by Andy Finch
“I promise.”
The call ends. It was a suicide note, no one could convince him otherwise. His death was in his own hands. He’d rather take his own life, anyhow, than deal with the curse set upon him. There was no cure. There was no release. Everything came back to morphine, morphine, morphine. He would rather be dead, now, than anything. Draven is alone again. He picks up the pen once more and writes, love, your Draven, with a lop-sided heart next to it.
15
There are crows outside. They follow Draven home. Cawcawing as he turns, cooing as he stops. Their yellow eyes looking down at him. He swears he sees a smile written on their black beaks. There was a seagull, too, somewhere, but the crows bite at its head, growling to leave them in peace. The world is lonely, except for the presence of Draven and the crows. The cawcaws continue to follow him, just a foot behind.
“Fuck off,” he tells the birds, but they continue to stalk.
A flap of feathers, then they are gone. He is alone. Completely alone. There was the sound of frogs, reep-reep-reeping from the bayou, but they’ve all but vanished too. New Orleans has never seemed so far away as it did right now. Draven isn’t sure if he enjoys the silence, or wishes the sounds of the city would return.
In his hand was a paper bag containing a single syringe and another clear vial of morphine. The humidity makes the glass wet and sticky. Draven keeps it in the bag bearing Rouses’ tag on the front.
There was a sound behind him. Not the crows again, nor the bullfrogs in the bayou, nor the sound of tires screeching against the broken pavement of I-10. These were footsteps, no, less than footsteps. Feet that only crunched the gravel every other step. An angel. Draven does not look over his shoulder, he continues down the repeated path to his apartment building. The winged feet follow, close yet far enough.
His feet drum a rhythm. One-and-a two-and-a three-and-a—
Silence. More than silence. Whatever was following him, those levitating footprints, were directly behind him. Draven does not look back. The chill in his bones strengthens, unaffected by mid-November’s hot breath. Blood pumps in his veins, another steady beat. One-and two-and three-and four-and. There is a breath on his back. Cold. Unwelcome. It smells of lavender and vanilla. Draven wants to gag.
“Go away,” he says.
“I won’t,” a Mediterranean accent speaks, “I’m here to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Draven offers no ear, no sympathy. How could he? This man—this demon masquerading as a man—gave him honey drenched in poison. This man watched his world burn. Draven would have no sympathy for this devil.
“I’m not giving you much choice,” Morris says, the faintest smile hidden in the darkness of the night.
“Fuck. Off.”
Draven takes back to the task of climbing into his apartment. The steel stairs bear a light that does not touch the silhouette of his enthralled stalker. He finds the door leading to his apartment, shuts it right, and locks it good. He would not let the world know his secret. He would not let Morris in, either. He would stay here, stuck between worlds.
Morris sneaks in through the window, just as Draven latches his attention to the syringe in his hand. He picks the day to visit when Ian was gone. A luxury Draven would thank him for. A silence comes before he steps into the apartment. A stillness, anticipation. Like a nurse studying an infant straight after birth. Like a family waiting to see if their child survived the crash. Morris was the void between life and death. The place where dreams run wild. He was not human, Draven had figured.
“I know who you are.” Draven finds himself saying into the nothingness that would birth Morris again.
His wings hug his figure. The white on white shines almost angelic in the cheap lighting. Around Morris was the smell of lavender and honey. A touch of vanilla, too, but not as much as when they first met all those months ago. Not nearly as much as it had seemed outside. No smile rides on his lips anymore. Morris is without emotion tonight. The man—the angel—who ruined his life dares not show emotion? Draven wishes he had the strength to throw punches, but some part of his says it would be safer if he did not.
“Say it,” Morris says, “I want you to come home with me. Say it, and I can take you.”
His breath smelled of poppy seeds. An earthy mixture of smoked nuts and bitter-sweetness. Draven becomes awash in nostalgia. The scent he had no name for as a child, the feeling of fever dreams. It all stood before him, trapped in this more-than-man Morris.
“And if I don’t want to go?” Draven asks. He does not give Morris the grace of his eyes. He would know loneliness as Draven has.
“I’m not giving you an option,” Morris rolls his shoulders, commanding the wings on his back to fold, “It’s an honor that I’ve even spoken to you, you know.”
The draft of oscillating emotions revolves around the room. On one hand, Draven hates Morris. Wishes he had never spoken to him, wishes he had never been there to administer that first taste of morphine. On another, he cherishes the feeling of ecstasy that he brings. It was like drinking from the hands of a god. One little prick of morphine was all it took to wash away these worries.
“Is something wrong?” Morris says. His brow thick and chiseled quips together with the weight of confusion.
“Of course, there is.” Draven allows himself to say, even if the rational side of him would argue for the silent treatment. The temptation was powerful, indeed.
“You’ll be happy when you come back with me—”
“I’m still alive,” Draven sniffles, fighting back the sob that builds in his throat, “I’m still alive and I don’t think I deserve to be.”
Morris stays quiet, letting the statement sit on his head. It folds into his brain, mixing with the other conversations he and Draven have had over the months. His bottom lip folds over his top, the echo of Draven’s voice still playing in his ears. The caterpillar of his brow inches closer as he thinks.
“Maybe you don’t,” Morris states, “But I think you know, deep down, what you deserve.”
“Can I ask you something?” Draven successfully starves the sob. Morris nods, making a noise of agreement, “Can… Can he come with me? Ian?”
Morris chews on his lip, thinking of precisely the right words. Such was his way, crypticism filled with exactly the right words, “I will consider it.”
“I can’t leave him here, alone.”
“You weren’t saying that when you and I got intimate.”
“Fuck you.”
Morris comes and sits on the couch, his wings do well to stay out of the way. A handful of pills lay in his hands, waiting, wanting. Draven wonders if Morris conjured it from thin air or if he had been holding it in a pocket he could not see. Probably the former, Draven decides while taking the capsules from Morris’ soft hands. Their fingers touch, but any spark that hanged between them had been severed.
“You said you knew who I was,” Morris says, tapping the paper bag still encased in Draven’s fingers, “You’ve yet to say it.”
Draven doesn’t understand what he’s doing. A subconscious urge drives him to swallow each pill. There was one too many. Draven could not count past the tenth little capsule with the M in scrawled in the middle. Morris offers a cup of water to drown the pills in. He is determined. Of what? Even he isn’t sure.
“Morpheus.”
“That’s right,” Morris, or better known by his ancient name Morpheus, smirks as if his game has been won, “I am a god among men. I am the dreams in your head, the melatonin in your brain, the morphine swimming in your veins,” A breath to punctuate his divinity, “They named that drug after me, you know. Way back before the Iliad was written. It was a way to enter my realm. Back then, as it is now.”
“Why did you come to me?” Draven asks.
“I thought it was amusing,” Such was the will of the gods. They understood not the morality of men, “I come to everyone, eventually. The dreamers, the opiate-drunk, the artists and daydreamers,” he stops
abruptly. His forehead creases with contemplation. The place where thoughts lived, “You’re dreaming right now, you know.”
Draven nods, his hands go to unpack the paper grocery bag holding his newly acquired morphine. A syringe and vial. He takes it out, holding it in the moonlight. The needle presses the soft spot of the vial, right in the middle. It drinks up the liquid. Then, he puts the tip of the needle into his vein.
“I don’t think I want to wake up.”
Morpheus raises a brow, watching as the needle goes deeper and deeper still. The morphine goes into his veins. Sweet ecstasy. The pleasures no man deserved. The orgasm that befits the gods. He forgets the sting as the drug enters. The beat of his heart climbs from his chest, rushing to his ears. Thump, thump, thump.
His lungs were tight in their cavity. They were the one organ to resist the release. They shake and rattle, refusing to inflate. Draven knew his fate. He’s known it since he left the hospital. Liquid pours into his lungs, filling the little sacks that would nurture oxygen. The rest of his organs refuse to acknowledge the deprivation beginning to infect them. They ride out the orgasm still following right behind the morphine.
His brain was next to protest. Too many chemicals, not enough time to digest them. It was overwhelming. The morphine forbade it from firing the signals of distress. So, he lays, rotting away with the morphine settling in his veins.
Morpheus cradles his head as his body goes limp. A kiss on his eyelids brings him back to sleep. Not that he ever woke up, anyhow. It was just to cement his slumber. To ensure no one would awake him.
Draven smiles, for he is finally free. He knows then, that death was the best high any man could experience.
There was nothing better than to fly away in Morpheus’ embrace.