go to the next part of Alley
"Please"
I mumbled.
And ran into the labyrinth.
The Alley.
Boots slam down, crunch broken glass. Yellowed newspapers swirl around me as I flee, touching my hair, sticking to my sweaty arms.
Run! Disappear! Don't look back!
I didn't want to see him slumped and begging. I could not bear his perfection any more. Could not witness his sweet victimhood. Could not stand the sight of him. Of his wings.
I had held him in the palm of my hand! And he had said
"Please."
Run, run!
All my singing had changed to a chant. Run run run. Hey little bird, fly away home; your house is on fire and your children are alone. Hey little bird, you are personally responsible for the agony of Christ. Run run run.
Nearly slipping in the slime (blood? water? oil? tears?) I sprint out of the alley. Into another. And another. A door swings open abruptly and smacks me in the face. I see stars, clouds. I slam back into the sweating brickwork of the wall and, panting, leap out on the rebound, barely missing a step.
Girl-blood pours from my nose. I taste her again as it slides into my open mouth. I swallow pain. Innocence. Opression. Hatred.
The faint aftertaste of alcohol. Of sweet sweat. Perfume.
I suddenly wondered how HE would taste...and felt a new burst of loathing give my legs new strength. What was I thinking? Run faster...
Into the alley. Another. And another. Lose yourself in the labyrinth.
I was running from HIM. From the murder I had almost celebrated. From the mutilation that was mine. I was running from myself. Confusion, loathing, love--
Ragged breath rips through my chest and throat; I spray and inhale girl-blood. How far can I run? How fast can I go? Where is oblivion from here? Somewhere in the next alleyway, I think.
What had I become? What had I almost done?
I could not run from my thoughts.
The alleys turned darker and stranger. Oddly shaped buildings towered over me, obscuring the sky. I could no longer see stars. Or clouds. Some buildings joined in dripping arches, enclosing the passageways. Windows, luminous and distant gave me no light, no guidance.
A steady drip and clank beat counterpoint to my rhythmic panting, stamping.
How far, how far now? I don't know how to get home. I am lost.
My mind runs faster than my feet or my heart.
I wondered: have I been fooling myself this whole time? All my moralizing and high-mindedness had been brushed away by his vulnerable wings. All my fine distinctions obscured by his sharp razored feathers. All my reasoning turned to childish rhyme by the music of his cat-gut wings rubbing together.
I had been eager to hurt him. I had enjoyed it.
He deserved it. He needed it.
A warbling howl ecchoed in the alley. I was still running hard, but a little slower.
The walls were wet. Running, dripping with...water. There were no more doors. But windows, plenty of windows...incredibly high up. Too far away to shed any light. Faint music drifted down to me from the bright openings. I saw curtains flutter like wings above me. Too far above me. No light, no rescue. Only my boots crunching garbage under my feet. Still running, but not so fast.
I looked down. Daisies grew between the cracks in the brickwork. How did they grow here, I wondered. Beauty in the dark. Blossoms in the refuse.
Run run run. Fly away home.
Had I thought I could remain pure? Had I thought I could avoid hate and murder? I nearly laughed. How futile my wish for goodness seemed now! I saw that I must lose. No choice could save me, or make it right.
He would win no matter what I did.
Here in the labyrinth, in the alley, my strides become jagged. I am clumsy, exhausted. It doesn't matter which dark, dripping hole I duck into. My thoughts twist and turn, I feel a knife in my side, stabbing through lungs, heart--
If I had killed him, mutilated him, he would have made me like himself. A killer. A life-stealer. Like him: bloody vengeance masquerading as goodness. Victory in his grasp. I would have been his, body and soul.
But, I let him go. I showed him mercy. Therefore, my own torment would continue.
Does continue.
Just an endless loop of pain.
And I am his: body and soul.
I could no longer run. I walk now. Slower, slowest. And still the knife scraping in and out of my chest, my lungs, my heart--
No escape. No way to change it. Opressor and victim inextricably bound together. Tormentor and tormented are one in the same.
I shall never leave my angel. He will never leave me.
Turn right. Turn left. Into the alley. Another. And another. Further in. Further out. Are the buildings crying? Are the windows laughing? Are the rats dancing?
My head dropped. My chin touched my heaving chest.
I wondered, feeling weak, weaker: in sparing him, in sacrificing myself, had I done a greater evil? Was it that I wasn't strong enough to kill him, to rid the world of his false righteousness? Did I value my suffering, my destruction, my sacrifice more than his?
I am in the alley. In the labyrinth. Lost.
As my eyes crawl over the refuse at my feet I see something...a shoe. A gold-tipped high heel.
A dull match flaring in my head, my heart. It hadn't fit. It was borrowed from an older sister...
I looked again. A shoe. And...a naked foot. Toenails painted. The color: honeybee pink.
Honeybee. Oh, my honeybee! My Melissa!
Her body covered with garbage. Her long dark hair trailing in slime, in the black water of the alley. She was gone, gone. Long gone.
My honeybee! My angel!
Weeping, I knelt.
I had left her in the club. Unconscious. Asleep. Resting in sweet oblivion. I had left her--
My heart bursting, I reached out a trembling hand to touch--
copyright 1996 by Julieann M. Brown-Micko
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