Ain't Too Proud to Beg (594 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryLabels: Untruth
Rating: 1.33 on 4 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2005-08-09 03:22:16 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Look up the word "Hero" in the dictionary and you will find a reflection of other words like "Noble" and "Selfless".
Each one a cold designation placed in shallow text emotionlessly arranged to convey the clinical context of a romantic notion.
Read a little further and you will find the obligatory reference to the antithesis; an equally soulless connection to something that is the Yang of nobility.
Villain, Antagonist, Motherfucker, the Big-Bad-Darkness-That-Cannot-Be-Named ...whatever. Call it what you want. Give it a label that helps you sleep. Whisper it to your children when they are bad and your lovers when they are not bad enough. Turn it from fear to mystery and watch it grow.
Nurture it until the dictionary spits blood and you'll feel better, but make no mistake, most probably what you're speaking is my name.
I walked home tonight down shadow baked streets; felt my Id drain into them like ice in a toaster, as if the sun had played its last joke on a damned world and turned black rather than visit the other side of the earth.
I left my lover to damnations sleep and put my eyes to the pavement. I glided from haven towards coven, eyes to the earth and senses dulled by wine and sweet morose.
Night kissed looters and life cursed bums turned their gaze from me in abject repulsion as I flowed by, and the world was as it should be, until I saw her.
She didn't burn as bright as I'm used to. There was no gleam, no spark, and no glow. She was too plain for my knife and paler than my pallet allows. She was something slightly less than an empty space in a void, but she waved at me and I crossed the street to her without really knowing why.
The streetlamp above her blinked on and off like a strobe light, lifting her from illusion then dropping her to negative contrast, before leaving her somewhere between surreal oddity and mundane annoyance
She sat on the cigarette marked pavement, childbearing hips pressed to the dull metal pole of a bus stop sign, while Walmart clad arms wrapped around bony knees that she pressed hard against her pockmarked ruddy chin.
She raised dull teary eyes to mine, smiled the smile of the old and forsaken, then wiped mouse brown hair from her life-creased forehead, and said "Sit with me." in Lost-Speak.
I did as she asked, for no other reason than curiosity. I folded my wings, sat on the bench beside her, and leaned hard against the unforgiving hardwood bane of arthritic old men.
I spat used flesh onto the street, and then followed her gaze to the silver studded carpet of the cloudless evening sky because some forgotten part of me screamed the necessity of it.
I ran my tongue over unforgiving teeth and growled the pleasure of my own blood, then turned towards her and smiled solitude appreciation before responding in like tongue.
"I am Parziffian."
She blinked in and out under the lamp for a time, unmoving yet not quite static, then turned thin grey lips to me, and replied softly.
"I saw you and knew you right away."
She spoke as a martyr would to a lion's maw and I leaned forward to smell her scent. I opened my nose to the aroma of her fear and forgotten decadence, then sat back and wondered at the beauty of the end-of-days, and put my mind to words.
"I can taste the end of you woman. It's sweet and I thank you."
Somewhere far off, a dog yelped, a tire screeched, and the world did not stop, as it should have.
She nodded without really hearing then took up her speech as if it were an unbroken last lament.
"I knew you and I finally knew myself. I understood why the trigger jammed and the pills wouldn't stay down. I realized why I have two dead husbands and three living rapists. I finally figured out why my life is broke and I ain't got the peace of a six foot sleep. I can't give you a reason to take me as your own. I can't pay you with much more than my greasy tears, but what's left of my soul is yours for the taking and I ain't too proud to beg."
I spit my answer at her. I coughed my hate into her moist eyes as my revulsion at her pretence burned me deep, like the unwanted perdition of my master's touch.
"Broken Bitch! I have you already. You gave yourself to me with a tear and a wave."
She flinched but did not run. She looked up at me and I saw in her eyes, the same stoic determination that had accompanied me in my fall from grace. Her jaw was set, her gaze steady and I couldn't help but wonder if she had it in her to hasten her journey to the Pit.
I leaned closer to her then tilted my head to the night sky as the ruffle of feathers floated to my ears, softly, like the ghost of a memory.
I put my hand to the hilt of my blade, stood up, and let slip a growl. The woman stayed crouched at my feet as I tested the air for the scent of a long vanquished soldier from an unholy war.
The air was clear of Angel spore so I let my guard slip, and took my hand away from my blade as the memory of the last battle replayed itself within my head.
In my minds eye, I stood on the rooftop of the burning cathedral in Rome and watched as the demon Picaziensalluzor tore the wings from Gabrielle's shattered back, and then raised them in victory to the roar of the Fallen.
It was the voice of the woman that brought me back from my reverie. It was her unwelcome touch that caused me to turn my back on the sky, and her scream that announced the silver tip of the sword protruding from the center of my chest.
Strong fingers laced through the thick locks of black hair hanging from the back of my head then grabbed hold and pulled, so the emotionless crystalline voice of my attacker could ring better in my ear.
"You watched the demon kill the oldest and best of us. You turned your back on the light but I did not come for you because of it. No, I do not kill you this day because you let our brother die, or to revive the old war. I send you to the Pit because you took his wings as your trophy, because you defiled him."
I cried out from the pain of the white-hot blade at my center then spit my killer's name out through clenched teeth.
"Michael."
He twisted the sword in reply and I felt one of my hearts rupture at its touch, sending black blood into my punctured lung. He twisted again, then pulled it out and watched as I dropped to my knees, arms hanging limp at my sides.
The woman cried out again and placed her sobbing face on my lap but I lacked the strength to push her away.
I drew a ragged pained breath then hissed my reply through bloodied lips.
"I heard you were dead... killed in the battle for Babylon."
His grip on my hair disappeared and then he was standing before me, the last of his kind, beautiful, war scarred and just as forsaken as myself, but still awash in the grace of the Creator.
"It was Gabrielle who brought you amongst us; it was he who pulled you from purgatory to walk the path of the righteous."
The world seemed to darken and then slip sideways before bursting into crystal clarity and I pulled another bubbling breath inside myself before answering.
"I never asked to be one of you. I died inside the womb. You never gave me a choice."
"And so you chose to burn."
"The fires of Hell are hot but HIS love burns as well."
"HIS love is all there is."
I chuckled wetly, despite my pain, and pointed weakly at him.
"Pride goeth before the fall Michael; it cost you the war and keeps you from his presence. Tell me, does he still deny the Angels audience?"
"You know he has not let us stand before him since before the war."
I tried to chuckle again but it turned into a wet cough. I sprayed black blood into the dusk between us while the woman at my lap shuddered as if each lung spasm was her own.
"Woman" I wheezed "Keep your tears. I am a wicked creature and would do you harm."
I grabbed her weakly by the shoulder and made to push her to the grit from whence she had come but the tip of Michael's blade caught my chin and tilted my gaze up to meet his; black pool to golden mirror.
"Your fall was felt amongst us all. Gabrielle lamented for you."
The tip of the sword stung against my throat and I pushed against it in defiance, willing its bitter kiss to the bone in my chin.
"Push it deep Michael. Fulfill your purpose. Bring the Lord's vengeance upon me. Call me sinner, traitor, and blasphemer, for in truth, I am all of these. I have fornicated and stolen. I have gorged myself with the Devil's vices and reveled in the cries of the innocent. I have spit on the gift I was given and I do not repent, but understand, I never defiled your brother. I never broke the pact."
His eyes grew wide and the sword swung back, high over his shoulder, poised to strike.
I closed my eyes and waited for the end, waited for the sound of a snap and the fires of Hell, but the pressure on my lap disappeared and when I opened my eyes again, the woman was on her knees and clutching Michaels robe, begging him to stay his hand.
"Who is this, that she would plea for you?"
I weakly raised a hand and opened my mouth to respond but it closed and trembled traitorously. My vision clouded then warped and I tilted my head towards the sky to see the rain that must be falling into them but there was none, and I suddenly understood the strange burning in my eyes for the tears they were.
A thousand curses came to mind and were suddenly quenched as emotions I couldn't comprehend filled me to bursting, until suddenly I understood them too. I shook my head and pressed my hand hard against my wound to bring forth a pillar of pain to lean on, but they would not be ignored, and instead screamed their names into the void at my center.
Regret.
Shame.
Horror.
The world faded to red until I was alone and nothing but a speck in a sea made of the memory of a thousand sins. I fought to stay afloat, to fashion a life raft of denial but they pulled me deep and crushed me beneath their weight. I nearly drowned, but the woman's sobs somehow found their way to me and I grabbed hold and let her begging drag me from the abyss.
"Please! Please! Please! Please! Don't take my Son!"
The world came back in a rush of shadow and I reached out to her. I ushered the last of my draining strength and tried to wrap my hands around her, to thank her for returning my soul and to kill her for not bringing me properly into the world.
I found her neck with trembling hands and began to squeeze but my strength left me and I fell limply to the hot unforgiving pavement instead.
The wound was taking its toll and my remaining heart began to slow as Michael's unbearable beauty once again filled my vision.
"The wings... where are Gabrielle's wings?"
I tried to speak but could barely utter a sound so he placed his hand on my forehead and said simply "Show Me..."
...and so, I lead him down the path of my memory to a place I had dwelled before I lost myself to the vices of the world. He watched in angelic calm as I took my place before the Demon and proclaimed his victory. I showed him to the beasts abode as I sat humbly in obedience, bereft of pride and begging for the right to covet its prize.
He trembled, fists clenched, as I wrapped the wings of his brother in ragged cloth and congratulated Picaziensalluzor again on his kill, and then he let tears slip free as I carried the bundle to the steps of Heaven and lay it at the gate.
He withdrew his hand from my forehead and made to step back but I found a strength I did not know I had, grabbed him by the collar of his robe and pulled his ear to my mouth.
"Ask God where they are."
I don't know if he answered or not. My vision faded for a time and I drifted weightless and alone, with nothing but the sobs of the insane woman who would call me Son. I let them wash over me like a lullaby does a child, and then the world cleared again and I found myself laying on my side and looking at her grief stricken bloodshot eyes as she lay beside me on the filthy ground and whispered her sorrow."
"Oh my baby, it's ok, Mother's here."
Her hand slid gently over my head and I smiled back at her as Michael's voice sang out again in obvious wisdom and angelic judgment.
"This woman is a gift to us both. I will take the lesson of her humility back to the gates of Heaven and ask our Father for an audience, beg him to show me the way... as for you... I say let HIM decide your fate."
I didn't bother trying to answer. I simply lay there and let myself bask in the warmth of the woman's strangely familiar stare.
A flurry of feathers and a rush of wind later Michael was gone, and here I lie.
And it's ok.
I may be damned but I'm not dead yet.
I may be the farthest thing from a hero but I think I've found a home in her ragged arms, and even though I may not have sprung from this woman's womb, she's as much a mother to me as I've ever had.
I'm not an angel anymore. I can't feel my wings but I have a new kind of heartbeat and that's ok too.
I ain't to proud to take what I can get, and friend, this feels just fine.
This feels like Heaven.
User Reviews
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-08-30 05:53:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I love the way this was written, with both the abstract imagery and the dialogue.
The only things that tripped me up were the action transitions. The arival of Michael and his attack seemed to come out of nowhere and I had to re-read the part about the mother-issue twice to figure out what was going on.
However, the overall effect and essence of the writing demands a solid +2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-17 15:53:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
You keep coming back to my Madness posts in the hope that the next one will be better written?
Hard to tell without comments.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-16 18:01:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-27 10:34:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Horray for the elite 8!
(At least I lost to the eventual winner.)