Monster Ahoy

I turn around. A flash pirouette to judge how far behind you are. Close, too close, you loom large, until I see double, or perhaps a trillion. I run on. A roaring floods me. Fear in my heart and blood in my head. Adrenaline in my feet.

“SET ME FREE” I scream, for me, more than you. I need to hear myself in my head and on the outside. To know that I’m still alive. God knows for how much longer. Blood breaks out from my nose and ears as the pressure in my head escalates.

I swerve as I almost hit a tree. Precious seconds as I skid, pick myself up and try to stop breathing, straining my ears and every other nerve I have on the job. You’re too close. I can hear you pant now. It spurs me on, I pound furiously on the uneven ground. Destination nowhere. Away from here.

A dead run away from death. Dead leaves crunch underfoot and the landscape blurs in my eyes, darkened masses of shadows looming everywhere at dusk. Death is everywhere around me.

You are more an imagined predator than real. Imagined enough to frighten the living daylights out of me. Almost. Real enough to get me screaming for help. To set me screaming for life. Screaming to be allowed to exist.

Then I stop. I am all out of everything. I’m ready. You no longer pound after me. You stalk me with lascivious anticipation in the darkness.

You execute a slow sweep up an invisible red carpet. A red carpet I have laid myself for you. How do I know it’s red when I cannot see it? Because it sounds red as you creep up on it. Do you know what red sounds like? Like screaming metal at the end of civilization.

Chaos was already all around me, but there was silence and state inside my head. Till now. Till I see you creep up in apparent covert strike. Then you’re in my face, screaming and shaking, pointing fingers to intimidate. About as subtle as an elephant in a tree. Where, if at all, DID you learn dissembling honey? I coulda taught you for free, if it weren’t too late for you and me.

I wait for you, sweat blinding my sane vision, red creeping up in my head in tongues of flame, a slow burn to chaos. My brows are gathering with thunder more than usual, a throwback to my cro-magnon ancestor, who would be proud to see me now. A red vein pounds in my temple as I create wrinkles for posterity. It ain’t a sign of age, its a sign of rage.

A monster’s a monster only if there is a victim to appreciate it.

Don’t cry at night darling, I will be with you here
Extinguish the light darling, the shadows will disappear…