind his crumpled form, even the flowers collapsed in a desolate solidarity. As his eyes rained, the skies cried upon them and every hue of that living photograph was greyed. 

 

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His face solidified into a tightness as if he wore a concrete mask. With eyes the grey of steel knives, and a mouth just as sharp, the order was given. They say he was once a man, that long ago those eyes were blue and sunlit ponds, but a half century casual meanness had thickened into a well tailored cruelty.

 

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The pounding of my heart is a windowless and doorless room. A skull-storm rages on and on. How it booms, sending me back to the floor. How the electrical strikes blind. My limbs have trembled for so long that it is all I know. Fear and trembling. Is that a book? It sounds like a book. It should be a book.

 

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Fear sat at my table; he sat with the coldest glare. Then, eyes rolling, he stood and formed a ring of fire, a gate. Not so hard it seemed. Yet from above it rained petroleum, soaking me from crown to toe. I sat there for the longest time, my head a shambolic mess. Water. Get water. And at this thought a dessert grew, miles of sand all around. All there was the fire ring, the stench of petrol and scorching yellow grains. All that was left was my God call, and therein the answer came.

 

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Break my legs and demand I run. Crack my fingers and scream at me to write. Steal my food and demand I stay in robust health. Poison my water and scorn me for vomiting. Create fear in my brain and demand that I have clarity of thought and vision. Malevolent or dumb, I don’t care. Go. Go. Go and hush all that you are.

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