The Outside

Section III

 I scrub my plate in a bucket of spring water on a ledge by the window. I let the sweet air of classical music surround me and flow through me. I turned on my record player. I'm picking up that Marion doesn't enjoy the intricate intervals and chords being struck out on piano bleeding out and blending over one another. She seems not to enjoy the blanding colors of tones and pitches and octaves layering over one another nor the beauty in the dissonance between the bass notes and the piano's, or organ's, upper register. Classless. Perhaps she'd rather I throw some pop culture garbage on the gramophone. Perhaps she wants something played to her in a pentatonic scale, or a straight major scale ascension. Maybe she'd rather hear Bach than Beethoven, or Katy Perry over my lovely Ludwig Van. Classless. Simply classless. That is the only way to describe her. Well, classless and messy, anyway.

I begin to hum along to the sweet sounds ringing in my ears. Marion sits at the table, sullen as ever. Her arms are crossed and her face is uglied by a heavy scowl. I set the plate down in the bucket and glide across the wooden floors to her. I reach out a tempting hand to her. She doesn't understand. After a second of pause, she cautiously takes my hand. I apply a slight, guiding pressure upwards. She stands from her chair. We let the music move us. Gliding about. I twirl her around under my finger. She dances awkwardly, like a marionette dancing the tango. Hmph, a Marionette. I let go and she spins away. Then, I grab a hold of her and bring her spinning back close to me. We stand nose to nose. I have to angle my head down and she needs to angle her head up so that our eyes meet. Her warm breath blows against my face, stifling my own breathing. Her lips part as if she might kiss me. Her eyes close. The gramophone screeches to a halting silence.

My head snaps up to look at the record, spinning silently. Something's knocked the needle off the track. I let go of Marion and walk to the record. I'm stalled as she seems reluctant to let me go. I push free of her desperate hands and take the needle in hand. I swing it up and over, hovering just above the record.

Then.

A laugh.

My ear twitches. I turn to look at Marion. The laugh sounds off again in my ear. It's not coming from her. The needle slips from my hand and Beethoven starts up his fifth symphony again. I quickly knock the needle off again. The laugh again. A child's laugh. No. Three children laughing in unison. One deeper than the other two, in a dark baritone reverb. The other two; bright soprano voices guffawing in a tri-tone. The devil's interval. I track the sound to the window where I washed my plate previously. I run up to the bucket of spring water.

Marion watches confused muttering, "Edgar, what's wrong?" listlessly under her heavy breath.

I scoop the plate up out of the bucket and hold it to my ear. Nothing. I throw it to the side, where it shatters against a wall. Despite my hands' prior, violent intrusion, the water waits still. I stare in shock at my reflection. A child's face. Specifically, my child's face. Or rather, me as a child. My horrible eye yet uncovered. I instinctively reach to my face and check for my glasses and protruding, matured cheekbones. Everything is as it should be. And yet, my younger self looks back at me from the water's visage. My child face laughs silently at my shocked expression.

Then, the three other children join in on the laughter. Everything aside from them is silence. Pure, dead silence. I bring my head up, tearing my eyes away from my childish, laughing face in the spring water.

Reflected in the window above the bucket.

Three children laughing.

I jump and tumble back in fright.

David, James, and Saul.

Why are they here?

I twist away from the ground and pull myself up to my feet.

Marion runs up to me. Trying to help. Trying. Hindering in reality. I shove her back, away from me. I scramble to my feet. And spin around back to the window. My three laughing brothers are gone. In their place, blackness. The black of night. No, deeper. Pure black. Nothingness. I scan the scene through the window, the moon does not break the blackness with its lunar shine. No. There is nothing there. A plasmatic hand wraps around my throat, clutching tightly. The black, not quite liquid, not quite solid and not quite gaseous hand pulls me down. My head is pulled slowly down into the bucket. My face goes under, into the cold spring water. It takes a moment for my survival instinct to overcome the shock, but then it kicks in at full force.

I thrash against the countertop.

I tear at the hand around my throat.

I scream and screech in the water but it's stifled to only a gurgle.

The water heats up.

It boils my face.

It pours up my nose and sears my brain.

Marion's hands slide over my shoulders and I spring up from the bucket, gasping for air. I grab my glasses up and perch them on my nose. I push my drenched hair out of my face. I breathe in deep gasps. I look at the window. The regular night scenery has returned. The moon glows full in the blueish black sky. I check the contents of the bucket. The water has sloshed out over the sides and onto the counter and floor. I wipe some water away from my wet face with an even wetter hand.

I point behind me, saying, "Towel."

Marion runs off somewhere. Presumably for a towel. I regard my finger nails. One them is chipped and bloody from the struggle. I look in the tall mirror. My reflection stares back, drenched in sweat and spring water. Dark bruises ring around my neck where the dark, shadowed hand gripped.

Marion flies back into the room, towel in hand. I pluck it up out of her fist and use it to wipe my face. I look at my vest pocket and notice my pocket watch is missing. It's on the table. I scoop it up and clutch it tight in my fist. I slip off my dripping wet vest and collared shirt. I pull a chair up to the fire and sit down slowly and carefully. Marion gets to sopping up the water behind me as I let the fire dry my chilled bones.