The Die-Fi Experiment
Page 6
Here’s to you, honey.
I hold the sword’s blade against my chest and fall forward onto the ground. My chest creates a nauseating pop as the ground pushes the blade through my sternum, expelling the air from my lungs. The tip of the sword scrapes against my upper back, stopping inside of my right shoulder blade.
Outside, birds wail a ballad burdened with sorrow.
The beat of my heart pumps erratically for a few seconds. Marie’s gleaming eyes resonate within my mind, slowing my heart rate down to a lazy pump. Every beat, slower. Every breath shallower than the last. How I wish she could've lived, both of us. Wishing we had never travelled here but stayed home, living the rest of our lives as a married couple with normal, everyday troubles. Showing each other the latest viral videos.
But, no. This was our celebration of life. This was our honeymoon. Our death.
#happyhoneymoonmarie #iloveyou
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my partners in crime: Micaela, Tahjae, and Aaliyah. Without having you in my world, I would have no reason to chase my dreams.
I would like to thank the following families for their continued love and support throughout my journey: Tapia, Guzman, Perches, Huerta, Padilla, Salazar, Flores, Roger Guardiola, and of course, Sara Griffin and Shelby Valencia.
I would also like to thank my Twitter writing family: William Marchese (@Wcmarchese), Leo X. Robertson (@Leoxwrite), Jesse Dedman (@MrDeadmanDT), Gary Buller (@GaryBuller), Theresa Braun (@tbraun_author), Calvin Demmer (@calvindemmer), Kelly Evans (@ChaucerBabe), S.E. Casey (@thesecasey), S.J. Budd (@SjbuddJ), John Palisano (@johnpalisano), Sylvia Mann (@fivedollarhat), Philip W. Kleaver (@pwkleaver), Christopher Powers (@powers1902), and Wallace Boothill (@Wboothill). I can be found:@m_r_tapia. Please find us and follow (on Twitter, not in real life).
A special thank you to Pablo for the kickass cover photo, Dominique for the gory special effects makeup (she can be found on Instagram @dominiquep11), and Daniel Huerta and Josh Grove for the amazing book trailer.
And, of course, thank you for reading into my insanity. May the Wi-Fi gods keep your signal at full strength.
Here is an excerpt from M.R. Tapia’s debut novel
Sugar Skulls
Available November 2, 2017, in digital and paperback format from Hindered Souls Press
We are all going to die. Every single one of us. It’s a fact. Nobody ever expects to die, not really. We all know its inevitability, it’s never found on the coffee stained to-do-list but we shall all come around to it.
Death.
We’ve all got a one-way ticket to the end of the line. No matter whether you’re silver spoon rich or plastic spork poor. White, black, brown, pink, purple. You speak English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic. Straight, gay, bi. Human, animal, plant. It does not matter.
You. Will. Die.
I am no exception. I don’t know how I ended up here. Needless to say, I have met my own demise.
The sound of stone abrasively striking metal awakens me. Hair singes on either of my arms with every spark created by a silhouette sitting before me.
I twitch, startled. Too surprised to realize my movements have no movements.
The figure comes into focus slightly, yet remains bleary, all except for the wrinkles on its dark garments, more like a cloak. It stretches and contracts with every movement. Its dirty fabric ripples with the calmness of dark waters. A source-less, faint light shines upon us. The dusky shadows leave more to my imagination than what’s illuminated. A hood the same color as the surrounding shadows covers its head. Its jaw chiseled like a Hollywood movie star’s, yet something’s missing. What is it? The lights. The camera. The action. And…the skin.
But it isn’t completely bare boned. Rationed patches of torn, leathery skin cover parts of its jaw. Some of the ragged edges flap slightly with the each movement, the thin white lines showing dried creases ready to chip off.
“Who are you?” I mumble. “What the fuck are you?”
Its shape resembles a dark-clothed science class skeleton, save for the perverse, sophomoric positions for the teacher to find it in thanks to their students: one hand flipping the bird to the world while the other caresses its asexual groin. Only this skeleton isn’t masturbating properly, for it moves as if jacking off some sort of object; each stroke resulting in a short-lived sparkleresque orgasm. Each one bringing me closer to my senses. Closer to reality, or whatever lay on the other side of it; insanity, maybe.
A commanding voice emerges from the silhouette, “I am the end, Micah.”
Pins and needles shoot through random limbs of my body. My mouth opens and my useless lungs attempt to shout…silence. I want to yell for my mother. She was always there for me in my times of need. She brought healing to my pain, whether or not the pain was real, it never mattered.
I’m in the midst of a dark-clothed skeleton creating sparks with a stone and some sort of metal object.
Why?
And what is that stench enveloping this room we’re in? Is this even a room? All I see is ceaseless darkness serving as the nonexistent walls, yet with a dungeon-like quality. The air’s tepid and dingy, reminding me of some type of pungent hippy incense. But there’s nothing burning. And this definitely isn’t some hole in the wall hippy shop. It smells more like an autumn breeze, carrying the scent of smoldering leaves, dying, yet beautiful with their colors illuminating a muted rainbow-like brilliance.
Another screaming spark leaps away from the figure’s hands. The off-white framework is visible in random areas behind the leathery patchwork on its jaw and presumably the rest of what was once a human body. Every movement like a dusty rug being beaten on a clothesline, leaving a sooty puff to menace the dim light.
His bare knuckles stop and its shadowed face swivels towards my direction, beholding my every emotion, catching my grimace. Filthy gray strands of hair stray before the darkness of its hollowed eyes. Eyes dark as the childhood fear of sleeping without a nightlight.
His face is distorted. Are those tears? Is he crying? How could he be crying with mummified skin? Surely there’s no heart, meaning his blood vessels have dried and withered, if he even has any… right?
Those aren’t tears.
They’re the proof he once had a nose. The teardrop shaped holes lead my vision in the direction of his mouth. His quaint teeth resemble a big city’s skyline lit by a dull half-moon and moth-covered streetlamps.
His awareness of me is daunting, coercing me to look down and away from his gaunt façade. Whether he truly exists in my reality or in a nightmare does not matter. The truth is I am alone. There is no one to save me.
“She is not here with you,” he thunders out. “You have to fend for yourself. Just as you have since she departed,”
Confusion overwhelms me, leaving me dizzy. What is he talking about?
“Who—who isn’t with me?” I ask drunkenly.
“Your mother, Micah. She watched over you until her time had come.”
His razor-sharp words carve down my arteries vertically. But did he say anything at all? His jaw didn’t move, not even slightly, yet he’s looking directly at me.
“What—” the wooziness drowns and resuscitates me in spurts, “what do you mean? “
“Every man who encounters me vis-à-vis, they all cry for mommy, just as all females cry for daddy one last time. Whether alive or dead, whichever side they have been cursed with, they can be of no help in moments like these.”
His jaw did not flinch once. It’s almost as if he’s talking to me through my mind, through my life, my existence.
My adrenaline surges, like artillery within my veins, my instincts the ammunition. As much as I fidget anxiously I am paralyzed with fear.
His head bows, focusing once again on the sharp metal object protruding from his grip.
Screech.
Spark.
“Who are you?” I ask as if speaking has become easier. It hasn’t.
His voice now hollow, he says, “I am nobody. I am nothingness.”
“How do you know my name?” My words screech out through my parched throat.
“I learn a considerable amount about those placed in my path.” His movements come to a halt, picking his words carefully. “You know who I am. What I am. You can sense it. You accept it with every last bit of your soul. You have been resisting our meeting with every heartbeat. There exists no more yearning. No more wishing. No more life or death. No more infinite hopes or finite dreams. I am the end of your decisions. I escort every soul from the physical realm to their spiritual destiny.”
“You’re…my judgment?” My heart races, my breathing tries to keep up.
Calmly, he replies, “No, I am not. I am the end of life and the escort to your judgment.”
The solid fist his words create empties my lungs, slugging me square in my gut, leaving me powerless and weak.
He is Death, and here I sit feet away from him. Now it makes complete sense, what he’s doing at least, with that stone and the sparks he’s been generating. He’s whetting his sickle. For me. To end me.
Dying has never scared me. I’ve begged for death many times; at other times I’ve also begged for life, although, I have never known there to be a difference between the two. Someone could be alive, meaning they are breathing and their heart beats, yet, they are like robots, zombies, not living at all.
And those who are dead? Well, they may be the only ones to know the true meaning behind what it means to be alive. They only grasp desperately—hopelessly—at something they know they could never touch again. Whatever realm they’re in, I have a terrifying chance of finding myself in soon, very soon. Either way doomed to drink an eternal cocktail made of one part remorse, one part joy, and one part ignorance.
The thought twists and churns my stomach. It empties itself of the warm, acid-eaten contents onto my faded black Led Zeppelin sweater, splashing onto my discolored jeans. Leftover chunks float around in my mouth. I spit the chunks onto the murky, crypt-like floor.
Embarrassed, I say, “Sorry.” The pungent stench of my stomach’s acidic contents are carried on my breath.
“I have seen worse. Be glad you didn’t wet your underpants and soil yourself, leaving an aroma that subsequently leads to vomiting.”
I feel in tune as the morning after a night of cheap, cinnamon whiskey; headache here, vomit there.
Spark.
Screech.
The spark makes me flinch, yet I can’t move at all. The more I try, the more I become restricted in movement. I can’t see anything restraining me. I feel like a fly caught in a web, each struggle futile and evermore restricting. Each effort leaving me breathless. Asphyxiation unleashes its own assault. My strife for freedom now just stubborn ignorance. My heart pounds ceaselessly at my lungs, pleading for them to do their job.
Screech.
Spark.
The deafening sound, the blinding flash, both thrust me into darkness.
****
I can hear them.
Voices.
Muffled voices.
They pull me out of a deep sleep. My eyes are heavy and difficult to open. I can’t distinguish anybody or anything except for the drab sight of a living room. The voices overlap each other, unclear and detached.
My sight returns slowly. The empty dining room is directly ahead of me, I’m in my apartment. But where are the voices coming from? The radio?
I realize I’m lying down on the floor, my left knee leaning against the wall. Brown, dusty spots the size of a tennis ball randomly mark the wall across from me. My arms crossed upon my Led Zeppelin sweatshirt. Weathered jeans are what cover my lower half. I lay next to Roskoe’s food bowl.
A figure passes my peripheral vision just in front of the brown-dotted wall which cuts into the hallway. I turn to look, but my attempts are futile, and I remain still. Fuck! It moves just out of sight from my right eye. What was it? It appeared to be a human so it couldn’t have been Roskoe.
I try asking, “Who is that?” but my words jumble together into one incoherent slur.
The apparition flickers down the hallway leading to my room. But still, I cannot move no matter how hard I try. I wish they would help me. Whoever it was.
“Help me! Help! I can’t move!”
The words still come out as drunken gibberish. I can feel the struggle within the skin holding my soul hostage.
My body remains still as my mind bucks wildly, begging for help to wake me up entirely. Then, a hand grasps my right shoulder, engulfing me in a falling sensation, abruptly ending this unpleasant dream.
****
My body jerks, the vision of Death returns me sluggishly back into a reality I could only wish was anything but. I can’t tell if he is standing, sitting, or floating.
The sight of his unruly sparks feel as authentic as the dream I was just yanked out of, and as authentic as this reality I once again find myself in. My heart rate accelerates as hopeless fear sets in from this dilemma I have been placed in.
“Micah!”
I jolt upright, looking for the source of the shout I look to my left, my eyes nearly exploding out from their sockets due to the sensitive state my nerves are already in. My eyes are slammed back into their dwellings just before I turn my head as a solid object connects with my face.