Marie peers into the darkness. She closes my front door behind her and turns the lock. Feeling her way up the wall, she finds the light switch and my apartment fills with whiteness.
She creeps to my bedroom, preparing to surprise me, but I'm not there.
She checks the washroom -- nothing.
She checks the living room and notices the same mug on the coffee table, unmoved from last night. On the microwave, the time is showing 4:31am.
The dead silence begins to pull at the little hairs on the back of her neck. In an almost lunging motion, she springs to the TV and turns it on. An infomercial selling spray-on hair for balding men plays. Two middle aged men are chattering, overly excited, and Marie turns the volume higher – the men's voices practically yelling.
The microwave clock shows 4:32am. It's dark outside.
She steps into the hallway and stops, noticing that the door of the spare room that is normally closed is slightly ajar. Stepping closer to the spare room, the sound of laughter from the infomercial grows fainter.
The bottom of the door makes a dragging noise across the carpet as Marie pushes it open. Only the street lights from the window barely illuminate the room. But in the dimness, she notices the laptop computer on the night table.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she reaches for the computer. The sound from the TV is muffled behind the walls. Hesitating, pondering, she opens the laptop with the hope she might find some kind of clue to where I am. On the screen is a Facebook page still logged in - Real Will.
She scrolls down to a recent post. It reads:
Real Will
September 20 at 5:29am via mobile
He is walking home with me. We pass a flask of whiskey back and forth and he asks me if I would be giving him some sugar when we get to his place. Without looking, he steps off the curb at an intersection and is almost hit by a white sports car. He falls backwards and screams a curse to the car that drives away. I help him up to his feet. He wobbles a little. He looks dazed, but okay.
We reach his home, not saying much anymore. Inside his place, he tells me about his dream to back-pack through South America. He is sitting beside me on the couch, holding my hands in his lap, saying, honey, I'm so drunk it's not funny.
He falls back on the sofa, closes his eyes, and lets out a moan. When he opens his eyes, I'm not there. I'm in the kitchen, opening his cutlery drawer. Now I'm standing over him, a steak knife with a black handle in my hand.
He whispers, why are you doing this?
I hunch over him with one hand pressed against his mouth, my other hand stabbing and stabbing into the cavity of his chest. His screams are gurgles and his shuffling fades into stillness. His eyes roll up to the back of his skull. I take the flask of whiskey from his pocket and empty it on his clothes. Whiskey and blood soaks into his denim jeans. I see another full bottle of whiskey on a glass bar cart under a large mirror on the wall. I pour the whisky on the curtains, the carpet and the couch. My Zippo sparks in my hand and the curtain bursts into flame.
Daniel does not exist anymore. He is ashes, but Itchie will live forever.
The next post reads:
Real Will
Yesterday via mobile
He snores and mumbles words in his sleep. He curls into a fetal position, lying on his side in the concrete pocket of the fire exit. The pungent smell of his body surrounds him like a rotting aura, and l step into it. I hold a canister of paint thinner, a barcode price sticker still plastered to its tin side. He sleeps, still mumbling, as I pour the fluid on him. I pour on his filthy clothes, on his blanket under him, on the door and on the steps. I light his torn pants with my Zippo and a gentle boom of flames erupts. I jump back. Engulfed in fire, he screams and runs into the wall beside him, knocking him down. Rising back up, he runs a few steps onto the paved pathway and falls face first onto the grass, flames sprouting from his back like amber flags waving upwards in a fierce wind. His screaming turns into animal groans. And then silence.
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Bí ẩn / Giật gânThis is the rule. Whenever you read that a story is true, it is always and inevitably untrue. But in this case, however, everything you read here is true. The burnt remains for Rachel Amina Darwish were discovered in Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canad...
