(no subject)
See what I am, See what I know, See what I see
I chew the tongue
Who whispered the fortune
There's nothing left but a twisted devotion ...
Liquid diamonds roll down my skin
And the wind whispers around me
Dark place...
A sweetness that I've never known
Hits me like a storm in the ocean
Dark face...
Dark love...
I'll take you
Like a stormy ocean
It's not enough
I need more...
Oh wicked thoughts
From where did you come?
Dark things breathe their heated sighs
I kiss the cheek
And eat the mouth
And taste the tongue that never lies
Johnny Hollow, “Dark Thing”'>
Melora gazed out of the car window at the pastel houses as they went by. Paula sat in the front seat, her father drove. None of them said anything to each other. That was fine with Melora; she had nothing to say. The rain had let up for a little while, but the darkened sky had not gone away. The trees burned bright red and orange against it, their rain-soaked trunks black ribbons of ink that bled together in the distance. A small part of Melora was secretly thankful that Paula was moving in; Melora now wondered if she was ever really prepared to face the hardships winter would inevitably bring on her own.
But like the inevitability of the changing seasons, Melora’s mind always turned back to Edward. How terrified he must be, Melora thought, shutting himself up like a genie in a bottle up there. Had he given up all hope of Melora’s return? Or was he too disgusted with Paula’s invasion of his world, and the way Melora had let it happen, to even care where she was?
If Melora had felt uneasy at the hospital, she now felt herself plunge deeper into that state of unrest. She would have to face her situation with Edward now, and if she ever wanted to see him again, she would have to come up with a plan of some sort to regain his trust and to limit their chances of coming into contact with the outside world even further. Maybe it’s a good thing the Paula is going to be temping for me for a little bit.
The ride from the hospital to the hill seemed to take forever. Melora would doze off to dream of sailing in a ship, the horizon darkened by a looming island with a castle on it. In the highest tower stood Edward, his razor bladed hands throwing long shadows down to the rocks below. Melora’s ship inevitably cracked itself against those jagged rocks, for she was too preoccupied with her spyglass to notice the danger. The shuddering of the wooden planks and the sound of wrenching metal was terrifying. Melora would see herself at the bottom of the hold, the splintered wood of the cross beam jutting out from her abdomen as water rushed in through the gaping holes in the ship. Always she would awaken with the house looming closer still through the windshield.
I don’t want it to be like this...Melora thought as the car parked before the gate at the top of the driveway. Together, Paula and her father lifted Melora into her wheelchair, arranging a blanket over her lap to keep the autumnal cold out. As Paula went to unload the trunk, Melora peered through the wrought iron fence. Some of the flowers were still in bloom, and the hortisculpture looked as immaculate as ever. This made it harder for Melora to accept Edward’s apparent absence as she searched the darkened windows for his figure, her eyes lingering too long on the attic window with all the glass in it gone. All she wanted was just to see his jet black eyes gazing back at her, if only for a moment. Suddenly Melora realized that the car was pulling out of the driveway, and she looked over her shoulder to see the canary yellow Cadillac backing down to be swallowed by the shadows of the hill. She felt strangely desperate to go with Paula’s father, for a moment, knowing the emptiness that lay before her. Emptiness before me. Emptiness behind me. Emptiness on all sides, without Edward to slash at the shadows and cut the pain away.
“Enough of this poetry. Let’s go inside.” Melora muttered. Paula did not make any sign to show that she’d heard, save to push her companion over the dirt path towards the gate.
“What will you do when I’m at work, you think?” Paula asked her as they made their way towards the entrance.
“Sit in my chair and weep, probably,” Melora said, reaching a hand down to caress the mist that hovered about the wheels. They passed several leafy antelopes and flower beds as they went, and Melora wondered at how for so long she’d visited the garden in her mind, fantasizing about how it would feel to be back home again, but the feeling Melora had now was not the one she’d expected: fear. “Maybe I’ll paint some. Or I’ll write letters to Edward about how much I miss him, and I’ll tape them to the walls and cover the whole house with them, and it won’t make any difference because he can’t read.”
“I think I’d like to see what you’d be painting these days,” Paula’s voice echoed at they entered the house, the light from the tall Victorian windows colored with the tissue paper sun catchers Edward had cut out over the summer. “I would look at your canvases here when I would come up, and I was always so curious about them. Why did you stop painting?”
“A combination of a full schedule and sheer, blinding terror of what would happen if I started painting again, mostly.” Melora replied.
Paula unpacked her things upstairs in the room Melora had originally claimed as her own. “It’s too bad the Victorians didn’t build handicap-friendly houses...” Paula said, “but I’m sure it won’t be too bad, sleeping downstairs for two weeks. We can make it very comfortable.”
Edward sat in a moldering velvet armchair, his eyes closed. He had sat there, unmoving, for the past couple of days. The pain in his arm was bearable so long as he didn’t move more than he had to. It lay limp in his lap beside the other arm, only it rested at an awkward angle. At his forearm, bits of leather frayed to reveal dangling wires and sprockets; the machine equivalent of ligaments and tendons. A mixture of blood and oil stained the opening. Edward had never suffered a wound like this. He had felt the disorientation and ache when Jim had beaten him over the back with a piece of lumber, but the only blood Edward had ever bled came from small cuts on his face occasionally. This pain didn’t go away like the pain of a cut; it was constant and it invaded his body like a disease.
He had been like this for a long time; ever since the ceiling had collapsed, ever since Melora had been dragged off of him and he never saw her again. Edward remembered the weight of the beams upon him, and the soft scent of Melora surrounding him. Her hair had made a veil over his face, the flesh of her skin soft and smooth against his cheek. The contrast between those pleasant feelings and the awful, crushing pain in his arm and the awkward pain of his legs pinned down in a weird position confused him. Edward had opened his eyes. All he could see was the sky through a thin sheet of dust and blond hair. He didn’t dare say a word as the strange woman who had found him in the bathroom came in, calling Melora’s name and shrieking at the sight of both of them. He closed his eyes in hopes that she would take care of Melora first, possibly giving him a chance to escape. Clouds of dust rose as the wooden boards were lifted and heaved to the side. Edward felt Melora shift, but it was only the woman sliding her arms under his companion’s chest. Edward prayed that she would ignore him. Edward couldn’t help but crack open his eyes a bit when he felt something strange-his arm was being pulled with Melora as the woman lifted her up.
Edward gazed in horror as he saw Melora’s pale limp arms dangling over her friend’s arm, covered in scratches. Her head rolled like a rag-doll’s, and there was blood in the thick of her hair. It was only until Melora was given another tug that Edward realized that his blades were buried half-way into the stomach of his companion; they slid out finally and thudded to the floor. With them came a gush of blood, and Paula’s panicked cries. Edward felt ill, and wanted to call out to Melora, desperately needing to know if she could hear him, needing to know whether or not she would be alright.
But Melora’s pale form was carried into the darkness, and all was quiet for a time. Edward made several attempts to push the huge crossbeam off of his chest before he succeeded; each time he had to pause as a wave of nausea overcame him. Edward struggled to his feet, nearly passing out as a torrent of oil and blood left the break in his arm. And oh, the pain...Stumbling awkwardly, Edward made his way down the attic stairs, reaching the tier above the main room. Leaning on the rail for support, he saw Melora lying on the floor by the door. A towel was gathered over her stomach, what used to be white terrycloth was now bright red. She looked deathly white, and her stillness terrified Edward.
Edward called down to her, summoning all his strength. Edward thought his voice should have been much louder for all the effort he was putting behind it, but the sound was small and weak. And even if Edward had managed to really shout, somehow he knew that Melora would not hear him.
Please, don’t leave me here, Melora...Edward could not tell if he was actually speaking or if he simply thought these words. He was seeing stars. Edward wondered if Melora was already dead, and maybe he was about to die.
Edward didn’t have time to continue the thought; at that moment the door opened and Paula entered, her harsh breathing filling the entire room. Edward immediately sank back into the shadows.
I can’t let her find me...Edward thought. Melora may have trusted her, but she was from suburbia and Edward didn’t want to take a chance. Maybe Paula could help Melora, but there was nothing, Edward was sure, that she could do for him, except maybe bring his companion back. As the sounds of sirens filled the mansion, Edward quietly made his way through the halls of the upper levels, retreating into the unused, dusty part of the house that Melora never bothered to clean.
The mansion was certainly as large on the inside as it was on the outside. Melora had only been interested in what she needed; but had it been her desire the house would have revealed to her countless sitting rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, terraces, aviaries, nurseries and most of all-workshops. It was to one such workshop that Edward fled, knowing that if anyone tried to look for him, they would never be able to pick him out from behind all the other broken animatrons and assembly line parts. There he collapsed behind a pile of junk, and did not open his eyes for a long time.
When next Edward awoke, there was sunlight coming in through the tall windows. It had been day when the roof caved in; how long had he been asleep? While his creator had been a brilliant man, one thing he missed while putting his creation together was an internal clock. Edward looked to his arm. He could smell the oil that oozed out of the break, and the fact vaguely horrified him. Edward had never associated with himself a smell, except perhaps the smell of leather and iron; but these smells were so ordinary to him by now that the smell of oil seemed almost disgusting in comparison. There was less blood now than there had been; the oil seemed to be gumming up and sealing the blood inside as it dried.
Edward sat up slowly. Already, the careful job Melora had done of brushing his hair was ruined; Edward’s hair stuck out every which way.
Melora...Edward carefully rose to his feet. Was she back yet? Edward was not familiar with illness or recovery; for him, humans kept going until they one day just stopped, like his creator, or like Jim. The implications of such a fate for Melora suddenly struck Edward. One minute, she’d been smiling down at him, touching him with her hands, telling him everything would be alright-and the next, she was lying on the floor of the main room, white as a sheet and unmoving. Then, would everything go back to the way it was before she had come? Would time mock him with its empty, listless hours for years and years? Humans stopped. Edward wasn’t so sure about himself. Melora had said that if he really wanted to, Edward could end it all. But what did she know?
Oh Melora...Edward gazed about him at the discarded machines. What if he failed at an attempt and his life remained intact, in spite of a broken body? The horror, to be trapped in a fragment of one’s former self!
Edward chastised himself then, for contemplating suicide when he did not even know for sure whether or not Melora was...truly gone. What if she was alive, somewhere, and waiting for the chance to return to him?
A spasm of pain went through him. Edward looked down. His right arm, the wounded one, had given a few involuntary snips. He examined it closely, unable to really lift from the shoulder from the pain it caused. The oil was getting everywhere, dulling the gloss of his leather suit. Edward wondered what could be done for the wound. The cuts on his face invariably healed, but something told him that this sort of wound would not on its own.
Something caught his eye. Edward peered closer.
That’s right. Edward thought as his knees hit the floor; I pierced her. The dried blood was dark against the bright polished steel of Edward’s scissorhands. The image of his blades sunken deep into the tender flesh of his companion burned in Edward’s mind.
Edward was up on his feet in an instant. He was gone, disappearing into the darkness of the house, his mind searching ruthlessly for something, anything, to take his violent self-loathing out on. Four tracks were scored deep into the corridor, Edward’s blades bouncing off iron doorknobs and slamming against corners. Edward’s face twisted into a grimace as the impact shot wires of pain through his arm; the feeling was suddenly something he craved more of. Slamming open a door to his left, he found what once was a master bathroom, the frosted glass opaque but allowing sunlight to illuminate the room. Edward headed straight for the yellowed drapes, clenching his teeth as the fabric tore in his razor-bladed grasp. Slashing, tearing, cutting, the drapes were reduced to scraps in a matter of seconds. Edward’s breath rasped from his throat; there had to be more to destroy!
Suddenly Edward caught a movement in the corner of his eye. Turning, it was just the muddied reflection of himself in the tall mirror above the sink. Drawing nearer to it, Edward could see his face behind a fine tracery of dulled tarnished silver. Edward could not sweat, but he was exhausted for some reason. Why was he so tired? Why was he so weak? Edward leaned with his good arm against the sink.
The self loathing was a poison inside of him, consuming his mind and tainting his vision. At the bottom of his heart, Edward ultimately needed to destroy himself to quench this rage. Everything I touch, I destroy. Everyone that I love leaves me and dies. I am a curse. All I do is cause others to suffer. I wish I was never created. I wish I was dead. Edward thought over and over again, repeating the mantra as he gazed into his own eyes with hatred.
Pushing himself off the sink, Edward stalked about the bathroom, striking out at the walls in agitation. This was getting him nowhere. What could he do?
Did humans ever feel this same sort of self-destructive force? What did they do when they felt this way? As Edward caught his gaze in the mirror, his reflection seemed to tell him, They cry, Edward. They cry and then, somehow, they feel better.
Really? Was that all there was to human suffering? They cried and then they felt better? Edward closed his eyes. Somehow, it seemed too simple. And yet, he’d seen Melora cry; once, when she had turned into smoke for a few seconds, and the other time, when he’d accidentally slashed the tips of her fingers. Edward winced with guilt at the memory. Her tears had been immediate, natural, and completely unforced. Had she really felt better after the release of those few tears? How could the release of water from the eyelids have any affect on one’s emotions?
Edward had never cried. No matter how bad things got, he had never felt the urge to cry. Was it because he lacked tear-ducts? Or was it because he simply lacked that sort of humanity? Edward hoped and prayed that it was the former. If he truly was capable of crying, that meant that not even Kim’s absence could move him to tears. Edward could not tolerate the thought of being that inhuman.
Once again, Edward looked at his reflection. Black marbles set into porcelain, with a wild mane of black hair. Beneath that, he was simply an outline of a man. There was nothing human about the belts and buckles, the leather and the vinyl, the scissors and the oil. The doubt of his inward humanity remained.
How do I start crying? Edward thought, how do I go about it?
He closed his eyes and tried to bring his feelings of self loathing to the fore. He thought about how terrified Paula looked when she first found him hiding in the bathroom. He thought about Melora’s dangling arms and lolling head, the way her ankles dragged over the floorboards lifelessly as she was pulled away from him. When no tears came, Edward searched deeper into his memory. He remembered slashing Kim’s palm, just before everything really fell apart in suburbia. He thought about how he had tried to save her little brother from Jim’s van, and instead ended up cutting his face and hands. He thought about the emptiness he felt after Kim left for the last time, the rushed kiss goodbye and the silence afterwards. He thought about the way Melora did not move when he tried to call out to her; how she simply lay there and bled.
A tightness was growing in Edward’s chest; the pain of simply existing was becoming too great. Edward wanted to rip up every single pair of drapes in the house; he wanted to destroy a mattress; he wanted to throw himself from the attic window. Still no tears would come.
Edward once more forced himself to imagine another sixty, seventy, eighty years alone in that house, because of his own inhumanity. He imagined the endless days and nights of doing nothing, of cutting hedges in the spring and sculpting ice in the winter. He would never taste Melora’s rhubarb pie, he would never watch her paint or sew again, he would never hold her in his arms again, and he would never, ever feel her gentle kiss again. She would never come back for him, and forever he would be in this world, and she would be in the next.
Edward caught himself on the rim of the sink, gasping as his legs buckled beneath him. He wanted to cry so desperately; he needed to cry, to feel some sort of release against the overwhelming weight of his sadness and pain. The tears never came.
Frantically, Edward scraped his blades against the knobs of the sink. There was a cranking, shuddering noise deep within the walls, and the faucet spluttered and the water ran rusty like mud for a minute or so. Slowly, the water turned clear, and Edward lowered his face beneath the jet. First one side of his face, and then the other. Then, righting himself, Edward looked in the mirror. His face was wet, and drops of water coursed down his cheeks. But it wasn’t the same at all!
Edward cried out, slamming his palm into the wall beside the mirror. Gritting his teeth and glaring at his reflection, Edward lifted the tip of one razor-blade and slashed the flesh of his face, once, twice, below each eye. When he saw the bright red blood slowly run down his face, mixing with the water to make a continuous drip off the sides of his jaw, Edward released a long sigh. His eyes fluttered closed. The sting of the cuts seemed to suddenly silence all the noise in Edward’s mind; the simple pulse and throb of the wounds brought him back to the present moment.
Edward felt exhausted, but he also felt emptied. It was a strange feeling, the emptiness and the tiredness at the same time. Edward had never felt either before. Strange for a being that never slept to feel tired. Strange for a being who never cried to feel empty. And yet, it was just that. Edward was a basin of water that had been tipped over and emptied. Standing there, he felt hollow, like the sands of time could blow endlessly through him and leave no trace.
He left the bathroom then, and found an empty bedchamber to collapse in. He didn’t want to be aware of the next few hours; all thoughts of Paula and Melora and the next sixty years were put on hold as Edward arranged himself over the cold soft blankets of an ancient bed. Deep within his chest, a balance wheel tipped, a weight lifted, and a spring unwound itself; Edward closed his eyes and all non-essential functions ceased for a time.