Of Nosebleeds

"Only her gaze remained, as if fate stared me in the eye."

We stood in the desert, cheap lights dancing on our faces. I'm slouching in the office; the sliver of light escaping the Minolta scans my face. She throws a snowball at me so hard I slip on my back; seeing stars as I lay sprawled out laughing. She eats an apple on the streets of London, the red light flashes green; I ignore her as we pass each other on the zebra crossing. Occupied now, she is my fare; this is my cab and we're on Broadway baby. I am all of these places at the same time and nothing.

Pure white gives way to the lust of red, it happened again and will continue to happen. The tissue full to capacity with injury is thrown into the bowl. Nosebleeds remind me no matter where I am, I am now and I am never. The photos in this cold apartment tell the story of a man I don't want to be. I grimace at disingenuous smiles of myself with plasticine company, accepting useless awards, my useless braggadocio. Grey life, dull lights; how did I get to this point? The question will have to wait until I answer the light rap on the door, a strange premonition  As grey gives way to pure white, the door opens to reveal her snow blonde, blue eyes, pink pouting lips; of course I knew her.

"Hi. I just moved in next door, thought I'd get to know my new neighbours." She pauses looking into my cold lonely apartment. Will she remember me in this one? Her eyes open wider beckoning me, that gaze I've seen so many times before is there.

"Oh my, your nose is bleeding." Wait, no, this had turned around right now. Stay for this one please.

The bell rings, jerking my head backward I hit my head on the counter. The bustling kitchen stops just long enough to give out a cackle.

"Dozing again. Order is up genius." Wish I was serving up your heart you fat idiot. My manager plods off to piss someone else off. I pick up the two plates with relative ease, the colossal steak weighs me to the left ever so slightly. I am a hard-worker, fallen on tough times. Making due how I can with so much potential in a city waiting to spark. Serving food I can't afford to eat, wearing a uniform worth more than my wardrobe. The gentle choir of glasses, classical music and pretentious conversations guide me through the upmarket restaurant to table 88. I am on auto-pilot.

"One Camilla Lace salad for the lady and grilled steak Diane for the gentlemen." All the dishes here are named after 40s era vixens.

"Excuse me guy." I can already tell what happens next, a strange premonition. "The steak is for the lady and the salad is for me." With my attention firmly in the now, scales fall from my eyes as they meet hers; snow blonde, blue eyes...

"My apologies sir, easy mistake to make." The words escaped out of context, but it was too late...my fate had been sealed.

"Easy mistake?! What's that supposed to mean?" He stands folding his napkin carefully, he knows what he is doing.

"Stop it Jim," she pleas for my safety with such sincerity God himself would stop Earth's rotation in order to save me...He doesn't. The blue of her eyes give way to the black of my fall. The world slows down, the staff pounce on roid-rage Jim in half speed, the shocked faces of the patrons frozen in perpetual eternity. She picks up the folded napkin in real time, we're in real time. She kneels beside me, her presence adding the two to the one-two punch. She presses the napkin gently against my nose.

"Your nose is bleeding." Only her gaze remained, as if fate stared me in the eye. Then it was gone.

"This is how it's going to happen. Team one takes the roof, working their way down. Team two will be dropped off at the bottom and work their way up. The bogeys are holed up in the conference room on the 4th. Be careful, we don't want any collateral damage here people." Gibson smacks my helmet upside. "You with us fool?" I am Ares, I am the god of war, I am in a helicopter above Las Vegas. We're rappelled down to the roof of the Casino, gear locked in. The door splinters, the stampede down the stairs, the distant shouts of bad guys full of holes. As a unit we arrive at the solid oak double doors, somewhere the bells of a poker machine ring with the ominous absence of celebration.

"Team one is at point, we're ready to breach." I've done this a million times, what could go wrong. A strange premonition.

"Breach team one, you are a go to breach." The four of us brace ourselves and with a mutual understanding we are ready. The doors give way to heavy explosives as we melt into the room dispensing holy justice. The muffled sound of our silencers follow screams of pain as the bogeys hit the floor. After a riotous few seconds the dust settles. About a dozen bodies lie silent, bleeding, dead. The boys give each other high fives and fist pumps.

"The hostages are safe, all bogeys are down." The words haven't escaped my mouth as I see her through my goggles. As if surrounded by a halo, her snow blonde hair. She looks me straight in the eyes, that gaze. Contrasting the panicked faces of all the hostages, she is calm, a wide-eyed calm. The guys chest bump as I push past them. Breaking protocol I take my helmet off tossing the goggles to the side. This time she recognizes me I'm sure of it.

"It's you, you came again." These sound like my words, but this time they are hers, finally. Suddenly a flash, and a sharp pain. Her white hair gives way to red blood as I collapse to my knees. With his final breath, destiny has seen fit to put a bullet through my skull just below my nose...fate is a funny thing. I think I hear her mouth, "your nose is bleeding" but that is a macabre joke. I am gone.

We watch the lights of Vegas from the desert and I am gone. The Minolta prints out her posing for a shoe collection and I am gone. She stands above me laughing while the snow freezes my ass off and I am gone. I narrowly pull her out of the way of a speeding bus on the Zebra crossing and I am gone. She forces me to take the long route to Broadway and I am gone. I am all of these places at the same time and nothing.

It's the nosebleeds.

The White Room

"There's something about us."

That night was a myriad echo of shouts, alternative music and wasted brandy among shards of glass. As in a daze he found himself in a black room lain atop an evil bed; a dwelling of a most promiscuous being. The events of the nights that went before had done the worst of the damage, this night would claim him. Succumbing to his wounds the entanglement of their fates commence with great vitriol and instinctive self-destruction. The night weighs a heavy toll, soiling the very core and nature of our man. He knows what he does is wrong, but what has been wrought upon him justifies it this one night, surely.

Somewhere in the darkest corner of earth he lies, silent now. His suspicions confirmed, nothing could be worth giving away yet another scarce slice of himself and certainly not for what he has just experienced. His eyelids weigh heavy or at least they feel that way. For open or closed, his eyes only see the pitched black. Now finally sobered the night crushes him as he falls deeper into the pit of absent luminescence.

Suddenly light, birds, the sound of a lazy car driving by; the buzz of suburbia. He is now in a room so bright his eyes take time to adjust. It's as if to invade his black soul and rejuvenate it as a light would fill a dark corner. The curtains not unlike feathers blow peacefully in mezmerizing waves; the window open. There beside him she lies. Not the being he encountered in the dark before, but an angel he so longs to discover. She sleeps as peacefully as he feels now. Her eyes open slowly revealing inexplicibly soft obsidian eyes; knowing her he hasn't really looked this deeply into them although he wished he always could. Her welcoming smile embraces his own, but he knows this angel has another charge. There is another that she is meant for, not this unworthy being of darkness.

More inexplicable than her nature she gracefully wiggles into the nest of his chest, looking up at him closer now. He briefly thinks that at this distance she will see his messy innards, but if she did it doesn't chase her away. There again, those eyes; he knows what's next and tries to save her from himself...she defies him. Her lips are soft and warm; the kiss as white as the room he is in. And then it is over, but he is reborn. They stare at each other now, longing. His mouth moves despite his heart, "But what about..." She flicks him a look that shuts his mouth and his mind. "There is something about us." He takes it all in, her smile, her eyes, this room, this feeling, this bliss. And then; it is gone.

His eyes shoot open, or at least he thinks they do. He is back in darkness. The snoring of the creature beside him brings him back to reality. He is lost again, wandering. The room is a box, there are no windows, there are no curtains, only regret drapes over him like a burial wrap. He lies down again, without urgency in this despairable hole. There will be more dreams.

Before he falls into the abyss again, a flash of a thought crosses his mind; perhaps she'll visit again. Perhaps.

Vincent Numan - 23 September 1989

"The demon was his brother."

 I remember it down to the smell of oak, a five year old stumbles through intermittent darkness broken only by the lighthouse. The wind raged outside throwing leaves and ominous malaise at the child. "Mama?" Yeah, I could be painting a picture to pull at your strings, but it was pretty damn miserable. The child hears crying, thuds and screams, the most blood curdling screams his short little live has ever heard. As if to laugh at his despair the wind howls strong enough to blast a window open. The curtains shoot out as if to hinder the path of the child, "Turn back you fool!" The child would pass through the eye of any storm for the warm embrace of his mother.

He hears her scream out in terror, even when he can't hear it anymore it rings out in his mind. Somehow this child reaches the end of the corridor, standing before the floodgates. He reaches up conjuring up unimaginable courage and lets slip the dark scene. All at once he takes in a most macabre of circumstance. Bleeding from her head, his mother melts into the corner too devastated to scream out any longer. In the center of the study, father's desk has become some ritualistic altar and upon it the most demonic picture is seen by the child.

Huddled upon his father's lifeless corpse, a demon presses a long large knife across the neck of the patriarch draining him of all blood. The demon was his brother, now seemingly possessed by cardinal evil and in a frenzy. The sibling slowly turns to face his child brother and utters words that will never be tainted by the recollection of memories. "I had no choice Vincent, you must understand." The demon turns the knife on himself slicing his own neck. It is done with great determination multiple times as if by grim puppetry. Mother's face loses all emotion, staring blankly at the corpses of both her husband and son sprawled out on the altar of oak; she is never to speak another word. The child, out of his depth, realizes his mother is but a shell. There are no souls in this room anymore, not his own, not his mother, not his brother nor his father. He flees...

I wake up to the fine Camps Bay sun. Every time I have that dream, it gets worse. The words are always the same, "I had not choice Vincent, you must understand." Maybe one day I will Callum, maybe one day I will. Today, I've got two lectures and a plastic shindig at The One and Only. I look over at the sleeping body next to mine, what was her name again? I wish I could thank her for helping me sleep, but she wouldn't get it. Today, that five year old child is twenty-eight. My morning celebration of Louis XIII de Remy Martin brings me back to my reality that is now. I should slip out before whatever her name is wakes up, I'll sort this mess out later.

Happy Birthday to me.

Jean Rombaud - May 19, 1536

"Her eyes, I could've loved her."

The morning has a foul stench in the air, the stench was not of corpses although plenty were about. The stench was of a bloodlust I have come to detest and yet, come to know as fact. Sword ready at my side, my evil eyes peer over the crowd that has gathered. Scattered throughout, I spot sympathizers, family and friends. They are but raindrops in an ocean of bitter ignorance. These people came here to see a show, a sermon and I am their priest.

I hear activity from the White Tower, my lady wears a red coat complementing the event in a grim way. She is already a ghost, for she is already dead to us all. She floats through the crowd, now silent as night. For a moment I see something unfamiliar to someone in my line of work; a hesitation. Her presence alone brings with it a reflection that no man can resist. I feel the blade beneath my clenched fist tremble, all I can do to control it is put it aside. Solemnly she rises up the platform, I make a cardinal mistake. Our eyes meet, in that brief moment I realize something my soul shall not dare repeat for fear of a wretched death.

Her eyes, I could've loved her; I could've made this woman a wife, a mother, a happy soul. If I were not who I was and she not condemned, we could be anyone. By all appearances and indeed presence, this vision was not for lacking of love. Any man could and would melt for her; I even find myself wanting to save my maiden. Kill anyone who stands in my way, mortal or divine. Sweet Anne Boleyn, I knew of your plight and I now understand what the almoner described; a sweet victim of monarchic insanity. She speaks, I dare not interrupt for all the angels of this earth and the next.

Her speech sincere, glorious as if written in the divine book itself, torn from the pages of a lost chapter. If not for the milk and honey of her voice, it would not have pierced all as it did. The raindrops of the ocean have become as the ocean itself, not a person standing there would dare wish this flower come to harm and yet I am to bring her harm; the ultimate harm. All I can do to hold back the tears is bite my lip, I draw blood and not of my charge. She finishes all too soon. She turns once more to me and it's more than I can bear.

"Please ma'am, kneel now before the block," my voice croaking as if I've swallowed sawdust. She obeys and I wish my mouth dared not speak it's horrid despicable words. The blood tastes of iron and steel in my mouth, I pick up my own steel. I ask her to stretch out her hands; she trembles, but bravely complies. I hear her last words for surely she repeats them with sincere conviction. "To Jesus Christ I commend my soul..." I take one last look around almost instinctively for a divine escape. Surely the lord she prays to will send angels to save her. "...Lord Jesus receive my soul." She looks at me one last time, how can I slaughter the lamb whose eyes pierce mine. Not for this brave soul's sake but my own, I must divert her stare.

It's all I can do to keep from insanity. I call out to beyond her sight, "Where is my sword?" She gazes off for the instrument that will befall her, but it was a ruse for it comes swift. It descends upon her sweet swan neck in the distraction. With a thud, she is in two. Not a sound is uttered as all stare on in silence. 

A great evil has passed over the courtyard this morn and it's hand is my own. I shall never wash this blood from my soul.

Malcolm Rice - September 13, 1940

"I'm a Pacifist Goddamn It!"

It goes to my nature to leave things to the last minute, but this time my nature has betrayed my own interests. I shoulda left when I first heard about the draft, now I got a measly three days. I've worked for them Nazis before, they ain't the type of people you go to war with. Willing to use their sweet mama as shields if given half the chance. Worse still, I'm not gonna to be forced to potentially kill another man over flawed ideals. I'm heading underground, I should be safe at the estate in Majorca if I lay low.

If I'm to get out of here in one piece, it's got to be on the hush hush and it's got to be now. Why I picked the most god-damned bustling harbor in the great United States? Chalk up another letdown to my nature. This rickety boat is all I got to hope on; Evening Phoenix. Seems fitting, let's hope...what's this?

"Good evening monsieur." She says, her jade eyes cutting beneath her beret. I'm almost breathless, but this is not the time nor the place; okay maybe it is the place besides. "Good evening ma'am, have you seen the captain about? We need to move now." I may have put too much emphasis on the now, hopefully I've not let on too much. Her thick French accent makes following this broad almost unbearable, but I can make out that she is in fact the captain. I don't care either way, I just want to leave Lady Liberty and all her little tin soldiers to live my life on a beach. Then I hear em, them sirens; it's too soon. I run over and jump into the boat, tripping on my way in; jewels fly across the deck. I look up her stockings guilty of more than one crime now, she just grins.

"It appears as if this little trip is more than a holiday," she states as with an intuitive haste casting off the docking ropes. Like a cold fish I just watch her even while the sirens approach ever closer. It mighta been one thing to skip the draft, it was another to knock off Tiffany's on the way out. She starts the engine of the boat picking up a six-shooter, "Will we be needing this?" I cringe at the sight of the gun. "No guns, never cause I'm...

A bullet hits the window of the cockpit as my instinct kicks in and I dive backward onto the deck. "...a pacifist Goddamn it!" The French captain-ess in one motion puts the boat into reverse while sliding around the side to get a position on the shooter. "Monsieur, that is not a policeman." I see him, Jack Williams, PI, your friend and mine.

"They coming Malcolm, they will find you and so will I." He wouldn't shoot me, it would be too easy from this distance. I'm his prize he wants me alive. "I'll miss you Jack, I honestly will. Chasing me from coast to coast, but I'm expanding my horizons you see. You should too, get out while you can. This war is bigger than the both of us." Jack fires just off to the left of the boat as I dive. "You're a coward Malcolm, you always have been. Real men stand and fight." I found at that point it probably was easier for Jack to say that behind his revolver. With no response I heard Jack roar at the moon with a final shot.

Being out of earshot and staring up at her highness Lady Liberty I took in one last look at the Big Apple. I would miss her and all the opportunity she presented me growing up. Now hourly boats would be coming in from Europe full of the disheveled injustices of the war looking to her for inspiration. Me, I gave her the finger and headed straight into the abyss. "Monsieur Malcolm, I have you a cocoa." At this point is was difficult not to appreciate this Sheba, six shooter and all legs. "What's your name sugar?"

"It's certainly not sugar monsier," she winks. Sometimes my nature gets it right.