Under the Sink/ Lacerations
By Till Kallem (Photo: Kyle Chong)
The blackness inside the cabinet was suffocating, foreshadowing. The silence hummed against my ears, pushing like a wall of water, compressing my calmly racing mind. Little specks of hallucinated color flickered around, little spirits taunting me with the chance for impossible help. They were desperate. But not me. I observed as they danced, for there was nothing else to do but wait. Wait. Now that I knew, my fear subsided. I accepted the end. My end.
*Scuff clunk*
*Scuff clunk*
He was moving down narrow stairs, just where we had been minutes ago. Now at the base of the stairs, just a doorway away from the kitchen, from me.
*Scuff clunk*
*Scuff clunk*
*Clunk clunk*
He was here. Just outside the cabinet. Time dissolved and pulsated in a single moment. The black air squirmed around me in anticipation, but I remained still. I accepted, for there was no fight left. He had won the second he was born, for with each breath he took I had choked. So I knew. I knew. I knew.
Water trickled down through the pipes above my head as he turned the faucet on, releasing a melody of notes that calmed the nervous air. He was washing my parent’s blood from his hands. They were dead to him, to me, now. It was puzzling to think their blood was streaming, dripping, down just above my numb mind, inches from my own veins. Just 10 years ago I was that blood. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Not anymore.
Silence again, broken by the occasional plop of excess water. The sound reminded me I was alive, for without it, I would have doubted that reality.
Then a creak, restless and forlorn, pierced the oppressive silence. He opened the cabinet doors, one by one. With the first door open, half of my face lit up in the yellow fluorescent light, drawing a line right down my nose. I didn’t flinch, wince, or start. One side of my face was now bright, obvious, known: the other dark, hidden, mysterious. But only for a second, for he opened the second door and I was fully exposed, alone. My protector of darkness screamed in its murder. But only I perceived it. I didn’t even quiver.
I experienced the cool and unfeeling air around me open, my body vulnerable as I continued to rest on my knees. Waiting. Ready. Because I knew. I knew. I knew.
I slowly but deliberately raised my unblinking eyes from his torn pants to his face, raining down on me. His shimmering curly brown hair formed a halo around his grimy, creased features, plagued with shadow. Society had folded him and unfolded him, crumpled him and tossed him in the trash only to fish him out once again. I knew that pain. It was mine. But far more advanced, and I quivered at the utter destruction I had become through him. His eyes were blank, as shallow as that crippled piece of paper and yet as bottomless as the deepest ocean. I sunk into their familiarity, suspended in the darkness. The air here was thin, lacking anything to hold onto. I almost couldn’t escape. He was the absence of material, but his presence was strong. It oozed a frustration long ago turned into surrender. A decaying sensation had ripped him from his mind and body, splintering the boxes of reason and emotion. That’s why the house had been creaking in the lifeless wind. It was death. And I sensed myself within him.
He gazed back at me, no expression, no emotion. I challenged this stare in return. My face was blank, pale, not a flinch. Because I knew. I knew.
We absorbed each other for a few minutes before he leisurely raised the gun in his calloused hand, his knuckles raw, angry red, previously skinned, glistening with diamond droplets of water from the sink, now mixing with blood. I didn’t take my eyes away from his, not for a second, yet I could still see everything. A crushing droning sound filled the room with a thick, gray glue. This substance adhered me to the air so I couldn’t move. But I didn’t need to move. It slipped into my mouth and lungs so I couldn’t breathe. But I didn’t need to breathe. It seeped into my ears so I couldn’t hear. But I didn’t need to hear. It soaked into my brain so I couldn’t think. But I didn’t need to think. It dripped down into my heart so I couldn’t feel. But I didn’t need to feel. No, not anything. Not anymore. All that was human was beyond me now. I didn’t consider myself a person. He revealed my inhumanity. Because I knew. I knew.
The glue slowed his hand but didn’t stop it. Now I regarded it, only to view the same image as his face. The gun glinted in the light, beaming at me like his hair. The barrel appeared endless, like his eyes, a black hole, hungry, as if it might inhale me at any moment. The metal around the barrel’s opening was chipped and nicked, scattering the light: like his face, the imperfections making it that much more real. Or imaginary? But it didn’t matter - nothing mattered - because I knew.
He carefully - thoughtfully - nudged the gun forward until the cool, dense tip caressed my forehead, dead center. I stared into his eyes again, unmoving, unthinking, unfeeling. I was ready. I accepted. I understood. This was it. We knew.
There was no sound. Only the slightest movement, a flicker, as the gun exploded into my skull, my mind. The bullet penetrated our thoughts, our very being, intermixing our ideas, our existence. Confusion. I gazed up at him still. Yet I stared back at myself as him, watching as my eyes clouded over, the lids wilting, blood splattering around my head like a halo, a firework. I observed as my mind dispersed completely. I knew. Then I didn’t - couldn’t - know anymore.
