Dark Days: A Collection of Short Stories and Poetry

by Chris Harris

  Part Two

  In which Nathan enters the Envious Chamber.

  Abortion.

  Medusa.

  Pride leads to envy, the vicar had always said.

  I chuckle at the irony that I only

  use his teachings when I’m dead, or at least near death.

  This pathway I had followed; the dark spiralling path

  had led me into a circular area,

  surrounded by vivid red fire, running blood.

  On the ground, rolling in blood of the deceased

  was the mangled, aborted remains of children

  Unwanted babies, unable to crawl or talk

  righteously envious of their living brethren.

  No sight can enter their small undeveloped eyes;

  at least they will never see this nightmarish realm

  in which they dwell, along with the snake-haired Gorgon,

  Medusa, who sat on her black stump, watching them

  watching them fall, watching them suffer, whilst a grin;

  a grin of wholesome malice and delight emerged,

  dividing her green, envious visage in two.

  I hurried through this chamber hoping to arrive at

  the metaphorical and literal light at

  the end of these tunnels of which Hell was comprised,

  but Medusa swung snake-like around to see me.

  She hissed, spitting venom, but I kept my eyes shut,

  remembering the Gorgon’s petrifying stare

  not least because of the statues behind her bulk.

  I broke into a clumsy run, tripping over

  nearly falling, but making it to a pathway;

  one of two paths that branched off, I took the shortest

  Medusa hissed, her grand envy of the living

  Foiled once again.