And you know, it never occurred to me once, not once during that entire time, that I wasn't anything more than what he said. He called me his little faggot bitch. Bent me over, face ground into cool bathroom tile, as he fucked me. Stifled my screams with the same rag he made me clean the blood up with afterwards. Never let me wash that rag either. Kept it in the plastic basket beneath the sink, with the soap and scrub-brushes. Dried shit and semen and blood and pus and saliva and...
"Shut the hell up." Shoved it right in and the rag sopped up my pain as well.
Soft little mammal. Scrabbling over cool bathroom tile. Blunt fingers clawing at nothing.
Black and white tile. Black. White. Black. White. Checkerboard moire madness from this awkward angle. And so, I learned to drift... leave my body to his grip; counted the tiles until it was over. It was not an easy task. The bathroom was not a regular square; it was rectangular. And the tub, sink, and toilet took up space that I had to account for. The toilet had a footprint of 82 tiles. If it weren't there, there would have been 82 more tiles on that floor; 41 white and 41 black. The sink nocked a corner of the room, opposite the bathtub. It covered an area of 210 tiles; 105 white and 105 black. What I eventually noticed was that along the walls, the tiles were cut in half. This meant that, were the sink not there, a quarter tile would have been in its corner. Fascinating.
There lay a whole world of subtle wonder in that room, mine for the taking.
Something wet on my legs.
* * *
That was when I first fell in love with chrome. The fixtures in our house were all chrome. Shiny faucets and knobs beaming funhouse reflections of a funhouse world. Turn one and out comes hot.. turn the other, you get cold; it was a simple magic to me. And I soon came to install such knobs on my insides. You should have seen it. A beautiful jungle gym of pipes and knobs, a place to play and count tiles from within.
* * *
It was only a matter of time before the refrigerator started talking to me.
It was Friday, payday. He was out, so I had the house to myself. I do remember thinking that there should have been a third person there. Someone tall and warm and always with a smile for me. I was almost certain that at one point in time there was, but as it stood.. my world was that house, the tiles and my friends.
The refrigerator was the first. The Man had left to get drunk. It would be until nightfall before he returned. As per ritual, I watched him from the window in my room. He drove a dusty sky blue pick-up truck, pocked and rusting. Loud enough for me to hear him roaring out of sight around the bend, tear off down the dirt road. I ran to the front door, trying the knob. It was locked of course. As was the rear, and the door to the cellar. The windows had long since been nailed shut. Try to understand as well, that something as loud and violent as breaking the glass had never even entered my realm of possibility yet. I was eight years old, you see.
In the kitchen, I dug around for something to eat. A box of cereal, cornflakes. Opened the top and ate it straight from the bag inside. No dishes meant no evidence. I was so very clever.
"No milk?"
I dropped the box, startled. It was him, he had come back. I was caught. It woul-
But no, after the yelp and the panic, I calmed down and realized that I was alone in the room. I had heard a voice, a man's voice, but not His voice.
"Who's there?" I looked under the dinette table.. nothing but ants.
"Here, Boy. You were going to eat those with no milk?" That was my name, that was what He called me. I grew afraid. And still nothing, nobody in the room save me.
"Why would you do a thing like that?"
I blinked, the icebox was talking to me. I went over to it. It was a an aqua blue relic, with rounded corners and trimmed for speed. A streamlined artifact made when things like appliances were built for fast living. Bottle cap magnets dotted the front.
"It's Him isn't it? You think he would find out."
I nodded quietly, touching the machine. There was a slight hum and vibration beneath my fingers.
"That's it. Pleased to meet you. Yes, oh that's nice... just like that. You have such nice ha-"
I jerked my hand away, holding it, stepping back. He talked to me like that. When He wasn't angry, when I could coax Him into other things besides fucking me. It always sickened me to hear such sweetness in His voice.
"That makes you scared doesn't it?"
"Shut up."
"But you see," it continued, "I won't hurt you... and you, you can't hurt me either. Go ahead, try it. Hit me."
Crackle of corn flakes underfoot.
"Shut up!"
"Make me. Go on, I won't break."
Fingers curling into fists.
"What's the matter... sissy?"
And that was all it took; I lunged at the icebox, slamming into it with my body then falling back to kick and hit, hit and kick.
"Ouch, careful now, faggot cunt. Wouldn't want to hurt yourself."
And I ran out the kitchen, crying.
In my room, I eventually fall asleep...
* * *
I awoke mid-tumble down the stairs. It was Him, He had come back, drunk as usual. Lifted me out of bed and dropped me from the first landing.
"What the fuck happened in the kitchen, Boy?" Came down after me, staggering. The boom thunder of His weight straining the worn slats as He decended. He had a bottle of something clear and brown in His hand. A sheen of sweat on His face.
I snapped from my groggy shock and tried to stand up. He grabbed my arm, lifting me at an awkward angle.
"Get in there... and clean that shit up, now!"
My kicking toes skimming linoleum until he throws me back to the floor. There are cornflakes everywhere, alive it seemed. No, not really - just covered with ants. A steady stream of the black insects from beneath the table. They scatter wildly around me, onto me.
"Do you think I spend my money on food just so you can throw it all over this goddamned house?" He up ends the bottle, sucking the last drizzle down, then wipes his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes are on fire.
Dull ache as my heart threatens to split open, throbbing.
"I want you pick up and eat every last one, every last fucking one. You think you'll waste my money and my food, in _this_ house?"
"imsorryimsorryiwontdoitagainiwontdoit"
"You damn right you won't do it again."
He beat me some, right there on the spot with the empty bottle. No tiles to count in the kitchen, but I was too worried about the glass breaking on me that I didn't miss them. And then he pulled up a chair and sat, tired and breathing heavy, to watch me eat. Later, we go upstairs to the bathroom.
The following day, I find small bits of chitin mixed in with the blood and the shit in the toilet. The web of pipes inside me grows more intricate with each passing minute. Yet not all the ants died; when I dream, I sometimes see one, here and there, lost in my maze.
* * *
I stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible after that, and when he would send me to get a beer or something, I never stayed longer than I could hold my breath. Nothing happened for two weeks. And so I began to forget. It was easy to do, I did it often enough.
But next payday came. The shifting gears of that blue truck fading down the road again. I stayed out of the kitchen, subconsciously avoiding it. A handful of plastic green soldiers to play God with; trench warfare on the stairs. Just before the final assault on the banister, there was a crash from the kitchen then a low whining noise.
I try to ignore it, but the illusion is shattered. I'm on the stairs with a few stupid toys and something very wrong downstairs. Clutching the figurine in my hand I quietly move down the steps. I stand at the doorway, at the threshold. The icebox is whirring and whining and making a noise like it's grinding bones.
[[[[]]]]
Pipes.
Miles and miles of conduit, suspended in a void, wind whistling through the lattice. The pipe he is in is large and encrusted from the inside. Random drips and sudden splashes echo into him, past him like he wasn't even there. Avatar is a spirit, disembodied to the point of inconsequence. Though he does not feel alone with the solitude. He focuses, materializing enough to press his hand against the pipe's inside curve. It is vibrating. It is trembling. There is a body in motion nearby, therefore he is not alone. Cool, foul air.. stagnant and still at first, then shifting, moving as a column, harbinger to whatever it is coming closer. The tinkling splish splash of seething vermin as out of the darkness spill slick coats and shining eyes. The rats tumble past, fleeing, trampling mindless millipedes and smaller, slower such creatures into the muck. Surge surge surge. There are teeth.. so many teeth.. filling the pipe like rising petroleum. A solid wave moving.. a subway, a worm, shit sliding through ruptured intestines. Roaring and screaming, closer and faster, filling the pipe completely, forcing the air to move... an impatient black jelly boiling with teeth. The oily surface ripples eagerly to kiss his face.. and fear...
..washes..
....over....
..........him, completely..........
................................................................
[[[[]]]]
"Something the matter, Boy?"
I blinked. I was in the kitchen, it was a hot clear late spring day. Bright, shiny sunlight and outside I could see the tops of green trees swaying. My hands were empty. Looking down, I saw the green soldier by my feet. Gun ready with a scowling, lopsided face.
It takes a minute or two until I realize that the whining noise isn't coming from me, that it isn't the song of my mind playing in the background. I open the freezer door and the noise flies out into the room. The ice maker is stuck. Small plastic white cogs strain against each other, trying to right the ice tray. It is caught on a large bulge of frost.
I reach in and twist the tray counter-clockwise on its axle, forcing it past the ice. The noise stops. Nothing now but the mist of my breath and cold air in my lungs.
Close the door and reach down to get my toy. Kick it by accident and it skitters under the refrigerator. Get on my hands and knees and look into the dusty thin void to try and see it... but nothing.
"Something the matter, Boy?"
I stand and squint. Holding out my hand and puffing my chest,
"Give it back."
"No."
"It's mine."
"Get it yourself."
"I can't see it. Give it to me."
I kick the icebox, "You piece of shit, give it back!"
It screeches, shifting and digging into the linoleum as I kick it. I stop, flushed.
"You finished?"
"..."
"Thought so. You know, Boy, I've been doing some thinking... and it seems to me that we didn't quite start on the right foot together. I was a little nervous the last time we talked and I might have said some things I didn't exactly mean. And well, what I'm trying to get across is that I'm sorry. I wish we could still be friends, though. Would that be okay?"
No, it was very much _not_ okay. I was angry, I had a right to be. And again, I was scared. I turned and walked out, went back to my troops and continued the war as if nothing had happened.
On the way out, it says to me, "I can help you." But I don't hear this until later in my dreams.
I wake up sweating in my bed with that phrase, that voice, in my head. Shafts of light careening across the ceiling. Headlights from the truck as He returns howling into the front yard. Glass breaks outside and I hear doors open and shut. Nestled beneath the window in my bed in my darkness, I can hear the world outside so clearly. Voices. Male voices, laughing like dogs, and I draw deeper down into the covers. He is not alone tonight.
They crash into the front door and shake the whole house with their boots and barkings. The radio is turned on. They are below me, in the kitchen. Chairs are dragged about, the table is moved. They must be preparing to play cards. In the stillness, I can hear everything. But I understand little of their conversation, little of their humor. Eventually, I slip from my vigil and touch something like sleep...
Only to wake at the first creaking step; someone is coming up the stairs. There are still voices in the kitchen, I must have dozed for only a minute or two. Or was it an hour? I don't know; I was careless. Stupid stupid stupid. Closer come the footfalls, heavy, lumbering. They reach the top of the stairs and recede. I hear a thick cough, then spit. A zipper. Fluids in free fall. He finishes urinating with a sniff. Flush. Footsteps again. They come to the top of the staircase. Then silence. They come closer. My eyes are wide and stinging, tearing since I do not blink, I do not breathe, shifting into familiar paralysis.
Just outside the door now. It rattles and opens, letting in a dim yellow light and the echos of downstairs noise. A shadow enters.
Comes to the bed and sits down. Stroking my hair. It is not Him. And despite what followed, that was the most horrifying thing of all.
[[[[]]]]
In his dreams, the landscape is dense with moisture. The pipes in the void, twisting like briars into all directions, drip with condensation. Avatar is floating there in the mist. Looking down, all he can see is nothingness. Shell's insides are becoming more complex, yet increasingly corroded. The pipes are pocked and cracking. Double thumps, then a grunt of exertion as it lands, briefly coiling to spring again. Winding its way through the pipes, apelike. He hears it first, before he can see it; the noise it makes swinging and leaping up to him. It is a pale dot moving up to him through the pipes. The thump and spring of its motions form a rhythm that he can't turn away from. And as it draws closer to where he hovers, Avatar can see it grinning with exertion. Wisps of vapor blast from its face to curl into the air. Closer still and he can make out its color, the pale aqua scales lying flat against the skin. Ram horns like a smoker's teeth jut from its head. The demon bounds up to him.
So it lands, digging its claws into the rounded concrete pipe, righting itself, perching before him. With a final snort of cold air, smelling of rotting vegetables, it winks a milky white eye.
"Found you at last, eh Boy?"
It is a gangly creature, long bony fingers, long oddly jointed neck, waspish narrow waist and a limp scaled phallus the size of his arm. It yawns, the random spines along its back rearing up with the motion. He drifts away without realizing it. Just being this close to it, pains him, freezes him. More like drooling than breathing; its cold breath spills from its maw, down around its talons, out over the edge of the pipe, twisting into thin air.
It blinks, seeing Avatar fade away.
"Hey! Where you going?" It cries angrily, reaching for him.
"You can't leave now, come back here!" Arms impossibly large sweep out to snatch him, yet passing through as a ghost.
[[[[]]]]
I wake up shivering in sweat.
I awake on the floor of my room, beside my bed. My body throbs with pain in several places when I try to move. My pajamas are tangled around my ankles. A pasty, familiar taste in my mouth. I don't know how I got here - perhaps I just rolled out of the bed. There is a yellow light against the window; dawn. I press my ears to the floor. Nothing from downstairs, the party must be over.
After a while, I rise, pulling away from the sticky residues that hold me down. I place a hand against the bed to balance and step out of my pajamas.
I move quickly across the wooden floors, down the hall to His room. The door is slightly ajar, and I can see him splayed out on the bed, snoring. I'm afraid to try and shut his door completely and risk waking him. But I want to clean myself. He would hear me in the bathroom otherwise. After thinking for long minute, I turn and tip to the stairs. I know which steps to avoid and where to place my feet. The hours of practice have made me skilled enough to navigate the distance silently.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I enter the kitchen and go to the sink. I douse a rag with cold water briefly, then rub away the stains on my body. It is a still and bright morning; the bruises stand out brilliantly in the light.
Birds chirp from outside.
"That wasn't very sociable, Boy, what you did last night," says the icebox. I ignore it and wring out the rag, folding it and putting it back, just the way I found it. I pull a chair from the table over to the refrigerator and climb up to get the bread from on top of it. A plastic bag with half a loaf molding away inside.
"It took me a while and considerable effort to find you and, without so much as a 'Hello', you up and leave. Now that's rude don't you think?" I sling the bag down onto the counter and go to the pantry to get the peanut butter, then a knife and a plate.
"Hello? Are you listening to me?" Jelly. I hesitate enough to blink then open the refrigerator door. There is a scream of wind and the door blows open, wrenched from my grasp. Inside is madness, a window to the place of pipes and drowned ants. It is there for an instant then the image constricts and there is nothing but bland whiteness, spotty fungus and dull racks with little food. I find my breath.
"Cute trick, eh? Let me show you another."
The few eggs on the door shelf suddenly quiver and tip over like lemmings to sea. They shatter in a bloom of clear yolk and lush yellow color. A tinkle of music. I look look down and see there among the shells and thick fluids a key.
"See it? It's the key to the basement. Take it."
The slow spread of yolk reaches my toes and slips between them quickly.
I clean up the mess, washing the key and setting it aside. As I eat my sandwich at the table it sits shining before me. The icebox smiles smugly.
* * *
I stand in the door way, staring down into the pit. This is dangerous, almost stupid. He would kill me if he caught me now. He would simply just kill me. Taking a last look over my shoulder at the icebox, now grown innocently quiet, I place my foot gingerly on the first step. A cool draft rises from the basement and I'm caught in a surge of deja vu. The place of dreams, the Shell. A damp draft rises, chilling me.
[[[[]]]]
Avatar turns his head. There is a shaft of light from above, shifting as sunlight through deep water. The creaking of wood, the trembling of the pipes. He drifts to gain a better vantage point. Long slick tongue coils upwards around his ankle and he looks down to see the Demon crouched in the air behind him. It wraps around him without seeming to notice, its rheumy gaze fixed on the descending rays of light. Avatar reaches down to stroke its large head.
"You see, Boy? You are here! You have come!" It hisses, releasing him, turning in loops like a grinning chinese dragon.
"I give you this!" It shrieks to the seamless icon, and in a whirlwind of icy fog the demon bounds off up to the light. Already, gentle glowing motes drift down the beam, mothlike, dustlike, riding on currents of warm air, a staircase for God.
[[[[]]]]
I am halfway down the stairs, madly clutching the single makeshift handrail when my eyes settle in the darkness. Now accustomed to the gloom, I can see the basic outlines of the furnace, the lawnmower, other hulks of metal in slumber. There is a mad scratching noise as a large insect scuttles over my hand. I yelp and twitch, sending it tumbling into nothingness with a sudden burst of wings. It flies off into a corner and is silent.
Catch my breath.
[ [[]]]]
The Avatar trails after the demon slowly. All around him, the pipes tremble from the flow within. The pumps churn faster. Growing vibrations, falling streams of dust and grit from the crumbling infrastructure. The demon is howling, sounding far, far away. Pressure, depth, and the intrusion of God into this most secret of worlds is its undoing; the fabric of its space strains to accommodate the very light. Off in the distance, lengths of conduit begin to implode randomly. All will be dust in space in a matter of moments.
He navigates the rain of debris with little trouble.
"Come on, fool!" cries the demon, now almost at the light, "See this what I have given you... It is You, yourself!" It scales a wobbling vertical pipe and perches, oblivious to the occurring ruin, transfixed on the light. Several motes spiral out to meet their admirer, to dance around its horns. The glowing figure pauses just before the demon. It reaches out a brilliant, shining hand.
As if in response, the whole system erupts, geysering the sludge and shit held in for so long. Grotesque centipedes knot themselves in midair. The pipes tumble away into rubble, leaving the demon grasped by the throat in fingers of light. It struggles and coughs, kicking through a cloud of fireflies.
Searing white light.
[ [[] ]]
I scream as the click of a light switch behind me throws the whole room into focus. Glossy torn images of naked children, children and men, children and children, children and animals. Plastered over the cinderblock walls. Scattered on the floor. Taped to the boiler. A single yellowing, stained mattress in the far corner. The sudden scurry of roaches to shadow.
"Boy! What the fuck are you doing down here?!" It is Him. I did not hear him come down the stairs from above. I was confused, I thoug-
[ [[ ]]
The demon bursts into flames.
It slips from the light, plummeting silently, turning slowly as it falls, glistening as melting ice.
There is nothing now; no pipes, no bugs, no oily black menace to contain in the concrete lattice. Just this God of light and swirling fireflies.
[ [[ ]
So fast and so strong and I don't know what's happening, but fear and more fear. He is red. Grabs me by my head, squeezing, forcing me to look. More pictures, more children, others like me. He is angry and spitting and calling them out by name, pointing out the bitches and the faggots and the cunts just like me. Yelling at me because I don't smile like the little boys in the pictures do, crushing my face because I don't like it like they obviously do.
He is squeezing so hard - nothing left to do but explode.
[ [ ]
The Avatar can not speak, he has no mouth, and in some detached way, he feels it fitting. It is not right to ask God why. What answer is there anyway? The God raises its arms up and expands, filling the void with light, the kind of light that casts no shadows, for there is nothing it does not illuminate. It is the kind of light that cleanses imagination of hope as well as fear; the light that burns away mental constructs, defense mechanisms, denial. It is the kind of light that leaves no room for such shadows. It is the light of truth.
[ ]
Nowhere safe, nowhere to hide. He is God, I can see that now... And that light is so very, very good.
[end]