Post by Miss Mae on May 9, 2021 11:11:10 GMT -5
There had been a horrible thunderstorm the night before. When Charles Ashby had fetched the paper that morning, the mud was thick around the doorstep. He didn’t mind the rain – the quantity of rainfall this year had provided a bountiful harvest from the apple tree in the garden. It was a late, warm autumn and the flowers were still vivid and in full bloom. It was a beautiful morning to spend Mother’s Day.
The morning sun had momentarily awoken Mae at 6:35 when it crept through her window. She’d risen momentarily to pull the blinds and crawl back into bed, pulling the down feather comforter up tight over her shoulders and under her chin. She still wasn’t sleeping well – the past few nights she’d awoken in the middle of the night to cold sweats or violent sobs, those eyes seeming to be in every sliver of shadows. The first few nights, she’d clasp her hands desperately over her mouth to conceal the sound, peering out the window to search every nook and cranny of the yard for any sign of a potential lurker or haunter of the dark.
But as the week passed, it all began to fade as if a dream. The familiar smell of the comforter pulled up to her face soothed and reminded her: she was almost eight thousand miles from New York City – from Philidor Holdings – from Action Wrestling.
But that was Tuesday, and now it was Sunday. Around 8am, Mae finally acquiesced to the sun’s insistence she rise to the day. The smell of breakfast cooking had wafted through the air. It was Mother’s Day.
She looked over at the nightstand. It still had the same clock and lamp she’d owned since childhood – still had the same knick-knacks scattered around – but the picture frame was a new addition. The picture was printed on standard computer paper, but that wasn’t important. It was a selfie she’d taken of them at the karaoke bar, right after he got off stage. He had his sunglasses on, and he was slumped against her shoulder pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek. She was smiling – she was happy. Back when it all seemed so perfect.
Her eyes trailed to the wall across from her bed. The poster of Lissie Hope was still hanging where it had always been. She had been trying to make a decision as to its fate – as to their fate.
It’s not her fault.
Rising from bed, Mae crossed the room. For now, her decision was made: she reached up to carefully remove the poster from the wall, roll it into a cylinder, and place it in the back of her closet for now.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning for Mother’s Day after the hard rain of the night before. The flowers could not have been more in bloom, even at this point of autumn. It was a quiet, uncomplicated day of comfort. And nonetheless, occasionally a sound or a movement in the corner of Mae’s periphery would flood back those emotions, prickling the hair on the back of her neck or bringing that feeling of lead to her stomach. Because for all the inhuman cruelties and horrors of Mister Garvey she’d recounted, there was one detail Mae knew she could never tell a soul – not Lissie, not Johnny, and not even her parents.
The morning sun had momentarily awoken Mae at 6:35 when it crept through her window. She’d risen momentarily to pull the blinds and crawl back into bed, pulling the down feather comforter up tight over her shoulders and under her chin. She still wasn’t sleeping well – the past few nights she’d awoken in the middle of the night to cold sweats or violent sobs, those eyes seeming to be in every sliver of shadows. The first few nights, she’d clasp her hands desperately over her mouth to conceal the sound, peering out the window to search every nook and cranny of the yard for any sign of a potential lurker or haunter of the dark.
But as the week passed, it all began to fade as if a dream. The familiar smell of the comforter pulled up to her face soothed and reminded her: she was almost eight thousand miles from New York City – from Philidor Holdings – from Action Wrestling.
And almost eleven thousand miles from California…
She’d arrived at the doorstep of her parents on Tuesday morning at 6am. It had been over 25 hours of travel, first over the Atlantic from New York City to Hamad International Airport in Qatar and then onto Johannesburg after a four hour layover. It was early in the morning when the plane landed, and taxis were difficult to acquire. But when the vehicle pulled in front of the familiar house of her parents – the house she’d grown up in – her body moved with almost mechanical immediacy. When her mother and father answered the door, their faces were looks of picturesque shock and delight – but when Mae’s legs seemed to buckle and she collapsed into their arms, that delight was soon replaced with horror.
They’d helped to her to the couch in the parlour, and her mother wrapped the old quilt her grandmother had sewn around her shoulders. She never left Mae’s side as her husband Charles ran to the kitchen to fetch his daughter a cup of the morning tea. As they sat together, Mae’s words came pouring down like the rain:
The beatings. The shocks. The bursts of intense noise. The buckets upon buckets of ice cold water dumped over her face.
With each ugly recounting, her body wracked harder with sobs, her fingers digging tightly into the quilt as he mother embraced her firmer. It was her father, whose eyes were wide with fear and loathing.
“Esmé…” he said softly, his voice quaking with rage, “don’t tell me they…”
“No,” she interjected immediately, to put aside any true fear or doubt. And then – Mae laughed. At first, it was a dry observation, but soon it became a full blown fit, the twisted relief of the situation’s irony not lost on her. Nonetheless, the laughter quickly returned to sobs, and for the rest of the morning, Mae said nothing and buried herself into her mother’s side. When she finally took to the shower and let the water run over her body, Mae began to feel clean.
They’d helped to her to the couch in the parlour, and her mother wrapped the old quilt her grandmother had sewn around her shoulders. She never left Mae’s side as her husband Charles ran to the kitchen to fetch his daughter a cup of the morning tea. As they sat together, Mae’s words came pouring down like the rain:
The beatings. The shocks. The bursts of intense noise. The buckets upon buckets of ice cold water dumped over her face.
With each ugly recounting, her body wracked harder with sobs, her fingers digging tightly into the quilt as he mother embraced her firmer. It was her father, whose eyes were wide with fear and loathing.
“Esmé…” he said softly, his voice quaking with rage, “don’t tell me they…”
“No,” she interjected immediately, to put aside any true fear or doubt. And then – Mae laughed. At first, it was a dry observation, but soon it became a full blown fit, the twisted relief of the situation’s irony not lost on her. Nonetheless, the laughter quickly returned to sobs, and for the rest of the morning, Mae said nothing and buried herself into her mother’s side. When she finally took to the shower and let the water run over her body, Mae began to feel clean.
She looked over at the nightstand. It still had the same clock and lamp she’d owned since childhood – still had the same knick-knacks scattered around – but the picture frame was a new addition. The picture was printed on standard computer paper, but that wasn’t important. It was a selfie she’d taken of them at the karaoke bar, right after he got off stage. He had his sunglasses on, and he was slumped against her shoulder pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek. She was smiling – she was happy. Back when it all seemed so perfect.
Her eyes trailed to the wall across from her bed. The poster of Lissie Hope was still hanging where it had always been. She had been trying to make a decision as to its fate – as to their fate.
It’s not her fault.
She doesn’t know.
She’d never have believed me.
Rising from bed, Mae crossed the room. For now, her decision was made: she reached up to carefully remove the poster from the wall, roll it into a cylinder, and place it in the back of her closet for now.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning for Mother’s Day after the hard rain of the night before. The flowers could not have been more in bloom, even at this point of autumn. It was a quiet, uncomplicated day of comfort. And nonetheless, occasionally a sound or a movement in the corner of Mae’s periphery would flood back those emotions, prickling the hair on the back of her neck or bringing that feeling of lead to her stomach. Because for all the inhuman cruelties and horrors of Mister Garvey she’d recounted, there was one detail Mae knew she could never tell a soul – not Lissie, not Johnny, and not even her parents.
It had been towards the end of her ordeal, after six grueling hours of psychological and physical punishment. She was soaking wet, her body aching from the punishment, and still restrained to the unforgiving wooden chair in that solitary concrete cell deep beneath the floor of Tammany Hall. Peter Garvey had stood before her, his face emotionless and unperturbed as he’d washed his hands in the sink.
But in the stygian shadows across from her, someone was watching.
At first, His form was identifiable in the black. He’d stood there the entire time, passively watching as Garvey had employed years of experience from his time at black sites throughout the world grinding down a Comms intern for her impudence. And now, with Garvey’s task complete, the Dark Man slithered forward, the outline of His body distorting as it had been removed and all contained had begun to seep out, gelatinous and amorphous. What were once two eyes became many, and in the dim light of the single bulb, the border of the shadows was invaded by a writhing mass like centipedes or arachnids creeping from the dark.
And it was then, for an instant, that Mae Ashby had witness Samson Saltair as It truly was.
But in the stygian shadows across from her, someone was watching.
At first, His form was identifiable in the black. He’d stood there the entire time, passively watching as Garvey had employed years of experience from his time at black sites throughout the world grinding down a Comms intern for her impudence. And now, with Garvey’s task complete, the Dark Man slithered forward, the outline of His body distorting as it had been removed and all contained had begun to seep out, gelatinous and amorphous. What were once two eyes became many, and in the dim light of the single bulb, the border of the shadows was invaded by a writhing mass like centipedes or arachnids creeping from the dark.
And it was then, for an instant, that Mae Ashby had witness Samson Saltair as It truly was.
Big thank you to Johnny Bacchus for writing this piece.