Blood Red

By Alexander Radu



Radon was now corneredonly thing standing in his way was nothing more than Something.


***
Something was a manifestation of black body radiation, trying so hard to put Nothing out of its mind. They envy you, your dreams, they
try to make you drown yourselfa salty taste of inconsistency, like leeching wounds that dont belong to you.
But the only thing Something has ever inspired or dreamed of doing was to try and fill nothingness with nothing, the rest was simply body
count mathnothing could come in existence for him, Nothing at all, as if he wasnt aware of the contradiction. Then again there didnt
exist a contradiction as long as nobody believed in it.
This crazy furnace did not remember to cry, sleep, breathe Nothing was alive- Something was not. Being the bearer of bad news is never
an easy task; its like trying to screw your wife with your own kids. Triggers a dislocation, schizophrenia, elation, fear that all past sins
would laugh at the new guy.
Radon smelled the engine-oil coloured roses that were slowly drifting into insanity as he was witnessing the horror hed invented.
Meanwhile somewhere in an abandoned part of his mind, Radon was thinking.thinking everything could have been better if her cut-out
cardboard condo maze had remembered the flames he set, an old deteriorated phoenix detonating like theres no tomorrow, only for them-
it never ends.
We can fill the gaps, providing any missing information said the ghostly caretaker who had suddenly appeared in Radons vast collage of
murder and despair.
Yeah right, and Im the king of Ireland.
If he didnt know better, he couldve sworn flesh was pouring from the caretakers eyes.
Theres an old gag here at the cemetery- dull as a woman with brains.
Whats the catch?
Someone ratted you out, he said, contracting nearly all his hollow muscles. You think only your bladder blew wide open-in which case
youre dead wrongor just plain dead. I forgot my specter glasses.
His jokes werent getting anywhere; somebody had to stop him before they started throwing things other than worn boots. That was the
cue for the reshaping of the world. Everything fell apart- Something was out of sight. As was Radon.

She has set me free forever; threw me out like a piece of over-written paper. Merciless as the music of the night.
A voice called out from the unknown in the distance. Walking on the impulse of curiosity towards the voice, Radon stumbled upon a dog
collar. There was only one name there as far as Radon could make out.
him
Tossing and guessing werent his cup of tea, but he had to go on, something about the place he now found himself in seemed oddly
familiar, although there was Nothing beyond.

Something thought he could escape into reality. Since childhood he had developed a taste for talking to himself, always ending his
sentence with no.
I have lain at the bottom of the hole long enough.no. I cant find it. Everybody keeps messing with my stuff, I guess its because no one
can hear me threatening them.no. Retracing steps wouldnt do any good, Nothing gets lost here, nothing. no.
Quickening his pace, Radon soon found out that he indeed was not alone. The moon was following him insistently. The architect of
destruction, the specialized in answers.

It had always had one, and now it was no exception. Glowing iridescently on its surface, were the letters K,I,L,L which Radon quickly
could deduce they served as instructions as well as a warning about the mysterious voice hed heard earlier.
Now he knew he was going nowhere, because the voice seemed closer than ever. He could feel its dark presence, stalking him like a
deranged clown out to buy more cigarettes. It had origins in darkness along with its possessor; the more you run the deeper and terrible it
gets behind you. Running wasnt an option; he would have to take the battle to hell itself. Deadly thoughts were rushing through his head
at quantum speed, everything was distorted to the point it all seemed like a morbid tombstone race to the next trembling nest. Worms
digging, claws scratching; the whole symphony of bone and dust trying to take over the living, or at least what some could imagine life.
The hourglass had been vanquished- mankinds greatest achievement- everything ran backwards now, past the point of no return, sucking
marrow from the lips of loved ones, kissing our shoulder blades with mouthy tenderness till nothing is left but memories that strive to
slide into focus. Reacting at your own reaction to yourself, a carousel of mad laughter and gum bile. All were dead as dead can be dead. A
false start and thus a deceiving end.
You have the right to remain silent.
The world had shifted deftly. Radon was gaining consciousness from his waking dream. It shifted again so fast Radon had missed it. He
thought he had heard that voice again- Maybe he wasnt that wrong. Hoarding friends was never an option for him; piling up families,
instead, was a necessity since he had to change them once every 2 or 3 years. But even he could not cover all the exits.

The voice was so close now he could taste it. The impression was made conscious when it started soaring--
You are not him.
You are not him.

I am afraid, was from the beginning, but help is a mile away and I was meant to do this.no.

Rotating on a vertex, without going anywhere, Something was going nowhere, thinking about his lost ones. Leaning on what seemed once
upon a time a ledge, memories invaded him, or rather something like memories, because with Something everything is something-like-, no
one knows why, not even him. Unending streams of consciousness, personal things wreaking havoc inside him. Stirred him up like a
vortex of falling skies.
Shame it all has a conclusion.no. he said in a somewhat resigned tone.

Killing it didnt seem like an option to Radon, how on earth would he manage it? But that statement is as thick as ice on a North Pole
expedition. The voice now had a figure--
Whos him? he asked
The old God. the voice promptly responded
Always waiting for him, never leaving.
This doesnt make any sense.
The voices eyes flickered with disgust at his disappointment, but soon realized its mistake and jerked towards the skies.
Suddenly Radons ears were filled with an unbearable wail tearing down the fabric of spacetime itself. From the firmament liquid darkness
poured until it conjured up a figure, or more so, an entity that looked like its been lurking about all along. Tremors ran down Radons
flesh, he was shaking uncontrollably. The dog collar fell in front of him from his frantic rattling.
Kill him now.
He was cornered. Everything was clear as the prostitutes eyes after another shot of powdered milk down the drain. Grabbing the collar he
sprung at the thing with only murder on his mind. And like a religious fanatic strangled the thing while it was weak.
I couldnt thank him enough, he thought
He somehow got the courage to jump back, which made them both fall into the Nothingness around them. Soon after the fall, Radon
vanished just as the entity had been.
All went black.
In the meantime Something watched as unreality itself shrank around him. The deed had been done.


***
I wanted to be punished for what I had done. She hovered over my shoulder whispering warnings. I didnt want to listen. Survivors guilt
washed away. All that remained was a shadow unscathed;
My blood painted the snow red- a gruesome slushie- dissolved all the scattered painkillers, and leisurely dripped down to the sewer,
mingling with the bile of the city, becoming one with it.
Its true what they say about the fall and the sudden stop at the end. Id lain here in the snow while the lurid chain of scenes that had led
me here kept playing in my head, a rerun of my own private snuff movie, a memory of my corpse. Alone at my own wake thinking in
metaphors again.
The femme fatale was gone. Only a sour taste remained of the kiss that killed me.