바카라How was your day?바카라 I ask my wife as if I can still ruin it...
바카라How was your day?바카라 I ask my wife as if I can still ruin it. I ignore that she startles and hides the cellphone, and whatever she might have been watching dies in a snap. Perhaps the hush tells what it has been. She confirms, 바카라I was watching Lovecraft Country.바카라
It is banned in this country, and so are other docu-series like The Man in the High Castle, and The Handmaid바카라s Tale. Docu-features like, World War Z, Rosemary바카라s Baby, I Am Legend, Mockingjay, or Stree or Go Goa Gone. They have been contraband since the year zero.
We may find ourselves in prison for the possession of those, or the garlic.
I scratch my head. My voice boils, 바카라Did you feed the ghosts in the cellar?
The authorities have mandated at least one spirit to be a pet in every household. Any mistreatment falls under the purview of 바카라The Otherworldly Cruelty Prevention Act, Year 1바카라.
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Rose nods. She has done the duty. 바카라Thou shalt name all girls Rose, and all boys Thorn.바카라 She slow-poisons herself fearing that one of our pets will kill her someday, or she may send it on the way to the rebirth.
We cannot own a house without a spirit. It is prohibited.
바카라What were you doing when civilisation fell, the dawn of the year zero?바카라 Again and again the same question finds my brain, and sometimes I let it fly out through my orifice. Life seems like a World War trench movie directed by Ramsay Brothers or by Ed Wood.
I stall time in front of our dirty mirror. On its left corner your lipstick wrote 바카라Allegory바카라. The dust coated word has darkened and faded at once. It stamps our reflections. We enter into the world reigned by the bloodsucker-elites.
I remove my mask, look at my face featuring the day바카라s disintegration, and my eyes follow my wife바카라s silhouette that conceals the cellphone used chiefly to stream moving pictures. She places the device behind the state-approved books and DVDs, behind Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, Bram Stoker바카라s gospels, Charlaine Harris or John William Polidori. Percase there was never a year zero. Perhaps those books had been propagating the agitprop of the now rulers since ancient times. We welcomed the vampire autocracy without knowing. Voted for the clan. Watched Twilight Saga and Vampire Diaries. We chose to shed blood.
I have not let the mask go as if the virus V is still active in this realm beyond disbelief.
My wife says, 바카라Today the ghosts seem melancholic, withdrawn, less scary. I can바카라t recall. Is it that day when they were burnt and locked inside their own houses?바카라
바카라I believe, it is the day when the little one was raped in an old temple.바카라
Rose changes the topic, 바카라Did you get the job?바카라
The plague mask falls from my hand, the last leaf of resistance, and my voice bears the chill of the winter, 바카라No.바카라
바카라I have plan B.바카라 I whisper to the walls, to my wife, to the gas oven, and to the lights and ceiling fan. I cannot detail it to my wife. Not yet.
We have potatoes for dinner. We listen to the wings, watch the bats while we munch our foods. One bird-of-Minerva fancies a flight above the porch hosting our dinner. Its hoot stretches the silence of the city. The slave quarters begin reading Dracula again, or watch a re-run of 바카라How Human Was Liberated From The Humanity바카라.
Rose says they will show Evil Dead on the Gold channel, but we have discontinued the subscription, and hence it is a conversation for the sake of it.
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Later on, the night makes our flesh speak the ancient language of desire. Our limbs melt. The blood ministry has made it mandatory to reproduce at least one child and at most two. The childless couples are taxed twice, and if you have more than two the state snatches the extra bairns. We can guess what happens to them. The government wants a steady but controlled flow of humankind.
Postcoital desire to smoke hit me hard. I never smoke. I nurse this urge as a rebellion. They prohibited smoking since they do not want to spoil our organs or our blood. My rebellion always dies in the bud.
Rose sighs, 바카라Even if we conceive, what will we feed the baby? Potatoes? Where will we send it for schooling?바카라
I was a history teacher. They burnt down the history before the year zero, blasted off the face of the stone Gods, dug out shrines of Lucifer and Lilith where the churches, mosques and temples used to be. Thousands of blood drinkers climbed up the old edifices and worked on their hammering skills.
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I am a widower of history. Rootless and jobless. Sometimes I work as a daily wager under a government scheme of minimum number of working days for everyone unemployed.
It is alright. I have a plan. I cannot tell Rose. You see, sacrifices have silence for its machismo. She is Rose. I am Thorn. Authority knows our inner chauvinism. Time imitates a horror movie. It needs one fool to fall so that others may survive. In my case others include I and my wife.
Now here should be a jump cut, a jarring music contradicting the pleasant song. I hum:
Ho ho, darkness reigns my eyes.
Darkness walks the swag.
I cry,
and my tears trickle down all black.
Is not darkness a resort for all the anomalies, freaks and the downtrodden? In the cosy corner of the black I hide my evil fire and the ashes of depression.
Sleep Rose. Thorn will sell himself tomorrow, whore his blood and soul. They call this blood gigolo.
And tomorrow comes.
I tread slowly, leaving the house. Rose wears purple today. I shut the door, and I can hear the ghosts growling, and Rose shouting, 바카라Down, down boy.바카라 For a jiffy I think, if they devour Rose, I shall not have to go to the local party office, and enrol my name as a volunteer for selling my being, and letting those rich and spoiled blood suckers to bite my neck and God knows what. Evil me. Evil thoughts.
One puny ghost blooms near my feet, says, 바카라Have you ever seen a baby coffin?바카라 I shiver.
I wait at the party office. The leaders fly in. The cadets snarl. I can already feel the teeth, but first, they will inject an antivirus so that I may not turn into a vampire. How can they let me belong to an upper caste?
I know the shot will set fire in my blood, and melt down my organs, and morality.
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Kushal Poddar is former editor of the Words Surfacing magazine, and an author