Violet ribbons and indigo wind tinted the darkness. I opened my eyes and watched the sky swirling outside my window. The syringe and needle fell to the floor, and I closed my eyes.įor a moment I felt so warm and sweet that I could have been a different person. My arms drooped down against the armrests of my chair. It spilled through my veins, flooded the black chambers of my heart, and slowly burned me away from the inside out. A feeling like warmth and honey gushed through me. But the pain was momentary and it hurt less than going without the ophorium. It hurt when I pushed the needle in through a half-healed scab. I did not long to be lost in God or Glory I just wished to be lost. I wanted to be undone, swallowed whole and dissipated into a thoughtless existence. The deep shadows of night could not disguise my ugliness, but beauty was hardly the point. The white skin and underlying blue veins were buried under a patchwork of bruises and red needle marks. Only the flesh on the inside of my elbow stood out. The scars had faded enough over the years that, given enough darkness or drink, a man might not notice the holy verses carved into my body. The scar tissue was as pale as the rest of my skin, but shinier and slightly sunken, like delicate embossing. They wound up from my wrists, marking inch after inch of my body with mechanical precision. Hundreds of small scars cut across the thin muscles of my bare arm. I had my own ruinous affair to cultivate. At last, I flicked her off my arm and rolled up my sleeve.
She ate every scrap of evidence and then lounged on my sleeve with an innocent ease that could have fooled an Inquisitor. I had to admire the firefly for her neatness. Some romances end more badly than others. Their flickering bodies blinked in perfect unison as she devoured him. Holding him close, she crushed her powerful mandibles through his head. The female firefly reached out and stroked the male.
They crept close to one another, brilliant desire flashing through their tiny bodies. They swooped past my face, circled, and then alighted inside the fold of my shirtsleeve. I watched them flicker, darting through their insectile courtship. A few fireflies blinked from what corners of blackness remained.Ī pair of them invaded the darkness of my rooms. Heavy purple clouds pumped up from smoke stacks and patterned the sky like ugly patches on a black velvet curtain. Candles cast dull halos through the dirty windows of the tenements across the street.
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