“We arrive,” Zarafon spreads out its illuminated hand of glistening violet light. Our Shodin cohort gazes beyond its palm, painting the horizon with sparks and rays.
The citadel rises before us, infinities high in its storied grandeur — a spike, cutting up through the universe like a magnetic beacon. We watch other Shodin across the valley, coming together under the heralding obelisk. Unlimited numbers of lives and colors and beings in all shapes weave toward a great series of openings at the citadel’s base.
“The gathering of the Shodin,” Zarafon narrates. “We come together as has been true in this instance and beyond the expanses of time. This is new and this is old. We come together to battle the Dujj. It is life in the abstract. We Shodin travelers join as one, a great light to fend off the darkness.”
We hear the words and know the story. But we also know our attempts will be abbreviated in their completion, that the Dujj will come and it will touch many of us during the fight. We know it because we feel the damage in our element lives. The Shodin host can only mitigate that injury. We four Shodin look at each other, seeing within our eyes and hearts the source of courage and sacrifice, the headwaters of the engine that moves all things.
“We will join,” Zarafon reminds us, stepping down the landscape toward the bustling citadel. We follow as is the purpose of those who accept guidance. We fall into a string behind our violet escort, strobing before us like a declaration of intent, a fanfare duplicated around the valley as other Shodin converge into the volcanic nebulae of the citadel itself.
#
Petrelex Remembers That Part That Is Frank
Ohio – 1986 A.C.E.
The mattress border cord finally comes loose in one long piece after hours of picking at the stitching. It is a fine example of perseverance and resolve. Frank holds the prize between his upturned fists like a thin cotton viper. But his celebration is short-lived. He barely has time to wad the cord in a ball and hold it next to his thigh, concealing it nonchalantly as the prison guard walks by.
“Frank,” the guard offers as a greeting, passing the cell.
“Officer Lou,” Frank nods and smiles until the guard is gone. “You fucker,” he hisses into the empty corridor.
Officer Lou has never done anything to Frank to make him hate him. He has never treated his prisoner with anything other than fairness, patience, and courtesy. But Frank doesn’t need a reason to hate him. His hatred is not dependent on how he is treated. It is not reactive. It is pure, immune from corruption, and permanent as stone. Officer Lou is simply part of the world that gets in Frank’s way, and therefore worthy of his hatred. Frank enjoys the hot, simmering emotion of hate when it travels through him. He doesn’t know when it became a comfort to him. He has never questioned its source. Perhaps he was born with it. That’s why if feels so right.
By the time he was seven it was already a familiar security. He remembers being that age when two neighbor kids tried to make a fool of him. The family next door raised rabbits and there was a wheelbarrow in the backyard heaped high with rabbit turds from cleaning the hutches. The little prick who lived there told Frank that his father worked for the M&M candy company and that the heap of rabbit turds weren’t turds at all, but actually unfinished chocolate M&Ms his father had brought home before the candy coatings could be put on. Frank didn’t believe him, but the little bitch who lived across the street was there that day as well, pretty and bored, so Frank felt vulnerable to his pressure.
The little prick continued his assurances of their edibility and even offered to eat one himself to prove they were harmless candy. He grabbed one from the heap and appeared to put it in his mouth. Frank didn’t see him keep it in his palm.
“Come on, try one,” the little prick said as he pretended to chew gleefully.
The little bitch standing next to him, smiling and attentive, eyed Frank expectantly. He didn’t have a chance.
Frank picked one of the round muddy balls from the top of the heap with caution. It felt like what he would expect a rabbit turd to feel like, but it also felt like a ball of soft chocolate. Frank didn’t know the difference. He was no expert. Instead of popping the whole thing in his mouth, however, he figured he would test it with just a small nibble. Good thing he did, because the moment he brought the ball to his lips and bit into the soft mass he knew it wasn’t chocolate.
The acrid tang spread through his mouth like wildfire, triggering his saliva glands and distributing the sour flavor throughout with even more repugnant intensity. But the sharp taste of the turd in his mouth was dull in comparison to the foulness of the laughter sprayed at him from the other two children. The little prick pointed and howled, while his little bitch girlfriend rocked with giggling spasms.
Frank just stood there, eyes wide and completely still with half a rabbit turd dangling from his front tooth. The feeling of betrayal was overwhelming. Not the betrayal of those little fuckers laughing before him, but betrayal of himself. He had known a trick was being played all along, but could not resist the temptation of indulging a spark of trust, an emotion so alien to him he was compelled to investigate it. And as he figured, the trust was just a fantasy. It was a ghost of a feeling that held no warrant, no purpose, except perhaps as a warning that it is a weakness open to exploitation.
Luckily, Frank soon felt the fear and embarrassment dribble away, replaced by his great friend and protector — hate. The heat of it boiled his blood and adrenaline, rising to the occasion, comforting him and making him strong. It became a prehensile limb. It became action.
Frank sprung on that little prick like a crazed panther.
The little bitch ran crying for home as her screaming boyfriend did everything he could to keep Frank from pulling his eyes out. And Frank would have gotten them, too, if the little prick’s parents hadn’t come running out the back door to pull him off. Frank couldn’t even remember what kind of trouble he got in for the attack that day. It didn’t matter what it was anyway. The only lesson that stuck with him was the usefulness of hate and the awe-inspiring violence it aroused.
And the little bitch didn’t get away scot-free either. Frank knew that sometimes revenge was sweeter if doled out after the culprit forgets the crime they committed to deserve it. Retribution is often more profound when the villain believes his suffering is arbitrary. So, when that little bitch got her’s years later, she really got her’s.
Frank’s lips curl as he remembers how the screams of fear and pain put the world back in balance for a short time the day she finally got her’s.
With the guard gone, Frank resumes his inspection of the mattress cord in his hand. Running it through his palms, he holds it shoulder width and gives it a tug, testing its strength. He might have to double it over to make sure it doesn’t break, but it should do the trick either way. He adjusts the sheets on the lower bunk to cover his vandalism. He’s not sure when Officer Lou is coming back or when some other nosey fucker might happen by. Like that fucking lawyer of his. None of this would even be necessary if that piece of shit hadn’t stopped by this morning to ruin a perfectly good breakfast.
“Frank,” the lawyer said as he sat next to him on the lower bunk. The pathetic little fucker even acted like there was something sad and surprising to talk about. “They found evidence of blunt force trauma on Jill’s remains,” he said awkwardly.
What the fuck did he expect them to find? Frank put on his mask of amazement and squeaked out, “What?”
“The grand jury indictment was filed today. Premeditated.”
Frank almost cracked up at the way his lawyer said “premeditated” so slow and serious-like. As if anyone would believe that bashing his first wife on the head with an oar after pushing her out of a boat could be accidental. Or maybe even self-defense. Frank almost snorted; the idea of it caught him as so funny.
“But that’s impossible,” Frank managed to get out with a decent amount of disbelief.
“Well, with Hector coming forward and now this…” the smug fucker shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not looking good.”
It wasn’t difficult for Frank to get the eye pipes working and make the lawyer believe they should discuss their defense strategy later. As soon as that little kyke bastard walked out of the cell, Frank knew what he had to do and got busy doing it. He was in hate mode and boiling. He didn’t actually know if his lawyer was a Jew, but it was likely. Most of them were.
That goddamn Hector. Who in their right mind rolls over after flying under the radar all this time? He kept his mouth shut the whole ten years since Frank’s second wife got herself killed. It was that little fucker, Billy, who got them pinched for that one. But then Hector has to go spewing about his first wife, Jill? She’s been dead of an accidental drowning for fifteen years! It was all settled. Now that little bitch has caused more trouble in the month since they exhumed her body than the whole three years her and Frank were married. She wasn’t all that bad when they were married though. Frank might even describe her as “nice”.
At least with his second wife he knew what he was dealing with early on. She didn’t put up with his shit. In fact, she was almost as prickly as him. Maybe that’s why he felt comfortable enough to knock her up. But the baby didn’t shut her up like he hoped. It seemed she was back at him before the baby even cut its first tooth. Then she and the baby were out the door about a minute after that. The divorce papers came about a second after that. No big deal. He was better off without her.
Until she filed for child support, that is. That’s when it was time to give Hector a call. Frank would have liked to have been there for it, but he thought it best to use a proxy for safety’s sake. And Hector had helped him with some other stuff before, so he was reliable. All Frank had to do was make sure Hector knew where to find her and her new asshole boyfriend on a weekend Frank was watching the baby.
Frank stands in the middle of the cell staring at the hallway past the bars. He cannot hear that fucker Officer Lou’s footsteps anymore. He waits for the hollow clang and click of telling him the guard has gone into the next block. He won’t be back for a while.
Lifting the corner of the top bunk mattress up from the springs, he feeds the now-doubled border cord through the gap. He pulls it and wraps it around again. Gives it a tug. It holds. Gives it a long pull toward the floor. The cord groans, but seems to be capable of holding. He’s no physics genius, but he knows that it doesn’t have to support all the weight, just a part of it. Nope, no physics genius, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he tested at the genius level for being practical. He was, by far, the most practical person he knew.
The house he built after his first wife’s insurance came through was designed around self-sufficiency and practicality. Perched in the middle of twenty wooded acres, it was conveniently close to town and isolated at the same time. He built it by himself with help from a couple of neighbors and parishioners from his first wife’s church. They were motivated to help because of the pain they figured Frank was going through over her unexpected drowning. Unexpected. Hilarious. They didn’t even question it when he told them he didn’t want their help on certain days – those days he would work on special rooms. The place ended up being a big square block balanced next to a fishpond and heated with a wood-burning unit. There were so many little rooms and halls inside, Frank’s second wife never even knew how many rooms it really had after living there for almost two years. And he doubted his third wife even considered it these past ten years. Third wife had her horses and her horse barn. She wasn’t going to do anything to fuck that up like sticking her nose where it didn’t belong or questioning him on anything. Hell, even after the cops went through the house and found all those guns and the homemade girlie videos before the trial for his second wife, third wife refused to believe Frank had anything to do with Hector putting two bullets in the heads of second wife and her asshole boyfriend. She just thought it quite a coincidence that the person who murdered Frank’s second wife happened to also be Frank’s best friend. But third wife didn’t have to believe he didn’t have anything to do with it. Frank didn’t care what she thought. She just needed to take care of the baby and stay the fuck out of Frank’s business. Even Frank knew as long as she did that, and the insurance money didn’t run out, she’d live a nice long life.
Frank thought he would also score at the genius level for tying knots. He never learned how to do it officially, like in boy scouts or something, he just did it naturally. The way the rope looped around and through itself so it wouldn’t slip just seemed to make sense to him as long as he could remember. Like the time when he was about twelve and he came across that old dog.
It came into the yard one day and he fed it some water from a bowl, so it kept coming into the yard after that. His dad never even knew about it. Frank’s fucking old man would have probably just shot it anyway.
But Frank liked the dog. It was a mutt, about fifty pounds and shaggy brown. Gray hairs covered most of its snout, so Frank knew it was old. It would drink from the bowl he’d set on the ground, then push its slobbery muzzle against Frank’s leg, like he was trying to wipe it dry, almost human-like. Frank didn’t like getting his pant leg all wet, but he still thought it was pretty funny when the dog did that.
Just before the end of the summer of that year, just before he had to start back at school — that fucking cesspool of a waste of time — Frank found a length of twine over by the shed. He yanked on it. A cloud of old dirt and dust shot from its fibers. Frank doesn’t remember why he thought of it, but for some reason the idea of hanging that old dog with it sounded pretty entertaining. He didn’t have to grab on to the dog or nothing. It just followed him into the little woods by the back of the property when Frank called him by patting his leg. While it followed him out there, Frank experimented with a couple of knots he’d done before, but none of them allowed the size of the loop to change like he wanted. Luckily, by the time he and the dog reached that big red maple tree where he had his treehouse, Frank had perfected the knot and created an adjustable noose.
That old dog was as friendly as could be and even let Frank put that noose around its neck without even a complaint. And it just sat there looking around the woods when Frank threw the twine over a sturdy, lower branch and took up the slack. It did seem to give him a suspicious glance, though, as Frank made the rope taught by pulling it down. But any suspicion it might have had was quickly washed away by a struggling panic as its kicking body was hoisted up into the air.
Frank held one end of the twine against his chest, feeling it tug as that old dog kicked and grimaced and wiggled its body into contortions at the business end. He was surprised at how little noise there was – just the creaking of the strained twine and an occasional desperate whimper. More of a cough really. He was also surprised by how easy it was to lift an old dog that was almost half his weight up from the ground. He had seen pulleys and such things work, but never really appreciated the beauty of the physics involved until that moment. He was sure he could and would be using that knowledge for lots of things in the coming years.
Eventually, after that old dog was clearly dead, he let it drop to the ground simply by letting go of the twine. Frank kept that twine, rolled it up and put it in his pocket, but left that old dog there to rot. The old man never went out there and every time Frank went to work on his treehouse after, he had to walk around it to get to his climbing planks. The maggots did a pretty good job on it by the time school started and other critters ended up spreading it out before the first snow fell. By the next spring, all that was left was some bone, teeth, and torn hide. But the smell seemed to stay even after the thaw, which was weird. The smell should have been long gone by then. In fact, it never stopped smelling.
It wasn’t until a couple of years later that Frank finally realized the smell of that old rotting dog wasn’t in the air at all, but rather coming from the inside of his own nose. Like an aromatic tattoo or scar on the walls of his nostrils, it just kept pumping that rancid sweetness through his sinuses and into his lungs until he became used to it and the whole world smelled like that all the time. It wasn’t bad, actually. It even kind of became comforting in its consistency. Eventually, that was just the way life smelled to Frank. Like the rotting carcass of an old dog.
Thinking about that old dog makes Frank smile as he stands next to his bunk bed, fingering the mattress cord. Funny how things come around.
The fucker Officer Lou will be back in a couple of minutes, walking by so close and so sure of himself, Frank could easily reach out and strangle him if he wanted. The thought of it sounds very entertaining.
But he knows his time to prepare is running out, so he quickly sits down on the bottom bunk, the mattress chord hanging in front of his face like a thick spaghetti noodle, and gets to work on the noose. Just like the twine with that old dog, Frank’s chord knot slides smoothly, growing from a noose that could be used for a rabbit snare to one that will fit over a grown man’s head. Frank tests it on his own head. It slides down easy enough to the bridge of his nose, but then gets stuck there. He removes it and makes the loop a bit larger, trying it again. This time it slides easily past his nose that even to this day sends the smell of that old dog to his brain. The chord drops comfortably around his neck. Franks pulls on it and the noose tightens around his jugular veins. Yes, this will work. That fucker Officer Lou will be pretty surprised when he gets back in a few minutes.
Frank lets the noose stay around his neck as he reaches up to the other end still knotted around the upper bunk frame. That is a good knot. It won’t be easy to untie that one. Frank reaches up to examine it more closely with his fingertips. Yep, a really good knot. Trying to untie that thing will piss off that fucker Officer Lou and the rest of those fucking guards.
Frank leans forward, testing the cord cautiously as it stretches out, feeling the loop cut into his neck. He adjusts his body, positioning it in such a way where he is confident his plan will continue working even after he loses consciousness.
He leans out further, the loop tightening and cutting into his flesh. He is surprised by the pain and rocks back, taking some pressure off. He catches himself instinctually reaching up for the loop to loosen it for some relief. What the fuck made him do that?
And then he remembers his friend and protector, that seething hatred that has gotten him through so many times of fear and humiliation. It heats him up, rising up from his bowels like a volcano. It shouts encouragement throughout his skull.
Those fuckers can’t have him! Those fucking courts! Those fucking cops! Those fucking people who look at him as if they are better than him! Those fuckers can’t have him! They can’t laugh at him because they think justice wins! They can’t make him pay! They can’t make him do anything! He decides what he does! And it’s time to make his final choice that is only and forever his.
Frank’s hatred pushes his body out over the floor as far as the cord will allow. It pulls his neck into an unnatural configuration. It squeezes like a boney fist around his throat, enraged and powerful. The anger courses through him with ecstatic force, his mind shouting curses to the world, giving the finger to whatever created him. He pushes and pushes until he thinks he sees the blackness coming for him.
But before an easy and gentle death can rescue him from his infinite complaint, he loses his balance and slips off the bed, his ass never touching the floor. The cord tightens to maximum, a level of constriction around his neck bones Frank didn’t even think possible. He tries to find his footing, but all his legs will do is kick. He wants to die, but he didn’t bargain for this.
He reaches around his neck and scratches at his throat, trying to loosen the noose. It is so tight he can’t move it. He digs at the skin around it, hoping to slip even a fingertip under it somewhere, but it is no use. He reaches up, stretching for the cord knot at the upper bunk, but it is just out of his reach. He spreads his fingers, wincing and stretching, fearing that to open his eyes would allow them to pop out of their sockets. His tongue is forced against the back of his teeth and he wishes they would break so that slimy muscle would have somewhere to go.
What was going on? Was the comfort of hatred abandoning him?
He exhausts the inertia of his rage at the end of the mattress cord, a last fart of hatred that purges his bowels into his jumpsuit. His face, cemented into a gargoyle’s silent scream, drips spit and echoes throaty chirps that sound more like they come from a wet mollusk than a man.
Frank feels his blood trying to burst out of his skin. He sees the cell floor drift in an out of focus. An overwhelming sadness envelops him. Fear chills him. Cowardice, regret, and self-loathing are all that remain beyond the last of his pain and hatred.
At the very last, he wonders what life would have smelled like had he been a different man not doused in the cold blackness that takes everything away at the other end of a rope.
Writing from the Grey 