Enigma
He looked through the heavy curtain of his black silk hair. Smoothly cut emerald eyes, whose liquid color shone iridescent though a screen of tears, shone like stars within hell’s blood red sky. Tears strained to escape the corners of his eyes; threatening to slide their salty translucent bodies down the fair skin of his angelic face, which glowed with an eerie luminescence. A threateningly erotic feeling spread like wildfire from the center of my being. The gentle beauty and savage strength that rippled though his body combined with the fragility of his features as the tears continued to roll down his smooth baby like skin. Defenseless and full of fear. His fear grew as I drew closer, his fear hung so thickly in the air it seems to choke it from my lungs. He crouched along the ground, pleading. Pleading for what only he would know. There was still a fire burning behind them, a small spark of what he used to be. The wildfire spread further rushing through my veins like liquid mercury.
I gazed upon him sadly. He cowered as I met his eyes. His beautiful deep green eyes, bottomless in the fading light looked empty and hollow. Utter defeat spoke through every expression, I reached for him as he started to quiver, reaching my hand out to him was like stretching my body over an abyss. I softly touched his cheek with long slender finger. A flood of emotion raged into me, it flowed and ebbed through out my body like the tide. This sea of his emotions was not of water but that of blood. The blood of the humans that had sacrificed a seemly insignificant part of themselves for him when in a world like ours nothing is insignificant. I watch the blood ascend toward me, thick waves ebbing nearer and nearer. Torment lapped at my feet as a dog would it’s estranged master. A bitter sweet taste like copper, slick and wet, at the back of my throat. The storm rolled over into me........... slowly.
Blackness. Not the peaceful, soothing calm of sleep, or even the final still blackness of death, but a shifting roaring blackness that suffocated. A thrashing, choking blackness that strangled the air from my lungs. It was like a wound forever destined to bleed; seeping the life from all it’s victims.
Lightning struck; the knife slashed down. The swiftness so astounding I was frozen in indecision. No longer was there a difference between up or down just everywhere, it seemed floating forever is a vast endless space. I cling desperately to the life I once knew; overwhelmed by the force flowing through me. A torrent between heaven or hell, where the blackness engulfs all. Engulfing all things joyous and entombing all things sorrowful. Nothing was left except a feeling of hollowness so deep that every thought echoes and resonates though my body like the broken voice of the poor nymph Echo. My fear overwhelms me; I let go and fly back through the darkness to the life I once knew and the beautiful emerald eyes of this man.. My eyes clenched tightly shut, holding back the tears that threatened to wash over me, ashamed by my own weakness and cursed by my own foolishness. I gaped at him with a new found understanding drenched in my own sweat. A weak look of recognition passed over his face.
Sobbing uncontrollably, the signs of pain so deeply etched into his features. My fingers danced across his face, like a faery’s soft kiss, trying to comfort him. I told him it would be all right and that all wounds heal in time. I could feel my words crumbles and tear like paper tigers within his body. I begged my forgiveness for my foolish words softly into his ear knowing that the damage had already been done and that no mere words could heal this man. His hope had vanished and it takes much more than mere words to fix such despair. Sick and helpless, I choked back my own sobs to tide over my stupidity. Why could I not see that nothing could be done. His despair was beyond my own, I could not help him.
Thick, black vines sprouted from a deep fissure in the earth like ropes and grew, crackling, stretching toward him like the arms of a once dead lover come to wreak her vengeance and claim what is hers. It’s pitch black flowers opened with a hiss. The dangerous promise of poison glistened from those dark petals. He threw back his head, eyes clenched shut, as a terrifying yell emerge from his throat extending the deepest part of him. From the extremities of his soul came a cry, anguished and tormented, between a scream and a howl. It was music to which the demons danced, that hollow anguished plea. His fair skin broke into a sweat, his eyes searched wildly like a panicked animal. He knew he couldn’t escape. The quiet desperation in his eyes only proved how much he wished he could.
I screamed too, a deep scream that pierced the encroaching night from deep within my bowels, and in that moment’s movement, halfway between decision and impulse, I thrust my hands down upon his chest. My head thrown back in denial against my own action.
Instantaneously, I was engulfed by an even thicker blackness ten times denser than the blackness that raged through the man with the emerald eyes. Drowning asphyxiated in blackness I spun madly; I could not see, I thrashed and writhed in my dark, wet cocoon. Twisting in my own epileptic dance. As I fought the infinite darkness. I heard a voice, whispering softly into my ear and I paused.
“Let go. Go back. You could let me take him quietly and not defy me in such a way. He would be gone soon. Why would you choose to take his place You don’t know him enough to love him, and even so- if you love him, let him go. Let me have him.” The black serpent’s harsh, deep voice hissed as it’s sinuous body coiled about my neck. It’s scales had a sheen like oil. Obsidian eyes burned with intensity. It’s harsh, deep voice still forever echoing resiliently in my mind. It’s forked tongue flicked into the blackness flashing from within like a fluid silver blade.
It was right, I thought with contemptuous disgust. I began to pull myself out and away, but as I started to move, I heard something. A steady distant thunder which hadn’t been there before. It grew louder - a deafening throbbing sound like that of a drum getting louder and louder with every beat. Loud enough to even shake the deep welling blackness.
It was his heart beating.
The deep steady throb of life flowing through a body.
I fell back into the darkness with a smile. Evil could have me, but I had still won.
I did not fight the blackness this time, but breathed it. Swallowed it. Wallowing in the knowledge of my triumph. You will never have this man, this man with the beautiful emerald eyes. I tipped my head back in ecstasy and drank it’s disease. Intoxicated by the thrill of the deep finality of death, my ego swelled in those last few moments of my life. Knowing I had finally helped this man, which of whom I had not even spoken with, yet had shared so much. I died listening to his heartbeat grow stronger, the deep throb that racked the darkness pronouncing my triumph.
I awoke drenched in a cold sweat, panting for air. I longed again for the sweet intoxication of death to over come the bitter essence of life.