Sins and Love

Xander stood alone in the street; motionless, not a single breath of autumn air flowing through him. The street was deserted, adults still working overnight or tucking their precious children into their soft solacing beds.

Finally coming aware of his consciousness, he inhaled the air like it was his last.

Eyes blinking? Check.

Lungs inhaling? Slightly.

Legs waking up? Annoyingly twitching, close enough.

Brain rational? Never, but that’s usual.

 

He allowed himself to laugh hoarsely for a slight second, at the expense of his mental state, obviously. He didn’t allow emotion to be a part of his structured life. No, he spent his time walking ghostly around the city, late at night looking for those who shouldn’t be. He hated his life, taken from his innocence and love, to be thrown into the hateful truth of reality. The Dark, gross, heartbreaking reality of his life no longer shocked him. To those who haven’t taken account of his lacking humanity, you’re deficient in observational skills.

 He’s a justice reaper, soul taker, destruction of fate. Decided by a higher power, his soul in millions was slightly more special than the others. Yet he didn’t see the privilege being “special” when he was left to consume and extinguish the pure seven deadly sins on a nightly standard.

 Slow to the start, he began his night creeping along the edges of our imaginations and consciousness. Looking down he noticed a slight tint to the mold infested puddle beneath his feet.

 His solemn expression that held naturally beneath his pale features shifted, into as close to a smile that he could muster; a grimace is what swept through his facial structure which reflected in the pool of mold and neglect. He continued to stroll lazily with a cat like grace through the ending alley. He reached the end and walked into the moon’s light, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to let go. The pain, pure hatred, and neglection all gone to leave him bare.  Naked of his thoughts and emotions he was left to hear, smell, taste, and feel those creatures behind the black veil shrouding them; to see.

Left foot; Right foot, hips moving at maximum capacity he strode with a purpose like no other. When he smelt the twinge of sulfur salted air, and saw the crusted iron gates to the city park he wasn’t surprised to feel them near.

Where are they? I feel them within a short distance, but have no sight or sense to show them.

The sulfur is making me nauseous, where the hell is that coming from!

He lowered his voice to a growl like scratch

“I can smell your stench from 5 blocks down you vermin, hurry up and get the f**k out here!”

He spoke with raw disgust hoping to make the incarnation appear, though he rarely is allowed with such a convenience.

He wrapped his three fingers close to the left of his hand and pulled the gate creakily open, he scrunched his nose at the oxidized copper railing and continued through. Again moving at a slightly faster pace than you and I could ever wish to, with such grace and naturalism he searched. Feeling the trees maneuvering their roots through the olden earth and destroy the grains of dirt that hold nothing for them; he pauses, standing with legs ajar, to a slight acute angle of his heals; he throws his conscious beneath his feet, beneath the tree roots and then there he sees the rot. Spreading across the park for miles of ground eating away at the earth, he sees it all.

“Such extreme greed, all that we have yet we never have enough”.

A beautifully haunting note of voice sounds from across the park, a women screaming. Xander begins his rush for her, running till the earth behind him is nothing but more s**t he doesn’t have time to enjoy.

He sees her, bent over gasping for just even the slightest breath of air. Quickly wrapping his arms around her he flips her onto her back and lowers his lips to hers; breathing in life and taking the effects of greed from the earth itself into him. He coughs down the cold pain and the rotting taste of mold, sulfur, and death. He slips his hands behind her head to check her recovery,

 

She looks of ash and snow,

And by snow I mean if snow had dark blooded veins that spread beneath the frozen surface like ice.

 

The heat and warmth of this young woman was taken from her, I mean what the hell? Can’t someone just go for a stroll in a park and NOT expect to die anymore?

 

He tries again; taking her lips into his, kissing deeper than he’s ever needed before. As he gives the little warmth he holds inside of him, her face brightens and shifts from the ash white and purple veins to a light pink and red rosy cheeked face.

He sighs with obvious relief, which he hadn’t known he was holding.

That’s odd…..I’ve never held emotion for the creatures of humanity, not for many years now and not for many more to come.

Oh well, she mustn’t interfere.

 

He tosses her aside, onto the nearest bench and rushes to find where this rot has started. His eyes were roaming in the etheric and physical plane, looking into the nature and objects of the park. The etheric plane is the existence above humanity. Where definition and matter have no place, where color, aura, and magic belong. He no longer sees the rot. No he feels the pain in his center, no not his frozen  heart but the little of a soul that he still contains, in and out of withering  pain the soul flickers. Twisting and turning into itself, the black and dark green flame begins to burn brighter.

“Its already started demon, you might as well give up”

He pauses snickering lightly with his sharped tooth grin

“Or your lazy a*s could try to fight…..”

As Xander is finishing his sentence the earth in front of him dissolves and breaks down; millions upon millions of granule sand.

First a long outstretched boney arm pierces the newly formed sand and then a small stubbly one follows. Xander begins to chant his protection spells and paces back towards a fallen tree that is beautifully barren of leaves. 

A decayed fattened man pulls himself through the ground and stands to his feet. On the left side of his body the little muscle he had, looked as if it was being pulled out of him. His tendons ripped and dangling down the back of his leg and his fat was trying to squeeze itself through the gaps of missing flesh. At 6 feet tall and around 400 pounds it’s more like 3 men were swallowed by this beast. The abomination lets loose a snarl of decaying breath and rotting teeth as it rushed forward with surprising agility.

Side stepping the creation of greed just by a distance of a nickel, Xander began to raise his energy in levels. Increasing his senses first; he heard the labored breathing and smelt the decay as he was slammed in the back by the fist with worms and rotting flesh, which looked to be once fair. Spinning with frustration Xander grasped the death ridden forearm and twisted, ripping the arm right out of its socket, and off the supposed body.  Even though the beast is now one armed it had no falter in its wrath as it spoke with its gurgling, just barely human tone.

“Silly human think he can stop I? The God of greed, and destroyer of divinity!”

Xander stood tall and pronounced with seniority

 “I’m no mortal bound human you brainless fool, as you are no ‘god’. I am Guardian of Humanity, above their realm and above your disgrace”

Xander spiked his fist into a left curve towards the lower appendages of his target. In mid swing his arm began forming a light green aura that shifted into a scimitar shaped halo; slicing through the dead flesh like butter and knife. The blow of dead weight and flesh vibrated through the roots of the earth; given back to the earth what the beast couldn’t keep, the trees and flowers and even the individual blades of grass to come anew, regained their push for life, survival and devotion to create new beginnings.

 

 

In another time little Alexander loved the rain, strolling about the stone tiled ally through the sputter of rain puddles. Beaming his youthful smile with his lollipop in hand, no other day could compare to this bliss.

Alexander was thinking of his friend, as he approached closer to Tom’s house. They had planned to pester the neighbor girl’s; Alexander had been crushing on one of the girls in particular, Sandy Rogers. Tall and agile for her age, only at ten years into her life she had boys wrapped around those tinny pink painted fingers of hers. His thoughts occupied around Tom’s and seeing Sandy, alexander hadn’t busied himself on the corner street turn.

His life may have never changed so utterly upside down, if only he had glanced around that tricky corner, to see the oncoming car. He was dead, three minutes of red hot pain then cold. The driver hurriedly propelled themselves from the rusted car door, running over to reach down and fumble around, checking for his pulse.

Flat…cold as stone, smiling to herself she reached forward and grasped the lollipop by thumb and forefinger. Eagerly sucking on the lollipop with her slithering tongue, only to stop the attack on the sugared sphere to say a single emotionless phrase.

“Sleep tight my child.”

 

`He ran from the park like a blur in a window of one those race cars. Not looking back or looking ahead of him, just running. Away from the park, his life, and his memories; anything to not think of what he was, who he had been and what was to become of him. He began to slow his pace, not by his own accord; no, only for the fact that he needed to conserve his vigor, his energy levels began their decent and were dropping back into their original placements. The flutter of the lightning bugs wings left his ears; the wafts of honeysuckle bushes five blocks away were no longer traceable to him. He breathed in slowly with precision to slow his heart.

He sighed and breathlessly whispered

 “I still cannot out run who I am” 

Reviews

[Rob Bignell]

I like the detail of sulfur-salted air. Very concrete and vivid!