Snuff Life
He fizzes with words of visible red, upon his hands and knees; his spine ripples to an unseen wave, and all the time his neck rent weeps, and I wonder if it’s possible for one body part to be so sad? On the screen in the box next to his body my brother talks to me. “You think it’s a game?” And I say no, but the me in the box just giggles.
“You think this is a fucking game, get that shit out of my face,” and the picture is swatted like a fly.
“It’s all a game, man,” I had once said, poking the camera into my brother’s face. “Now smile, come on, show the world your gleaming white.”
A box in a box, like holding a mirror up to a mirror I can only sit and prostitute out my eyes to gore and guilt, I’m frozen, as is the bile in my mouth.
He gargles, then whistles, then rasps as the lacerated flesh submits to the pressure from inside, like air forced out of the opening to a balloon. Face down in a pool of blood that looks too dark to be blood, it clings to his skin like melted wax.
From beyond the grave but caged in plastic and glass he still speaks to me. “You want a laugh? Well, go on and laugh, failed again, did I? Expected it, didn’t you?”
The me on the little screen twists and twirls round his frame and converts the scene into a horror carnival, laughing maniacally as the fool circumnavigates the grim death, like the moon would the earth.
“Sure I’ll laugh, why shouldn’t I?” I had once said. “Why shouldn’t you, too, throw it away, throw it all aside.”
“This is my life!”
“Hey, Billy, play, Billy! Come on, sing along!” Drunk giddy and near exhaustion from the revelry I fall to the floor, with lungs afire with folly, even my cheekbones ache. I hold the camcorder in my hand, focusing on my brother’s face.
I have yet to move even though the blood creeps up to stain the sole of my shoe.
“I’m making a film, Billy, it’s about you, you’re the star, make love to the lens, baby!”
“No job, no prospects for the future, no love and no life.”
“Brilliant, give me more, give me more!”
He gave the final act to the air, the final act so fresh and light with its steely glint. So sharp it made short shrift of the opposing skin and so his jugular shot a fountain over the camera lens; instinctively I wipe away the liquid and zoom into the wound, something for the morbid angels.
I continue to tape for a while longer, finding drama in the thrashing, although I had no choice, as my hands would not move. I caught his life! I hold his soul inside this box with green blinking eyes; with the life of this camera I have captured death. It lives with whirs and odd plastic clicks as I rewind the tape and think of how I can bring him back by pressing just one button. I can do it with play and rewind, play and rewind; I can bring him back and shake the death tagged over to me. Maybe tell him I love him, maybe that’ll make a difference.
I pull out the digital flat screen on my camera and I press to stop recording. Then I rewind and then press play.