response she can’t decipher and it peels the paper from the walls and the man knocks again,
KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
The swirling carpet seems to undulate beneath her feet and she runs from the door to the kitchen, throwing herself back against the wall, sobbing and fearful and the cups rattle on their hooks. Then there it is again, the knocking that seems to come from the walls now, from the earth, insistent and furious.
KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
And with each quaking knock her world burns and the white light dims until there is none left and the world rots black on red. The mirror on the wall rattles and through it she can see the man at the door, still cutting the same square silhouette but now from a blood red sky.
“LOVE HIM”
The words tune through her bones, vibrating her till her lips tingle and her fingernails feel as though they might come loose from their pale pink beds.
She thrashes through her kitchen and opens the door of the cupboard beneath the sink with singing fingers, dragging out bottles and brushes and before forcing herself into it, bending herself into its tiny space like a dog broken into a suitcase. She pulls the door closed and holds it shut with nails that bend back then break off.
He sucks the light from her eyes, punishing her for her insolence. Blood pours into her vision, somehow she can see it growing like red trees through her mind. They needle into her brain and she falls into the shrieking black pit He opens in her soul. Terror consumes her, pure, endless. She opens her mouth to scream but it is not her scream that comes from her constricted throat but his caustic call. It clamps open her jaw and tears through her throat. She covers her mouth revolted at the sound that echoes out of her but her hands scratch her face. She feels one with the other and they clash together in a way that sickens her. They are not her hands at all. They are claws, hard and sharp. Her stomach bubbles with disgust and she gags and coughs but her windpipe is filled with something. Feathers. They fill her throat and pack her sinuses and line her mouth. Spitting and thrusting she convulses as her body tries to expel Him, her whole being thundering with revulsion. She hits out at the walls of the cupboard, fighting the present moment with everything she has, as though she can tear her way out of His grip with these new hands and her hate and her fear. But the terrible shaking only builds and builds and she has no choice but to scream His scream and hold on with those angry claws, and she knows that she must open herself up to Him, let the man and the bird into her sacred places, let them fill her up with that black swarm.
“TAKE ME THEN! TAKE ME!” she says, but she says it in her mind because her mouth is already full of Him.
In the darkness of the cupboard beneath the sink she sees nothing but the air seems to swell at her surrender and the walls become turgid flesh, pulsing and hot. Her knees hit the walls of fevered flesh as her legs are forced apart and she feels the air move fast and fluid as a dry bracken wind blows between them and into her, pumping, belching, filling her up, testing her extremities, testing her seams until she is filled with a plasticine width and her eyes bulge forth from her face, threatening to burst, threatening to leave her blind and hysterical with only her aching stinging sockets filled with their relative void as proof they were ever there at all. She wants to push them back into her head but with these claws they will surely pop like balloons and the walls sweat salty and bristle with wire and swell until there is no room left between her and the cupboard at all, and then, in one black minute, it stops as though it had never begun. The door swings open revealing her own kitchen floor. She falls out onto it, onto all fours, and into the white light that has spilled back into the room. She heaves out the torture; thick and
KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
The swirling carpet seems to undulate beneath her feet and she runs from the door to the kitchen, throwing herself back against the wall, sobbing and fearful and the cups rattle on their hooks. Then there it is again, the knocking that seems to come from the walls now, from the earth, insistent and furious.
KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
And with each quaking knock her world burns and the white light dims until there is none left and the world rots black on red. The mirror on the wall rattles and through it she can see the man at the door, still cutting the same square silhouette but now from a blood red sky.
“LOVE HIM”
The words tune through her bones, vibrating her till her lips tingle and her fingernails feel as though they might come loose from their pale pink beds.
She thrashes through her kitchen and opens the door of the cupboard beneath the sink with singing fingers, dragging out bottles and brushes and before forcing herself into it, bending herself into its tiny space like a dog broken into a suitcase. She pulls the door closed and holds it shut with nails that bend back then break off.
He sucks the light from her eyes, punishing her for her insolence. Blood pours into her vision, somehow she can see it growing like red trees through her mind. They needle into her brain and she falls into the shrieking black pit He opens in her soul. Terror consumes her, pure, endless. She opens her mouth to scream but it is not her scream that comes from her constricted throat but his caustic call. It clamps open her jaw and tears through her throat. She covers her mouth revolted at the sound that echoes out of her but her hands scratch her face. She feels one with the other and they clash together in a way that sickens her. They are not her hands at all. They are claws, hard and sharp. Her stomach bubbles with disgust and she gags and coughs but her windpipe is filled with something. Feathers. They fill her throat and pack her sinuses and line her mouth. Spitting and thrusting she convulses as her body tries to expel Him, her whole being thundering with revulsion. She hits out at the walls of the cupboard, fighting the present moment with everything she has, as though she can tear her way out of His grip with these new hands and her hate and her fear. But the terrible shaking only builds and builds and she has no choice but to scream His scream and hold on with those angry claws, and she knows that she must open herself up to Him, let the man and the bird into her sacred places, let them fill her up with that black swarm.
“TAKE ME THEN! TAKE ME!” she says, but she says it in her mind because her mouth is already full of Him.
In the darkness of the cupboard beneath the sink she sees nothing but the air seems to swell at her surrender and the walls become turgid flesh, pulsing and hot. Her knees hit the walls of fevered flesh as her legs are forced apart and she feels the air move fast and fluid as a dry bracken wind blows between them and into her, pumping, belching, filling her up, testing her extremities, testing her seams until she is filled with a plasticine width and her eyes bulge forth from her face, threatening to burst, threatening to leave her blind and hysterical with only her aching stinging sockets filled with their relative void as proof they were ever there at all. She wants to push them back into her head but with these claws they will surely pop like balloons and the walls sweat salty and bristle with wire and swell until there is no room left between her and the cupboard at all, and then, in one black minute, it stops as though it had never begun. The door swings open revealing her own kitchen floor. She falls out onto it, onto all fours, and into the white light that has spilled back into the room. She heaves out the torture; thick and
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