by Nick Carcano
II.
The party began to creep up closer and closer to Franz. It was the day of the festivities and the pains began to seep into the farthest reaches of Franz’s body. He now sat secluded on the balcony of his chamber staring into the vastness of the landscape. Only the servant girls were granted access by Joaquin, who stood at the door. They would come and clean Franz in his incapacitated state and refill his pipe. They sent children into the foothills to gather the little red flowers that made up his herbal remedy. Franz was smoking more and more throughout the day. It was the only thing that would dull the infinite pain that constricted his veins and tensed his eyes. Franz could not even see the faces of the servant girls in his surreal existence they were blurs in the melting painting of his surroundings.
The hallucinogenic trances would fade and Franz began to see the snow continually falling. The normally blue sky had vanished to a swirling gray tempest of perpetual melancholy. Franz held out his decrepit hands but felt nothing. The snow had begun to cloud his vision with the white shade of certain death. The party was but three hours away when Franz, still perched above in his balcony stood up to look out over the pool. He dropped his lit pipe to the ground sending the herbal embers scattered on the marble floor.
He saw the little girl once again, her youthful glee painted in her little steps and delicate smile. She walked along the side of the pool staring intently at her reflection and watching to see if it would make a move contrary to her own. Franz had to stand up. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the railing trying to stand and behold the innocence that stood before him. The servant girl quickly stopped cleaning up the spilt pipe on the floor to help Franz back into his chamber. His eyes were glued to the pool but before he could make it back out on to the balcony, the girl had vanished from his gaze once again.
The party was beginning to commence as Joaquin and the servant girls prepared Franz for the festivities. Franz walked into his closet to retrieve his tuxedo through rows and rows of clothing. Designer suits of all styles and color lined the walls of Franz’s chamber; he ran his hand along the sleeves of each one feeling the material between his slender fingers. He had suits from every decade since he came to Bolivia. The walk to find his tuxedo took him to the deepest corners of his closet. The light from the torch at the end began to fade as Franz finally stopped at the end.
A small flicker of light reflected off an ornament from something tucked in an old leather garment bag. Franz lifted his hand and slowly unzippered the bag revealing the silver horror from within. He raised hand to the black collar and traced the golden pair of S’s etched in. The pain that was formerly dulled from the herbal smoke thundered back in to Franz’s mind. The fire, the smoke, the snow, the screams, the cold shook the life out of Franz until the warmth of Joaquin’s hand on his shoulder awoke Franz from his nightmarish relapse. Joaquin rezipped the bag but the clang of the medals on the zippers sent one last debilitating lightning strike of pain through Franz’s shaking body. Lightning, shaped like the identical S’s etched into the collar. Franz grabbed the adjacent tuxedo and Joaquin led him back out into the warmth of his chamber.
Franz struggled to tie his bowtie with his hands still shaking. He couldn’t even look into the closet without the pain crawling back up his spine and into his mind. The servant girl brought the refilled pipe to him and lit it with a nearby candle. Franz was about to take a long, sumptuous inhalation from the long wooden pipe but stopped when he noticed something on the balcony. The wind flapped the red silk curtains and sitting on the floor of the balcony was the little girl. She was getting closer to Franz every instant. He began to lose his breath. The confused servant girls pulled Franz to the bed and lit the pipe for him immediately. He took deep breaths until the girl faded into wind. Franz Krupp awoke to Joaquin’s voice who informed him the guests were here and the orchestra had started a light waltz. He nodded as Joaquin helped him to his feet and the servant girl swung open his chamber door. Franz was soon greeted by the loudening sound of the night before him.
III.
The party was alive as Franz descended the grand staircase into the heart of the black tie-laden crowd. It was a sea of handshakes and blurred faces. Franz was intoxicated from the liveliness of all these esteemed dignitaries. They laughed and danced and all Franz could do was nod in a delirious acknowledgement. He couldn’t even breathe as Joaquin led him to his wooden throne next to the orchestra. Franz sat while his knuckles whitened on the arm rests. He looked around, paranoid of his surroundings. All he could do was wish the pipe was in his hands, his lungs filling with the sweet healing, smoke, and all of this just melting into an oily puddle on the floor.
Franz began to sweat profusely as the night dragged on. The orchestra had started Strauss The Younger’s Blue Danube and all the mingling guests paired up and began an elegant waltz under the glowing chandeliers. Franz watched them move liked brush strokes on painting. They were blurry streaks of color clogging Franz’s aching eyes. From the center of this, a moment of clarity overtook Franz as he saw at the center of his dreary kaleidoscope sat the one thing feared at this moment. The girl, bearing the same childhood countenance she had before, sat oblivious to the scores of dancing party guests around her.
Time froze around Franz. He watched the orchestra, the party guests, the servants disappear before him. The ballroom crumbled into dust and soon Franz was standing alone in a barren waste with only the still unaware little girl before him. The sky stirred and the snow began to fall at a blizzard-like rate and the wind blew it into a dozen little cyclones that crept and swirled in grisly little dances across the nothingness. Franz was shocked to see that he now wore the gray uniform he had tried to hide in the back of his closet. The medals swayed back and forth in the wind and lightning struck far in the distance. Franz clenched his hands into fists to feel that he now wore long black leather gloves to complete his inhuman ensemble. The little girl laughed as she chased the little clouds of snow around the field. Franz felt his right hand slip down his leg to his holster. An impulse he couldn’t stop drew the Luger from its resting place at his side. He stood frozen as the sights rested at the neck of the child at play. No matter how hard he struggled, how much he resisted, the gun followed the little girl until she stopped. She turned her head and Franz looked into her blue eyes for the first time. A shot erupted from the end the gun and Franz screamed loud enough to overshadow the sound.
Franz soon awoke to see the dancers still casually frolicking around the room as the orchestra switched to a light and airy Mendelssohn piece. Cold sweat drenched Franz and sent shivers up and down his body. All he could think of was the pipe, his only release, which sat on his nightstand up in his chamber. He stood up and proceeded to frantically cross through the moving sea of people to exit. He stumbled into a few servants whose silver platters flipped sending appetizers and champagne cocktails to the floor. Joaquin tried to stop Franz from his manic outburst but was pushed over as Franz ran away from the now still and silent party guests. Joaquin tried to settle the disturbance and the orchestra was queued to continue with their halted Mendelssohn piece.
Franz ran, his world was falling all around him. The ceiling ceased to exist and now the snow fell all around Franz who began to rip the constrictive clothes from his body. He ripped off the tuxedo only to find the old uniform beneath it, almost tattooed to his skin. He stopped as a blood-curdling scream shattered everything around him. It was the little girl who now lay on the ground screaming at the gaping wound in her stomach. She crawled and inched her way toward Franz spilling blood into every crack in the floor. Her golden locks disappeared as her head was now barren and shaved. Her little blue dress now was replaced with a striped prison gown that draped over her malnourished carcass like a burlap sack. Tears cascaded down his cheeks and in his last ditch effort he emptied his Luger into the little girl’s direction trying to silence her screams and end her pain. But like Franz’s pain, the screaming, dying child’s pain was unending.
Franz ca
me to his chamber door and threw open the double doors only to find the little girl now standing before him. He lunged for her, but as his hands draped over her shoulders she evaporated into a cloud of the snow which evaporated into the air. Franz stumbled over to the mirror and looked at himself staring back at him. The old and decaying Franz Krupp transformed into the young and glaring Franz Krupp. Blood dripped from his hands and face and his stoic face turned to an evil grin of satisfaction. He slammed his fists into the mirror lodging shards of glass into his hands. He thrust open the drawer at his side and pulled his P38 from its hiding place. He pulled the hammer back and gently placed the gun between his teeth. The metal was cold in his mouth and he closed his eyes. He could hear Joaquin pounding on the chamber door as he curled his finger around the trigger. With ease he squeezed the last bit of wretched life from himself and collapsed to the floor. He lied on his bed motionless like before , the snow clouding his eyes and his blood staining the sheets.