Inklandia: My Illustrated World

“In that Window”

By Kevin C. Steele

  In that window, there was once a room of doubt that she lingered in. She didn’t wander outside from the yesterday gallows to test the sparkling daylight or hummingbirds. Solitude and destiny. Alone, gazing at the grass below and wondering why tomorrow had wandered away. Joy had not found her a comfortable companion, so she whispered to despair and coaxed it out from under the bed-shadows, mewling and damp, softened by her affections. No man had loved her in a long time, not since. Since. Several reckless summers had passed and her heart did not want. Her skin didn’t cry for the sweat of a body beneath her. She’d built that room form her warm loneliness and it became her lover.

  I told her once that I would love her and give her my heart to share her whisper-dreams with, but she rebuked me as the callow fool every man’s heart was. She had no need of my fumbling poetry and lukewarm ministrations. She was too hollowed-out by love’s tortures, from such an early age. She didn’t need my companionship or false promises of eternity. She’d already accepted the finality of a greater love, the love of tragedy.

  The tragedy sat upon the bed-side, bone-twig feet set firmly on the floorboards. Dust-moats sparkled and danced in the sunbeams shimmering through its ribcage. The moats could be its its hopes but it had none. None except the one that lay next to it, Mindolene. It woke from its slumber to find her sleeping next to it, their two hands intertwined. It looked now at that hand, that claw that only resembled desolation. Dust-moats also cascaded from its fingertips and it knew itself at once in that moment. His place wasn’t love or home; his place was just peace and an end to the breath of days. Tears might have flowed, but he couldn’t remember what they tasted or felt like, so pregnant shadows had to suffice for what could pass as grief. He knew she wouldn’t rebuke him like so many of the others. She would linger for him just long enough to echo for him.

  He turned back to her, watched her sleep for two shallow breaths longer, then he touched her naked breast. A tender spark blinked in the air between his fingertip and her skin, then silence, stillness.

  Her eyes snapped open fox-trap quick, body heaving forward as if on a pulley. Her supple back went rigid and she looked at him. The tears came then, tears of joy for the peace he’d brought her, a gift no man could give her. It was the only other tenderness and touch she’d ever wanted. She reached out to take his hand, but he shied away. She tried to reach for his cheek, but he turned away. This was the last mercy he could allow himself, but he couldn’t refuse her. So, he turned to gaze into the sultry darkness of her eyes and found a quiet joy there, a spark that she gave him with a kiss of such a delicate magnitude and grace. He held her last breath as she fell into his outstretched arms and embraced him.

  For a moment or longer, he held her there but she was already gone. She’d left the room just a breath ago, by way of the lonely window now haunted by her reflection. So, he laid her body down on the downy, sweat-stained mattress and stood over the bed. He bent down and whispered something, a secret only for them, then walked into the deepest shadows of the room and was gone.

  I could’ve given her gifts, but not like he could, not such tender, eternal mercies as he could. So, I just stand here now, looking up at that lonely window and sometimes, when the afternoon lingers a bit and the cicadas can coax her to stay, I can see her in that window, a soft smile between us.

  I’m not really sure what’s been lost in the corners of that shadow, the one beneath my eyes, scratching my belly raw with words and daggers in the fold of my soul. It wandered into the room and I saw it shimmer for a breath, whisper to the right, echo past me into the hallway. It stood pensive at the window, gazing down at the milky-blue swamp. Marsh fairies twinkle past ember trees, wind chiming the mellow branches of the gossamer. It only looked back once, followed my retreat down stairs, then slipped into the moonlight to whisper my name in her ear, so far beneath the weeping tree.

One of these days, I should probably get around to telling these stories that rattle around in my head. Some of them have been there for nearly twenty years, but drawing has always been the distraction I’ve let pull me away from it. Whether it’s a paid commission, or some personal project, I never seem to make enough time for telling those stories, but I realize I should. If anything, it’ll likely be my creative legacy.

Chapter One: The Still-White Pink

 Wake up. Groan, yaaaAAAAAAwn, stretch, pop. That pop was a little louder this morning than yesterday’s. Fuckit, no insurance, no doctor. Shit, bathroom floor’s cold; forgot to turn on the heat. Sinus headache, so take the pills; that’ll do it. Bacon, yeah, that sounds good. Hmph. God, I love that smell. Read somewhere, someone made a bacon-flavored sex-lube. Hmph, disgusting genius; should’ve come up with that myself. Maybe I’ll work it into the story somehow. Mm, …the fuck’s that noise? The subway shouldn’t be that loud, not up here. So, what the…I’ll just take a look out the…fuck.

  White Rabbit wakes up, panting, terrified. Fuck, that thing was huge. Couldn’t see any sky past it. Fuck. He swings his feet over the edge of the bed, the wooden floor is cold, but feels good. White Rabbit’s always liked the cold, reminds him of Mal. That, and the clove stink. She does love those fucking things. Gotta get ‘er to quit one of these days. White Rabbit reaches back, probing under the covers, finding Mal’s soft thigh. Can’t count how many times I’ve tried an inventory of those freckles, heaven. Her leg is cold, cold as the wooden flooring under his feet. Cold, and wet?Mal?

  “Mal?” His voice probes through the silence of their room; nothing. “Mal, doll? Mal…MAL..MAL! Oh god, Mal! No!”

  There’s no light in her hazel eyes. In fact, the hazel’s barely noticeable, ringing the deep, doll-black pupils and the china doll skin. Her freckles have gone a softer pink, imperfect porcelain that he loved so much. so much blood. so much of her on the sheets, her face, her…skin.

  “Oh god, Mal, why? Why did you do it? Why did you leave, doll?”

  Hello, White Rabbit. It’s time to wake up now, time to get this show on the road. Come find me.

  It starts with a scream that never comes. His lungs are filled with dust, his vocal cords severed. His head somewhere, a few feet from the torso. The tongue was pulled out, fat-black and bloated, stuffed up his ass. He’s become dessicated, dried cicada-husk mummy stuffed under the crawlspace. First things first, let’s get those idle hands moving; so we can go do His work. That little fucking rabbit’s got a job to do, and so do we.

The hands are out first, scratching up from their little graves; heavy, gray-flesh claws torn and razor-sharp probing under the dirt and detritus, finding the oak-hard arm. Can’t remember how many times I’ve killed with these arms. Snapped, pulled, twisted and broken so many. The hands and arms find the legs, all slithering, stumbling, ka-thumping for the torso. All lay down together, snuggle closely, so the hands and the meat can do their work. Stitching thick twine, barbed wire, rat innards, whatever can be found to keep the parts in place and make the healing any bit easier. The torso sits up, snakes along the low crawlspace and finds what it’s been searching for, finds the driver for this terror-wreaking, fly-blown meat wagon, 100% American Kill Machine. A few quick stitches and a wrap-job get the cabeza de muerte in place, then he’s up to find the fuel. Bursting up through the worm and mold-eaten floorboards, making his way to the kitchen.

  The blood’s thick and crude-oil black, sittin’ in the ‘fridge for near a decade he assumes; sealed tighter than a virgin’s asshole in rust-tinged Mason jars along with his cadaverous heart, Granny Gein’s Preserves. He shatters the tops off, disregarding the glass shards, sprinkling all of the contents into a great stew-pot and setting it to boil. A roiling miasma of Hell’s-own-breath fills the kitchen, slithers into his lungs. His eyes snap open, sour-milk white, blazing with intent. He gulps down the blackened heart. Then, bear-trap hands clutch the stew-pot, red-hot and fuming, raise it overhead to pour the noxious stew into the gaping, black-toothed maw. The emptied pot slams to the floor, heat running through him, filling his veins and pumping into his heart. This is as close to life as he’s going to get, so he goes to do some living.

  Don’t screw this up, Butcher. I’m counting on you.

  The sun had gone down by the time White Rabbit climbed out of the bed, walked to the bathroom and started the shower. There was blood all over him, Mal’s blood, his beautiful Mal’s blood. Despite the room temperature of her, White Rabbit had crawled under the covers with her again, pressed close, nuzzled her alibaster neck and kissed it gently, one last time. Her hair still smelled of cloves, blood orange and pomegranate, the scents of her favorite shampoo and soap. She swore she’d never change those scents because they suited her, made her feel strong and alluring, mysterious as the whispering dead. But now, those scents, her scents, mingled with a sharper, sweeter odor.

  As he laid with her, smelling and caressing her, he remembered her holding him so closely most nights since they’d met. She was very young then, perhaps only 10-years-old when they’d met.

  It was all darkness before then, Mal. The day we met, you helped me see again. Since then, I only had eyes for you, doll. Wait, what?

  That’s what woke him from his revery, his heart-shattered stupor. “Why’d I think that we’d met when you were ten, Mal? But, somehow, it feels like the right memory, a real memory. I remember how you smelled, like oranges and baby powder. How soft your nightgown was against me, the one with the pink and yellow, big-eyed ponies on it. How do I remember it like that, doll? You were just a child?”

  White Rabbit sits, back against the tub. Thick steam begins to fill the bathroom, wandering into the hallway and wrapping him in a sultry dream-mist. He sits silently, slipping into deep shadows of memory. It comes to him with ease when he thinks again of the pink and yellow ponies, oranges and baby powder, the night her father brought him to her.  She’d told him about that night, many times over and over, as she cradled him tightly, night after night.

  “Daddy brought you home to me a few days after it’d happened, after she left us. God, listen to me; ‘left us?’ Mom killed herself, she didn’t leave us. Anyway, that’s when Dad brought you home to me. God, I loved you so much, instantly. That’s when I named you, do you remember, Whitey?” Mal nestled him closer, he nuzzled her smooth freckled breast.

  Whitey’s not your name, dumb-bunny; neither is White Rabbit. Go find the blade, he’ll tell you the whole story. Fuck off! I just want to sit here with her, just awhile longer, you asshole!