Magick and Death
By Aphony Cree
"Hold onto my tears..."
His voice, so soft, rocked through me. Our lives, bound by trust, falling apart. My will, my strength, my love, disolving to sand. Death and pain in the night.
"Do you love me, Joseph?" he asked, his blue eyes shining in the moonlight, standing on the shore, my blanket wrapped around him, as water dripped softly, joining him to the earth. His smile was like a sunrise.
"The night has magick," he said, his eyes cast to the sky. "Can you sense it?" Dropping the blanket, his happiness so genuine that even the memory tears me apart. The soft curves of his naked hips as he swayed, arms stretched upward, head thrown back in a blissful exhilarence. "You can feel it inside. It's all around us," his eyes meeting mine. "It's love."
He stepped through the doorway, changed. Days since I'd last seem him.
His soft eyes burning with a new lust. "I met a man," he whispered, "who said he'd make you mine forever."
The strange house, a sinister growl, and pain like ice as I felt my mortal self wrenched away.
"What has he done to me, Nathan?"
"The greatest magick of all," he said, eyes smiling bright. "Together forever, Joe."
Forever...
"It was just a game," I said. "I didn't think it was real." Wiping a blood red tear from my eye. "What have you made me into?"
Weeks, months, together but apart. My pain in this life too much for him. His guilt breeding like fire.
Up early, out of the bed we shared, now sleeping like brothers, our love held at bay by my contempt for my new self and his roll in creating it. Out, into the light. His screams were all I heard, echoing into the house as I sat by the door, clutching his note tightly, unable to stop him.
"Hold onto my tears," it said, "and know through them I am truly sorry for what I've done."
The splotches of red on the paper. Drips of blood from his too perfect eyes.
The victim...
Some stranger, captured in the alley, shaking with fear. "Give me your tears," I tell him, his face dripping with the salty liquid. I lick them away, tasting Nathan, his body still wet from the sea as we made love, clutching my mind around the memories. "Do you believe in magick?" I ask the boy, feeling his body go limp in my arms. "Find peace in the magick of death." Dumping the body to the ground, I make my way through the darkness, fingers caressing the worn paper in my pocket. Peace doesn't come for me.
I
have not the courage for death.