My sweet Anna. I softly whisper your name though they spill only into an empty room. It is cold, with the pounding rain against our window the only offering for distraction. The air tastes like ash, and the reality that you're gone gnaws at my brain ever more vigorous with every passing second. A soft belt of thunder in the distance nudges a memory of our first evening.
It was such a beautiful evening; a night of wine and musings of the future. A simple plate of bread and a bowl of soup, a single candle beneath a full moon at the old inn by the wharf. We never did learn the name of that song, the piano tune that warmed a room like sunshine on the bay. Never once did we speak of that night, but in our shared glances I knew we would think of it always. Scampering beneath the sudden shower to return you home before your sisters caught you out. What they might think should we be seen together, the daughter of the mayor with a lowly fisherman. Stolen moments were what we could afford, and our purses were full, though I had barely two coins to rub together. Not a cent mattered, for our riches were in love and the time we together took.
The thunder is closer now, with a brighter flash. It stirs behind me, behind locked door; the brigand, the stranger. I away my mind to this, our fifth year, but this morning as I return to port. The seas had been kind most of my life, but never had I been so gifted a reward as what I'd hauled today. Three weeks on the ocean, the catch was slim, with barely a minnow to call our bounty. The sea air tasted of metal all that time, with something unsettling about the calm of the waves. It was as if the very ocean was fearful of something it held, though all that was brought up was treasure. It was a box, no bigger than my tackle carry, made of more rust than iron. It took but a moment to crack it open and shuck it of its reward. Two things were taken from within; a simple dagger with a blade of bone and a brass handle, and a gold ring. Oh how brightly the bauble shined. I was transfixed with single minded-purpose, for this was the right ring, the one with which we would be wed. It had design like thatching along its curves, and a single blue jewel, perhaps a sapphire, mounted into the band. Your birthstone.
The thing scratches at the cellar door every so often; right now, in fact. I hear its nails dragging down the heavy wood, scraping away at the tarnished hinges. It is calm in its movements; patient and perhaps content in my torment. I refuse to turn around, to acknowledge its existence beyond a large gutter rat that had traipsed its way into our lives so suddenly. I hate it as much as I fear it, puffing heavy breaths of hot air into the frigid space you and I once shared. It came as if from nothing, a punishment deserved by one far more wicked than you, Anna. Yet it still came, removing you from this world and embedding itself in a place not meant for such a thing. I managed to trap it beneath our home, yet there it pesters me, taunts me and calls to me. Our fifth year together should have been heralded with a feast and family, and yet here I stand, accompanied by a twisted figure bastardized by nature. It is a wicked thing that prods our cellar door, horridly back lit in yellow torchlight, a beast that nature would call a bastard of her ilk.
My pistol lays on my desk, loaded with a single shot for a single purpose. My hand finds place easily on the weapon, and I swear the thing that took you smells the gunpowder. It is getting restless, scratching now, pushing against the door with its heft. I lift the pistol and catch sight of the dagger, so bundled with the ring that should have brought us eternal happiness. It tries to speak its murky words now, bidding me closer in rasp and choke. Its voice is familiar, frightening and unnerving, a litany of lies through a mouth that does not belong to it. My pistols hammer clicks and the evening rushes back into my mind.
Your face as I ease to one knee brightens, ever more still as I give you my sweet words. They come naturally, though I do fumble once or twice, recounting our days and years together since our childhood. I often wondered if you noticed me when I first found you as you walked with your father. An angel, a gift from something beyond what we see, that is what you were from the first and until the last moment I was given of you. You smile and tears fall down your cheeks as soon as you see the ring, your eyes closing as I slip it on your finger. I don't remember an embrace as powerful as the one you gave me then, crushing the wind right out of me, leaving me as I was when I first saw you; breathless. The band fit your finger as though it was meant to be there all along, as if it had a purpose for you. How right I was, though not in such a way as I desired.
Its fist pounds the door now, the hinges rattling loudly over its clearer speech. It invites me beyond the barrier to the cellar and I will give it what it needs, though not what it wants. It asks for my neck, for the blood that keeps me bound here, to this world of ours. Time and again it beats the barricade, becoming more forceful with every pound and word. It harasses with three words, "BE WITH ME!" in a pleading, angry mouthful. Its breath heats the air, making a sort of fog near the bottom of the door and a picture not unlike an entrance to the afterlife. This is good, Anna, for when that door opens, a soul will depart this world.
My hand shakes as I near the latch, but the thing quiets. It knows I mean to free it from bondage, though I don't suspect it understands to what degree. Its breath is like lead, and I can make sight of it from this side of the door. Its eyes are like firelight on a bloodied sky as it stares through the cracks at me. It took your perfect green eyes from me, and here it slouches with its own twisted gaze. The latch rattles with my pounding heart, yet the creature calmly raises its own hand near mine on the other side of the door. Softly it repeats, "Be with me..." I can not stop the tears now, so I think to the song from our first night. With each remembered strike of the keys and that soft melody, my body warms and readies, even in this icy air. The time has come, my chest tightens, my veins filling with fire, and the door opens.
Not a man, not a beast of the land or sea that I had ever seen, but it shares pieces of all of them. Hunched and deformed, the creature is, with tiny and useless legs, crippled by its birth, but large arms that pull it where it need be. Its oily, leathery skin makes a sickening scraping sound as it slowly drags itself forward. Steam rises from its back and off its nearly bald scalp. Again it asks I be with it, but this time I point my gun between its eyes. Why does it cry, Anna? A beast that would deprive this world of you deserves not the emotion of sadness or fear. It should feel nothing, nor should it exist any longer. But as is the stupidity of man, I never think that it would be anything better than I. Its fast, lunging and taking me down at the midsection. My pistol does fire but only helps to deafen me, the bullet flying wild, hitting no beast but a stone wall instead.
I try to escape, striking my enemy on its head, fighting as you would want me too, Anna. But I am too weak, tired from crying and my days on the ocean, and the monster has me pinned. I can not look away from its eyes, its horrible orange eyes on bloodshot blue. These are not your eyes, Anna, and they would look better blind. It screams as the butt of my gun takes the light from its left, granting me a small window of escape. Though no sooner am I upright does it lunge again, pinning me against my desk, my back bursting into pain that overtakes my everything. It is through asking for my companionship, now only filled with desire for my end. Its arms are mighty and I feel my life being squeezed from me. So terrible is its strength. I feel my lowest two ribs break and I scream though I don't give in. You wouldn't want me to give in.
My hands scramble around for something to save me, finding the dagger from the box, and I waste no time sinking it into the creatures flesh. A stab wound to the back sends the thing off of me, it screaming as the wound I inflict bubbles and burns, its meat rotting away in a fist sized lump. It scratches for the injury, but it's too high on its hump to reach. Its eye finds the dagger in my hand, and then looks to my face. It is afraid of its bane that I hold in my left fist. I struggle to stay standing, the pain of my broken bones is almost too much to handle. It puts out its long, bony claw as if asking for the blade. Seeing the ring on your finger like that hurts me so, Anna. I promise, here and now, that while it was I that brought you into this form, it would be I to lay you to rest.
I slash at your hand, Anna, hearing you cry out in pain. The tears are heavy as they fall, but I can not stop, I must grant you peace. Forward I through myself, crashing atop you like a wave of sorrow. I quickly loose track of how many times the dagger pierces your body, pushing the act as far from my mind as possible so that I might ignore the twisted cries you make. Soon enough, you're gone again, the second time taken away by me. Truly, I took you both times, both in selfishness. I wonder if you'd ever thought like I do now, musing what life would have been like had I not forced my way into yours. I look down at the hand where I placed that cursed ring and know that the claims of your sisters were correct, that I was nowhere near good enough for you. The ring has fallen from your finger, Anna, now on the ground at my feet. The tears stop as I look from the ring to the body I ignorantly forced upon you, and my path becomes clear.
The sun is golden as it peaks over the horizon, gently touching my skin as I sit here, in my boat. It is dawn, and the gulls are as loud as ever, my boat packed with but four items and two passengers. Your body lays next to me, swaddled in linens. The smell of kerosene has always been a bit too pungent for me, so I had best be swift, though the morning sea air does help. I wave to the other men as they ready their gear for the day, eager to search for such treasures as the ones I had found. "Pleasant fools," I say to myself as I paddle on. An hour out on the sea, and no others are in sight, the sun now up and the world starting her day once more. I hide the ring and dagger away once more in their lock-box, chuckling and wondering to myself how many lives they had claimed and how many times folks had returned them to the sea. The box hits the water with a low splash and I watch its decent until the blackness of the deep claims it.
A lone seagull flies overhead, coming to rest on the bow of my tiny vessel. I smile at the bird, bid it, "Good morning," and continue with, "Would you mind excusing us?" It flies off, Anna, politely leaving us be. Quite an adorable sight, my sweet. I lay next to you and wonder if you know I'm there. A silly thought. I kick over the lantern that sits at our feet, the flame quickly catching up to the oil and then the kerosene. It is instantly hot and I am frightened at the sound of my pistols hammer cocking back. I am but a man, the same frightened boy you once knew, really. But I have a final something I must do and a punishment I must accept. I think of you and as quick as the feeling of fear comes, it falls away, and I am myself to a much brighter place where all I see is your true face on that first night, and all I hear is that nameless piano tune.
So, when Larry posts a link, is it to any of the aforementioned things? Is it a memory that enriched my soul? How about a friend that I need to contact or a tidbit of inspirado? If I may: Fuck. No. It's a picture of me, freshly out of the sauna with my American friends at 5AM, buck ass naked with a booze bottle in front of my junk. I laugh about it and curse the person who posted it to Hell, and chalk it up to "being a 20 year old dumb ass" and lament trusting someone to keep there word of, "I'm totally not posting any of this when various picture sights become popular."
Mr. Jackson had linked me a youtube show put on by some folks I used to know in my Lindy days, hosting a Lindy Hop talk show. And there it was again, on an episode titled Naked Lindy Hoppers. My first thought was: "There is so little going on in the world of Vintage American Vernacular Jazz Dance that they have to report on an 8 year old naked picture of a guy they probably don't remember if ever knew?" The funny thing was that it's a blip in the show...okay, I didn't watch the whole show because it was kinda boring, but I think it was just a blip. Meh. 
