Piper Square - Chapter 2 - Dustin Everett
I remember things in flashes, like strikes of lightning lighting up my darkened memories.
I was somebody’s son. I see her face, but her name eludes me. If I had a father the memory of him never shows. I see those I went to school with, my friends, my enemies, their faces as portraits that hang in the dusty museum of the mind.
I recall the feeling of time gone by too fast, decades in minutes making everything a blur.
I believe I had a wife. I often imagine kissing her lips; tasting both sour and sweet, as though a slice of blood orange. Were her eyes gold? I think they were, or seemed to be as the sun reflected upon them. And when I recall her voice it comes to as a whisper. I chase it, but never find the source. I revel in the weight of her breasts, soft and supple, pressed against my hands, for a moment I hold something real and true.
Those days she comes to me, she comes as incomplete.
Some days my mind goes dark and I awake to find a year or more has passed. The world around me has evolved, a store becomes a cafe, a train is removed from service, cement becomes grass. The walls of this prison are constantly shifting, taunting me with their unfamiliarity. Occasionally I see the past as though sketched on tracing paper laid over reality; only to have it ripped away.
I alone remain unchanged.
When I smell, I am unsure if it is from memory. In fairness, nothing is very certain. Do I sleep? Do I dream? There are questions upon questions, I struggle to understand. Answers, too, like whispers without a source.
But I smell her, the perfume that fills the room as she pretties herself for no one in particular. I reach out to touch her, to hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay. I want my lies to comfort her, as her presence comforts me. I touch nothing but air; left wondering if she is really there; worrying about the inevitable day that she too will be gone.
This is not a life.
My name is Dustin Everett; but they called me Dustbin. I cleaned the trash of the city, that’s what they said. I was an honest man and an honest officer. I worked, I lived, I made the world a safer place. I protected everyone around me.
Everyone except myself.
I am uncertain exactly how I died. I remember the water as it covered my mouth and face; my eyes opened and closed with spots of bubbles and darkness. There was a searing pain at the back of my head as I struggled to get free.
Water replaced air as I gasped for life.
And what a cruel curse was then laid upon me, forcing me to watch my own corpse dragged away. Reaching to grab my own hands, only to watch them slip through me. Instead falling through the floor, to another room in another place; losing track of myself, as the writhing of bodies, the stink of sweat, and the sound of fucking overwhelmed me. And the dark, waking to find a year gone by.
And then two more.
And then ten.
And more, and more, and more until the day you came.
As I tell you this story, I am almost certain you can hear me. I see your eyes following me, dancing with sadistic glee. I smell the warmth of sun on you, the scent of baking stone. Your silence is cruel and full of lies. If you are a statue, why do I feel your pulse?
Reveal your secrets! For what crime must I repent? What have I done that God refuses to forgive?
If you are the piper, allow me to pay the price and be free of your evil spell...
I was somebody’s son. I see her face, but her name eludes me. If I had a father the memory of him never shows. I see those I went to school with, my friends, my enemies, their faces as portraits that hang in the dusty museum of the mind.
I recall the feeling of time gone by too fast, decades in minutes making everything a blur.
I believe I had a wife. I often imagine kissing her lips; tasting both sour and sweet, as though a slice of blood orange. Were her eyes gold? I think they were, or seemed to be as the sun reflected upon them. And when I recall her voice it comes to as a whisper. I chase it, but never find the source. I revel in the weight of her breasts, soft and supple, pressed against my hands, for a moment I hold something real and true.
Those days she comes to me, she comes as incomplete.
Some days my mind goes dark and I awake to find a year or more has passed. The world around me has evolved, a store becomes a cafe, a train is removed from service, cement becomes grass. The walls of this prison are constantly shifting, taunting me with their unfamiliarity. Occasionally I see the past as though sketched on tracing paper laid over reality; only to have it ripped away.
I alone remain unchanged.
When I smell, I am unsure if it is from memory. In fairness, nothing is very certain. Do I sleep? Do I dream? There are questions upon questions, I struggle to understand. Answers, too, like whispers without a source.
But I smell her, the perfume that fills the room as she pretties herself for no one in particular. I reach out to touch her, to hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay. I want my lies to comfort her, as her presence comforts me. I touch nothing but air; left wondering if she is really there; worrying about the inevitable day that she too will be gone.
This is not a life.
My name is Dustin Everett; but they called me Dustbin. I cleaned the trash of the city, that’s what they said. I was an honest man and an honest officer. I worked, I lived, I made the world a safer place. I protected everyone around me.
Everyone except myself.
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| Murder - Art by Jacob Hair |
Water replaced air as I gasped for life.
And what a cruel curse was then laid upon me, forcing me to watch my own corpse dragged away. Reaching to grab my own hands, only to watch them slip through me. Instead falling through the floor, to another room in another place; losing track of myself, as the writhing of bodies, the stink of sweat, and the sound of fucking overwhelmed me. And the dark, waking to find a year gone by.
And then two more.
And then ten.
And more, and more, and more until the day you came.
As I tell you this story, I am almost certain you can hear me. I see your eyes following me, dancing with sadistic glee. I smell the warmth of sun on you, the scent of baking stone. Your silence is cruel and full of lies. If you are a statue, why do I feel your pulse?
Reveal your secrets! For what crime must I repent? What have I done that God refuses to forgive?
If you are the piper, allow me to pay the price and be free of your evil spell...
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