All Because of Annabelle (Tentative Title)
The moon was on the downturn of fullness. He could see the subtle change wane through the hour. No human could see what he saw, not even others like him. Power made him lonely. Power made him unapproachable. Power made him angry and vicious, and hungry. Power made others fear him. Power always made things happen the way he wanted; or thought he wanted. It was never what he wanted, usually, in the end. He drove people away, especially women: human or his kind. Power was hated by those who didn’t have it, and by those who did—they just didn’t know it. Power that he strove for after. . . .
There was only one woman who ever touched his black soul and drove him deeper into the night. If the depth grew more, it would bring total destruction of civilization (as humans knew it). He would make it so. Right now, at this thought, he knew wickedly laughing was acceptable. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t; it just wasn’t there. His whole eternity was based on causing humans havoc, as were the children of his flesh. However, there was always something to keep him, to keep all of them in check. Humans were multiplying faster than the race he began, and somewhere in the rules (wherever they came from), human killing was unacceptable for feeding. Take a little, just a little; only a little was too tempting, so he would find an abomination: drug dealer, serial killer, druggies at the end of life, suicide victim. That sounded so odd. A victim of self. To some end, everyone was a victim of self, especially him. No blood, he would die. Bloodthirsty was unacceptable. Druggies were the easiest to find but the nasty after taste and the hang over following was more than he cared to have tonight. I know you can hear me out there—druggies are my alcohol. I don’t like alcohol.
“Why were rules ever put in place?” he stomped the spider crawling along the footbridge strung across the Mississinewa River. The sign read: Put in place on June of 2010 by the Huntington College Restoration Club for Better River Views. A form of a conservation club, probably. The splatter was vile and inviting. Big spiders always were; he bit his lower lip. The thought once revolted him. Why such a thought? He had no clear memories from his first millennium of life. A snatch of memory would permeate a few seconds when he came into direct contact with an object from that era, or a piece of history written down—in any language. How old was he? Yes, how old am I? I know you can answer me but you ignore me. Why? A few centuries lost in a long life is one thing but a blurred life of much. . . ? Hell! Look at him! Anything was possible. Anything except him changing into a saint, or being saved from damnation.
There was something greater out there, surely. His heart spoke that truth by a love long ago. His teeth grinded, shoving the memory back. No big bang created beauty among chaotic humans. Human. He felt there was some connection between him and humans. Many of his kind had settled down with a human; the weaker of his kind had settled with a human. Those who lived human had a taste for cooked meats, raw and cooked vegetables, fruits. Something drove them to the life he would hear them say. He still enjoyed fruits. They took the bite out of the salty after taste of feeding. The saltiness was always a problem. It choked him. Cursed to love the blood and hate the preserver.
His attention swung to a frog croaking at the water’s edge. Something about that frog reminded him he needed to be on the move. He wasn’t sure where he was going yet, but he would know when he was there. The land felt familiar, comfortable, part of him. This was his first time here. Still, something drew him in. He was getting closer. More than ever he felt confused within . . . everything: feelings, existence, self, just being. What did it all mean? Since when was he unsure of himself?
As he asked himself those questions he remembered Annabelle, again. Warm. Understanding. Caring. In love with him.
“No,” he screamed, hushing the song of the frog. He couldn’t allow himself such feelings. “I killed her,” he began to sob. “I killed her.”
Tears weren’t affordable. Tears dripped down his cheek for the first time since Annabelle’s burial. Tears developed softness. He was the only person to attend, besides the priest. Tears made him feel. That priest attempted to help him, to cast out the demon that drove his blood lust. In the end, starvation drove him to kill two people in the local village. All because he wanted to be with Annabelle—like a human. Her death was all due to his failure; his sin put upon her for loving him. If it had not been for the priest, he would have wiped out the whole village for their insolence.
That night, after the funeral, several elders appeared and took him away. He may be the beginning of his kind but rules are rules. His Punishment? Ridding the locals of problems: rabbits, moles, rats, wolves. For six hundred years the village thrived. No disease from vermin, gardens undestroyed, and cattle production well and in high quality. Three hundred years for each victim. Howbeit, the village didn’t serve for killing Annabelle? God will judge, the Priest told him.
The elders. That was another question in need of an answer. If he was the first of his kind, why were they in charge? How are they his elders when he is the first? He could sense differences in them, one of them with almost human-like qualities, she also stronger than the others. Still, if he wanted, he was powerful enough to destroy them—not all at once but destroy them. That said, he also knew they would destroy him: kill flesh of his flesh; thus, destroying him. If there were anything he cared about, it was the survival of his race. Weren’t the elders of his race? If only he had those memories. His kind would and will and can survive when the humans finally annihilated each other. That alone kept him in check for now. However, most humans destroyed what they didn’t understand. And once they did understand, it was usually too late. Plus, they had more compassion for lower life forms than themselves; hating another for differences was reason to kill.
Come now, Troy; you know that not to be true.
His inner voice messing with his clear cut view that allowed life to be simpler. He hated when he spoke to himself, arguing with himself, as if another being existed within him, hidden until his black and white ideas didn’t mesh with logic or sense or feelings. Feelings: he had lost them long ago.
In the distance he heard a vehicle. Not a semi: the sound didn’t echo long enough with the reverberation of several tires. The air was changing. Rain was on the way. In four hours the sun would be dutifully claiming the black. He couldn’t remember seeing the earth in its full cloak of glory. Had he ever? Tonight he didn’t feel like being wet and having to stop an hour before sunrise to hide, build a fire, dry, and then bed.
“I’ll don my protective clothing and find a ride before the rain gets here,” he expressed to the silence. Sometimes he needed to hear a voice.
Something not yet learned, and failing to understand, were pop-up storms. This region of the world was well known for devastation to breach a beautiful sky in the matter of minutes without warning. He wouldn’t have an hour before the rain tumbled and pummeled him. He needed to pay attention to the odor in the air when the wind brought it down instead of what he saw he in the sky. The sky lied here, right up to the last minute.
Walking in a northerly direction he stayed away from the road, any road, especially highway 9. He didn’t care for moving vehicles: traps. Still, he knew he needed to travel faster, and a vehicle was better than foot and rain. He waned on for a bit, crunching through the fallen branches and debris. Taking a flight from Madrid to Atlanta was quite enough. In his thousand years of life, the closest to owning any contraption (other than a horse) was a motorbike, unless he counted the hundred or so bicycles he had collected (left in Spain). He wouldn’t mind having one of those bikes right now. Human power at its best. However, fumes from the vehicles made him . . . choke, for all practical purposes. Allergic reaction to the chemical breakdown of processed natural gas in all its forms. He had fixed that with the bikes he rode. He wished his kind had wings like the fictional characters in books. Travel would be easy.
The breeze increased to a slow gust, lifting dirt from the barren ground, twirling it. The land smelled different, felt different, young—not soiled by hundreds of centuries of civilization. The question was how long before this land would be stripped of its youth? Americans moved fast, always wanting better and more now. He couldn’t quibble; he was that way. Besides, he had all the time in the world, practically. This part of the world, this region, he had avoided like a plaque. He didn’t understand why. It could be the negativity shown in the media in the European countries. Oddly, Americans received that negativity here, too, about themselves. Dual images. How do they do it? Those who toil hear how bad they are, how they interfere (always for money), how they don’t understand, that they are all rich whiny children, spoiled brats, born with silver spoon in their mouths. The only thing these people know, they are struggling in a country they have no time defend from. A few fight back, hoping the rest of America wakes up. Those few individuals fight for all: protest, aide, backing, boycotts, screaming at the top of their lungs on television, writing the newspaper and sending letters to government officials; screaming louder—especially through the internet. A short time here had changed his views when looking upon the common people of America. America traded one kind of struggle for another—identity as a nation: they were everything to all and nothing to themselves. They were still babes; and no one, absolutely no one, was going to shape them; that was their job. America’s identity boiled down to a salad bowel with all the fruits and veggies clumped in various areas and never quite meeting until some outside force interfered with the internal workings. Another analogy that is shorter and simple is full of ideas without knowing how to express them. Oh! They expressed their ideas, they just didn’t know how to go about it without everyone seeing a toddler just coming out of babyhood, or a teenager rebelling into adulthood.
A raindrop landed on his lip.
“Need to find transportation quickly,” he said as he looked up. It had come quickly, less than five minutes.
Although he wanted transportation he didn’t near the road. His feet directed him, not his mind. His feet insisted, spiting his brain. Small trickles fell and subsided as he moved through corn and soybeans, underbrush and woods, and open fields of grass. He was about to go over the water damned by man—the Salamonie—when a huge clash brought down a pour. He kept going in his wet soggy clothes until he spotted a large red sign: EATS. A little out of the way place off the highway. The road sign said 124 E to Mt. Etna. Check the scenes before—keep him on 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment