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The motorway is a cacophony of boredom. An auburn sunset casts a soft light down onto the road, offering an autumnal contrast to the dull grey of the surrounding
concrete and cold metal of the cars. I am captivated by the presence of my own hands, locked, white knuckled, at ten and two. Stuck in the same old rut: signal right,
overtake, signal left, back in line. Blindspot, rearview; driving, driving, driving. A soft, consistent left turn twists the road forever, all while figures of cars cut into the beauty
of an orange red horizon, cutting out chunks, deeming it jagged. I yearn for something unspoken, a cold metallic taste in the corner of my mouth, like chewing on tinfoil
with a metal filling. Like licking the top of a battery. The right angled twinge of a stiff neck reveals a world unknown. The horizon falls crooked, calls me to a greater beyond
I had yet to uncover. Suddenly, I’m leaning my head sideways, temple perpendicular to the driver’s side glass, cranium tight to the windows crevice. My ribs are crunched to
my hip, my neck screaming in agony, but I can hardly hear it over the roar of my engine, this new perspective is a world untravelled. Suddenly it’s like I’m sliding, sideways,
on an asphalt ice rink. The road reflects like tempered glass, a portal into another dimension. The sun slides down the side of the horizon, rolling on its axis, a burning
sphere to deem the world a barren, glowing landscape. It threatens to roll my way, consume my vehicle, burn me alive. Cars glide, somehow, on walls. Defying laws of
gravity and then of nature, they twist and morph into serpentine beasts. Lorries unhinge their mechanical jaws and threaten to swallow me whole. Axels snap and bend to
form iron skeletons, bumpers grow teeth as bonnets crack open, their glowing eyes of yellow headlights reflect back in my rearview mirror, taunting and coaxing me to
drift from the road.
ㅤㅤI jerk my shoulders in an almost clockwise motion; the car jumps into the next lane over. A decrepit howl erupts from a form long since passed. I hardly give it notice. I
weave in and out of the creature maze, giant iron beasts block the sun and cast their shadows down upon my own steed. Deep, belching roars pierce my subconscious. I
am Theseus in this labyrinth of a motorway, these minitours chase me relentlessly.
ㅤㅤA small green figure ticks relentlessly on my dashboard, ticking the seconds away like a clock of my own demise. It whispers my own mortality to me, harsh
consonants that flicker from the tip of your tongue. My head is still crushing against the glass of my driver side window when my hand is released from the ten position,
when it drives like a dagger into the glass of the dashboard. It’s an awkward angle, I’m too weak to shatter it. It cracks, barely, drawing the slightest trickle of blood from a
knuckle. The sight of the crimson red spurs a sort of excitement within me, I yearn to taste that liquid life.
ㅤㅤIn that moment it is as if something unholy casts over me. Suddenly, the radio comes alive, that gritty, orphan hiss when you’re somewhere between radio stations. I
fiddle absently with the knob, a thin trickle of blood finds its way between my fingers and down my palm, it’s strangely cold, coagulates like a slurry at my wrist. Finally, I
find something, it’s hidden behind the static, it’s hardly a station. It sounds like a police radio. They’re talking, frantic, describing a vehicle. It’s silver, busted up, code
something or other, dangerous driving. I turn it up.
ㅤㅤ“6 foot, white, male, 23 years old, vulnerable individual. Reportedly suffering from delusions. Stolen vehicle, suspected to be armed.”
ㅤㅤI drive my fist, with more power this time, square into the radio. Of course they’re after me, they’ve always been after me, since I was a boy they’ve watched me.
Tragedy followed me wherever I went.
❋❋❋❋
‘He’s only a child, he shouldn’t be here.’
ㅤㅤ‘Mary it’s his mother, he’s 11, he has a right to be here.’ My father’s always been dry, straightforward.
ㅤㅤ‘As his father you should be protecting him right now, I mean Jesus Richard, why is it open casket? He’ll be scarred for life!’ She was sounding erratic now, like mum when
I’d forget to unload the dishwasher. I wonder if it’s full right now.
ㅤㅤ‘Your mother wanted it open, you know that. She wanted to see her daughter. Besides, the mortuary did the best they could, she looks fine.’
ㅤㅤ‘The lipstick is ridiculous. She looks nothing like my sister.’
ㅤㅤI can’t stand the smell of Aunt Mary’s perfume, I could tell it was her immediately, even through the crack of this old oak door. She smells like mum, it’s the same brand,
but on her it smells wrong, unsweet, almost sour. Hints of cedar and damp wood. It may have been comforting, if they hadn’t used the same perfume for the corpse.
She’s in the front room; I know she is. I can tell by the way grandma tells me not to go in, how cousins and uncles keep the door firmly closed. I sit on the stairs before the
front room in wait. It’s such an American tradition, these strange, at-home funerals. Mum’s whole family came from California to be here, it’s only fair that she’s buried in their
tradition. In movies it’s always so sombre and calm, sunlight spills in the windows, the men in the family gather on the porch to share a cigarette and reminisce. But not here.
Not in this council estate row house. It’s raining outside, a dreary February type of rain. I can hear the neighbours fighting through the walls, I can smell the damp musk of the
dogs locked in the kitchen. It’s melted into this carpet, this wallpaper. You can taste it when you walk in. the staple of a working class home. She loved those dogs as much as
she loved me.
ㅤㅤThis suit smells like Grandma. It’s itchy and too big, she brought it from home, creased and stuffed in the bottom of her suitcase. I fiddle with the cuffs of the shirt, trace the
tatters left from the previous wearer. I wonder who else’s funeral this was worn for. I look over my hands, The short, stubby nail beds, the uneven lengths and cuts of keratin.
These hands are made from my parents, the left from my mother, and the right from my father. I hold a pen in my left, my mother made me a writer. I throw with my right; my
father makes me an athlete. But now she’s gone, this hand is useless. Am I half the person I was? Is half of me in the coffin with her? Behind that damp, chipped door.
I push up off the step with these hands. Grow twice in size. I snake into the sitting room, slither along the wall, stand by the door as I peer across the room. I’m not sure
what I expected, it’s my mother, where the sofa usually is. Perpendicular to the window, rain pattering rhythmically. Light doesn’t quite pierce the glass; it leaves the carpet a
familiar grey. I can hardly see her from here, I take a few cautious steps. She looks as if she is asleep. Her auburn hair is laying unnaturally over her shoulders, as if it had been
placed there on purpose. I’m acutely aware of how many breaths I take to her zero, her chest never rises or falls. I wonder briefly where her glasses are, who decided she should
wear makeup in the afterlife, but not be able to see? And her makeup was ridiculous. She would never wear so much, black sludge to coat her lashes, a beige powder that
covers her skins, blends down her neck, slips beneath the collar of her shirt. Painting life into a corpse, like putting lipstick on a pig.
ㅤㅤAunt Mary was right, bright pink and thick, layered over her thin lips, like women in dad’s secret magazines, like harlots on street corners in the movies. I could feel my
hands balling into fists, this wasn’t my mother, it was some woman made in my father’s image, a perfect porcelain shell of what she was. I reach, left hand, up to touch her face.
I hover, centimetres above her, like a priest giving a blessing. I swipe, softly, across the length of her hot pink lips. The skin crumbles and rips beneath my hand, revealing her
teeth, skeletal fangs in grey gums. The flesh melts from her frame like paper machete melting in the rain.
❋❋❋❋
The car grows quiet when the radio stops. A loud, booming quiet, the type that amplifies that ringing in the back of your head. Rattles in the middle of your ears. I can
hardly think when the spirit crawls across my windshield. An ominous black smoke that obscures my view, condemns the motorway to darkness. Bright headlights break
through the dark, float on a cloud of smoke. They bare their teeth at me as they pass, demons puppeteer their metallic frames, enormous steel claws extend to rip open the
sky and drag their frames towards a dying sunset. As the road becomes clear once more, the black smoke finds its way through the ventilation. Floods in through the
heating vents, fills the footwells and rises slowly. It glides over the pedals, in thick, cold sweeps, inhabits the gearbox. It whispers secrets in a foreign tongue. Sharp breaths
wrack my body, shallow yet heaving, liquid gargling deep within my chest. The speedometer twinges in half from the pressure of my shaking legs: 80, 90. It eventually stops
climbing, yet my car continues to grow ever faster; the road ahead is naught but a blur. An open plain of possibility, blending into the horizon: it beckons me forward. I
swallow my breaths like a gulp injection, lifting my head from its resting place against the window and slamming my foot into the pedal even harder.
ㅤㅤMy car is a knife, cutting through the wind. It draws blood from the Earth, creating a crevasse to the underworld in the centre of the road. My care is a shuttle, taking
off. My car is a chariot, shaking and charging into oblivion. My stead barely surpasses the growing pit, leaving nothing but a hole to nowhere behind me. Red and blue
lights overcast my surreal daydream. Some form of alien sirens ring around me, I can feel their frequency scratching at my frontal lobe. I fear what they may drive me to
do.
ㅤ The evil spirit is in my car again. He whispers to me through the broken radio, in English this time, all the vowels in order. He describes me to a T, every event of my life
up until this point. He chants at me to pull over, give up. Reminds me of the police, and while they must be eons behind me, adrenaline pumps through me as if they are in
my back seat. The monument of a motorway shakes as if beasts stomp upon it. I can’t help but jam my fingers deep into the cassette player of the radio. Bending my
fingers and ripping out any remnants of a radio that may be left, blood melting from my nailbeds, shards of plastic embedding in the soft flesh of my palm. In the silence a
figure forms from the tears in the corners of my eye. He’s familiar, dark and humanoid, something inherently evil; sitting in the passenger seat.
❋❋❋❋
‘Did you build this treehouse?’ It spoke in a tilted tone, like shouting into the back of a fan, or whispering through a radio.
ㅤㅤ‘Not really. My mum found it when she was little.’ I say as I flick the Zippo open and closed.
ㅤㅤ‘Explains why it’s a piece of shit then.’ It spoke like my father.
ㅤ‘fuck off. You’re too tall to be in here anyway.’ I flick the lighter on, hold it to the damp wood.
ㅤㅤ‘you’re almost as tall as me, kid, 15 year olds shouldn’t be playing pretend in treehouses.’ It had a point, I guess.
ㅤㅤ‘Too old for imaginary friends too then, right? So when are you gonna leave me alone?’ The wood turns black with the flame, but it never quite ignites.
ㅤㅤ‘When are you gonna stop needing me?’ It says, peering my way with glowing red orbs in a shadow of darkness.
ㅤㅤ‘You’re a figment of my grief or whatever. Some shit like that anyway. They wanna put me on these pills to get rid of you. But I’m too young to start them. The second I
turn 16, you’re out.’
ㅤㅤIt doesn’t answer, remains silent in the corner. It has its void black knees drawn up to it’s void black chest. Naught but a shadow in a human shape. It barely fits in the
wooden structure, small and foetal in the corner, insistent on accompanying me everywhere. Since my mother’s funeral it has followed me. Stood in the corner when my
grandmother cried. A hand on my shoulder from the moment I touched her corpse. A demon of love, or something like that. It was upset when I told the therapist about its
existence. Said I threatened our friendship, put myself in danger. A sick co dependency from the moment it was summoned. I pull the remnants of a roach from my pocket; the
pungent smell of cheap weed fills the tiny cabin space. My lighter flickers a heavy flame as I light it.
ㅤㅤ ‘Your mum wouldn’t want you smoking that.’
ㅤㅤ‘Fuck of man, I said don’t talk about her.’ I say.
ㅤㅤ‘I thought I was a figment of your grief? Don’t you wanna get rid of me?’ how can a figment of my imagination be such a pain in the arse?
ㅤㅤ‘It doesn’t matter what she wants. She’s gone, she’s been gone. I couldn’t be more over it.’ It hangs in the air for a moment.
ㅤㅤ‘liar.’
ㅤㅤ‘I don’t even remember her man.’ God, I really am I liar.
ㅤㅤ‘I remember her. She hated your dad for smoking cigarettes, she’d go ballistic if she could see you now.’ It says.
ㅤㅤ‘how would you remember her when you never met her alive?’
ㅤㅤ‘I’m part of you. What you remember, I remember.’ I somewhat appreciated it’s honesty.
ㅤㅤ‘How did she die?’ I ask, my voice quieter now, barely a whisper.
ㅤㅤ‘You already know that, don’t make me say it.’ It says, a softness to its demonic growl.
ㅤㅤ‘I know, but I need to hear it, you know? To accept it or whatever.’ I don’t even know what I mean.
ㅤㅤ‘I think you just want to feel something, even if it’s pain.’ It says, outstretching its black claws to the flame of my lighter. The flame flickers around its digits, dances with the
curve of its knuckles, jumps to the palm of its hands. It takes on the form of a woman dancing, a ballerina of blue light. It’s captivating, beautiful, until the orange flame grows
around it, traps it in a spin. The ballerina falls, melting on its knees, begging for mercy as the flames eat it alive. The creature brings its other hand down upon it, a burst of
light, over in a second.
ㅤㅤ‘Harsh.’ I say, tears brimming the corners of my eyes, threatening to fall.
ㅤㅤ‘You wanted to know. But I know you already did. Since the funeral incident.’ It says.
ㅤㅤ‘The lipstick incident? That was tragic comedy if anything. It’s funny now.’
ㅤㅤ‘Not to Grandma’ It says, grinning with 100 sharp teeth.
ㅤㅤ‘How was I meant to know it was clay or whatever the fuck, I was trying to get the lipstick off.’ I can’t help but grin at the absurdity of it.
ㅤㅤ‘they had to close the casket; it was a whole mess. How did you manage to ruin a funeral?’ it says, a lilt of humour to its voice.
ㅤㅤ‘It was better than burying her in that whore lipstick.’
❋❋❋❋
‘I never thought I’d see you again.’ I croak, my voice harsh and scratchy.
ㅤㅤ‘Looks like someone stopped taking their super meds.’ It was somehow as sarcastic as ever.
ㅤㅤ‘they were using those meds to control me, track me. Hundreds of tiny tracking chips, they want me dead, they want-’
ㅤㅤ‘shut up. You sound insane.’ It cuts me off, it’s voice calm and monotone.
ㅤㅤ‘You said you’d only be around as long as I need you.’ I say, desperation racking my words.
ㅤㅤ‘So what do you need?’
ㅤㅤ‘A way out.’
ㅤㅤ‘You don’t need me for that.’ It says. And I know it’s right.
ㅤㅤIts form becomes erratic and smoky, its body shakes and grows in stature, its rows or razor teeth grin a menacing grin. I know exactly what it wants. It chants my
number plate in a lower frequency as it takes my left hand, my mother’s soft creative hand, into its own. I feel a cold erupt from its palm, when I try to flinch away it digs its
claws into my existing wounds, a pain like frostbite. It pulls my hand over to the glovebox. My body bends unnaturally, I dip below the dashboard in my efforts. The road is
briefly calm in my absence. When I arise, again, I’m holding it. The machine of death. A compact factory of mayhem. A weapon. A gun.
ㅤㅤIt’s chanting to me louder now, hissing my name over and over between clenched teeth. No longer the companion of my adolescent years, but a physical
manifestation of the evil that resides within me. The darkness that has grown from the moment I was born. All I can see is bright flashing, blue, red, white. Sine, cosine,
tangent. It isn’t me lifting my arm, holding the gun, finger on trigger. I close my eyes in a last ditch effort for peace, I try to think of my mother: naught but harrowing times.
Naught but bare teeth in a face of false flesh. A body absent of soul. The engine is screaming, my leg cramping from the pressure on the accelerator. The sirens grow
louder as my fate grows near; I yearn for that endless silence. I don’t feel it when I pull the trigger.
ㅤㅤWhen it jams, I break down. What cruel existence would condemn me to such a fate? I cry like a child lost in darkness. I cry for the loss of my mother, for the first time
since I was young. I cry for the pain in my bleeding hand, this poor, bleeding mother hand. The hand from a woman who loved and cared. I’m suddenly aware that I’m
alone in the car. The creature long since vanished. The red and blue has faded, somewhere, eons back behind me. I lose the motivation to continue the chase. I shift the
gear into neutral, rest my feet off the pedals, slide with existing momentum. As I glide from one lane to another, I feel like a figure skater on ice. I breathe deeper than I
ever have before. I notice the choir of pine trees that surround the motorway on either side, they remind me of the forest by my childhood home, where my mother would
take me, walking the dogs and spinning tales of her own textbook childhood. I notice the faces of those in the cars around me. The side profile of an elderly man in a suit,
the full boot of a packed family car. An aged woman with auburn hair, reminiscent of my mother’s. The beauty of a neon sign, a reminder of the hundreds of roads I’d never
driven. Shades of humanity I’d seemingly forgotten. As I bring myself back to reality, I allow my eyes to settle back on the road in front of me. Millions of beautiful, ruby red
lights grace my vision, engulf my being, a warm familiar hug, like that of a mother to a child; even if only for a second.
❋❋❋❋
I gather the loose dried leaves in a pile, hold my lighter close to a twig, attempt to light the tip of it.
ㅤㅤ‘God, how are you this bad at using a fucking lighter?’
ㅤㅤ‘Shut up dude, I literally smoked like 5 minutes ago, give me a break.’
ㅤㅤ‘you sure you want to do this? A lot of memories up here, no?’ it asks, standing absently at the bottom of the rickety treehouse ladder, peering up at me with soft orbs.
ㅤㅤ‘Memories of you, memories of her. She’s dead and you’ll be gone soon as these meds kick in. so shut up, I need concentrate.’ I say, dropping the twig into the pile of
makeshift sawdust.
ㅤㅤ‘Happy fucking birthday to you huh, killing your only friend.’ I can hear its grin through its words.
ㅤㅤ‘Finally time for me to move on, get a job or whatever, contribute to society.’ I Blow slightly on the pile; a small flame erupts.
ㅤㅤ‘Liar. What are you really excited about?’ it asks, moving aside as I descend the ladder.
ㅤㅤI can’t help but grin as I respond. ‘Getting a licence, getting the fuck out of this town. Now come on, this shits about to go up in flames.’
ㅤㅤA warm light emits from the small doorway of the treehouse as we leave, it offers a comforting warmth to the cold greens and browns of the forest. The inside of the
treehouse grows black and brittle, but it never quite ignites.
