I walk back to the iron box again. I hear the 'clink' and 'thud' of another missive slipping its way into my haven, an idea worming its way into my mind.
My footfalls echo in a familiar tenor, soft but sure, against the mahogany which has carried me there before. The iron box grows closer and closer, larger, larger. A shiny crate the size of my thumb, my fist, my head, my torso, and then on and on it grows, until finally I am in its shadow. Still the missives 'clink' 'clink' 'clink' into the iron box. I stare, not awed, but horrified by the parody of what life aught to be.
'clink' 'clink' 'clink'
'thud' 'thud' 'thud'
The missives come. I can see them, towering before me, dancing inside the titanous mailbox before me. They taunt me.
'clink' 'clink' ''clink'
'THUD' 'THUD' 'THUD'
THUD
THUD
THUD
Awake
The beeping of an EKG. The scent of ammonia.
I roll, sweat sticking to threadbare rags, the sheets trailing after me. My hands find my face, my eyes. Complete. Trail higher. Glittering platinum hair, silken to the touch. The expectation of wholeness.
But no. Matted grease, the texture of used up livestock, left on the killing floor. Familiar stench of iron and rot. A trailing gash, jagged, across the skull. A reminder of something forgotten. Maybe mercifully so.
Silver light touching grains of dust, floating through the air like fairie's fire. Memories further from the present, but closer still than ones lost. The scent of hay and harvest, sweet fruit freshly picked and ripely tasted. A lover's kiss, a breeze blowing heat and urgency into heart.
A smile in slivered light, secrets kept by a silver moon. Hands gliding, eager and young, impatient but timid.
Green. An iris in the dark. Pupil. A pinprick of black against a darkening night. The sudden brightness of the flames. Lantern's light meeting a bed of hay.
The scent of smoke and hate. Hate and power. Inhuman fists driving, persistent, against a fragile skull.
THUD
THUD
THUD
The scent of perfume and iron. The mangled body of love lost draped over a frightened boy, barely old enough to understand desire. Old enough to learn revenge and its dreadful ire.
The ire that leads to madness. To blood washing blood. To the sickle in the farmer's shed. To the konite needle in a child's arm. To the pen that inks and twists the law. To the trade of skulls, friend for foe. To the lonely journey.
To an iron box in Colorado. To the ornately wrapped package from a supposed friend.
'Clink'
BOOM
To the blast, tearing concrete from its place and flesh from its bones. To the horrid death of Mitchell Herric, who, in a moment of uncommon valor, shields his only friend.
'THUD'
To the concrete which split my skull. To the bone shards in my chest. To a wretched hate that still burns. Burns stronger than ever before.
A dreadful ire that moves even dead men. The world may ponder peace. The world may call for calm.
Never. There is no calm.
If the world must burn then it will burn, and stepping from the ashes will be man.
I am Donovan Glost.
I am alone, but I am not not dead.
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