the alive

David

The backyard shade from the house hides the morning light but not the humid heat of Old Sol. Birds tell each other avian songs about extinction from perches of cracked wooden fence post leans. Eat the squirming grubs of bulbous flies like grains of rice from broken hourglasses. Notice but ignore the two humans hidden in the long grass. Slicking sweaty flesh in the flavour of a slippery morning fuck. The two great apes drench in the bacteria of their nature. Naked to the congregation of other city sounds and windless antinomy. A bird shits. Chirps. Beaks its feathers.

Steel toe construction boots stomp on plywood front landing ramps next door. Morning astringent coffee conversations translate bad jokes which meet the flicks of cigarette lighters and sallow beard smiles. They notice nothing of the two sopping lawn bodies. Yet.

Terra lays in Millar's arms. Breathes heavily. Tears of confusion. Her black hair of loose whips stick in wet strands upon his flush face. Cheek rests upon his hairy sweaty rivulet chest. Obsidian green ring eyes watch his nipple. Sweat stings pupil. They perspire in body odour juice and the scent flavour of Bartholin glands. Hairy legs and crotch and armpits drip and ooze of a raven girl's glistening morning spectacle. She's a garden. Her back perspires hot dew to his touch. To him, she's a nymph, oven wet pressing feet and grass stain bent knees and burning bareness made of ribs and shoulders and thighs and calves. He holds her tight. Lifts his head and kisses her hair. Sculpture still in her. He wants out her loins. She won't let him get loose. She's much stronger than him. He knows it and he knows they aren't finished. Not sure if she knows.

He's Millar now. And what exactly is this fornication to Millar? Why was it so easy to get her to fuck him? What ghost possess her? Ah, Millar knows as David knows. He understands what kind of ghost haunts Terra's house. Someone who might still be in the simulation, trapped in Terra's mind.

Judith. That bitch with only a shadow. But Terra's also possessed by another. That other is him. Millar. His change. His surgeries. His new face and scent. Smiles like perfect victory.

He's plucked Terra's ripe body and made of her the friction of his desire. Millar's plan is a success. His accompaniment goes beyond what he thought possible. His new endorphins were concocted to specifically control Terra's emotions and mind and therefore, her actions. This particular Terra Coal. Muerte. Death. Sweet Death. Millar's deeply infatuated with her body. Calls it love. David's always been in love with her body. Millar went to great lengths to make his scent molecules perfect for her scent receptors. And she has no idea. Not an inkling of who he really is, judging by her reaction to him. Confident she's oblivious. Otherwise, he'd be dead already.

"I'm sorry," she says through mumbling snotty sniffs. "I don't know what came over me . I don't know. This isn't me. I'm not a..."

"All is ok, Terra. Maybe whatever is inside of you really just needed this."

"No. Yes. Something did, I think. Someone did. And I don't mean me or you."

Millar yawns. Smiles serpentine at the situation. Terra's the garden. The Genesis and the banishment. She's also lost in the labyrinth like everyone else whoever dared contemplate the valentine words carved into the drill holes of coffins. Ghosts waiting to be ghosts.

The morning of swelter continues. Time moves within space and space exists through time. Somewhere in the city, a pendulum clicks like clocks. She drips. Millar remains erect within her. His sensitivity decreases. Holds onto the small of her back. Smiles and decides he wants more. Moves his sculpture slowly like an oily hydraulic flesh machine. Manufactures arousal. His body consumes the moment. She sits up. Hands on his chest. Digs her black nails into his pectorals. Black eyes hold his sight like the lower depths of a Jahannam malachite gravity. She seems sore but quickly turns on, almost like a switch, from Terra to Judith. Rubs her hairy crotch against his. Wets. Bounces. Rubs her clit. Rides atop his rigidity. Moans. Her sweat drips into his open mouth. Tastes her salt. Thinks she must've looked back like a pillar.