My mind’s eye burns with horrors as I listen to the cicadas sing their tune. My eyes dart again to the window as if I failed to hear the question. I take a long gulp of the cold brown liquid that’s in my cup. It burns my chest, but it feels good. Reminds me of home.
They ask me again who I am and again my tongue feels as thick as lead. Men have called my people by many names—serpent, demon, monster—but does a label matter so much? Do words matter at all?
I go by Gabriel Abrham, I tell them.
They ask me what my purpose is here. Again, why does that matter. What is all of your purpose here, dressed up in Hermes or Chanel dresses, and Tom Ford suit and ties, prancing around with your pinkies up as if you mean something to this world? As if you did something significant and have something to be proud of?
I’m a late cousin of the Queen’s uncle, I lie.
Gaping mouths, and wide smiles all around. Lucky to be me, apparently.
Now questions I can not answer. I didn’t prepare for this but I should have presumed I was destined to stand out in a crowd of yuppies with a posture like mine, as well as slacks and a button down.
They were gaining in on me, too many questions, too much noise. Distraction.
Did they know my plan? Were they now in desperate attempt to unravel it before it has even started?
Humans are funny. To think that you could outsmart me would be your biggest mistake. I wish to tell them.
But I stay quiet and take the praise from the people telling me how brave I must have been as a boy when the Queen’s whole family was uprooted from East Hugdon to Edingson. Terrible, terrible times for everyone.
I faked the sorrow. They bought it. Too easy in this place.
I must begin my plan before the speeches start. I excuse myself as I wiped off my fake tears and head to the Library. This is where the plan will take place.
On my way there I stop to grab my backpack that I hid in a closet in the rear hall earlier that day.
I lock the double doors of the library behind me and sit down on the floor, leaning against the wooden doors. I take off my backpack and pull out my prized possession. My box. The one mom used to use when she was just a girl. The nightmare box she called it. She held all her demons in it and gave it to me to hold mine.
Demons we call them but mom and I, and them are one in the same. Names and labels don’t mean anything.
But these creatures were teeming with evil. They were the manifestation of the nights we stayed awake with bad habits and dark thoughts. The times we did our brother or friend wrong. The times we betrayed a lover. Or killed the spirit of someone because of our selfish acts.
They were made of all the hateful thoughts, anguish and anger locked inside our head.
All the blame, the excuses, the torment and everything we dread.
Mom said this box would keep them sealed, they couldn’t torment me from there, she said maybe one day I could be healed.
Now I see that the box is insignificant. They follow me wherever I go.
I can’t take the torment anymore and I suspect if I can share it with the leeches of this fallen land maybe I will be doing them some harm and me, for once, some good. Because damn well do I deserve it.
The feeling of elation I’ll feel when releasing my demons, and not only for the sake of ridding of them but in the knowing of the torment it will cause the others, will be a grander feeling than I have ever experienced. As I go to sleep peacefully, knowing they will be wracking their brains, wanting to be anywhere but where they are, will bring me the greatest pleasure I have ever felt.
They never deserved this majestic looking world they were given. All they did was destroy it, as well as destroy themselves and each other with it. They are failures of this universe. Should have been wiped out years ago because all they are doing is slowing down the evolutionary process we have been working so hard to uphold.
They’re too fragile, their mind’s too weak. They’re will power too powerless, and emotions too heightened. It’s time.
It’s been time for a long time but nobody in my world seems to understand. So I’ve taken it upon myself to end this once and for all.
I unlocked my little black box with the key mom has worn around her neck since I can remember, and I got ready to watch the end. The show has begun.
