Letter to a father

As I sit here, numb with pain, I remember everything; the good and the bad. I find my mind switching from one memory to the next. Oh, how I’ve hurt you. The things I’ve said, the things I’ve done. I disappointed you to the point of severance. Not because you turned me away, but because I was too ashamed to face you, to look you in the eye. Regret is a nasty thing; hell’s torment, an ever-lasting punishment. You know I never meant to hurt you? Funny how we hurt the ones we love the most.

But you hurt me too! You chose her over me. What would mother say? But would you care? You hurt her too. She was dying. You let her die alone. Where were you? Where were you when we needed you most? Where were you when the pain gripped mother so hard she’d wet the bed? Did you love her less when the medicine began to change her? Did the swelling from the cortisone disgust you? She cried me awake most every night – alone, in pain, afraid. Where were you? Loneliness is a killing thing. It sucks the spirit right out of you and then tosses you aside like the worthlessness that you are.

But then I remember how you adored my children. From the moment my first was born, how you’d sneak out the house to come visit, always bearing gifts. Cuddling them, sitting them on your lap, each on a knee, feeding them tales with a handful of sweets; how you walked to school in the snow; your first job; when you lost your fingers to an aeroplane propeller. They’d hang on your lips and soak up everything you said. How my heart would swell with affection to watch you. Love is a wonderful thing. It heals all wounds. It forgives every wrong doing. It forgets.

You were always there for me; every time I messed up, you’d always let me come back home. I’d never stand it for very long because of her, but to know that you invited me into your home, time after time, really meant something. Even so, I think, all I ever wanted was a little recognition. I wanted you to choose me over her. I wanted you to take my side. I wanted you to put her in her place and invite me into your special circle. How I spent my days, imagining how the sunlight bounced off of the skin of the chosen few in that inner circle, longing for that feeling – sunlight – bouncing off my skin. Jealousy is a devilish thing; it turns even the nicest of people into demons. It fills our hearts with hate and vile.

Before I had a chance to really make things right – work my way into your circle, you started to slip away. How my heart ached. You were so close, yet you went a little further every day. I’d run after you, reaching out, calling for you and at first, you’d turn around and see me. You’d come back, and reach for me. But there came a day; you didn’t recognise my voice; you didn’t remember your name. You turned, looked me in the eye, and asked who I was. How my heart split in two. Before I could ever get too close, you slipped away. Day after day, I’d watch, I’d call, but it was in vain. Further and further you’d go, till no longer you were. Disease is a heart-wrenching thing. As it eats away at its victim, so too, it eats away at the world; friendships, relationships, family – chewing away at the cords that bind us together, like a cancer.

Funny how I lost you, all those years ago, yet here I sit today, with the sorrow of a thousand widows hanging on my heart, because you finally broke free. You escaped purgatory. You found freedom. The idea should have me rejoicing, but here I am, tears flowing down my cheeks and breathless jerks stealing my composure. How I loved you my dear father. How I loved you, and you will never know. Knowledge is a strange thing. How do we know when we’re better off with or without it?  I want you to know father.

I want you to know. 

Incy wincy spider

So there I was, just chilling, when this woman walked in on me, and started freaking out and then she tried to murder me!

It started out like every other evening. When it got dark, I decided to find myself a nice spot to spend the night and hopefully catch a few moths. It had been quiet the last few nights and I was starving. After hours of searching, I found a crack in the wall, which lead me to this awesome damp area. And we all know, where there’s moisture, there’s insects. I started to spin my web. I went from one wall to the next, covering the entire corner. It was a masterpiece by the time I had finished, even if I say so myself.

I was nestled in a nice little spot that I’d weaved for myself, kinda like a hammock, recovering from a hard night’s labour, when I felt the first vibration. I froze, to feel again, not really sure if there was really something there, or if it was just a breeze. Nope, there was something there alright. The vibrations started to come violently. I had to make my move before it managed to free itself. I marched over to source of the vibration and found a huge, and I mean, HUGE, moth, flapping about trying frantically to free itself. Fortunately, I’m quite talented in the web making department, and I’d managed to set up a sticky, strong silk trap that was rather capable of securing even the feistiest of meals.

The moth didn’t even see me. It was too busy trying to get lose. I snuck up behind it, raised my fangs high up into the air, like two little steak knives and came trashing down on it like a ton of bricks (okay, more like a gram, but I pack a mean punch okay!). I grabbed the moth with my front legs to secure it, and started rolling it with my hind legs while wrapping it up for later. I couldn’t believe my luck.  A meal this size would easily keep me going for another week!

I barely had a chance to put the moth aside, when this bright light just came out of nowhere. I was momentarily blinded. Never in my life had the sun come up so quickly. By the time my eyes had adjusted, I noticed a human. Jip. This was not good. I like humans about as much as the next species. Something like, 1 out of every 10 spiders that encounter them, actually lives to tell about it. My one boyfriend, Nick, told me all about his encounter with a human, right before I ate him. He said it was the scariest thing he’d ever lived through. He was kidnapped and held captive in a glass prison for what felt like forever. Just when he was beginning to run out of oxygen, the door of the glass prison opened. He started to walk out when the prison tipped upside down and shook violently, causing him to fall out and crash land on some sort of hard rock.

I tried to hide in the deepest corner of my web. The human came closer. A hand came pretty close but then moved away because it suddenly started raining. The human started to shed its skin, then stepped into the rain. The whole area suddenly became extremely wet and slippery and I was starting to fall out of my web. I tried to latch on but it was pointless.  Even my meal had washed away already. I couldn’t believe that I was going to die hungry. My grip was finally lost, and I fell to the floor. I was going to drown. There was water everywhere and the current was inescapable. Just before I was finally washed away for good, I grabbed onto something solid. It was the human’s foot. I ran up with the sole purpose of seeking higher ground. It was at about that this time, that the human finally noticed me.

She pulled her foot up with so much force that I thought I’d start flying. She let out this high pitch shrill that instantly drew blood from my ears. The combination of her flying foot and the sound of hell’s demons breaking lose, left me with no other choice but to bite down so that I could have a better grip. I was so frightened.  If I fell off, this human would step on me for sure. I sunk my mini steak knives into her foot and prayed that the nightmare would stop, but I’m afraid it didn’t.

I was bitch-slapped. When I looked again I was on dry ground, but the human was standing over me with an item, larger than life, smacking down at me. Fortunately this human had pretty poor motor skills, or I’d be as flat as a pancake. I started running for my life when I found a gap in the wall to hide in. The human was still screaming and smacking at the wall with the strange item. I suddenly felt faint. I couldn’t believe that I had managed to escape with my life. Soon the human would lose interest and go away.

I was right, it was much sooner than expected, that the human left. Finally I could breathe a sigh of relief. Just when I was about to leave the gap the human returned!! A different item was in her grasp this time. I retreated back to the gap. It was then that this huge deadly gust of wind and rain came flushing into the wall, knocking me out cold.

I honestly don’t know how I survived or what saved me. I woke up in a narrow tunnel busy drowning. The current was so strong I couldn’t escape. The tunnel finally opened up and the current flung me into the air with a spray of water. I landed in some sort of pond, and there I managed to grab onto something and pull myself to safety. It was a horrific experience. I hope to God that I never see another human again. I don’t even know why God created humans. They’re ugly and scary and serve no real purpose.

I lost two legs in the battle. My stumps are my constant reminder of how fragile life is. Now, I take every moment in. You never know when it’s all gonna end. 

Eater

What a beautiful man she thought, as she stroked his pale white cheek. He was still warm to the touch. Mandy leaned in and kissed his lips, softly - a small peck. She drank in a huge breath of his scent before pulling away and taking one more look at him. Mandy could feel that wicked grin take form on her face. She didn’t feel wicked though, wicked was just the description of the grin. She felt excited. She’d been dreaming about this for years. Mandy leaned in again, smoothed her nose against his chin, slowly making her way up to his cheek, running her tongue over every inch of stubble. She opened her mouth and secured a sizable amount of cheek flesh between her teeth. She was holding it there, literally drooling over him, with anticipation. Pop. It was like, biting into an apple. A crisp pop through the top layer of skin, followed by a soft marshmellow-y-ness underneath.

The distinct taste of metal excited her taste buds as the blood began to trickle. Mandy pulled back and began to chew. She’d eaten raw pork before, simply out of curiosity, fantasising that it was a man. He didn’t quite taste like what she had anticipated, but that was quite okay, as the sheer satisfaction she got from scratching this 12 year itch, made it worth her while. Mandy began to giggle like a school girl, drunk on lust and power. She leaned into him again, this time, without any of the foreplay and took a nice fat chunk out of the other cheek. Pop. As she began to chomp away, she started to laugh hysterically. This was so much better than she’d fantasised about.

Mandy got up. She wanted to get a butcher’s knife from the kitchen. This was her first kill. She didn’t want any of the meat to go to waste. She didn’t know when she’d get another opportunity like this. Mandy exited her garage as fast as possible, trying to open and close the door with lightning speed so that no one would catch a glimpse of the corpse inside. This looked so much easier in the movies. People usually had big properties all to themselves to commit all kinds of mischief on. Mandy had a townhouse. It was tricky, but doable. As she ran over to her front door, she caught a glimpse of herself in the window. She still had that stupid love-struck grin on her face, which on its own would be okay, only hers was covered in blood. She frantically started wiping her face as she ran into the kitchen.

She collected a chopping board, her butcher’s knife and some freezer bags.

“What are you up to?” Pauline asked, with an overly friendly smile on her face but a great confused frown on her forehead. It was Mandy’s neighbour. She’d caught Mandy red handed, leaving the house for the garage with equipment in hand. Shit, Mandy thought to herself; “Oh hi Pauline. I’m... Just making biltong...”

“Oh I didn’t know you made your own biltong?”

“Ja, I normally don’t, but my brother brought me this huge chunk of wildsvleis, so I thought I’d better make the most of it before it goes off, you know?”

“Oh lekker, I hope you plan on sharing!?”

“ha ha, we’ll see if there is any left”

Pauline smiled at Mandy and went back into her house. Mandy felt like she could hardly move. The adrenaline had just kicked her so hard that she felt like she was about to pass out. Pauline can thank her lucky stars, she thought to herself. She had no desire to eat a woman, but if she happened to kill one, well then, there’d be no point in letting her go to waste now would there?

Back in the garage, Mandy began to undress the beautiful man. When she removed his shirt she realised that she’d made quite a mess of things when she had killed him. It was a pity as she could have used some of that meat. She’d just have to find another way the next time that she did it. It was very important that she didn’t ruin his head or his face though, because it was the cheeks that she’d been fantasising about all these years. 

Naked and stretched out, with his right arm over the chopping board, Mandy took a swing with the butcher’s knife.

There was blood everywhere. Mandy had been chopping at him all afternoon, but a simple domestic butcher’s knife was no match for human bones. It was such a mess. Mandy started to feel a little sad. She had started with this project with such great expectations and then she went and ruined everything with her lack of experience. She curled up into a ball and held her knees together, wondering what to do. There was no turning back now. If she couldn’t manage to cut the body into bits with bones and all, she’d have to somehow strip the meat from the bones. Mandy started with the hacked up arm. She dug the knife in till it reached the bone, then scrapped the knife downward, along the bone, slowly lifting the flesh off. It was a hefty task that took her till midnight to complete.

The alarm went off at 5am on Sunday morning. Mandy had managed to refrigerate most of the meat during the early hours of the morning, but she’d have to make a plan with the internal organs and bones that lay scattered on her garage floor. Mandy put on her tracksuit and made herself useful. While staring at the mess in the garage, she was hit with an amazing brain wave. Mandy gathered up the leftover organs and carried them into the backyard. She discarded the lot into the braai. She then went back for the bones.

With an early morning fire crackling in the back yard, Mandy began to reflect on her weekend activities: As happy as she was, finally fulfilling her lifelong fantasy and all, Mandy couldn’t help but wonder if she’d miss her brother at all. Ohhh I wonder if I still have marshmallows!

Author's note: A special thank you to Patrick B Vince for sparking the idea for this story!

A moment of insanity

I can’t fathom what is happening here. I simply don’t understand how I even got here. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been successful and that meant I always got what I wanted. I’ve always been the best at everything; the fastest runner, the smartest kid in class, the young successful business man that all the women swoon over. So what the hell is this? I thought Candice invited me over for dinner. Why are we sitting on the couch like this? I feel like I should engage in this “conversation” and change its direction, but the moment I heard “It’s just not working out”, my ears started to ring, I started to feel light headed and at this very moment, I actually feel like I’m starting to see white! She’s still sitting there, making all these overly expressive hand movements to accompany her flapping lips, only I don’t hear anything but the deafening ring that started earlier.

 I stare blankly at her, sweat dripping from my forehead, when I notice her beautiful legs. She’s wearing that tight black pencil skirt I like, cut just below the knee, with a pair of FM pumps. Her legs look so smooth, like she had them waxed today... Why is she wearing this? What kind of message is she trying to get across? I can feel the frown starting to take form on my forehead. I look back at her face; she’s still talking. She’s really beautiful. That’s why I picked her to begin with. It wasn’t meant to be anything serious, but if anyone was going to be walking out of this relationship, it was going to be me. I’m the boss here. Not her. I don’t know who the hell she thinks she is, but I’m going to have to set her straight. Sure, you think you’re pretty now, but who do you think will want you if you didn’t look like that eh?

I get up; every muscle in my body is zinging. I feel like I’m going to burst out of my suit any minute and turn into The Hulk. Candice is standing too now. Her lips aren’t flapping anymore; she’s just staring at me. She looks confused. She’s confused? How the hell does she think I feel? I’ve always been the one in control. Does she have any idea how it feels to have that taken away? Like some silly little woman has the goddamned mentality to even know what the fuck she wants?

I storm over to the door with every intention to just leave because I can’t take this, but the door is on the other side of the kitchen, and I’ve just spotted something on the kitchen counter that stopped me dead in me tracks. It’s like... It’s like something’s come over me. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I don’t have any emotions right now – I’m not even angry anymore. I don’t have any intentions. I don’t have any plans. I’ll just take it as it comes.

I reach for the counter and pick it up – the object that prevented me from leaving her house. I hold it with both hands, and see the emptiness in my eyes, in its reflection. Looking up, to meet her stare, I see that Candice, who had followed me this far, looks like she’s just seen a ghost. I’ve never seen the look of fear in her eyes before, but it’s just ignited this strange sensation of power within me. I don’t know why the idea that I have caused fear would have such an exhilarating effect on me. Maybe it’s  just because it’s the polar opposite of the feelings she extracted from me a few moments ago in her rejection? Without taking the time to think about this, or to rationalise my emotions, I lunge forward. She looked so much like a frightened cat that I knew that I had to grab hold of her on the first try, or she’d get away.

It’s as if I’ve just come to. But I remember everything. Every part of me that died on Candice’s couch this afternoon, just came to life. I’m sitting on the kitchen floor – I think I sank into this position when my legs started to go numb. I look at the deep red fluid covering the floor and for whatever reason, swish my hands through it – to feel the wet sticky texture, to break the mirrored smoothness of its surface, to make sure it’s real. Lifting my hand to get a good look at my blood soaked palm, I start to cry. Oh god this is real. What have I done? I reach for Candice and pull her limp mutilated body into my lap. Her eyes are still open. That look of fear and shock that just moments ago, invoked the demon in me, now has my stomach turning. I lean a little to my right and start to puke violently. I feel guilt like no one has ever experienced it in their lives. It’s a heaviness, like an elephant, sitting on your chest. I look at Candice again and close her eyes. I will never be able to take away her last memory of me. I will never be able to undo what has happened. She will move on, to where ever the fuck we go, and I will be known – to her at least – as the devil that sent her there. That idea alone enrages me all over again. I grab the knife, still next to me, and pluck out her eyeballs. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but somehow it makes sense to me. In one of the drawers, Candice keeps resealable freezer bags. It would work perfectly to transport a pair of ice blue eyes.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’m kinda just winging it as I go along. The house has been cleaned up with bleach, I’ve burnt my clothes, put on a clean change of clothes, and Candice is wrapped in a blanket and cling wrap, and stuffed in my boot. Dead bodies are surprisingly heavy. It’s not like I haven’t picked Candice up in the past, but dying apparently added 50 kilos. I had to completely remove myself from the situation, in order to get it together. Even now as I’m driving to god knows where with a body in my boot, I feel like a removed entity, looking at myself through a glass panel.

The first thing I do when I get home is have myself a drink. I’d been driving around for hours but it was all in vain. As I sit here at my desk, bottle in hand, she lay in the boot of my car, wrapped in blankets and plastic. I reach in my trouser pocket and retrieve the reasealable freezer bag. Staring at the contents of the bag has put me in a zoned out state. It took quite some time, but when I finally snapped out of it, it was because I’d somehow come to a decision to make things right.

I put the, now empty, bottle of whiskey down on the desk, and open the draw. There lay my gun. It should be in a safe. But I liked to keep it here. I liked to be able to pick it up every now and then, feel its weight in my hand, and imagine its destructive capabilities. It’s loaded. I made a point to keep it loaded at all times – in case. Looking dead ahead, I lift the gun to my right temple. I subconsciously squeeze the freezer bag in my left hand, because I’m a coward searching for the guts to do this, when I feel the sensation of a pop. I don’t even have to look to know, but it was enough. Popping Candice’s eyeball in my hand was enough of a reality check to get me to do the deed. Click.