maandag 31 augustus 2009

I'm just imagining being in a room with her.

It seems like she'd stand there silently, just looking at me. No, looking slightly over my shoulder, staring with unbending intensity at whatever she sees there. As I realize this, I turn to look. Nothing is behind me. I turn back, and she's still there... still staring. She hasn't moved a muscle, yet I could swear she's closer to me than she was before. I take a few steps to the side. She continues staring just past me, her head turns ever so slowly to follow my movement. Still unblinking. Always unblinking. I can't help but blink my own eyes with extra frequency to make up for it.

She begins to walk toward me with such grace that it seems like she's gliding. Her feet are moving, and with an odd irregularity that it seems should result in a noticeable limp, yet everything above her waist is so absolutely rock-steady. Once she is close to me, she raises her hand, and ever so gently touches me on the shoulder. I feel something... a spark? A tingle? Her very touch is calming, soothing, like a river washing away all my worries and cares.

Then she smiles. It starts tiny, an almost imperceptible rise at the corners of her mouth. It grows, spreading across her face. I see her perfect teeth, all shiny white and straight. Not perfect exactly, now that I look closer, it almost looks like every one is an incisor. I stare, frozen in awe as her smile continues to grow. She's showing off a lot of teeth now... a lot of teeth. More than I would think possible. Her once tiny mouth has grown to comical proportions, yet her eyes are unmoved, not a blink, not a twitch.

Transfixed, I can't look away. Her jaw begins to lower as the corners of her once dainty mouth creep onward toward her ears. I see the teeth, they must number in the hundreds. No, no the first row numbers in the hundreds, and there are more behind them. As her jaw lowers, seemingly unhinged, a black ichor begins to dribble from her lips. Framed by hundreds of sharp teeth, a long pair of insectile pincers begins to extend from the place where I would have expected a tongue.

I finally manage to avert my eyes, stealing a quick glance over to my arm where she touched me. There's something there, like a thorn from a rose stem, but bigger. The top end of it is pulsating, pumping, growing smaller ever so slightly each time. I try to be afraid. I know with every scrap of logic in my mind that I should be awash with terror, but I don't seem to remember how to fear. I don't know how to feel fear, or anger, or anxiety... or anything much really. Besides, my arms and legs feel as if they're made of lead, I couldn't run or fight if I wanted to. I don't want to anyway. I don't want anything in particular. I don't want.

My eyes grow heavy as her face grows slowly closer to me. My, how it's changed since I last looked. The eyes though, the steel-blue eyes are still staring, unmoved and ever unchanging. My eyes droop, they close, I see no more. I feel something gently wrap itself around my head, I feel her embrace, she holds me so tightly. She holds me close, I hear the beating of her heart, feel the warmth of her body, the acid burn of her against my skin.

There's a crunching noise that seems to be coming from somewhere very close. A deep, hard crunch, like listening to my mom cracking walnuts. As I begin to fade into the blackness it almost seems that I can feel that noise in my very bones.