MicroHorror

Sonny and Karen walked down the boulevard in the lovely glow of the yellow streetlamps that dotted the landscape. Mosquitoes didn’t bother them; those pesky bugs stayed in the sky, buzzing loudly around the bulbs on the metal poles. Occasionally, Karen slapped her arms, but just instinctively. Sonny held her hand tightly, waving their arms like pendulums. He smiled like a teenager who left his house after curfew with his nubile lover.

With a headshake, Sonny looked at his bride. “I invited my brother to live with us. I assumed that he would look for a job.” He said, “I didn’t think that I’d have to feed him for three months. Willy thinks about himself and nobody else. I shouldn’t have expected normal behavior.” He said, “He just doesn’t realize the burden that he puts on people. Willy couldn’t care less that everyone else lives independently. And they work like animals to live independently.”

Karen said, “We didn’t leave college so we could drink and oversleep; Willy did and he brought those problems to our house.” She said, “With him, small tremors grow into massive earthquakes. I just didn’t understand before.”

Sonny said, “I’d tell him to leave, but I have to repair holes in the drywall anyway. He could help. After all, he put them there.” He said, “How do we tell him to behave normally? Whatever we tell him, he misunderstands, just like a baby.”

Walking down the street, they stopped. Another person waddled past them. The burly body behind the black shadow appeared blind or mentally numb. He didn’t notice Sonny and Karen and probably wouldn’t have if they were walking without clothes. After he bumped Sonny absentmindedly, Sonny yelled. He said, “I think you just took my wallet. I want it back.”

With a shake, Sonny loosened his hold on the female hand until her arm pulled him back. “Please,” Karen said. “He didn’t hurt you, and he won’t hurt me, either.”

After they passed the corner, Sonny yelled to Karen. Instinctively, she jumped into her husband’s arms. With a push, he put her behind a truck. He looked at the body on the blacktop. It lay motionlessly, with massive legs dressed in bloody jeans. The corpse held its hairy arms over its head. The eyelids fluttered; a hefty wind touched them, but no life inside the body did. Sonny yelled at the man who had passed them. A lengthy shadow still oozed around the nearby trees. Splattered in blood, he had probably killed the man for money.

“When that man bumped us, did you recognize him?” Sonny said, “I think he recognized us. He walked by us too quickly.” Karen lifted a narrow eyebrow.

Karen said, “Shouldn’t we notify the police?” She shook like a chilly breeze just blew through her body. With a nod, Sonny agreed. When Karen dialed, she heard static on her phone. No police answered; her phone just bleated. Karen said, “We’ll find out the truth when we get back home.” Quickly, they traced their steps back to their small house.

On their porch, they lay like dolls dipped in paint. All of their possessions had vanished. Their house looked like a bankrupt museum without any artifacts. Sonny blinked; chrome sparkled below his spiritual body. Lifelessly, Sonny held his handgun tightly. Finally, it occurred to Sonny why the burly man had looked so familiar.

He said, “We lived with Willy for three months. We should’ve forced him to leave earlier.” He said, “Obviously, Willy killed us both before I could shoot back. I assume that he jumped into the road, before that truck.” He said, “He took his own life after he took ours. We just passed him on our way to eternity.”

On their porch, a jagged scrawl marred the rustic wood. I couldn’t live without help. Sonny didn’t argue. “He couldn’t survive without us.” Karen nodded slowly yet firmly.

I walked through the carnival like a lion in the middle of its pride. Still, my strides slowed cautiously. Many animals had left black lumps in the sawdust. I chewed cotton candy like I had never tasted food as wonderful or nutritious before. Around me, the ringleader, who held a whip, bellowed. Shortly, the tightrope walker would appear. Naturally, he could die instantly if he fell; he would walk without a net, like always. Games buzzed and tinkled to the point where I couldn’t hear my own voice anymore.

Before I watched the high wire, which throbbed my brain, I looked at the cage that held the lion. While I enjoyed pretty animals, I found the smell offensive. I could barely nibble my food. When the fluffy lion roared, the hat blew off the tamer’s head. Attached to my mom’s chilly hand, I trotted to the alligator pit. On TV, they repulsed; before my eyes, they fascinated me with slimy evil.

Why the handler did it, I didn’t understand. He leaned toward the reptile, which stood on a black carpet (it better revealed the bumpy emerald flesh), and put his head into the pointy mouth. The monster opened its jaws like the small trap door of a cellar. With my jaw low, I watched as the handler placed his entire head below the massive teeth, and held it, carefully, until he began to sweat. When liquid dribbled, he took his bald head from the mouth. Then, he raised his arms triumphantly, with a baton in his hands.

Like everyone who had watched, I couldn’t help but stare, wide-eyed. My throat had dried and my hair tingled, like I had dropped my head between those teeth. Although I hadn’t, I heard my throat yell in pain. Causing my blood to freeze, it sounded like a squeal that I had heard before. Obviously, it had come from my windpipe. Other than me, who could have squealed so loudly? My voice always yelled as shrilly.

After I watched the tightrope walker, I went back to the pit. I spoke to the handler, who looked as powerful as the creature, with burly muscles and a broken nose. When I told him about the squeal that I had made, which had sounded abnormal, he kneeled beside me. “I hear it almost nightly,” he said. “You didn’t make it any more than I did.”

After I inquired, he said, “When the first handler put his head between those teeth, he never pulled it back.” I furrowed my brow. He explained why a handler must pull his head from the mouth immediately or shortly thereafter. “Nobody tames wild animals completely. They always feel the jungle. They kill quickly, with the smallest mistake by the handlers.” He said, “When handlers put their heads into the mouths, they usually drop sweat onto the tongue. Any foreign object will cause these animals to react.”

Lifting his eyebrow, he said, “What do you think happened to the handler before me?” He explained, “Sweat dripped off his head; the animal did what the animal should have done. We should’ve expected it to kill him. We tried to help, but the reptile wouldn’t allow it.” He patted my back like I should understand.

Wiggling my hat, he said, “Almost nightly, the handler before me bellows like my performance could kill me. When I put my head between those teeth, I listen for that yell. Understandably,” he said, “his spirit tells me to quit; I respect the advice, but I can’t follow it.” He said, “Nobody chose this job for me. When you work hazardous jobs, do you allow people to stop you?”

Looking into my eyes, my mom said, “Someday, my boy will change the world. No one will stop it.” The handler nodded, but I just shrugged playfully. What should anyone expect an eight-year-old to do?

The body arrived bloody and torn badly, like a large animal had bitten into the chest cavity. Although it didn’t bother me, I watched my assistant vomit in the back sink. When he recovered, we took off the shoes and jeans. I unbuttoned the shirt, where the injuries increased in severity; I thought my assistant shouldn’t yet. With very little emotion, I looked at the boy, and quietly told my assistant how I believed he had come into the morgue. Leonard inquired about the children; five others had been wheeled into the morgue already. We looked like schoolteachers for a class of corpses.

I said, “Wolf pups live with Missy Park; somehow, they surround the deaths of these boys like flies do around thick manure. Nobody loves those puppies like Missy. Actually, the people in her neighborhood have reported fences broken, lawns ripped, and bark bitten off their trees, caused by the wolves. I wanted to blame raccoons, but with Missy Park, I agreed with the townsfolk. A lot of the boys in town, feeling aggressive and immature, kill the puppies quickly; somehow, others appear as quickly.”

I said in particular, “Once, a frisky pup found the basement of a house located just three blocks from where Missy lives. It clawed the couches, jumped onto the tabletops, and urinated in the kitchen. When the family found it, the animal just jumped and wagged its tail happily.” I said, “The father of the household told Missy to keep those wolves locked in her basement. ‘They don’t belong in the city,’ he said; the city officials agreed.”

I added, “Missy regards her neighbors in the same manner that florists do around bumblebees. She respects their privacy and wants the same treatment. Actually, the animal pound wouldn’t take the wolves.” With a headshake, I said, “If this city would just take those animals from Missy, we would find less boys in the morgue. We would bury fewer adults, too. Nobody in the hospital would look as bloody.”

While Leonard sat quietly, I continued, “After the puppy broke into that house, the boy who lived there found the pup filling its mouth with trash. Slowly, he jumped onto the small wolf, and tied thick twine around it. With its small size, it couldn’t pull itself free. And unfortunately, the boy didn’t just torture it.” I said, “Shortly, Missy looked for her puppy. While she talked on the phone, she spotted a package on her stoop. She found the wolf in the box, limp and bloody, and with bones broke.” I said, “Children behave cruelly. I wonder if those baby animals justified the actions of Missy Park.”

I said, “Naturally, the wolf didn’t suffer alone. Someone found the boy, and put him in the morgue. When I undressed him, he looked like a wild animal had mauled him. I questioned that a human murdered the boy.” I explained, “When the moon fills, animals howl in the hills. Would an adult wolf be allowed to live in the city? Why wouldn’t the police officials kill it properly?” I said, “Why can’t the police find the wolves who howl below the moon?”

Leonard held his mouth in a sickly manner. I said to answer my question, “In the tests that Missy took, the laboratory found weird blood cells in her body.” I said in theory, “Like everyone, I know Missy loves those puppies unconditionally. She always keeps wolves around her house.” I said finally, “I believe they belong to Missy Park naturally.”

Leonard stood shakily and held a knife. Looking at him, I said, “We should perform the autopsy. We have very little time.” I said, “Another boy may arrive shortly, lashed by a wolf like this one.” Opening my scissors, I exhaled and said, “You wouldn’t catch me killing the children of a werewolf.”

“When our mom died,” I said, “she didn’t tell anyone who should buy the house in her absence.” Wiping perspiration off my forehead, I said, “Naturally, she loved you two above me. She put you both on a pedestal like she never did with me. She failed to understand why you didn’t have boyfriends.” I shook my head. “Our mom always played music around you two. With me, she just hoped for a life that didn’t include jail.”

Inside my shaky hand, I held a pistol like it weighed fifteen pounds. “Our mom would bawl like a baby to know that I would outlive her daughters. Maybe I will live in jail; maybe I should live in jail. Our mom didn’t prepare me for life outside this house, like she prepared you both.” I added, “She tried to prepare you, anyway.”

Below the yellow tabletop, I pulled the trigger until I emptied the small black pistol completely. My vision blurred; I threw my head back. Without control of my queasy innards, I vomited thickly. My fluids landed inside the basket behind the table at which I sat. Across from me, my identical sisters, looking limply at the tabletop, finally shut their eyes. For me, the family just ended, like it hadn’t after I had thrown the bushel of fluffy blue flowers on the casket that held my embalmed mother. I informed my sisters that I would never look at their naïve faces anymore, but they couldn’t hear me.

Gathering my duffel, I walked into the emptiness of daylight. With the sky just a bit chilly, the sun beamed like a lighthouse beacon. Likely, a neighbor had heard the shots, which still bounced loudly off the walls. Someone probably dialed the police. Perking my head, I heard the blare of sirens; they bleated rhythmically in opposite directions. With luck, I should be able to drive to Mexico, and escape jail. After five years for manslaughter, I wished to never expose my body to a jailhouse guard anymore. Still, I couldn’t look at my sisters like I had for twenty years. My enthusiasm for my family had left my body like sour vomit just did. Tossing my lengthy hair, I yelled, “Freedom,” and trotted joyously into the yard. As usual, my rusty Chevrolet waited, but to me, it looked immaculate. With broken doors and bent fenders, it impressed me like a limousine would.

Touching my jeans, I didn’t feel the bulge of my wallet. Any trip required money. Quickly, I walked back into the house and poked my hand into the desk by the door. At that instant, I heard a voice. “What brought you back?” Another voice said, “We can live without you.” On opposite sides of the couch, my sisters sat, leaning apart like a couple that had just fought bitterly. When I lifted my eyebrow, they looked optimistically at the other, like the problem that had broken their family would never come back.

Immediately, I froze, looking at familiar people. Actually, I looked at two lonely spirits that had just separated; I understood as I walked to the table, where I had shot my sisters. Their conjoined body still rested in a chair. Always dominant, Katherine said, “Like you, we will live freely, too.” Cat nodded quickly.

With the head of Katherine bobbing limply, the forehead of her shy sister pressed the yellow wood like a sticky substance held it. The thick body that shared one heart but two heads bled profusely onto the floor; my sisters, limp and bloody, brought pain into my body. Uncontrollably, I collapsed, with numbness palpable in my limbs. My family would look upon the house with freedom; like a penitentiary, it would hold me eternally.

“We should visit the Valley View Carnival,” I said to my family. Around the breakfast table, they lifted their eyes, but not their heads. I said, “Sadly, it closes in just a few days.”

After I read the local newspaper, I announced to my wife and children that I hadn’t walked inside Valley View Carnival for twenty years. My heart had pounded thunderously when the small roller coasters had plummeted my naïve body into the blackest pits imaginable. Inside my kitchen, my mouth still watered for the sugary candy that my mom would buy to occupy me. With food in my mouth, I wouldn’t yell for rides on the Valley Coaster, at that time the largest roller coaster in the state and the one that had provided the loudest joyride. At my early age, I couldn’t buy a ticket onto the mighty behemoth. Still, it would tower over my head like a large snake curled around everyone. Like a chilly shadow, the lines would stretch over nearby lawns on massive metal rails. Nobody would argue the safety of the monster with thick braces that would hold people into the carriage. In my thirties, I felt capable to ride the coaster, like a twenty-one year-old who could finally taste alcohol legally.

We paid the thirty dollars per family to visit Valley View Carnival, located in the bottom of the state like an anchor holding a boat. Looking upward, I couldn’t help but marvel at the Valley Coaster, which looked as impressive in adulthood as it had in my childhood. Only, my mother couldn’t keep me from the thrill that would pump adrenaline into my body in ways unknown before. After a lengthy wait, which I had fully expected, I sat inside the carriage like a forty-year-old virgin who just touched femininity. Cranking the metal chain as slowly as a young lady would undress before her very first boyfriend, the bulky carriage ascended the hill.

After what felt like eternity, the cabin that held ten people dropped incredibly. No plummet in my life had fluttered my heart like the Valley Coaster. My hairdo messed quickly; my toupee flew off my bald head in a manner that brought a toothy smile to the boy beside me. My children probably laughed, too, while it billowed backwardly. After six turns and an upside-down journey over a local neighborhood, I understood the bloody heat that embarrassment and fearfulness alone brought. When it finished, with a loud clank, I wobbled slowly off the machine.

When I looked at the people still in line, they all pointed toward the sky. They were looking fearfully at the ride that I had finally enjoyed. When my vision cleared, I recognized the faces of the people between the ropes. Waiting like a puppy for her master, a woman in her late thirties, dressed in familiar khaki shorts, flipped her hair as seductively as my bride could. Oddly, a woman appealed to me besides my wife. Somehow, the woman aroused sexuality in my body in ways unknown. My blood pumped like a train headed for a deadly wreck; I knew the Valley Coaster didn’t do it. My children, who stood in line by the familiar lady, pointed like she did. When I looked upward, I understood why.

About five rails from the stoppage point, the metal poles that held the twenty-year-old Valley Coaster had fallen completely, and had crushed several people who had wanted happy times. Many people were still pinned into the carriage. With her fluffy hairdo noticeable from the stoppage point, my wife and my skinny children with their loud clothes were smashed into bloody piles of flesh, as well. I needn’t find my body to know that I didn’t survive either.

“Normal people don’t work in the middle of the night,” said Mary, who had brought Steven into this world twenty years ago. “When you walk through the city in the middle of the night, you meet people who will want to molest you or kill you or leave you without money. Anytime you walk back to the house before dawn, you beg for somebody to steal your money or your life. Somebody probably will rape you eventually,” she said. “Sexuality doesn’t restrict itself to normal practices. Men prey on wimpy boys like you, who just became legal.” She said, “Can you really expect to find partners and begin a family when you prowl the streets with everybody asleep?”

“Why must you always tell me how to live?” Steven said forcefully. “When I stop enjoying the night, I will think about a lifestyle change. Until that day, I will wake when sunlight fades, and I will work below the lovely moonlight.” Sharply, he said, “By the way, I have had plenty of lovers, and they didn’t want or request a family. At my age, I like my lonely lifestyle, without a family.”

When Mary spoke back, she woke the baby that she had birthed happily but not expectantly. Mary waddled to the cradle. She said, “Quiet,” but it didn’t put tape on the baby’s mouth like her words usually did. Steven walked to the baby, brushed his mother aside, and opened his mouth. With a slow hiss, the baby quieted. Perhaps she had looked with her small black eyes into the lips of her brother and found the pointy teeth disagreeable.

“When I turned your age,” Mary said bitterly, “I had just brought a baby boy into my family. Somehow, that child grew to disrespect me.” She added, “Never in my life would I disagree with my parents. They ruled the household, and I respected their authority.” She said, “I will never understand why you fail to understand the simplest request.” Waggling a finger, she said, “I just want you to live like normal people, in the sunlight, and come back healthily, with money still in your wallet and your hands around a lovely female body.” She shook her head. “Any female would suffice.”

While his normally pale face reddened, Steven said, “Obviously, we have reached an impasse. Only one solution will work now. I know how it will end, if not why. Most parents let their children live how they wish. Why should I allow my mother to dictate how I should live? Well, I shouldn’t, and normal people wouldn’t, either.” With a motion that happened as quick as thunder could break, Steven took the phone and dialed three digits. Somebody would need the police today. “We will never live peacefully.”

When the police arrived, they found no trace of the elder child, but they did find the baby. She wiggled freely on the floor, bawling for her mother. Only, the mother couldn’t comfort her baby anymore. Mary sat in her leather chair, her legs splayed, with her hands on her neck. All color had faded from her face and hands; her clothes offered just small traces of blood. Immediately, the officers looked for Steven, who had dialed 911 and had probably killed the family.

They never found him, but they did discover an unusual amount of dust on the rooftop, billowing downwardly in the humid breeze. Below the thick dust, a figure of material lay motionlessly, in a pattern that indicated someone had decomposed on the tiles. When the medical examiner looked, he inquired, “Could somebody die as quickly as these fresh clothes suggest? Could someone decompose completely, in just hours?”

Above him, the brilliant sunshine bubbled the filthy liquid in the nearby birdbath. Unable to argue anymore with his mother, Steven would never return. Still, police officials, filled with naïve ambitions, would look continually for the murderer.

When she walked into my business, I looked at her like I would at a new Corvette, with my eyes on the lines, and yet I shook my head like I didn’t approve. Naturally, I look at a lot of beautiful women, almost daily, but I cannot believably boast to anyone, especially not them, that I have indeed touched their fleshy thighs, supple arms, and fluffy hairdos tied back into ponytails or bouncing seductively. Likewise, I have never slid behind the wheel of a Corvette, but I dream about it a lot. I look longingly at throaty engines, below fiberglass hoods, like I look at the youthful women who walk into my salon. And like always, the shapely, blonde-haired beauty that just floated through my front door didn’t speak to me with interest, but with the professionalism that my job afforded.

She said, “I just flew into America. I will never drink tea anymore, thankfully.” She had the body of an angel about to break every law established by God, but repulsion lay in her flesh. It almost glowed in the black nighttime like the neon between the windows. “When people live in my homeland, they live without a bronze complexion. They expect it, like their friends.” She added, “Everyone here looks bronze and healthy, but not me.” That led her to my business. With an awkward nod, I handed the small goggles to her, which she took in her fragile hands. Like always, I stayed behind the desk, with the bulge impressive below my belt. With a smile, she walked to a salon room, behind the back office, to undress and push the buttons that would add a touch of yellow to her extremely pale body.

When she vanished, I walked into the back, pulled off the blanket that hung from the wall, and watched that beautiful woman pull her ripped shirt over her head. She wore no undergarment below it. With a little wiggle, she took off her shorts and brought her panties to her knees. With my jeans between my ankles, behind the two-way mirror, I watched as she allowed her silky panties to slip below her canvas shoes. With a quick motion, her shoes came off her feet. She bent one knee, tilted a narrow barefoot, flipped her wavy hairdo, and admired her full breasts and proper waist, with eyes that approved, like mine did. The thick blonde hairs between her thighs, which looked wet, implied arousal. Finally, she applied the goggles and laid on the machine, which offered plenty of time for my body to compose itself after my lonely trip to paradise.

After she put her clothes back on her lovely body, she walked to the front slowly and comfortably. My head lightened like it did in the back, when she put her hands on her breasts, and jiggled those puffy pillows playfully, without knowledge that I had watched. One look at my face, flushed from embarrassment and climax, told her what I had done but hopefully not how, with her body. Unable to look at her anymore, I said, “Sorry,” and yet, I didn’t apologize about the invasion of privacy; I apologized about my personal shame. I just couldn’t keep my hands off my nether region.

Through teeth as pointy as a shark’s mouth and lips as red as a rose in bloom, she said, “Never apologize if it cannot be helped.” When she smiled, I understood, finally, why she needed the artificial tan. She walked happily into the blackness with a bit of bronze below her ripped clothes, a newfound ability to attract, apparently. Likely, she never aroused anyone anyhow. Instead, she probably just held other people closely, without their approval, which had ripped her blouse. Surely, she took what she wanted, and paid little attention to virginities. Like anyone, I would offer mine, if she wished, without concern for my neck.

“After I began high school, I joined the junior varsity football team like any boy who loves sports would. At the time, I just wanted to join my friends. And my friends wanted me to join them. They would have killed to protect me. No days in my life filled me with happiness like those.” Ruefully, he said, “Why does time always vanish as quickly as the midday dew?” Wilt held his chin on his heavily lined hand, with his bloodshot eyes lost in remembrance. He sat inside his room in the retirement home that had housed him for thirteen years. By his side, Melinda leaned back, trying to recall when she entered high school. Nightly, he brought the years back, like a robot programmed with one purpose alone. “My father hated the sport, unusual for a father, I think, but my mom would wash and iron my uniform before practice. She took scuffs off my shoes with the polish kept for her leather shoes.”

Wilt closed his eyes tightly, and brushed his hand through his thin hair like the action brought physical pain to his body. Almost every action brought pain to the body of Melinda, but people her age rarely complain. While her friend talked onward, his voice trailed like a fire about to extinguish. After thirty minutes, he slumped his head like it weighed fifty pounds. With intense effort, Melinda held her wood cane, a birthday present from her friend, and pulled her body to her feet. When she turned to walk to her room, with Wilt asleep, she looked back happily. She smiled until she noticed her friend didn’t sit normally, but slumped awkwardly, with his bones about to break. When she put her fingers on his neck, a formality with the elderly, she realized if the bones did break, they wouldn’t bother Wilt. After ninety-six years, Wilt had joined the friends of yesteryear, wherever they were.

After the nurse of the home wheeled Wilt into the hallway for transport to the hospital, Melinda sat in her room across the hall with the television tuned to some national talk show. She wanted to watch television throughout the night, like only teenagers do. When the sun shone brightly through the window, she would welcome the day lonely and empty; after all, she would join her friend no more. She hadn’t witnessed a sunrise in many years; she wanted to look upon the cloudy sky and marvel at the yellow dawn. It would take just five hours.

After fifteen lively minutes of the show, she heard a knock at her door. With everybody asleep, she expected to look at the nurse, who probably came back to question Melinda. Probably the black-haired nurse, who looked youthful and lovely in ways Melinda resented, wished to inquire about a burial for Wilt. After all, Melinda qualified as family to the elderly male because he had nobody else. Wilt had married but had produced no children; his wife had passed away twenty years before. Initially, the landlord had informed her that nobody would disturb her after dinnertime. Intrigued, she looked through the peephole after she lumbered her body onto her wooden stick and walked toward the door. Nobody waited in the hallway.

With another look, she saw a person below the view. The boy stood about five feet in height by the funhouse-mirror quality brought by the hole, and appeared to wear an unusual costume. Holding a helmet, he wore red and blue stripes and white pants that stopped at the knees. Vaguely, he looked familiar, and Melinda snapped her fingers. Naturally, the nurse buzzer wouldn’t help. Melinda alone would likely see the boy. Unquestionably, the uniform had been washed. And Melinda knew instinctively that his mom had ironed it before he arrived.

“You have been convicted of murder in the first degree,” I said. My heart beat thunderously, like elephants in a stampede, but I continued. My words sounded less professional as I talked. “Contrary to the advice of the district attorney, I will halt lethal injection. My motivation lies in the fact that you have just one felony, not a record to penalize with lethal injection.” My hands shook like never before, but I read the penalty anyhow. “Thus, you will be handed to the state penitentiary for the maximum jailhouse term allowed by law. You will live without daylight, without freedom, without parole, throughout your natural lifespan.”

To him, eternity could end when the planet explodes into bubbly lava and jagged boulders. He will likely live in jail until my baby has babies, her baby puts life on Earth, and that baby offers children. Truthfully, the lanky prisoner with the black eyes and fiery lips will likely become the final human on the planet. Still, I wouldn’t address him as human, nor should anyone.

It didn’t occur to the district attorney; why did I disallow lethal injection? When I announced the penalty, he looked like a small child punched for no reason. I knew I would have to speak to him when the inmate left the courtroom. In just hours, the killer should arrive at the filthy brick walls of the institution for the criminally offensive. He talked angrily, the district attorney, when the prisoner walked to the small jail cell built to hold inmates before trial. With furrowed brows and tilted head, the lawyer whom I had befriended years before told me bitterly that he would take the matter to the Supreme Court. In his words, “A higher authority will revoke this sentence for the proper penalty.” As the lawyer put it, “That man turned a lovely little woman into a bloody mess, like a wolf or a black bear would.” He added, “Naturally, any judge by standards of justice would put that offender atop the lethal injection table. It appalls me that you didn’t.”

When I argued with the attorney, with morality and intelligence, I pointed to the fact that the victim indeed looked like a wolf had attacked her, not a twenty-five-year-old man (or someone that looked that age). Yet, I announced, “She should have looked better, if your man killed her.” I lifted an eyebrow, and said, “If that inmate had opened his mouth widely, not just partially, you would have understood. Any baby would realize the initial victim should have sat limply on her fluffy rug without blood around her body. Another perpetrator committed this horrible deed, probably a male with emotional ties to the woman. The inmate who will live in jail eternally had no ties, not any known to the lawyers anyway.”

Then the bombshell landed. “We finally have what we always wanted; we must use this individual to control the population. After all”–my eyelids twitched as I watched my lawyer friend lower his jaw, like he didn’t believe my words–“your wonderful examinations imprisoned someone who will kill the inmates. We won’t have to release anybody voluntarily or build new facilities. They will become what the true victim didn’t–food–and the inmate in question will not leave their bodies in thick pools of blood. They will die quickly. He will drink properly, like a vampire should,” I said. My heart pumped wildly, like when the skinny and very pale man stood to hear his future. Only now, I didn’t have to look at his lifeless face, thankfully.

A painful tingle told me I had yet to look upon that Eastern European with finality. He will haunt me in many ways. Always, I will shiver with the knowledge that he will enjoy imprisonment. Obviously, I took very little pleasure in the penalty.

“Everybody would tie their sheet off the tallest rail and jump, if everybody had to look at the same brick walls, walk the same rooms, trapped for a lifetime. I would hang limply, too, in a makeshift noose,” Devin said. “You just turned twenty-two, with a diploma in your hands, then like God held a vendetta, you watched it crumble in that lethal accident. What took years to build–your independent life–broke with nine beers and a trip back to your apartment. Naturally, people shouldn’t plow through lights, but you had reasons. Nobody acts without purpose. I do what I do purposefully, with method to my madness, I suppose.”

Looking into his youthful face, which looked unnatural, Devin spoke to her brother, fully aware he couldn’t hear. Perhaps he would sit upright, look into her lovely black eyes, and realize he couldn’t die, not really. She had lived with him for a lifetime, and like her the male in the coffin had always looked indestructible. When they had sat in the attic of their childhood home, they had bragged loudly. They would live eternally, with health and youth. No amount of age or abuse would harm their perfect bodies. Now, Gavin lay like a mannequin in a flimsy crate, with hands folded before his belt, rubbery and stiff. They wouldn’t move, like his lips and eyes, not anymore.

“After all”–she allowed a tear to fall–“you never experienced life, not in the way most people with educations do. We never walked the alleyways of Paris, never stood atop the Statue of Liberty, and never swam lazily in the warm Pacific Ocean. And we never will–not just because you killed somebody but also because you didn’t fly around the world with me. We lived without responsibility. Now, I have to work; you would, too.” She shook her head. “Once, we studied in college, with opportunity and friends; we lived like kids without curfew. We lived recklessly, especially you. We had youth, energy,” she smiled, “and looks–how wonderful we looked. With me anyway, that changed.” Then she bawled without interest in anyone in the parlor. Naturally, it changed for him as well.

Bowing her head, she failed to notice the hand on her back. It touched gently, with a chilly feel, like the owner had stepped into winter. Outside the parlor, snowfall had begun in earnest, like a white shade over the doors. With a swallow, she spoke to the hand, likewise the person behind it, and said, “I will survive, but I wish I could live with Gavin. I wish we had lived, truly lived, before he couldn’t anymore, before the lethal accident, the life sentence by that bitter judge, and the aftermath. He lived in jail longer than I could have.”

A husky voice said, “I wish, too, like you never will.” Quickly, the woman turned, like a knife had jabbed her back. She looked into a face that she had never imagined to witness anymore, not with movement anyway. With a happy look remembered from childhood, a babyish quality, and a nose like hers, just thicker, the male behind her said, “Will you show me how to live? We have plenty of time, not in the same manner, but we do anyhow. I would like to walk the cobblestones of Paris, stand atop the Statue of Liberty, and if you truly would, I would like to jump happily into the Pacific Ocean. When you have the ability to live, I have that ability, as well, like twins should. We will live like fools until eternity. Will you live with me? I will walk beside you always. Will you walk with me always?”

About to speak, Devin shrunk, with limbs as powerful as yarn; all the energy in her body froze. Quickly as it had arrived, the specter vanished, likely for eternity. It wouldn’t wait for a reply.