The Gothic fly: part 2

The second of my series of four short stories, together known as the Gothic fly. The second installment is as follows:

The Fate of Auntiji's progeny

It was a starry night, with a very diminutive cloud cover. The season was almost at its lunar zenith, the shadows creating surreal hallucinations. As the gaze moves downward, a grassy knoll comes into sight. The shrubs cast miniature forests upon the boulder borne ground, each pebble and rut cast into sharp relief in the starlight.

The atmosphere could have been said to be still, but for a pleasant breeze that blew eastward, imparting a steady, rhythmic undulation to the aforementioned foliage. There was not an errant rabbit’s rustle to be heard, nor the harsher staccato of a rattler’s horn plates. Upon the horizon, one yellow star seemed to stand out from the rest. Closer inspection reveals it to be a light, flickering on, regardless of the apparent absence of the general populace.

Proceeding in the general direction of the light, a house is perceived. Stone built, once full of grandeur, now unmaintained, shambling. Voices, penetrating the absorbing barriers of stone, can be heard.

The traveller walked closer, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to comprehend the serene beauty all around himself. Reaching within audible distance of the decrepit manor, he could perceive two voices, one high=pitched, shrill, feminine. The, lower, more petulant. Most likely the offspring, he mused. With some vigour that seemed to seep from unused quarters, he then walked in.

The scene inside would not bely external appearances. Rather, it seemed to explain the mansion’s condition. A few possessions, packed and readied for flight, stood just inside the doorway. The walls and inner rooms were threadbare, not a single scrap of furniture left to recline upon, nary a tapestry to keep the heat in during the frigid winters. As he passed the open rooms, all he saw was a sign or two of plundering and vandalism, the dying throes of a great house. In a corner of what must have been a great study or library, a small fire was being kindled by an elderly woman, her hair greying with age, garbed in but the smock-frock of a peasant, yet seeming to impart a regal air to the commoner’s clothes. In her lap reposed a small child, possibly in the latter half of his first decade among the living, who was mouthing loud protestations as she tried, mostly in vain, to feed him.

The stranger halted a foot behind the arch, the entrance to the only inhabited room. This was distasteful work, yet it was his, and it had to be done. With an inaudible sigh, he entered the room, no longer cat footed or stealthy, but with the air of a man who hast to do what he hast to do.

“Who approaches? “, she asked, still with her back upon him, seemingly unconcerted by his sudden unannounced presentation in the room or of her own vulnerable position.  She gave the spoon to the child, rose and turned, her loose hair sweeping down beside her in a perfect arc, the errant strands forming a halo about her unblemished face. The stranger took in a sharp intake of breath, that quickly changed into a cough as he recovered his composure.

“I am not he whom thou art but to expect.” started he, kneeling before her, “but a lowly bearer of rhetoric am I, your mercy.” She smiled. Not a cruel smile, born of aristocracy, nor a façade of false sincerity, but a simple one, lighting up her entire face, making it seem like a beacon of faith holy, upon which the grief of no problem could trespass. “Be not thou afraid”, she replied gently, as she signaled for him to rise, “and speak of your health, and that of which I am to hear.”

“It is with a great burden upon my heart that I speak of matters thus.” He paused, drawing confidence from her gentle, sad eyes that seemed to supply him with fortitude, her inner peace permeating the entire room, even the child quiet by this time. He steadied himself, spake, “He for whom thou hast waited no longer traverses the realm of the living. It was in an Assyrian war that I speak thus of, nevertheless it shall be knowledge thine, it was a hero’s crowning end, that embarked him upon his Vahallan journie.”

Having finished, he sighed, a mixture of relief and great sorrow, for it had been a great liege he had spoken thus of. For some time, he could not bring himself to gaze upon her face, yet some specie of morbid curiosity got the better of him, and he looked up. What he saw was something he had not in the least expected. He had seen pain, anguish, indifference, collapse, breakdown. The rigours of war had hardened him to the point where he could unflinchingly accept such a response. Indeed, he had nigh on expected it.

She seemed to have aged in those few seconds, a marked change in her visage, as if it took a conscious effort just to remain standing. Yet her expression was serene, like the aftermath of a mighty storm, a physical manifestation of the intercourse between heaven and earth. “It does ye great credit to come all the way here, young lord. Great must have been the pressures you laboured beneath. Thou hast my gratitude, for my heart is now at rest. My love need not wage war anymore.” He turned to go, whirled around, came closer.

“There be one more thing…” he started, his posture stooped, his head hung, a final expectancy in his tone. She gestured for him to continue, her manner slightly distracted, seemingly disoriented with the surroundings that had been familiar for so long a time. He jerked his head up, looked straight into her cool, grey eyes. Three strides he took, reaching behind her in the fluid motion. The child had gotten up, and was clutching the hem of her skirt, somehow boding her with his childlike intuition. She ruffled his hair affectionately, and stood erect, speaking to the figure now invisible behind her.

“Be courageous. Even if it be the act of afflicting smite upon a lady, do it with such honour as you hast been taught to muster.” The messenger, unsheathed sword in one hand, pushed back at the tears that came to his eyes and stung like lances. Crossing over to where she stood, mind filled with turmoil, he thought, ‘how can one so of the fairer breed be uncrised such at the concept of demise?’

He could not bring himself to gaze at her anymore. “Had to turn our coat, we did.” When he finally spoke, his voice cracked. “‘twas our only chance of savior from the eternal damnation.”, he sobbed. She stilled his sobbing. “You did your former master well, under his liege. If this is the path you have now chosen, so be it.”

He exhorted her to escape, but to no avail. She told him but this, “I have need of one last service from you. Let the young one live.”

He stood up, brushing back his tears, which, it seemed, would not stop flowing. The despair that filled him was dark, unredeeming. Looking up at her one last time, he stabbed her once; his sword piercing what would have been her heart, had it still been beating. As she slowly crumpled on the stone floor, her lips seemed to part, mouthing two last words of farewell.

“Thank Ye.”

Immediately after

The child stood immobile, too transfixed by the shock to respond. In a span of less than a minute, he had become an orphan. The killer, nay, murderer, wiped clean his sword and looked at him, waiting for a reaction. The child showed no anger, no fear upon his features, his mother’s cool grey eyes mirrored in his own.

He walked toward the stranger, an even, measured step, faltering not. The slayer stood still, his sword pointed downward, wondrous as to what the boy, hardly reaching his waist, was about to do, the blank expression bewildering his anguished soul.

The boy reached him, an iron candlestick holder’s glint suddenly alerting the killer as to his intentions. As the boy swung at his lean stomach, he swerved back, pivoting on one foot to avoid the blow. The boy, seemingly mechanical, devoid of all emotion but one, swung the iron rod in a neat downward arc, caching the killer squarely in the gonads. As he doubled over with pain, the boy came one step closer and hit him on the side of the head. However, battle hardened veteran that he was, he did not collapse.

The boy, in one concerted motion, wrenched the sword out of his grasp, and swung towards the neck as he had seen his father do while training, the discarded candlestick holder not yet upon the ground. The soldier, former ally, dodged and slapped the boy cruelly, the back of his hand red with the impact. The boy was thrown backward by its force, a lean dribble of blood ensuing from his mouth.

He stood up, the right side of his face smarting, his eye swelling up. He threw the sword at the killer, who caught it with ease. But what he did not see was the candlestick which, flying through the air, came and embedded itself in the socket of his eye. The murderer screamed, and flailed wildly, even his other eye tightly clamped shut. He opened his sole remaining eye, and swing his arm in a wild flail that caught the boy squarely in the chest, with so much force, that it flung him against the wall, draining all consciousness from him. Merciful blackness.

The murderer ripped out the candlestick, staring at the limp form of the child before him. ‘So be it.’ ,he thought. Flinging the limp form upon his throbbing shoulder, he left. A slight limp marring his gait, the lifeless manor behind him.

Eight years later…

The boat swayed back and forth, its rhythmic motions a natural response to those of the sea. The morning was bleak, aftermath to the previous evening’s hurricane that tossed and churned the mighty vessel like a trifling piece of flotsam.

It was that dream again. Try as he might, he could not render it a proper elegy. He sat huddled against the damp part of the lifeboat, the water still up to his ankles. A young man now, the boy shuddered because of the cold, the dampness, yet it was with an almost feline grace that he raised the tarpaulin of the lifeboat, jumped out and slinked to the mess without a single deckmate catching a whiff of his presence in such close quarters. As he drew closer to a crowd, he abandoned his stealth and assuming a nonchalant air, blended in the crowd in a manner that did not give any indication of his dissimilarity. For all his assurance, he did not feel the least confident, for he knew neither what boat he was on, nor where it was headed to.

After some turbulence, a mild storm or two, he finally felt the gentle bump of the boat against a foreign dock. The stowaway, without a sound, grabbed a rope running from a porthole to the dock, and followed it through the water, sending minutely connected ripples through it, in no way disturbing or alerting the loudly haggling customs officials.

Up among the docks, he finally diverted his attention to the new surroundings. A new land, a new future. As he walked further, the alien nature of this locale finally seemed to strike him. Making his way outside, a great crowd met his eyes. Apparently, this land was populated much more heavily than the one of his origin. Mouth agape, eyes fixated on the throng he stared. A vendor of sweets, busily engaged in shouting of his wares, approached and tapped him smartly on the backside, and proceeded to engage him in a lengthy monologue of absolute gibberish. Pushing him away, the former stowaway made his way through the milling crowd as one in a daze, stumbling through, his eyes unseeing, his ears useless. Apparently.

His ears picked up a pandemonium taking place a few feet from where he stood, the pushing hands indicating the direction. Without even meaning to, he found himself approaching the source of the noise, channeled by the flow of humanity.

In the center of the human ring, a man lay, apparently drunk, his clothes a mess, flies buzzing around his head and unshaven beard. A few other men stood menacingly around him, their intentions not of mercy. The orphan began backing away as unobtrusively as possible, not wanting to get involved in affairs that were not his. By now, he was feeling aching pangs of hunger, his stomach seeming to touch the small of his back, having lived off scraps and leftovers while on the boat. His thoughts diverted in such a manner, he did not notice a fat, angry woman that he bumped into. Incongruously muttering apologies, he turned to leave, but she caught him right in the middle of the shoulder blades and sent him sprawling to the middle of the ring. She then lifted her arms and shouted something, followed by angry jeers from the entire crowd.

The boy stood up, his vision slightly blurring due to the hunger, and shouted, ”Does anybody here speak ENGLISH?” followed by a startled silence. Nobody spoke, apparently expecting entertainment from this previously unperceived clown, in the manner that a crowd often tends to behave in. Then the fleabag on the floor, surprisingly, said, “Omaewa inglish speak desu ka?” The boy looked at him, startled, as Crusoe might have first gazed at Man Friday. Then, regaining his composure, he looked around, wildly conjecturing for anything that might facilitate his escape. Then a thought struck him.

The plump lady, very red in the face, was watching the entire spectacle with the wholesome amusement of one who gets to see a show without having paid a penny for it. In her hand, she clutched a bag of very ripe, orange tangerine. The boy grabbed this bag; jerking it out of her hands to the accompaniment of what he was sure must be very colourful language, and threw one at the ad hoc leader of the mob. The rest, he let roll on the ground. Grabbing the supine form, he dashed to safety, soon leaving the madding crowd far behind.

It was only once they stopped that his hunger once again reminded itself. Angrily, he cursed himself for not having taken some of the strange fruit. He sunk to the floor, the strange creature at his side poking him to see what was wrong. “I’m hungry.” He said. “do you have anything to eat?” The creature did not seem to understand, questioning him back in his own tongue. “Food, I say, food.”, the famished boy shouted, his pitch rising, as did that of the creature, now gesticulating wildly. Cutting through this, suddenly the boy’s stomach growled, shutting both of them up. The creature started laughing, clutching its belly, red in the face. Even the boy, embarrassed, did not say anything. ”You food” , It finally managed to say, and putting one hand into its filthy cavernous pockets, withdrew one of the tangerines the boy had thrown on the road, and proffered it to him.

Tears welling up in his eyes, the boy gratefully accepted the fruit, and wolfed it down, like a ear out of hibernation being given a pot of honey. “orewa Flo”, the creature introduced itself, tapping its chest. The boy nodded, his mouth too busy to be used for other things.

Then, exhausted by the day’s efforts, sated by the meager meal, he fell asleep.

Darkness fell.

Four years later…

“There, there.” It was the Dodo, the ad hoc morning rooster of the hostel talking to the fly. “It’s not as if the balls are missing,” he was explaining, “just that there weren’t any to begin with.” The loudly protesting Fly commenced shutting his perpetually open orifice. “Ah! The sleeping beauty awakes.” he exclaimed. The boy sat up, slightly stiffening and relaxing his upper torso as his motor functions returned to him, listening to the consumptive bickering of his friends, a grin on his face. “What balls?” he asked suddenly, stopping both of them in mid-argument. For a moment, all three stared at each other, looking for some sign or emotion on the other’s face, then grins burst forth, on all their faces. A few instants later they were all on the floor, laughing.

An hour and some breakfast later, they left for their respective jobs, the Dodo and the Fly headed to some glass blowing factory where they worked, the boy resumed where he had left off last night’s beat around the block. Being one of the stuCCans, he was responsible for upholding the peace in Edo Japan. By now, his Japanese was as fluent as that of any localite, his skin so tanned by the hot sun that it was

nearly impossible for anybody to single him out in a crowd. Even the absence of an aquiline nose and characteristically high cheekbones seemed to have dulled with time. His physique, meanwhile, had improved incredibly, the shoulders much broader, owing mainly to a rigourous schedule that had kept him at the top of his form.

His day was for the most part, uneventful, except for handling a routine search inquiry on a divorce case, and taking a couple of drifters who had a bit too much sake to drink, to the jail, where he would let them cool off for the night. It said a lot for his standing in the neighborhood that the jail was usually empty.

Back together in the evening, the trio went off in their routine search for food, not being satisfied with what the kitchen served. Flo and co. proceeded to meet TapSawmBong, a local seller of junk food and more importantly, one who didn’t mind their extended tabs of credit, his shrewd business acumen so attuned to maximizing the profit everywhere else seeming to fall short at the sight of these three. Today however, he seemed abnormally depressed, his usual bustle absent. Upon questioning, he revealed that his sweetheart, Kan-ching, wasn’t talking to him anymore, being infatuated with another flashy foreigner, a Barney something, who had recently moved into town. Promising to talk and hopefully, knock some sense into her, the left the shop and its owner to his unhappy ruminations.

Their schedule in the night consisted of playing what they liked to call music, with Dodo at the strings, the Fly handling the vocals, and the boy banging on pots and pans. None of their neighbors understood why they called it ‘metal’. Nor did they, for that matter. It just felt right.

It was a day like any other. Flo ad his evaluation, and had gone off just in time for it. The boy had wished him as he left, a cracker in his mouth, taking two steps at a time. In a few minutes, the boy was also off.

His morning rounds completed, he was eating a frugal lunch, when an urgent summons arrived for him. Apparently, there was some trouble at the glass factory. Finishing his lunch, he proceeded there at once, this being a chance to meet with his friends during work hours.

“I will not do it.”, he said, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice, incredible at what he was being asked to do. “I do not believe Flo is capable of such an act, nor that a punishment of this magnitude is justified. I would advise to drop the matter immediately; else I shall be forced, and warranted, in adopting appropriate countermeasures.” Turning on his heel, he stiffly walked away, leaving behind an ashen woman and a whiny looking, oily haired, sallow skinned messenger. The woman sat silently for a while, then turned and told her agent, “I guess it can’t be helped. Get me some people without a conscience, hardcases unlike Mr. Goody-two-shoes here. Let them do it.” She spoke without an effort. Almost casually, she said, “and while they’re at it, get rid of this guy too. We need tougher law over here.” The messenger nodded and left, names like Gulatix and Yamm running through his mind.

The boy sat in his room, dejection and resentment coursing through him, clouding his mind. His head seemed to be throbbing, but it felt like a daze. The very idea of someone hurting his friends hurt him as well. Yet, alarm bells seemed to be going off, somewhere at the back of his mind, some subconscious feeling trying to tell him that these people weren’t the kind to quit at so small a warning.

As if on cue, he heard shuffling outside his room. Immediately, all his faculties returned to him, thoughts of the future replaced instantly by those of the present. For a minute he sat still, focusing for any abnormal noise, yet all he could find was some visiting woman continuously haranguing someone whom she claimed to be her husband and a cat somewhere outside.  Hard as he listened, he could not detect anything else.

Then he noticed two dark slits, obstructing the passage the passage of light outside his door, and stiffened.  Someone was standing outside his door. He crawled to one corner of the room, his feet noiseless, and picked up a katana sheath that lay there. Then, silent as a ghost, he went and stood beside the door. Bitterly he realized that the sheath was empty, having loaned the katana within to Flo the previous day, for cutting tomatoes. Nevertheless, he decided that patience was the best option available to him, and steeled his nerves for an indeterminate wait.

The adrenaline coursing through his veins, he waited for a minute of two, and then, just as he was about to move, he heard a scraping sound, and the door burst inwards. The next moment was one of chaos. The boy swung the stick in an upward arc, neatly planting it on the forehead of the first to enter, rendering him the first to exit as well. Then, like Herodotus of the bridge, he stood out of the line of sight, guarding the sole point of entry.

Such, however, was the construction of the building, that a katana abruptly appeared through the wooden wall and impaled him. For a moment, the shockof something piercing through sinew and bone and the accompanying pain was indescribable, yet he quickly returned to his senses. His survival depended on it. As he took stock of the situation, he realized that the sword had missed his vital organs; else he would not have been able to move, let alone conscious. Ducking under the bloody sword, he crashed his shoulder into the wall, which gave way under his considerable weight.

As he appeared on the other side, he knocked all the wind from his former assailant, and both of them scrambled on the ground of a bit, each trying to gain a fractional ascendancy in position. Although normally he would have taken care of such an unwarranted intrusion in a matter of seconds, the wound at his side was weakening him considerably. At length, he managed to land a swift blow against the man’s jaw, knocking him out. His other assailant, he saw, had already been rendered unconscious.

Staunching the flow of blood the best as he could, he proceeded to Flo’s room. The assault on him was merely a diversion, he reasoned, if it had been perpetrated by the same people he thought responsible for it. By the time he reached the room, however, the bleeding had started again. As silently as possible, he entered the room, crouched behind a fouton, and started to wait.

He did not remember when it happened or how, but he felt a tiny prick at the back of his neck, like a mosquito bite.

And then blackness received him with open arms.

When consciousness returned to him, the room was in shambles. The furniture was in complete disarray, a few feathers on the floor. A few charred remains of fabric were scattered around the room, blown to the corners by the wind from the open door.

Cold fury seethed through him, boiling over to create the same emotionless, dispassionate machine that had appeared only once, all those years ago, over the body of his mother. Wordless cries of anguish left unsaid, he left the room.

Two hours later, he emerged from a large room at the top floor of the glass factory, his hands dripping with blood, several gashes and other lacerations showing through his torn clothes. Four bodies lay in the room he left behind. Maybe dead, then again, maybe not. He did not know, the details were hazy. Once again, he had failed to protect the ones he cherished. It was just like that time all over again. It left a sour taste in his mouth. Or maybe that was just the blood. He did not know.

Then the boy dimly remembered one sentence he had heard during the fight. ‘They got away. We did not kill them.’ The boy dashed back, grabbed the collar of one of the bodies on the floor and slapped him into consciousness.

“What did you say about them getting away?”, he asked roughly. The man at his mercy, clearly terrified, started babbling nonsense. As the boy raised his hand to slap him again, he said, “They got away, shock our man also. She send more people after them. Us four and two more. We not try anythin…” He had fainted.

The boy left him there, and walked out into the bright afternoon. There was hope left. He just had to find it. The relief was so great; it filled him with a heady inebriation.

On his journey of redemption, the boy set off.