Archive for the ‘Angela Slatter’ Category
The Problem of Thorns
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Around the tower, a wall of thorns, in some places so thick she cannot make out what lies beyond. In a very few spots, she can see grey stone and ravens on an untamed lawn. The road she has taken ends abruptly at the prickly barrier. Left and right, the thorns have melded with the usual flora: she will find no path there. She reaches out to touch one of the branches, but misjudges and snags a finger on a long thorn.
She puts the digit in her mouth, sucks away the welling blood, tastes its metallic tang. The drop of blood remaining on the tip of the thorn gleams then begins to eat away the thorn bush like acid eats at metal. Soon, there is a wound in the wall, big enough for her to walk through. Behind her, the blood continues to erase the thorn bushes as if they never were.
Inside the tower, in a room at the very top of the stairs are the bones, the thread and the canvas of skin, waiting for her touch. On a roughened tabletop lie a quill, a needle and a bottle. At first, she thinks it filled with ink, but closer inspection shows a sluggish dark red: blood uncongealed after passing years. She twists the lid; it comes away with surprising ease. The scent of iron stains the air. She feels ill.
The quill is sharp. She picks it up, feels a tingle in her hand, and dips the nib into the blood-ink. She does not hesitate, sketches swiftly the face of the woman who inhabits her dreams. She knows without knowledge that this is her grandmother. The blood-ink soaks straight into the canvas of skin; it knows where it is to stay.
While she waits for the sketch to dry she picks about the tower, trying to find a trail, a story in the left-overs of a life. There is little enough and she realises the only truth here is that of the bones, for the bones remember everything.
She threads the fine silver needle with a long strand of tightly twined flax and black hair. As she stitches, the thread takes on the required colour: ebony black for hair, white as new snow for skin, red as a ripe apple for lips. She stitches and stitches, and wonders what will happen when she is finished.
Seek
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Pale and weak, I wake.
Another night of failure.
For a while, I said it wasn’t my fault. Nathaniel was too sensitive. Then guilt, that hollow sensation in your heart, in the invisible chamber where feelings reside, seeped in. I thought there would be an echo if someone knocked on me.
Nathaniel ran when he found me with Ben. I remember the devastation in his eyes, like he’d cracked inside. He didn’t come back. Eventually I was certain he was dead.
I had to apologise. I needed the doorway between the living and the dead. So I took to the streets.
The vamps live among the junkies and hookers. They don’t draw attention but everyone knows they’re there. Some go to turn, some for the thrill. Others go because the vamps stand one foot on either side of the doorway.
It’s hard to find one who will take you right to the edge. A death brings the cops. You need someone who doesn’t care.
I don’t want to turn. I just need to get closer.
I drink juice straight from the bottle. I wolf down stale danishes: sugar and carbs keep me going. Coffee would make me vibrate.
Outside, the sun is turning dark orange, sinking low. I leave the apartment. Last night’s suckhead only made me pass out. He wouldn’t risk it, but said there was someone who might. A new vamp, bereft of feeling.
The alley is a crack between two buildings. I take a deep breath and enter.
Water pools on the asphalt; moisture seeps down walls. A forgotten dumpster is wedged at the dead-end. It stinks of rotten food.
What do I say? The previous vamps knew what I wanted. Here I feel stupid. Noise, movement behind me; I turn.
Tall, big, the hood of the sweatshirt pulled well down over the face. I swallow.
‘What do you want?’ A low voice, rough with ill use.
‘I want the doorway.’
‘Why?’
‘To … apologise.’
He pauses, nods, pushes me against the dumpster. My neck is already dotted with wounds. He drinks deep and quick.
I slip out of my body, see the doorway. I call ‘Nathaniel’, but there’s no answer. I call again, but no one comes.
I drop back into my flesh. He’s taking too much. I hit out, dislodge the hood.
Devastated blue eyes flash; my blood bubbles. Soon it is dark.