On the Image

Numbers Fifteen and Twenty-one glare, askew. I’m sick with hate and shuddering air, and now the souls are gnashing at the door. For him, no doubt. What did he want with Fifteen? His intention creeps above us both, but I saw it first—before he did—just as I see him now. Pooling at my feet, clutching at the hairs on my knees…

I think about skipping stones and it calms me. One – two – three – four – five – but still the souls gnash and clang! The stones are pulled too early beneath the water’s surface, breaking the rhythm of my thoughts, each fettered to this room, just like their god.

I utter to the souls, but too soft. Too soft… I tell myself it’s no matter; at least Fifteen can hear me.

I run cold with a realization; a pang! So, too, can Twenty-one!

I rear back and with all my fear I deliver blow after blow meant to cast out the eye of the voyeur!

OUT!

OUT!

OUT!

OUT!

OUT!

OUT!

I relent. So, too, do the souls, for a moment.

Fifteen and Twenty-one have been joined by Thirteen, Fourteen, Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-two. I’ve met this, this chromic gaze once before, but I cannot say where. My nose runs, and I inhale sharply. I won’t say where. Smelling iron, my mind takes me, nonetheless, to the maligning arachnid in the subterranean squalor near my home. Its horrid form arrests my psyche through time and space, twining my being into a spited knot, my breath catches on the wet present…

Are you there with me?

I break free from this moment, a return to my senses portending the resumption of the souls’ toil. I stare at from which they impend and see my visage, fractured. How hideous a sight.

How hideous a sight!

I collapse and I breathe for the first time, staring lucidly at my companion. He hates me. I can feel that he hates me—as well he should. I’m scared, of course, but I can’t let him escape. I can’t let the souls claim their bounty—they see him as another mark for their vile institutions; another who feeds on the miasmatic dreams of a nation while decomposing into a soil seeded only with wanton sin—not when I’ve grown to detest him so, in turn. This is my victory to keep. My claim is just.

I look up at Fifteen, pleadingly? No, not pleadingly.

I look up at Fifteen. (But how?) Oh, but how?

Fifteen is no longer one, but one of eight, comprising a malevolent facade of my own assembly.

Beside its wretched glare, the gruesome beast begins to smile,

as the clamor of the souls grows louder,

and I utter, once more, “What do I do now?”

In its searing, vile timbre, the spider screeches and opens its mouth.