by Jason Beech
“Your father?” Myrto did not need to answer. “Calm yourself, I won’t do it.”
9.
Myrto believed him. Saw an old man in the boy’s frame. “Then now what?”
“I don’t know … I can’t go back. I’m better off dead.”
Dry grass at the entrance crunched under heavy feet. Both stared at the man filling the cave’s mouth. They squinted at the flame which shone off his chest armour and slit-eyed helmet. His crimson cloak billowed in the backdraft. Myrto cowered as Agis backed away, mouthing a word he couldn’t hear.
“Ph…es…. Pharnaces.”
The man took off his helmet. “Agis … the shame.” He threw an object at his terrified compatriot – refused to look at Myrto as he would fail to take note of a fly.
Agis caught it and flung it to one side when he realised it the boy he killed that day. “What is wrong, master? What … how?”
“Zethos got a message to me –”
“Zethos?”
“He saw your defeat to this.”
Myrto scowled at the man's pointed finger as if it could stab him. “I’m –”
“Don’t open your mouth again, helot.”
Myrto scurried round the fire to take Peiros’ head to recover it from the cold Spartan’s indignity. His frame shook that he might share his fate.
“Your father told me many times that you were born a little bird, that he should have had you killed at birth like the other weaklings. I thought otherwise. I saw inner strength beneath your weakness. You must now prove it. Both of you, outside. Now.”
They both remained still, transfixed at the monster. “Now,” he barked, forcing both to action.
Agis limped out first. As Myrto followed, Pharnaces slit his thigh. He yelped as he collapsed to the floor, blind to his friend's head as it rolled down a slant in the ground.
“What did you do that for?” Agis had begun to see a friend in Myrto.
“I see you’re limping, Agis. I’m making it a fair fight.” He threw a short sword into the dust beside Myrto, and handed Agis his. “Now battle the helot and kill him.”
Myrto looked up from his rolls in the dust. Kept his hands on his bloodied thigh. Agis shook his head, sullen.
“Take your sword, Agis, and retrieve your country’s honour. Kill this thing.”
Agis bent, slow. He didn’t know if Agis took his time from an unwillingness to engage him, or because it hurt to reach down. Agis nevertheless took his sword. Myrto had no choice but to take his. Would he see the sun again? The horizon reddened, the sun’s rays like flames from the underworld.
“Agis, you can live with us. My father will take you in.”
Pharnaces puffed his cheeks and rolled his eyes. “You dream, helot. This is what gets your people into trouble. Get your head back down in the dirt, keep it out of the clouds, and see your life extend.” He turned to Agis again. “Avenge Sparta, or I will fulfil your father’s wish.”
“My father wants me dead?”
“Why wouldn’t he? Prove him wrong. Now.”
Myrto couldn’t move his legs as Agis strode towards him, his sword at the ready. Sparta controlled him again. Myrto didn’t see the human, but a whole state embodied in human form. Agis approached, level with his master, and raised the weapon. He felt dead already. He would not win this one. If he killed Agis, his master would finish him off. The man stood like a wall.
10.
Myrto squinted and burst out a cry as Agis plunged the sword. Pharnaces’ eyes bulged from their sockets as his knees gave way and he fell to the ground. His body remained upright as he pulled the weapon from his heart. He keeled forward, mouthed “Agis,” and crashed into the ground. Dust plumed above his body and dropped again to begin his burial.
Myrto opened one eye more than the other, then let slip an uncontrollable smile. Agis pursed his lips as if he asked, “what next?”
The flames on the horizon belonged to the torches carried by the villagers. “Myrto.” His father’s voice thundered like Zeus. The old man quickened his steps. By habit, he grabbed his son by the ear. Myrto steeled himself for an earful and a clout round the head. The ear-grab morphed into a bear hug and a stream of sobs. He pulled his face clear of his dad’s woollen tunic, laughed at Agis’ expression of wonder at this display of affection.
Men from the village spat cursed and drew their weapons at Agis. Agis faced certain death at their discovery of Peiros. “No.” Myrto called out as they stepped towards the boy he thought a beast. “The man killed Peiros. Agis tried to stop him. He saved me.”
The boys shared a look. Neither quite understood his motive. Agis had saved him, but had also killed his best friend. But, not in cold blood.
One of the men called out. “They’re Spartans …” He looked to the sky for a promising omen.
“What did I tell you about cursing the Spartans?” Myrto’s father threw him an eye to bend his spine.
The men stripped Pharnaces of his armour and burned his body on a makeshift pyre. They carried Agis, and Peiros’ remains, back to the village to debate the Spartan boy's fate.
His father had told him, but Myrto wondered what Spartan oppression meant for them? He couldn’t take it. He looked to Zeus, placed his hand over his heart, and swore havoc on their city.
The Thing that Looked at Me
1.
I’m not an emotional man; my mother could tell you that. “Why don’t you show me any love, Andy,” she once shouted at me after one beast of an argument she had with my old man. All I could do was stand there and wish her out of my life. But here I am in tears, missing the life that will soon end. I lay in my blood, my eyes on the thing that gave me away, one of the few things that make me lose my cool. My breath feels cold on the back of my teeth, and I’m hoping this damn thing comes close enough to freeze to death. My God, I hurt, my stomach wide open to the chill through the open window.
I always thought religious people nuts, but now I understand them. They have somewhere to go – at least they believe so. That’s comfort. I have none. I believe in nothing, not even myself. My mother called me an idiot. My father would take off his belt and rub the buckle between index and thumb – dulled the metal if not the incoming pain. “This is what made me a man, son, now get your heiney here and let me make you one.” If I go to hell I don’t want to see him there. Let oblivion take me rather than that.
2.
The thing crawls towards me. “Come on you bastard, come closer.” It knows my intention and stops. Rubs its whatevers together, maybe as a job well done, maybe just to clean itself. Nice one, you did a great job. Thank you.
*
I remember my first meeting with the boss’ son, Jack. “I want you to know, that if there’s anything you need, you come to me.”
I remember his confused look at my lack of recognition. I had two reasons to blank him out. One, he's a prick; two, one of those things landed on his mug. I snatched his coffee from him, scolded him a little – lucky that I make coffee lukewarm. I scrubbed the enamel from the cup. He cocked an eyebrow, half-amused, half-freaked by that reaction.
3.
I’m afraid to move now; the blood I lay in has turned cold. Not long left. What a waste of a life. I should have taken that baseball scholarship. I could curve a ball in and out enough to bamboozle any chump with a bat. But college reeked of gimps and I made good money early in life. Why take out massive loans to end up earning less than I already did?
*
“How did we get together?” I asked Belinda after one close shave. Luckily the rain had made us cover up. Made us barely recognizable as we huddled beneath an awning in a deli’s side-alley.
“Because you’ve loved me ever since I can remember … and I wanted you.”
“Why don’t you break with Jack?”
“You know why.”
“That’s an arrangement … that’s medieval.”
She rearranged my collar so the drips didn’t invade my back. “That’s the way it is
. Let’s deal with it.”
4.
I attempt to sit up. Wonder why the hell I’m on this floor waiting to die. I don’t have to end. I can force life to stay with me. The pain shoots through my stomach and bile burns my throat. Death pokes me with bony fingers, but he can do one. I have scores to settle. The thing is on the window now. Taunts me with its freedom. Makes the odd foray over my head, and my flesh sears as I try to kill it.
*
I leaned against the pillar in the Regal Hotel’s function room, unable to sit and watch at the same time. My mother had no idea who I am. I have emotion alright; I suppressed it that day by digging my elbow into the faux-classical stone. The best man spun some funny stories; a few cracks here and there made the room erupt. Jack held his new bride round the waist as he sat behind her at the head table. Belinda snuggled into his occasional neck-kisses. She had come to see me first thing that morning.
“How did you get away from the nest?” I asked her.
“Nobody’s due until eleven.” She put her arms around my neck and attacked my lips. I surrendered, but then pushed her off.
“You’re getting married today. Why?”
“You’re my man, Andy, you always will be.”
“As I said, why are you getting married?”
“Because Jack’s my future. Whether I like it or not. He has things I need that you can’t give me. You have things I realllly need that he can’t.”
I obstructed the playful fondle and told her to get ready for her big day.
“Okay, sweetness.”
I couldn’t leave this farce. Two men, at different times, had caught us. If I exited I might ignite offence, or suspicion. They had held their tongues so far.
Until now. Best man Greg had had one glass of happy sauce too many. His words rang clear, his tongue ran sloppy. “We all know Jack and Belinda have played the field a little recently.”
The warmth kindled by a thousand bodies chilled and I felt it all directed at me. I looked for Benji. The kid grinned beneath his hand. Greg bumbled on to his next subject, unaware of what he’d said. Jack searched the guests’ faces for red faces of guilt. That seemed a relief after the murderous eyes he gave his wife. She acted well – turned on him with a brief scowl, and shifted her attention back to the best man.
The wedding cake stood ten yards from me. What landed on it may have saved me. Shit-stained paws took a stroll on its creamy surface and halted for a luxurious moment to slurp on an exposed strawberry. The cold sweat from Greg’s words turned from trickle to tumble. I fumbled in my pockets and unwrapped the rubber band from around my cash and credit cards. The pen I always carried for quick notes worked as a catapult. I rested the band on its end and stretched it. I let go before anybody caught me in such a weird act. The band smacked into the thing. It sliced into the soft cake and left a caesarean scar.
The next time I glanced at the head table, Greg had raised his glass to the happy couple. Jack never looked my way. My preoccupation with the thing kept me from breaking out of there. His glare put a red mark on Greg.
I refused a slice of cake. Later, I heard somebody choked on the elastic band.
5.
The grey sky outside shaded darker. The time … 6pm. A cold fall day. The thing stood at the edge of my blood pool. Examined its nutrient worth I guess. One more step and you’re dead. Do it. I shivered. At death. At the thing. I no longer know.
*
I didn’t want Greg to catch me. I wanted this cold and efficient. I sneaked into his home. He had left his front door unlocked, a careless bastard always. His cookie-cutter neighborhood might not pose any danger to him, but outsiders like me knew where he lived. Greg came into the living room rubbing his hair with a towel. Another hung off his hips. He let his arm hang at the sight of me with a Beretta pistol, a silencer screwed to its end.
“Andy …”
“By order, Greg, it isn’t personal.”
One shot did him. Smashed him into the wall. A red streak showed his slide into death. I arranged the fallen towel on his lap. No man wants anyone to find himself dead like that.
6.
Bloody hand-prints surround me like bad 80s home decoration. The thing didn’t take to my blood. And now another has joined it.
*
I told her, “I want you, all or nothing. Leave Jack, let’s leave this hole for good, and live it up. We both have money for the good life.”
Belinda seemed to consider it. Stared at her drink like it contained something I couldn’t see. The right side of her lip moved up, too wry for my current state. Belinda had become more than just comfort. I now felt a cord between us. It hurt to separate too far, too long. It always pulled me back.
She stroked my back with her right palm. “I want you too, but this is not the time. I just got married. Think about Jack’s feelings.”
“I don’t give a rat’s sewery bumhole for his feelings. If he finds out about us, he won’t care for mine. Look at Greg, his best man for crying out loud.”
She put her arm through mine and leaned in. Squeezed my bicep and turned me weak. The breeze from the Atlantic failed to cool my desires. I wanted out.
“Belinda, I’ve never loved a single living thing in my life. Nothing. Not even the pet dog I took everywhere with me as a child. When it died I buried it in the middle of the woods, walked away, and never looked back.”
“You had a dog?”
What kind of question is that? The dog didn’t matter. My analogy was about love. The dog’s an example.
“I had so many dogs; I can’t remember one I didn’t love. Andy, you’re so cold.”
“You’ve warmed me up. I’ve never been so alive.”
The boardwalk’s emptiness made my words clear, yet she remained silent, eyes down as if she counted every plank. What did she need to contemplate? Yes or no. Let me know now. I can’t sleep at night when I’m without you. Which is always, now you’re married.
“I need to know by the end of the week. I can’t carry on like this, knowing you’re sharing a bed with that prick.”
“You always knew I did.”
“It’s different now you’re married.”
“How is it?”
“Because it’s official. You chose him.”
“I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
I drove back to her car. As she opened her car door I leaned over the passenger seat and called through the window, “You have to make the choice, sweetheart; I can’t stand this any longer.”
She drove away without response.
7.
I knew I’d been set up when I found the one-bedroom apartment empty. Benji had clocked me holding Belinda’s hand behind Jack’s nightclub, Easy, months ago. We didn’t see each other for a couple of weeks after. Braced ourselves for the consequences. Nothing happened except Benji’s cocky eye when he engaged our attention. Had to let us know he held something over us. I had a polite word – invited him to Brick’s Bar. Over a beer I told him who I knew and how respected I had become. Jack used me because he trusted me. “That trust came from serving his father, all the way to his unfortunate death.”
Benji kept his counsel, just nodded and smiled all careless. The kid had a death wish. Now he had something on me.
I entered his apartment in the afternoon as I knew the boy tramped the earth at all hours of the night. Catch him asleep, he would never know.
I stepped over coffee mugs all over the living room floor. Knocked unread newspapers off the arm of a chair. Winced that I might have woken him. Benji had pushed all the furniture tight against the walls to maximize what little space he had. I readied my Beretta. Nobody in the kitchen. The bathroom – empty. Only the bedroom remained. I pushed its door open with the silencer. Bare.
I sat on his Laz-Y-Boy, placed my gun on the side table and checked his address book. He hadn’t marked it with a single name.
“Damn it.”
I stared through the window and sque
ezed the droop from my eyes. Belinda had me sleepless at night.
That thing walked across the window. Inside? Outside? I hoped outside, where it belonged. It stopped. Looked at me. I shivered, a grown man scared of the little bastards.
As a kid my parents took me to the countryside for a picnic, the nicest thing they ever did for me. I’m not sure if the undercooked chicken slices from the corner deli had done it, but I needed to shit. I knew if I didn’t shift then it would, and my father would laugh at me all the way home. Then belt me for how his tease upset me.
I took off to the furthest bush from my parents I could risk without embarrassment, and did my business. Those things must have come off a fast. Maybe they existed on a frugal diet of squirrel shit, but they came at me hard. Before I knew it, those things smothered me, at least a hundred buzzed round my backside, my face, in my mouth, everywhere.
My old man rescued me, batted them all away. I may have freaked out, but I had enough of my wits to note that my dad stood and watched for an age before he had his fill of entertainment and took action. I sulked in the back of the car all the way home as my parents sat in the front, both bursting into sporadic laughter every few miles.
8.
I considered shooting the damn thing. Instead, I dragged myself up and decided to face it. “Why do you call it a ‘thing?’” my mother would ask. “It’s a fly. Call it by its name and stop acting like some circus freak every time one comes near.”
Sweat beads grew in proportion to the closing distance between us. Its twitchy front legs rippled my esophagus. I looked for tiny fly footprints. There … I called it a fly. Progress. Belinda had helped, or tried to. She always dealt with what my stomach couldn’t. She gave up trying to make me face my fear when I ran to the bathroom when we watched The Fly. To turn into one? How would that feel? Would I need to eat shit?
Distraction … Why had I come here? I found out with my back to the door. I hadn’t heard the handle turn. I only discovered Benji’s presence when I turned and he put two bullets through my stomach. Pierced me and the window.
9.
My strength fades fast. I don’t have enough to wave these things, these flies, off my head. They sense a new freedom to roam on me. My breath rasps, gurgles. Blood seeping from my nose. Footsteps … outside. Two sets …