dontravis.com blog post #548
I ran into my bud Mark Wildyr the other day, and we somehow ended up discussing our webs sites. We both post on the same day (and time), at 6:00 a.m. on Thursdays, although while I post each week, he plays lazy and posts only on the first and third Thursdays. But the point of this is that he confessed to reposting this Thursday, as had I. He also indicated the story he chose to repost was darker than usual.
Low
and behold, I’m reposting this week as well, and I think you’ll agree this one
is also dark. Is it a case of “great minds run….” Or is it that we’re two goof
balls out of the same package?
****
CLOUDS
Seeking to understand brought
its own form of headache. I shivered as if cold, which I was not. Fever touched
my brow, but I did not suffer the ague. My hands trembled without aid of
tremens. The me I knew, became the increasingly stranger me I did
not want to know as the mists—now darkish gray—descended, unbidden, unwanted. I
fought through a darkness tantalizingly sprinkled with shards of light to what
I knew lay at the center. The vision It brought.
The haze grew thinner, the
light stronger as I struggled through the masking mist toward a scene as yet
unmanifested. I loathed these revealings, all too often harbingers of disaster.
As the roiling strands of
vapor parted, my head pounded as I saw my neighbor Ben sprawled awkwardly
across the floor in his own kitchen, his body and clothing smeared like a
scarlet-rich palette had exploded. I drew a breath. This was not an oily hue
but mortal blood. One sightless blue eye was broken, as if cleft by the meat
cleaver lying on the floor, handle and blade smudged with drying gore. A
pungent, unpleasant odor invaded my reverie.
Horrified, I shrank back into
the protecting folds of dirty fog, but they pressed me forward to kneel beside
my friend and fruitlessly seek signs of life. Yielding to my fondness for the
young man, I cradled his lifeless body to my breast and muttered incantations
of sorrow. He gave offense by ignoring me, although the rational me recognized
it as no fault of his own.
I eased his inert frame—alive
and vital and handsome only hours ago—back onto the linoleum and gained my feet
to take out my phone and dial 9-1-1, providing my name and address to the
dispassionate voice on the other end of the line—a phrase no longer appropriate
as there was no “line” in this age of unfathomable electronics.
Done here, I gathered my now
welcome cloud around me and returned to my corporeal self back across the
street.
Seconds later—or perhaps
minutes or hours later—the mournful alarm of sirens shredded the neighborhood
calm as I huddled in my easy chair, an unread a book in my hands. Reading was
not appropriate while my young friend lay butchered nearby. But perhaps my
horrible dream would not prove reality, as was sometimes the case.
Exhausted, I did not peek
through the curtains as my neighbors most certainly did, seeking titillation
from the swarm of police in this staid and sedate neighborhood. Ah, but my mind
wanders. Be still and wait.
I have no idea how long before
the knock, but I started like a mouse belled by a cat when it came. My legs
managed to hold my suddenly heavy bulk as I shuffled to the door for
affirmation of my fears.
“Mr. Fisk?” a blunt faced man
standing on my porch asked. I nodded mutely as his piercing eyes raked me.
“Good morning, sir. I’m Detective Charles Grant.” He flashed a shield in my
face.
“Come in, Detective,” I
invited, backing away from the door.
He seemed cautious, but
accepted my invitation, although he paused until I turned away and returned to
my favorite recliner. Another man followed him into the room. The second man
was younger and much more attractive, putting me in mind of Ben. “Did… did you
find him?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. We found him. Dead
in his kitchen.”
“Murdered,” I mumbled… a
question sans question.
“Exactly. Hacked with a meat
cleaver. Probably his own.”
“Poor Ben. He was a nice man.”
“What was your relationship
with him?”
“Neighbor. Friend.”
“Is that all?” the second,
unnamed man asked, his mellow baritone catching my ear.
I smiled at him. “He moved in
about two years ago, and we became neighbors. Shout hello across the street.
Meet in the middle of the pavement to share our day.”
“Nothing more than that?”
Detective Grant’s voice was an intrusion. I preferred dealing with the other
man.
“What else could there be?”
“Before we get into that, how
did you know he was murdered?”
“I saw him.”
“Him who? The murderer?”
“No, I saw Ben lying on the
floor.”
“Let me get this straight. You
saw him on the floor of his kitchen?”
“Not exactly. You see, I have
these visions.”
Grant’s eyebrows reached for
the moon. “You saw a vision of him being killed?”
I shook my head, eyes locked
onto those thick, dark eyebrows. Would they dance like that again? “Yes, I
occasionally see things.”
“Before they happen?” the
younger policeman asked.
“Sadly, no. All my reveries
come after the event.”
“Did you go over to your
neighbor’s house after your… vision?”
I shook my head. “No.”
The police detective’s sudden
glare raised the hair on my arms. “Then why are you covered in blood? Most
likely his blood.”
My chin dropped in
astonishment as I held my hands before me. Red-streaked. Bloody! “I-I don’t
know.”
“Are those bloody fingerprints
on the meat cleaver gonna turn out to be yours?”
“How… how could they be?”
His voice dropped into a
snarl. “You left them when you hacked your neighbor to death. Get up and turn
around.”
I expected the younger
policeman, the nicer one, to speak up, but he didn’t.
“You’re under arrest for the
murder of Benjamin Pitman. You have the right—”
“Why would I do that?”
“I checked the record. He
lodged a complaint about you. You propositioned him, but when he refused, you
wouldn’t let it go. He got a restraining order against you.”
“For all the good that did,”
the formerly nice officer said.
As Detective Grant fixed the
manacles around my wrists, the cloud lifted, vanishing as quickly as it
arrived. And I saw things as they were.
It had a name now.
Madness.
Until next week.
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Don
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