Between Insanities

by Kenneth Burch

The red door is locked again and I scream at it to open. Shiny brass worms make their way from the bottom opening and approach me in their dance. I stomp away at them until my bare feet began to bleed and my knees ache. I scream once more, mostly at them and they disappear before my eyes leaving me with a sense of sadness. A woman now stands before me with black hair and slanted eyes, her breasts are full and she begins speaking to me in a voice that touches my soul. I look at her lips moving and become aroused at what they could do.

Looking around and through her, I spot a small house fly that dances around a window pane spotted with dirt and blood. I watch it for a moment and turn my attention back to the woman with slanted eyes. Her hair has changed now, it is a light brown and her clothes are now gone. She stands there, clutching at her breasts with long finger nails, painted black. She is still speaking in her soul touching voice, but it no longer feels the same. I look down at her bush of hair, and try to drop to my knees. I want to taste her, feel her and be inside of her. I want to do so much to her, but can't.

My vision, begins to focus on her face once more and I find a frozen tear escaping from her right eye. It makes its way slowly downward heated by her anger. I turn to see the fly has grown and is now wearing a bright yellow hat. I want to laugh, so much I do, but result to anger instead and remove a shiny metal object from my back pocket. Thunder cracks the hall in which I stand and the woman continues to speak. I make my way over to her and consider kissing her. I decide what is best, and have made my decision. The large fly with the yellow hat is now sitting in a chair and smoking a cigar, his wings are damp and big eyes staring.

I look at him and back to the woman whose once frozen tear has found company. I lean forward to suck her breasts and plant the now long, shiny metal blade, in her chest. She continues speaking in that voice that now burns at my soul. Her slanted eyes began to bleed and she smiles at me with teeth stained with blood. Her long hair changes again to red this time and her skin moistens with sweat. She still speaks to me as red bloody tears drop from her once kind and beautiful face and collect on her breasts, burning her now melting form.

The large fly with the yellow hat that sat smoking his cigar, has stomped it out with one of those spiny long legs. He is no longer amused and turns flapping now dry wings, crashes through the window, and out into the night sky. I can still see his hat.

She is dead now her melted form collects at my feet and tries to glue me to the floor. I step away from what was once her, and turn to see a cotton ball or puff of cloud hovering before me. I smile at it before taking it in my mouth. I taste it, it tastes of sea water and blood. I try to spit it out, but can't. It has attached itself inside me somehow and I feel it growing.

The red door is still locked and I began to curse it dotted with screams. I look down to the knife I once used on her, now on the floor. She is gone now and has trapped me to the floor. I curse at her once lusty memory and pick up the knife still warm from her touch. I take it and began stabbing myself with it in the chest. Blood pours from gapping wounds and I come on myself with excitement. I try to wiggle my feet below in her blood plastered glue. I scream again, this time at the full moon making its way though the broken window left from my yellow hat wearing friend.

A rat wearing red sneakers and scratching its face, runs up to me laughing. His long tail snaps at the bloody wooden floor. He giggles and makes fun of me before turning into a python before my eyes. He is large now and black, several feet long and there is something, inside him. The four tiny red sneakers have disappeared beneath him, and what remains frightens me. The large snake begins to hiss at me followed by its outstretched long tongue that looks of painted gold.

I can hear my blood dripping on the wooden floor below, and it makes a beat almost worth dancing to. I miss her, I know that now. The snake begins moving closer now, tasting the air with his golden tongue. His round eyes begin to slant upward and its mouth opens. From deep inside its full belly, a human hand emerges pushing through its now opened mouth. A long thin arm follows, along with another. The snake remains motionless except for its breathing as a woman with long black hair and slanted eyes crawls from within. The black python with the golden tongue splits in half as she arrives. She is nude and dripping with a clear substance that looks like semen. She smells of death and flowers and walks towards me almost smiling.

The knife shakes in my bloody hand as I try to connect the dots of this screaming nightmare of my life. I can't take my eyes off her, she captures me so. Her long legs and wide mouth, breast full of lust and the flower smell of her bush, pull me in several directions at once. The dead python with its once golden tongue is gone. Its black scales have turned to tiny black butterflies and have flown out the same window, where the fly went. Again, she is before me and again, I smell her lust. Her slanted eyes and long black hair full breasts and lips excite me beyond my control. I continue dripping with blood and semen, born from her.

I drop to my knees and try to scream her name nothing escapes my mouth but my cries of pain. I attempt to follow her with eyes now filling with frozen tears. They make their way slowly down my face, heated with anger and sorrow. They drop to the floor and shatter, turning into ice crystals that later form into brass snakes, several of which worm back under the red door in front of me. I turn to look at her, she has sat aside of me and tries to comfort me in my madness.

I want to kiss her, want to hold her, but she is too far away. I have failed in my sickness to show her love. I have made havoc of my existence and ruined a life created for rapture. I've torn away at the very core of a life broken from birth and held onto a fake belief in my self.

The door has open now, the red paint shinning with lust. She is standing now and reaching out for me. Her hair is brown now and her eyes have shifted. She points to the opening and motions me to go. I turn to her ever changing forms of desire and plead with her. She smiles at me and once more a single frozen tear, makes it way down her face. It will slowly melt from a face heated with love, anger or lust. It will land once more on a breast that is full and perfect and began burning. My life and nightmare will once more return, and I will be forced to relive it, again and forever.

I'm still breathing despite the mass blood and tissue lost and I can once more feel myself moving. The road is long, and tarred. It glistens with night rain and reflective light. I make my way though the darkness, shielding myself from the electric suns. This is the path I have chosen.

The End