The Mortal Religion

by Marc Horn

  ‘I don’t want to look, Chalk! I killed him! I killed him for you! You would be in prison and I would be free if I hadn’t done it!’

  I let go of her and she falls to the floor. I take backward steps until I reach the bed and then I sit down. ‘Free, Elizabeth... You said free...’

  Neither of us speak for several minutes. Elizabeth is curled into a ball, sobbing, shivering, facing away from Victor. I feel as if something precious has been taken from me. I am shocked, but not entirely distraught. There is still optimism in me. I still have my religion...

  ‘I cannot be a murderer,’ she whispers. ‘I cannot take a life. That is not me, Chalk. Do you see what I’m saying? I do not want to be capable of that.’

  ‘You are not a murderer.’

  ‘That is what I have become...’

  ‘You defended me,’ I protest.

  ‘Yes, that is why I did it. That’s how much you have changed me.’

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth, don’t say this. Everything was fine until he broke in. You were happier than you had ever been.’

  ‘But I was fooling myself. I had to have been... Because look what I did...’

  ‘You are in shock. That is all it is. In time this will feel right, it will make sense, I promise you.’ I reach for the robe and then close it around Elizabeth. ‘Stand up, my beautiful friend.’ I help her to her feet. ‘I am perfectly sane, Elizabeth, I assure you. Do not doubt me.’ I cuddle her. ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘I want a bubble bath and music. Capital FM. And I want a cappuccino and Heat magazine.’

  I look at her, bemused. ‘I can arrange the bath and music,’ I respond, ‘but I don’t have the other things.’

  She looks up at me, her stained face icily cold. ‘Then you had better get them.’

  She is serious, and I find myself in an unfamiliar position, where I dare not protest. ‘Heat magazine, bubble bath and a cappuccino you say?’

  ‘And Pantene shampoo and conditioner, the one with vitamins, and E45 cream too, and a dressing gown that fits me. Shall I write a list?’

  I will not attempt to compromise with her. She knows she deserves to get what she wants. ‘What are you going to do while I’m gone?’ I ask.

  ‘Watch TV and wait for you.’

  I decide to walk to my local shops. It is a bright and busy Monday morning. I am in extremely high spirits. Elizabeth is a concern, yes, but it is merely the shock of what she has done. This will dissipate soon, and then she will feel the same way as me.

  As people walk past me from the opposite direction, I can tell they are alarmed. It is not just because of my appearance, but because of my smile. I see each of them eyeless, two red sunken sockets passing by, and it enthrals me. That is the future and it is so soon, so very soon...

  I enjoy buying Elizabeth’s items. It reinforces the feeling that we are a couple. When I return home she is watching Friends. ‘I have catered for your every need,’ I cheerfully announce.

  ‘He is stiff,’ she says. ‘And he smells foul.’

  ‘You felt him?’

  ‘How else would I know? He’s stiff.’

  ‘It’s called rigor mortis. It’s when–’

  ‘I know what it is.’

  I place the bags down. ‘Okay. The process started yesterday.’

  ‘Have you run my bath yet?’

  ‘Of course not, Elizabeth. I have just returned.’

  ‘I like it hot with lots of bubbles.’

  I remove the bubble bath from the carrier bag, head to the bathroom and run the bath. Hopefully, she will soon be back to her recent self. I let my hand float in the water to test the temperature as I read the product instructions. Then I pour the liquid into the running water and watch the bubbles emerge.

  Yesterday, during Elizabeth’s silence, I spent an hour online researching body decomposition. Before carrying Victor’s rigid body to our bedroom I sprayed him with insect repellent as several flies had already discovered him. With the exception of his eye sockets, I also padded his body openings with cotton wool to prevent insect infiltration. As I waited last night for the day to arrive, the smell of his body worsened, but I did not let it affect me.

  The bath looks like an enormous cake. A couple of minutes later I turn off the taps and inform Elizabeth, who then silently slips into the bathroom and closes the door.

  ‘Shall I make you a cappuccino?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. And bring the radio. Tune it into 95.8.’

  40

  Elizabeth has spent the past three hours in the bath. Roughly every half an hour she drained some of the water and topped it up with hot water. Meanwhile, I have been sitting in this bedroom, anxious, feeling the pressure of nature’s clock. Half an hour ago fluid started to leak out of Victor’s openings. I had to dab his eye sockets with a hand towel and check the cotton wool lining his wound, mouth, ears, nostrils and anus.

  Visually he is a little pale and the stench he emits is overpowering. I had to open the bedroom window to make his presence bearable for Elizabeth. I need her to be here, I need her to accept him. Once she has done that, I can dispose of him.

  It does not gratify me to monitor and exhibit Victor’s dead body – I am neither warped nor callous. There is simply no other way to prepare Elizabeth for her journey. She cannot convince an individual to relieve himself of something, if she finds the process shocking and grotesque herself. This will inure her, hopefully before the rigor mortis phase ends, since then Victor’s muscles will relax, he will no longer stand tall and proud and I will have to tie him to a chair to keep him presentable.

  I hear water drain again, but, pleasingly, running water does not follow. Hopefully she has finished. I hear the shower. She must be washing her hair.

  It won’t be long before Victor’s skin becomes discoloured, internal expanding gases cause his body to bloat, and the outer layers of skin covering his hands and feet separate from underlying areas. His steady deterioration will alarm Elizabeth, so she must accept him as soon as possible. Though he provides a perfect example of what we must achieve, he will not last and his decomposition will blur Elizabeth’s acknowledgment of his beautiful message.

  I wonder what I will do with him once he has served his purpose. He cannot stay here in this house. I will either have to bury him or burn him. I decide that burning him is the better option. Digging takes forever and interference is highly probable. Yes, I will chop him up and burn him in the garden.

  Twenty minutes later, Elizabeth joins me in the bedroom wearing her new white robe. She covers her nose with her hands and ignores Victor.

  ‘How is the robe?’ I ask.

  ‘How long is he going to be here?’ she asks back.

  ‘As long as it takes you to appreciate him.’

  ‘He looks great. Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘You attitude is most discouraging, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Really? Well yours is wonderful. You get off on watching someone decompose in your bedroom.’

  I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands. I feel a crisis looming.

  ‘I’ve got an idea, Chalk. Why don’t we sleep with him tonight? Have a threesome? Now that would be ground-breaking!’

  ‘Your mind is sick,’ I hiss.

  She laughs. ‘Look at this, Chalk, look at what a ridiculous situation we are in. We have a dead body in the house. We have evidence in the house available for anyone to see.’

  ‘You are undoing what you have learnt, Elizabeth. You are stepping into dangerous territory.’

  ‘Dangerous territory? Dangerous, you say? You crazy retard! Presumably I was safe when I killed him?’

  Rage is possessing me. She is dismissing everything I say. It is automatic, she does not even accord my words any consideration. This is what shock has done to her. But I do not have the time nor patience to endure it.

  ‘Have you lost your tongue, Chalk? Or is sense finally sinking in?’

  ‘Shut up, Elizabeth, shut up!’

  ‘I have touched
a nerve, haven’t I?’ She speaks into my ear. ‘You are breaking into pieces and you know it. You don’t believe in yourself anymore. Well, Chalk, neither do I!’

  I jump to my feet. She gasps and staggers backwards. I ram my palm against her mouth, grab her robe fastener and drag her to the headrest. ‘Scream and it’s Senses Shutdown for a week. Understand?’ She nods, terror in her eyes. I release her mouth, run out the room and return seconds later with my straps.

  ‘What are you doing, Chalk?’ she cries.

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ I snap, and then press some tape against it. ‘Let’s see exactly how powerless I am, Elizabeth,’ I hiss, extending her left arm and tying it tight to a headrest beam. Elizabeth mumbles continuously. I tie her other arm to the headrest, so both arms are secured nice and high. ‘You like to make a noise? Well I’ll just shut the window.’ I do so. ‘Get used to the smell.’ I stride up to her, drive my knees into the mattress, place my hands under her arms and lift her so that her body is upright, then I loop a strap around her waist, pass both ends through the beams and tie it just as tight. I pull the end of the tape off the reel, apply it to the existing piece on her mouth and then unreel it, pressing it flat against her cheek, around the beams, back to her other cheek and then repeat the sequence twice more. I break off the tape and then rework the action, this time starting at her forehead and securing that to the beams. I step back and see that she faces forwards, her head rigid against the headrest. ‘Now you can either watch him die or see the future.’ Elizabeth tenses her muscles, tries to break free. ‘You allowed that vicious bitch to creep back in, so you had better vanquish her once and for all.’

  I storm out the room and to the bathroom. My face is red. I splash it with cold water. This is unexpected and unfortunate, but at least it will succeed. How dare she belittle me? Me, who has made a gargantuan discovery! I no longer have to tolerate insolent behaviour. Not now, now I can demand respect and wonder. I am Chalk Cutter, founder of The Mortal Religion, saviour of mankind.

  I decide to take a bubble bath. I had selected a product that claimed to relax the muscles. That appeals to me. I run the bath and lie in the bubbles. It will occupy me for an hour while Elizabeth inures herself. I have nothing else to do and I need to relax. The bath is pleasant and enjoyable. I wriggle my toes and fingers and massage the soapy water into my skin. Chalk takes a bath like everyone else. Chalk is the same as everyone else. Despite Chalk’s extraordinary foresight, he still washes, eats and craps. He is one of you. A more gifted and talented example, but otherwise identical. He suffered to benefit you.

  When I return to the bedroom, fresh and revitalised, tears trail from Elizabeth’s eyes. She jiggles her head fractionally, manically, as if she has received an electric shock, as she stares rigidly at Victor. I look at him. He is beautiful, perfect, apart from his abominable scent. He smells like a dirty prostitute living in the sewer system. Elizabeth mumbles incessantly. She is trying to inform me of something. I study Victor more closely until I realise what she has seen. ‘They are a natural part of the process,’ I say, picking one of the maggots from the eye socket. ‘I sprayed him too late.’ I watch the maggot move in the palm of my hand. ‘You are watching him die, Elizabeth.’ I throw the maggot at her. ‘It looks like both of you are going to have to stay here until he collapses. That’s what happens after the gases you can smell create so much pressure that the body inflates.’ I turn and as I walk out the room I say, ‘If that is your choice then at least you will be able to explain human decomposition when you return to school.’

  I sit down at my computer desk and stare at the black screen. Time is against me. I have to wait for Elizabeth to see the light. I will give her until dusk and then I will return. I start the computer, open Word and write, ‘Update from Chalk Cutter 21/08/2006 – Just killed Victor Spinney, remember him? He was the ring leader. His corpse is in my bedroom. Elizabeth is currently watching him decompose and will do so until she no longer considers it a punishment. So really, I am submitting two updates, in fact three. For those that require finer details, Victor is as stiff as a board, and maggots have materialised in his wounds. I cut out his eyes and in doing so created the perfect religion. Hope everyone is well, Chalk.’

  I delete this and sit back in the chair. I need to pass the time somehow. There is nothing constructive to do, I simply have to wait and then gauge Elizabeth’s reaction. I have about five hours to pass. I decide to watch Star Wars episodes four and five...

  Two scenes trouble me. The special edition of episode four contains a doctored version of the cantina scene, so that Greedo shoots at Solo first and unbelievably misses from one metre. Lucas explained that he did this so that Solo is not portrayed as a murderer, as Solo then went on to kill Greedo in self-defence. But in the original version, Greedo still pointed his weapon at Solo first, therefore Solo still acted in self-defence! Lucas’s view is misguided and spoils one of the best segments. I don’t want to think of Solo as a conscientious humanitarian. I want to believe that Solo blasted Greedo as soon as the opportunity to do so presented itself, which is clearly what happened in the seventies original. If Lucas absolutely had to alter the set piece, then all he should have done was add footage of Greedo’s body parts scattered around the cantina.

  I interlock my fingers behind my head. Why do I feel this way now when I have not before? I have never seriously criticised George Lucas until now. I always had faith in his decisions. I yawn loudly. Something else bothers me, in The Empire Strikes Back. Vader advises Lando to pray that he does not change their agreement. Would life-forms existing a long time ago in a galaxy far away have heard of religion? If so, who do they worship? And while there may be a chance that religion did exist, there is definitely no chance that Chewbacca had heard of Tarzan, as we are led to believe he had in Return of the Jedi when he swings from tree to tree roaring exactly like him. The films have lost their magic. I can no longer detach myself from reality as I had always effortlessly done. I want them to be different, darker and more gruesome. I want Solo to die from the carbon freezing process. And I want Luke to succumb to the temptations of the dark side and then slice up Leia, Chewbacca and the droids. Why do I crave these things? Why do I wish that the Death Star operator had been quicker activating the laser in A New Hope and blown the rebels away once and for all? Earlier, I actually ran up to my TV screen and pushed at the buttons myself…

  Just after 6 p.m., I check on Elizabeth. Her eyes are as big as saucers. They flick back and forth from Victor to me repeatedly. I turn to look at my old friend and laugh when I see his head slumped forwards onto his torso. I walk up to him, grab a clump of his black hair and lift his head back up. ‘I shouldn’t be laughing. It’s not actually at all funny. You are still acting as if you are a victim rather than an honoured apprentice.’

  Victor’s decomposition is taking place during warm weather, so the fact that the rigor mortis is wearing off is no surprise. I fetch the tape, rip off a long strip and then stick it to Victor’s forehead and slap the ends of the tape onto the wall behind him. Then I reinforce this position with more tape until I am happy that Victor’s head is secure, facing Elizabeth as it had before. I see that several maggots eat the soft tissue lining his eye sockets, and that the cotton wool which had lined his nose and ears now lies saturated on the floor. Most importantly, Victor’s eyelids have sagged a little so that they partially obscure his beautiful eye sockets. One has descended more than the other, but I cannot endure either, and so cut them away with nail clippers while Elizabeth hums me a tune in the background. I throw the pieces of flesh at her but they miss by a couple of feet. Instinctively she tries to move her head to avoid them. ‘Only the bigger picture is relevant here, Elizabeth. You decide how long it takes you to see it.’ I turn on the lights and leave the room. I will not return until it is time to sleep. I will not feed her, nor hydrate her. There is no time for distractions.

  I try to watch a movie but I cannot do so. I am too restless. I walk around the house, avoiding
the bedroom, and stare out of each window for several minutes. My heartbeat is fast and loud. Time is crawling. When am I supposed to return to work? They will knock on my door if I do not turn up! Wednesday, it is Wednesday, I am sure of it. I took a week off and said I would return on Wednesday. This gives me just one full day left. I close my eyes. So much to do and so little time. Elizabeth will have to be quicker. I will have to speed things up. She needs to accept him now so that we can move on.

  Should I take more time off? They probably would not let me. I could call in sick. I am sick – I have kidnapped a child and have a dead body in my house! I am unamused by own wit. I am tense and impatient. I rub my face many times and splash it with water. I sit down and try to control my breathing, but I cannot. My mind is a manic mess and does not allow me to plan ahead. My head begins to throb. Victor’s stench has worked its way around the entire house. I spray deodorant in various places but it seems to intensify the smell.

  I go online and re-read pages I had saved about decomposition. I expect the police to force open my door at any time, and that expectation affects my concentration.

  I watch a porno and this proves to be a huge help, enabling me to relax for ten minutes and remove reality. When I have finished pleasuring myself, the situation returns and it seems a long, long time before 10 p.m. arrives. With relief I rush to the bedroom and see that Victor’s body is bloated, like a balloon ready to burst. This pleases me. Elizabeth’s cartoon-like alarm is no surprise. I slip underneath the covers beside her, turn onto my front and close my eyes. I leave the light on so that Elizabeth is not denied sight of my creation.