Head Turner
Three, two, one... I saw
his head come off before my knife was done.
Silly civilians with their
tricky lives, complicating the simplicities I partake for fun.
Why struggle so for a life
that had ended way before I'd come anywhere near it?
His head rolls in the
dust, and to my mind seems to explode into flames by the ferocity of
my act.
Real head turner, I am;
and jerker.
I'd take the whole thing
with me if he still had mind to lose, but now it's just baggage and I
don't have a compartment to store it.
Just the memory I'll take
with me then, the rush, and the wind rushing my hair into droplet
strands to dance before my face for me, his body strutting the funky
chicken before collapsing at my feet... alone.
Poor Smokey Joe!
Hell, we've all been there
or are going.
Alone is Hell, but
entertaining company's worse.
I find Ketchup-like-claret
ruins your appetite when dispensed from the gullet of one of your own
dinner guests; the geezer of such mixed emotions rude and unsanitary.
But I'm used to
entertaining myself now, I've become beyond inept at it.
Wish their expressions
didn't bounce though; I never have enough time to get to know them.
Then again, I wish their
stupid, balding faces didn't stare back at me with such looks of
hatred and surprise when detaching like they do.
I'm complaining again,
aren't I. Seriously though, victims, when I'm the one left behind
with the mess and the questions?
I wonder what their last
thoughts were... perhaps only one, a word, a mental image.
Did this one get to see
the tunnel because I can see his; straight down it to his stomach.
I wonder if your last thought was of that half digested steak you wished you'd never eaten.
Last day on Earth and you
were plagued by bellyache, and that bellyaching couldn't have ceased
until you met me.
I had to chop your head
off, just so you would shut up.
Still, no shame in
separation.
We are all just pieces in
the end, of other people, mostly, body parts all our lives, an arm
here, a handshake there, my father's neuroses in the corner; mine
once I lent him my ear.
But I severed all those
ties long ago; and him.
Now, on my own, I just
turn heads (but I think I'll have the next one clean this one up for
me).
Nathan
J.D.L. Rowark
is a poet and horror novelist from London, England.
His works include over
fifty poems and stories published in various e-zines, anthologies,
and magazines since his return as a storyteller in 2010.
He
is the founder of Horrified
Press (horrifiedpress.wordpress.com)
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