DARIEN VALENTINE
“Some say the world will end in fire, some ice, and still others claim humanity… If there is one thing I’m certain of, it’s that Valentine will screw us all.”
~
Mama, Mama, help me get home
I’m out in the woods; I am out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut
Mama, Mama, help me get home
I’m out in the woods; I am out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire a rotting old wreck
It showed me its teeth, and went straight for my neck.
Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won’t make it home, I’m already half-dead.
I met Darien Valentine, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.
~
The split second before you die; ‘No, please, please..’ and the hush that follows. It’s taboo to speak of death; offensive to speak of resolved time. Turning the last page of the last book you’ll ever read—that I’ll ever read—of the him or her that has carried us through their story word for word; we’re captivated in the world that we have created, where the main character was a neighbor, a close friend, a sibling. Now that we’ve run out of folios filled with their unrealistic existence, we have no choice but to accept that they’re gone. A lifeless reminder that fairytales never come true, but we can’t accept that, can we? So instead we subconsciously begin to fabricate whimsical ‘happily ever afters’, from our weakness, to our favorite actors, typescripts, and, most of all, ourselves. We do this to avoid the unavoidable. ‘John became the king over the entire nation. . . . Mary married the man of her dreams and settled down in a quiet suburban corner of paradise. . . . Susan finally reached the top of the mountain and received enough gold to last a lifetime twentyfold it’s worth. . . Happily ever after, happily ever after, happily ever after. We all live happily ever after.
But, you know, I think there’s something missing here.
And I think
that that something
is
“The End.”
The end, the end, the end, the end,
To us all.
My stomach was a snake, a snake with noxious tusks and a long, scaly body. Biting, plunging, and scraping away at my entrails, breaking its way slowly through my ribs. Desperate instinct driving it to find food, like a weed deprived of sunlight. Peeling away the walls of flesh between it and what it wants with salacious resolve. I could practically feel the upset ocean of blood crashing against the shore of jagged stones in my chest, just as fraught for a release as the creature wreaking havoc within. From the serpent’s mouth scuttled a black beetle that continued up my throat, away from the belly of stones it was birthed from, portraying the stifled scream of a dark insect. I ground my teeth together to keep it inside me; I would never wish it on anyone else. Its eely mother gradually being to coil around my neck like a tongue of ash, drawing the breath from my very lungs into her own yawning cavern and replacing oxygen with a residual coal, cleaving my body and mind in two- the halves falling away on either side to reveal the only thing left.
The temptation of over a dozen wolves.
I added another notch to the four pronged grooves that I had been progressing on; they were the only external indication of the battle incased within fur, flesh and bone. Several inches deep, they scarred the permafrost blanched roots in thick, foot long furrows. If I’d of thought that I could even remotely turn any of my words into a coherent sentence, I would have enjoyed the company of my own kind when I first arrived behind the cinnamon gingered courtesan (no pun intended) who’d graced me with her presence at the border, basked in their unaware bliss. But alas, my pupils had already begun to dilate with desire and I opted for the wiser choice: to wait out the bout of sore cravings before approaching, hubristically, the spawn of my discomfort. It must of lasted for more time than I had first intended, because the words that had been a blur, an indistinct series of shouts and barks and short bursts of laughter that had earlier plagued my ears what had seemed like only seconds earlier had dwindled to a dribble of murmurs, the thumping of hearts, the shifting of feet and the scuffling of movement.
A few more moments and the soupy toxin seemed to drain from my veins and out of my blunt claws, digging into the rich soil like roots inverted, giving instead of taking, taking, taking. The bug skittered back to the hellish lips it came from and the satanic worm withdrew to its hovel in the most indefinite corners of my mind- just waiting to be lured out by the promise of a meal amongst the cobwebs that even I found to be best left alone.
No matter how much I wanted to, I knew that patience was only novelty until proven otherwise. I’m sure that I’d be ill-advised to wait any longer. Taking a step forwards as my own; I felt a sudden quivered wing of pain chip at my skull. Eager to take confidence in the rightful, half alone darkness of my own closed eyes, I flicked my sooty lids shut. Behind the security of myself, deep within myself, I fought to chase the pewter sliver of throbbing that budded from the bottoms of my teeth and continued up to ricochet against my ears with a lurid pinging sound that only I might pick up . Thrum, thrum, pop! Thrum, thrum, pop! Thrum, thrum, pop!-
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