He curls up into a ball, hides
himself into a corner. Comfortably tucked into a little
corner. No one disturbing, not under attack by anyone. Protected,
comforted in solace.
He sees the ball bounce, once,
twice, thrice. A multitude of times, till the spaces in between the repetitions
grow so close that they no longer exist. The ball grows, bigger, bigger,
bigger, till it completely engulfs the room, engulfs the space he is in. He
struggles against that power, but finds his struggles futile. He finds himself
choking, asphyxiated by that smooth ball with the wonderful texture that used
to offer him comfort. He gasps for air, but all that enter his nostrils are the
wafts of shampooed hair. He tries to expel them, but he realises he is
powerless. He pushes hard against the ball, but with every moment, it grows
bigger, bigger, bigger. He can’t breathe now. No more shampooed hair wafts.
His heart thumps. Why? He’s stilled
it. He reaches his hand in, the entire arm down his throat now, past the
gullet, through the walls of the stomach. Yes! He’s managed to get hold of the
slithering heart. It writhes, like how he writhed in agony just seconds before,
trying to escape the demon-like clutches of that claw. Nah.
Another futile struggle. The claws gain a grip, and secure
a hold, and intensify their grip. The heart pulses a few more times, and gives
a token pump before it stops.
Now he is relieved. He gives the
token sigh of relief. No more thumping, no more agony. He tries to pull himself
up but he realises he can’t. He doesn’t have the energy to. No blood pumping,
no cursed blood coursing through his cursed veins. He sees the black spread. Or
is it purple? He can’t tell it’s dark and everything’s
blacking out. Or is it purpling out? It speeds through his veins, from where
his heart was supposed to be. It moves out radially, his
limbs blacken and stiffen. That blackness rushes up his gullet, through his
open, screaming mouth and spew forth like a volcano spewing out its lava, ready
to destroy all that’s around.
More of that blackness, that purpleness gush forth, filling up
the floor around him. In his mind he hears the incessant ticking of a time-bomb
ready to explode anytime. Then it stops and starts playing Bach. Then Rachmaninov. Now Tchaikovsky. Hey it’s almost like a radio station
suddenly. No, maybe not one radio station, but many.
Welcome to the Class Ninety-Five Five-on-Nine contest or whatever that shit is.
Huan ying shou ting xian ge ji yi. Jiu san san
zui xin ping dao yong yuan
Sudden silence.
The waft of recently-shampooed hair
returns. It intensifies around him, and now it smells as if somebody has
sprayed on too much cologne trying to impress the girl he’s going out with. It’s
stifling, and at the same time that silence roars within him. The pool of black
rises, up to his curled-up knees now and he can’t
stand to get out of it. It’s burning him, no, freezing him. He tries to scream,
and releases a bloodcurdling yell if there were any
more blood to curdle. The silence roars louder, the scent smells stronger, the
flood rises higher. He screams louder, but there’s no hope.
dejectium out
0119
hrs gmt +7