Animals We Made

The Heart's Tale Told | Part 2

My feet dragged while I limped, naked as that glowing old moon. It shone harsh and violent. To be frank I couldn't imagine daylight gleaming any brighter. Twigs ripped into my unclad soles, but I experienced no pain. Would I need rest? My lungs inflated and deflated, and my joints cracked. I never ran out of breath or vigor.

The world spread its murky arms to hug and kiss me as Lenore might have before she was consumed by the years. In absolute darkness I now kept a pace both unhurried and tireless, grateful for new options. Resentment would carry me far.

How will you kill me? pried the voice within. The same way I did you? Oh, but I've been unwell! You wouldn't slaughter one ailing and frail! Have you no conscience? I do, because I'm not a lunatic, but surely you know that, and you have glimpsed my vilest parts! What did you observe there? Schemes? Regrets? Consolations? All! Your vulture eye has pierced me to my lonely bones!

I gave no reply. At the end of the block, the prison sat, a fortress, walls high and malevolent. The authorities yapped at me as I climbed their gates. My thin, wrinkly body slinked and slithered. I maneuvered about the iron rails in a patient ascent. I jumped upon the guards. They hit me with their clubs. I punched the fools silly as I lurched by them. A couple of them had muskets: ugly instruments that roared like beasts. Nonetheless, the weapons took long to fill with powder, and while I was slow, I was not that slow. I reached the majority of my attackers and knocked them out.

An officer fired his gun, and its discharge bashed some of my ribs in. Even this did not so much as tickle. Soon he was prostrate on the floor as well, and I entered the building, navigating a maze of halls illuminated only by winking oil lamps.

You have quit yammering, I addressed my killer's thoughts within me. Would you say you are frozen with dread of what's to come? You pined and yearned for my heart to go mute in your ears. Should I restate that this is impossible, that you and I are linked from now until Armageddon?

Only the sobs of that murderer filled my brain, and I proceeded to track them to him. I encountered additional guards on the way to his cell. At length I was pummeling them senseless one by one with their own truncheons.

The establishment grew musty as I ventured through its zigzagging depths that resembled catacombs. I winced at the stench—oppressive and vicious. From the cells, inmates peeked out with tense withered hands looped about the iron bars. I recalled my nakedness and marveled at the spectacle I was. Had these fraudsters and burglars and gangsters worked out my truth in the upheaval? Their yelps echoed along the passages of metal and rock, a chorus of terror and deranged joy. I listened with admiration, but one shriek thundered above the others.

Retribution! A familiar voice raced up and down my inner being. Justice! Lust!

I stopped before a cell. There, inside, my killer trembled, his eyes wide and damp and thoroughly veined. He approached me and folded his hands as if in prayer.

"Do you know about me?" I questioned him, and he nodded.

So I reached through the bars and grabbed his throat.

"Apply more pressure!" he insisted. "You must strangle me for what I did to you on that carnal night!"

I did not obey him. "Why are you so eager?"

"No reason!" My killer laughed, a shrill, hoarse noise I'd faster ascribe to a dog than to a man.

"Justice has come." I loosened my grip. "Why do you accept it with such delight? Are you repentant, or have you some other motive?"

"I am unwell!" He placed his hands atop mine and tried to squeeze them over his own gullet. "What is your objection? Haven't I been oh so very ill? You deserve revenge, and you ought to collect what is yours by virtue!"