Post by Grace Leary on Apr 28, 2023 3:38:15 GMT
Everybody knows the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Click.
A long exhale precedes a tense silence. The hiss of the tape and soft taps of fingers anxiously drumming along the edge of a desk fill the void where words should be. One beat. Two. A soft thud as a glass is placed beside the recorder, ice cubes clinking against the sides. Then, with an intoxicated rasp, she speaks.
"I've been baptized twice. Once as an infant, the trinity sprinkled over me, welcomed with open arms to a church I grew up around, but not in. And once as a fully grown adult-sized child, offered tainted communion, swallowing the blood of the wrong covenant."
Another pregnant pause.
"Maybe I should dispense with the scripture, no? I, who couldn't see the horror lurking under the skin of the lamb whose blood I washed myself in. But, given the occasion I can't help but linger on commitments made and broken. How could I not? Even if I have no illusions of being sanctified in whole or in part, I'm staring down the barrel of a third.
"I've felt the water, tasted the blood, now's my baptism by fire."
3/31/23
The drive from Boulder to Denver, brief as it was, offered Grace little reprieve from her firing synapses and frayed nerves. She swore under her breath as her gaze momentarily drifted from the road, distracted by the sight of her hands trembling as she white-knuckled the steering wheel.
The plan had gone off without a hitch. In the rearview mirror, Grace could almost see the face of the loathsome wretch she'd have to call a boss twisted into a mask of rage at the sight of his bluff being called. Surely, she reasoned, he must've expected either herself or Jonathan to be greedy, cruel, and stupid enough to take pieces out of the other for a token of his affirmation.
Yet, the schadenfreude did little to assuage the tightness in her chest. Nor could it keep the bile from rising in the back of her throat as her mind raced a million miles a minute, the sight of the lonesome road ahead dimming as another wave of nervous energy jolted through her body. She realized then that their plan had worked too well.
Her body craved a new malady — a throbbing open wound, a release valve for the adrenaline coursing through her veins, boiling her innards. She clenched her eyes shut, pressed the pedal to the floor and drew a sharp inhale through gritted teeth as her grip on the wheel loosened. Tinnitus stung her functioning ear for a change, its dull ring consuming what little remained of her hearing.
As the speedometer ticked ever higher, the ringing rising in pitch and intensity, Grace's thoughts focused. The weight of acknowledgement bared down on her neck once more - a pair of eyes she'd felt since her last homecoming.
And yet what stirred in the inky blackness that surrounded her wasn't a familiar face. It was one of a stranger whose death she'd had a hand in.
"Hello, Leonard," Grace muttered under her breath. "Were my dreams not enough for you?"
"Tell me, will I be born again? Will my name, until I die, be much more than alibi? Part of me hopes so. A small, nagging chunk of my brain insists it'd be better if I could accept the things I cannot change, and ignore the things I can.
"To have the strength to proclaim my faith and reframe my twenties along the lines of trauma and healing, rather than of transgressions and contrition. To say the magic words and wish for all to be forgiven. But our mutual friend — forgive me for meeting in the middle here, we both know that word's far too strong for me and much too light for you — does enough of that for the lot of us."
A mirthless chuckle escapes her lips.
"Perhaps the flames will purge the taste of wormwood from my mouth before it chokes me to death. I suppose that would be a rebirth in and of itself. After all, you know me as well as anyone, who am I if not three decades of bitter resentment given form and shape? Far too aggrieved and headstrong to realize that for all the times I've uttered the analogy towards others, I've been beating my head into the same brick wall, thinking I could have it both ways.
"And maybe, in an environment such as this, when I feel the heat at my back and see a field of hopefuls reaching greedily for the same opportunity, that's all it'll take to make this baptism stick. Though maybe that's as much a fantasy as any other; salvation without sacrifice.
"Of course, chasing fantasies is what holds this field of contenders aloft. The familiar faces from Boulder with their battered bodies and scarred minds are reaching once more for the trigger of the same mousetrap that snapped and mangled their fingers once already. The punchline, of course, is that they see what was thrust onto you by our fearless leader and are gullible enough to think that would've been them if they just pushed themselves that extra bit harder.
"Honesty's the name of the game now, isn't it? To you, to myself, to her. So, can I just say it straight?
"These people are fucking delusional."
She attempts to stifle a giggle. She fails. A beat as she composes herself.
"I know, I know, I shouldn't find it funny but I just can't help myself. There's an endearing quality to it all, I suppose. Legend or upstart, Raven or Krow, from the most jaded cynics to the widest-eyed optimist, Casanova English has convinced a gaggle of glowy-eyed freaks that the thing they'd want more than anything else is to set themselves on fire for a chance to represent his carnival of carnage.
"Tell me, would even the best of them hesitate to tear the loves of their lives limb from limb for the leather and gold he's dangling before them? The same prize he knew wouldn't be enough of an incentive for you? I think they would. Because they're desperate. As desperate as I've been, as I am. Maybe that's my sense of camaraderie with the Junko Soumas and Kilroys alike. We're all striving to fill some kind of void, a gaping maw where our souls should be.
"But the gold at the end of this rainbow doesn't shine right to me. It won't make me whole. That said, I feel your enmity as clear as mine — I'd love to spit in English's eye. And you know quite well what a motivator spite is for me.
"Spite forced me to my feet after you cracked my skull.
"Spite let me power through dislocated joints, major lacerations, and even a charred scalp.
"Spite has been the only commitment I've ever followed through on."
Suddenly, her mood shifts. Tension lingers in an abrupt silence. Once more, fingers drum along the desk.
"I think I get it now."
2/20/23
"So, it's done?" Grace asked, exhaling a plume of smoke. The London air was thick and heavy, the night wind cutting through the thin fabric of her jacket as she reached her free hand out expectantly towards her compatriot. Jonathan obliged, handing over the equine mask as the only response worth giving. She couldn't read his face in the dim glow of the moon; for the best, she reasoned.
"I presume it went well?"
Jonathan shrugged. "As well as these things go, I guess."
She nodded. Her teeth sank into the soft flesh of her tongue as she felt a churning in her stomach. The mental image of Leonard Douglas' last moments wasn't unwelcome, and yet there was something nauseating in her mind's eye.
"And in the end, he uh…" she trailed off, clamping down harder on her tongue. He cocked an eyebrow, not that she'd noticed. There was only one face she saw now, as pallid and lifeless as it was when he was lowered into the earth. "Was it peaceful?"
Jonathan's eyes narrowed, inspecting his associate in the silence that ensued. Then, he offered a look of understanding, but offered neither an affirmative or negative gesture.
"You remember what I told you when we began this project, yeah?"
She pondered the question for a moment, her attention once more fixed upon the man offering her a dead man's trophy.
"Yeah," she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear. "Understood."
"It's that damned affliction, rearing its ugly head once more. All these messes at my feet, the sins that weigh so heavily on my shoulders that I'm in the same boat as the rest of these people, weighing the pros and cons of self-immolation. I just can't help myself; I've wanted it both ways this whole time.
"I've wanted to redeem the world without bloodying my hands further. I've been half-in from the word go, wanting to keep myself clean. But that was always a fantasy. After all, my frontal lobe's done growing, Jonathan.
"And it's about time I accept that this might just be how I'm wired. So, instead of the dread in the pit of my stomach as I think about the horrors I'll have to inflict on people who, for the most part, will not deserve it in the name of giving that pig-nosed tyrant the entertainment he so desires — I should feel a sense of relief.
"Relief that just like back in Boulder, it won't be me catching the business end of a maiming for once.
"Relief at the sight of chains being broken and cycles coming to an end.
"And relief at a new revelation.
"For all the pomp and circumstance of its name, the charged iconography at the heart of this heinous exercise in human suffering, I am not staring down my third baptism.
"Because it's already happened. Here. Now. In saying this to you, and having you hear me. I understand it now, Jonathan — what you told me back in Los Angeles eight months ago. When you commended the progress I'd made but warned that to continue, I'd have to unlearn all of it."
A deep inhale.
A long exhale.
3/31/23
Grace's eyes snapped open to the blaring headlights of a semi-truck rapidly approaching, a purely mechanical response to stimuli. She jerked the wheel hard, swerving back into her lane as the roaring horn of the 18-wheel death machine blared in the still of night. Her chest heaved, the excess adrenaline expelled from her body with a delayed shriek of terror. Though, once more she felt the same pair of eyes on the back of her. This time, however, her mind didn't wander from the source. She thought about how easy it would be to turn the tables on him, to catch him with his pants down. After all, Elliot Dalton was a real person; Grace Leary was just a ghost granted flesh. Then, of course, came the question of how to resolve the issue; how best to clean up the mess.
And at the base of her skull, an all-too-familiar voice made itself heard.
"You knew it was only ever going to go one way."
Everybody knows the it's now or never
Everybody knows it's me or you