He saw it in her
eyes. He felt it and it wouldn’t shake, disappear, or go away. It was in his
mind, on his skin, as he stared down at his white hands. It was a curse, a
bind, a massive swing-back at the oppressor who spit hate and caused suffering.
He’d killed her
pets. He burned down her gardens. He’d thrown dead animals onto her porch. He’d
kicked rocks through her windows. He’d roared pass her kicking up rocks while
she walked down the old dirt road pushing her old body and white hair. And for
many years, silently she picked up, cleaned up, walked on with her cane as he
looked over her feeling as if he was the eyes and hands of God.
But on this day, in the tiny town store, he
made her fall down. He bumped her and made her fall out of the store down two
cement steps. She knew this was it. Ms. Georgiana knew she would not ever be
walking those many miles back home. The pain in her hip and the pain in her
heart said this. He stood in front of her unapologetic, and so did a small
crowd, as some women rushed to her to help and called an ambulance. But before
they loaded her onto the gurney, she said, looking at her spilled food and the
ground, “Mr. Karl, to which he said sharply, “what, you got something to say
after all these years,” and smiled with other onlookers. She said, “you think
you’re God Almighty, but you’re really just an old devil, go on, with yourself,
old devil.” That was the last time he
ever saw her and she ever saw or thought of him.
Her small home
stood empty. Several people came to take clothes and valuables from it. And
there he stood, alone on an empty dirt road feeling greasy and strange
wiggling, wiggles in his pores all over. He soaked and washed, but couldn’t
keep from feeling this and the feeling of a hot vapor under his chin. It would
move through his skin during the day and behind his eyes. The next morning when
he awoke, his skin was very, very red. And that night before he went to sleep,
he couldn’t stop smelling smoke as if something was burning. He walked through
his house and eventually ended up outside and began staring at her home. Filled
with anger, mistreatment, hatred, and a small warmth that said don’t do that to
which he ignored, he set her home on fire. Firefighters responded while he
stood in his window. One firefighter took one look at the figure in the window
and would not dare approach the house.
Meanwhile, Ms.
Georgiana closed her eyes and cried about her home in the hospital, but ultimately
smiled, blessed with money for a new residence due to years of paying property
insurance.
And as is common
now, Mr. Roberts continued to turn. His skin darkened turning redder. Shadows
filled his home. Brimstone filled his nostrils all the time. His fingers began
to stretch and thicken. Hair covered his legs, thick and long, although hair
continued to fall from his head until he became bald. Two spots formed scabby
sores on his head and he scratched at them with long sharp fingernails that
scrapped across something hard in them. He tore down his mirrors because he
could not recognize himself and denied this was happening. His teeth were
pushed from his gums by sharp tiny yellow ridge like objects that resembled a
fish’s sharp teeth. They bulged from his gums as his skin grown a much darker
red.
In denial, ignoring
the change in his posture, look of his hands, and hair covering his body, he
decided to go to town to do some shopping. Upon getting out of the truck and
saying hello, people froze. His appearance was so distorted that his friends in
the community did not recognize him. They didn’t even call him nigger, but a
monster, a creature. They pointed saying, what’s that, women fainted, some
gasped and some screamed. The shopkeeper barring the doors stood staring and
frozen, as screams traveled up the sidewalks. He stepped back from the door and
saw his reflection. Absurdly long fingernails red, dark red skin, black
soulless eyes, ivory short spikes protruding from his head; he turned to get
back in his truck. Women had called over men that denied him access to his
truck saying that’s Karl’s truck. Instead of the words, I am Karl coming out of
his mouth, a terrifying an inhuman hiss spewed forth. They picked up objects to
swing and hurl, demanding to know what he did with Karl. He tore from their
grip and ran through the street with people he knew chasing him, throwing
rocks, screaming at him, threatening him, spitting at him, and then the shots
began. He made it the many miles back to the woods and hid in there. He
couldn’t return home for a long while. For many days, the house was watched, but
no one dared enter he saw. And so, he hid in the woods like a common creature
or monster.
He was barred from
town, so he caught animals and ate them, sometimes raw. His house was boarded
up, as he was deemed dead, and believed to be killed the creature he resembled.
Eventually he got back in his home and lived there in darkness. He is known as
the monster in the wood, the devil-man with horns sprouting from his head, the
creature, and the monster, in his own community and throughout that little town.
While in his mind, he knows himself as the fool, the sufferer, and the damned.
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