Mantalo [Ongoing Series]

Dust Gatherer

Mantalo awoke in terror, finding himself unable to move. He looked down to see Shelly, who had propped up a few pillows and was reclining on his belly. He smiled to himself, both at the ridiculousness of the situation, and at how beautiful she looked. There she lay, dressed only in a cotton undershirt and panties. Her exposed flesh turned sterling, lit by the wraith thin light of artificial dawn, which stole through the parted curtains.

Perhaps he was fortunate to be so mutilated. Trapped in this body, robbed of any perceptible sexuality, she viewed him as an article of furniture rather than a man. At least she wasn’t afraid.

“Why didn’t you run?” He thought to himself, “You'd be human and she'd be in your arms. Damn it, why didn’t you run?”

Feeling his eyes upon her, she stirred, turning her head towards his gaze.

“Sorry…” she said with a spry laugh, “but you didn’t leave much room for me, so I had to make due.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” He said through a grin. “I slept just fine.”

“Yeeeeah.” She yawned the word, stretching her limbs and splaying out her fingers and toes. The cotton tank top in which she’d slept lifted just high enough to reveal a glimpse of her navel.

“Why didn’t you run?” He chided himself once again.

“You talk in your sleep you know.” She said, lounging upon his abdomen as if he were a well-worn sofa. “Just jabbing on all night.”

“Sorry.” He tried.

She simply shrugged.

“I didn’t know or I … well I’ve never really had a room-mate to tell me these things before.

“Dans la nuit de l’hiver” She recited, sending a chill down his spine. It was the chant from his dream.

“It’s French isn’t it?” She grinned at him.

“I…don’t know.” He admitted. He hadn’t spoken his native tongue in such a long time.

“I went through a big rock progressif phase,” she explained, “so I speak a little.”

He could only stare back in dismay. The thought of his dreams having infected her was too much for his mind to take hold of just yet.

“In the winter’s night” She began her translation.

“A big white man is running.”

Mantalo recalled the three chalk skinned creatures, big white men who had come for him.

“It is a snowman

With a wooden pipe”

His mind flashed back to that man, staring up at him from the snow blanketed streets. Then, to the rifle hidden beneath his coats. He’d been a good boy and complied, never giving the man reason to draw the weapon. Still, they had come, fully prepared to persuade him.

“A big snowman

Chased by the cold.”

She laughed to herself, “It’s kind of cute really.”

He shrugged. It had lost any charm it once might have had to him from years of echoing within his dreams.

She continued her translation, “he arrives in town, seeing some light.”

He had been the light they were seeking. They had come for him specifically, but why? His teacher had been well aware of what they intended for him, but she hadn’t lifted a finger to stop it. The thought infuriated him now. What payment had they offered up to her that she might forsake a child in her care?