Malcolm

Friday, January 27, 2012

Malcolm

(Spoilers ahead.)

We were in the dark room in the detective agency.

He took some tweezers and plucked a feather from a dead bird. He carefully placed them into a vial. He then hung the vial from a string, on a ledge, over his work area. It swung back and forth, like a pendulum.

I bent down to look at it closer. I could feel his eyes on me, boring holes through my mask, on my right. The vial slowly swung to a stop but he did not break his gaze.

I pointed at the vial, but he continued staring at me, as he took an egg from the drawer.

He walked slowly to the other end of the dark room, towards the exit, and then stopped and turned around. He held the egg out to me, but I didn’t take it. He stared at me, and insisted. I reached my hand out, and he grabbed my hand, pulling me with him.

We ran out the side door of the detective’s office, down the dark hallway, and he pushed me into a room filled with boxes of dirt and tiny grave markers. At this point, he suddenly stopped.

We walked with my arm in his arm, down the length of the room, past the tiny graves, like a quiet funeral procession. He reached out and lifted the curtains at the back of the room. It was dark. The only lights came from the tiny graves behind us. I could barely make out what was in front of me. Just a desk, like last time.

He gently pushed me into the back area and turned on the light with a slam. He closed the curtains behind him and took my mask off. He opened up the desk drawer, which had four eggs inside. He gestured towards a specific egg in the drawer, as if I should I pick the one he wanted me to. Third from the left. This one. I took it, and held the egg in my right hand for a few seconds, turning it around and around to inspect it.

He let me examine the egg for a few brief moments, then, without any warning, crushed it violently in my palm. Dirt spilled out everywhere. He grabbed my right palm, and started rubbing the dirt into my skin, and trying to read the lines on my palm, very forcefully.

He dropped my hand, picked up the magnifying glass, and took a step towards me.

“Who are you?”

I said nothing. He took another step towards me.

“Do you see the signs, student?”

I said nothing. He took another step towards me.

I was backed up against the wall. I had nowhere to turn.

He began quoting Macbeth.

“On Tuesday last a falcon was hawked at and killed.”

He took another step towards me.

“Duncan’s horses turned wild against nature. They would make war with mankind.”

He kept walking towards me.

I shuffled to the right, tangling in the curtains.

His monologue continued for several more lines as I could only stare in bewilderment, lines I did not recognize.

Finally, he said, “It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood.”

He repeated himself again, and again.

“It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood.

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood.

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood!”

He moved towards me, and began to embrace me tightly, all the while mumbling quietly.

“Methinks I heard a voice cry out. I thought I heard a voice cry out, I thought I heard a voice cry out…”

His arms were tight around my body.

He sounded distraught.

“I thought I heard a voice cry out.”

The lights went out with a bang. He began to sob and retch.

He grabbed my hands and placed them against the side of his belly, as it to stop the bleeding from a wound. He laid one of his hands on top of mine, pressing down hard. He held my hand there.

Then he took my other hand and brought it up higher, by his head.

My index finger and middle finger were suddenly warm and wet, in his mouth, as he continued to choke.

Two fingers, like the barrel of a gun, I realized. Two fingers.

I could see nothing.

We stayed there for several seconds, my hands frozen in position by his.

Then a bell rang in the distance.

He deserted me, sprinting out of the room, flying through the curtains.

There was only darkness.

I was alone.