I assume you’re wondering how it is that I am 223 years old and what the secret to long life is. I promise you I’ll get to it. But, please, allow me to first set the stage…
The gentleman turned on his heel and began to nonchalantly walk away, as if he had not a care in the world. Faced with his back, a mounting dread began to overcome me. A well of unimaginable loneliness, a pit of unfathomable despair, opened its maw within me, and I ran. I ran, careless through the chaos, stepping on the dead as I did so, feeling the devil’s heat of bullets that whizzed past my head, singing my hair. To him I ran. I had only one need, and that was to feel near to him, to lock eyes with him once more.
“Aimer!” I screamed after him, tears stinging my eyes, the black-hole inside of me threatening to slowly devour me.
I ran; I ran down cobblestone streets, falling once, hard. The palms of my hands and my knees were bloody. But I did not feel any pain, such was my determination to reach the gentleman, and so I ran on.
Though he appeared to walk casually and unhurried, still I could not catch up, his visage always appearing almost out of sight.
Dusk was threatening to wash away the day in preparation for the night that was soon to come when my legs, weak and screaming from effort, buckled beneath me and I sank onto a squalid street of a dead-end alley. Shaking, I tried to rise; but the exertion was too much so I lay back down, shivering on the cold cobblestones, held my knees up to my chest, and wept.
“Do you love?” That purring baritone! I quickly turned my head towards the voice. And there he was, standing in his pristine gray morning suit, looking perfectly dapper as if he had not just led me around the world and back again.
I sat up, ignoring my groaning body, to fully face him.
“Do you love?” He asked again. French was the only language I knew, but he spoke to me in English and I somehow understood him perfectly.
“Yes! Yes, I love!” I said desperately, my eyes boring forcefully into his, hoping wretchedly that he could see my anguish.
He smiled at me; that same smile that was on his face when I spotted him near the barricade. Red, white, gray; lips, teeth, skin. I don’t remember standing, yet suddenly I was on my feet in front of him and the anxiousness I felt earlier dissolved into rightness and warmth. Up close I could see his eyes: a brilliant silver. I could also see that he was extremely thin, almost emaciated and, briefly, that frightened me though I didn’t know why at the time.
He did not make a move, just stood still as a statue in front of me leaning on his cane, his wide smile never faltering. The euphoric warmth I felt had banished any fear I might have felt and loosened my tongue.
“What is your name?”
“Ichor,” his creamy voice was intoxicating. Despite his unnatural thinness and his cadaver-gray skin, I thought that I had never seen someone as beautiful as him. I was enthralled.
“My name is Esme.” I told him. He nodded his head,
“I know, Esme Dauphine Fleur de Lys.” As caught up in him as I was, I didn’t find him knowing my name alarming in the least.
Looking him over again, seeing his tailored and pressed suit, his polished shoes, his expensive top hat, I assumed he was wealthy and took advantage of this thought, hoping he might indulge a girl-urchin with a meal.
“I am hungry,” I told him.
“As am I,” he replied in his honeyed voice. “Come. We’ll both eat our fill.” We walked side by side to a hole-in-the-wall pub, as yet unscathed from the bloody revolution.
There were only three burly inside sitting at the bar. The food came – thick stew, cheese, bread with butter, and a bottle of red wine. Famished, I dug into food as if it was the last meal I’d ever eat. So consumed was I, that I didn’t notice Ichor wasn’t eating. I was well into my second helping when Ichor spoke.
“The men at the bar, they’re talking about you.”
“What?” I glanced at the men, then looked at Ichor, our eyes meeting.
“Vile, vile musings,” he told me. I do not anger quickly, nor do I enjoy conflict, but while looking into Ichor’s silver eyes, I felt a primal, urgent rage begin to boil in my gut. And, while they spoke French, I could hear them speaking English.
“…piece of that.” the man in the middle said and they all started to laugh.
“Hey honey, come over here, sweet thing, and let me give you a kiss. Sit right here on my lap. I got plenty of room for you, little girl.” The man on the left said, looking over his shoulder at her and smiling a grotesque and rotten smile.
I didn’t look at them; I just kept my eyes on Ichor as the rage inside of me roiled and curled and was seconds away from reaching critical mass.
“Aw, doll-face, don’t be shy. I just want to run my hands through that beautiful gold hair you have.” The man on the right leered.
Eyes still chained to Ichor’s, he gave an almost imperceptible nod. And when he did that, I stood so fast the chair I was on slid backwards and fell with a hollow-sounding clatter to the floor. The burly men laughed at me as I came towards them.
“Ooh ho, you might just get your wish, Jean-Luc.”
They were still laughing as I grabbed Right-Side’s hair and slammed his head down on the wood of the bar with such force, with such preternatural strength I did not possess, that I heard his skull crack. But still I slammed his head on the wooden bar again, again, and still again, until his face was a tumor of pulp and blood flowed from his ears. He’d never laugh again. He was dead.
His friends looked from Right-Side to me in horror. The stools they were sitting on screeched as they got off of them, their hands half-raised in a placating manner.
“W-e don’t want any trouble, mademoiselle. It was all in good fun. Please, let us leave; we’ll not tell a soul.”
“Get out,” I said in a deep, horrifying voice I had never heard before. The two men hurried out of the bar.
As soon as they were gone however, I felt as if I awoke from some trance-like state and what I had done suddenly dawned on me. I was disgusted with myself and caught up in so many emotions that had me confused and scared and reeling. What had I done? What happened to me? I looked at Right-Side’s dead body, slumped on his stool, his face a coagulated mess. I vomited then looked back at Ichor to find him smiling his wide smile as he looked upon me; his gaze filled me with serenity and I half forgot about the man I killed.
“Do you love?” His smile was gentle and kind.
Right-Side’s blood dripped from my hands to the floor but I replied, “Yes. Yes, I do love.”
“I am so proud of you.”
And then, with blood on my hands and hair and clothes, I smiled too.
***
I couldn’t really tell then; it could have been the light or my watery eyes full of tears, but I swear he didn’t look as thin anymore.
***
I’m sorry this is so long, and for those of you who read to the end, thank you. I just feel like I need to get this out. Kind of like catharsis or something. This post has definitely brought out some ancient demons I thought I had locked up long, long ago. But, alas, they are here. And they are playing my PTSD like a harp. I have to go. I can’t risk anyone stumbling upon me writing this. I’ll post more when I can.