him and Her

him and Her, and Him and her

he didn't even know Her name, yet he felt sorry for Her-for the pain she was going to live through. There was something wrong with his brain, something so terrible that he couldn't see or move his arms. Instead he floated, and dreamed. he imagined he could hear Her voice, speaking to him from afar. he could always feel a slight pressure all around him when he had the bad dreams, and he like to think that She was making an attempt to soothe him.

As time passed, he could feel the problem with his brain spread to his lungs. Instead of peacefully floating and dreaming, he'd kick his feet out and gasp for breath. Instead of feeling Her soothing touch all around him, he began to feel Her pain. In place of the good dreams, he had countless nightmares, of being crushed, falling, and freezing to death. He began to notice She didn't sing anymore.

he kicked the walls, twisted and moved around and around in his floating chamber. his breathing was labored, and he felt like fire ants were stinging his every pore. Suddenly, he felt sick. It felt as if fire were entering him through the feeding tube fused to his navel, and if he could vomit, he would. Instead, he suffered silently and prayed to Her, 

make it stop!

Breathing soon became impossible, because it took more energy to writhe in agony, to pray for mercy, than he could afford to simply pull oxygen into his lungs. And then he felt it-one of his lungs felt like a piece of vacuum-sealed meat, and, like a ship with a hole in the bottom, he began to sink under the weight of liquid flowing into his body.

As the darkness he knew intimately from his sightless eyes became darker, he finally faintly heard Her voice once more:

I am sorry, my love.

The fear he felt as he sunk lower and lower began to mellow into a quiet calm. She had spoken to him, and he could rest peacefully. Then, like a gust of wind picking a dried leaf up from the forest, he heard a pulsating whoosh, before he felt the incredible force of pressure. And his voice finally met his ears as he fell onto the basement floor.

But he wasn't crying, anymore.

Instead, she was crying, as she crawled along the filthy floor to where it lay. she pulled it into her bosom, and rocked back and forth, but it wasn't clear whom she was attempting to soothe. And then she looked up to where He stood, calmly and coolly, in His gory grey scrubs. His ocher hands were slimy with her blood, but He made no attempt to clean them. And as she wailed soundlessly, He lit the end of the cigarette that was tucked behind His ear.

she looked up at Him through the film of tears clouding her unblackened eye, and when the scent of the acrid smoke caressed her nostrils, she whipped her head downward as an expression of shame. The movement of her head caught His attention, making His mask of nonchalance crack slightly. Cold disdain flickered across His face as He scanned the length of her body, and the abomination she was rocking back and forth. Her grimy umber arms were riddled with track marks, and the crisscross of her arms made patterns out of them like an ugly tattoo. her greasy matted hair cascaded to obscure the thing which she had delivered, and spared Him the sight of the baseball-sized head fused to a matchstick neck, bizarrely connecting to arms like flippers.

He took notice of the colourless threads barely connected to her body, and how with every movement of her muscles, they frayed and snapped off her skeletal frame. The guttural and animalistic noises she made affected Him not. The tears streaming from her watery algae eyes cleaned the grime from half of her crooked face, with the twin swollen like an eggplant.

He flicked the cigarette away from him like a fly, and slowly approached where she rocked. He sighed, and sank his fingers into her hair, patting her as if she were a dog. The blood left His hands the longer He touched her, and as He absentmindedly allowed His fingers to trail down to the shock collar around her skinny neck, there were just the sticky remains. His fingers trailed lower, to the chain connecting her to the dirty, faeces-coated floor. His touch was not tender, though. His anger built the longer He touched her.

He didn't take that thing out of her for love, or even guilt. It was her punishment for the way she acted. He had allowed her freedom, and because of her youth and stupidity, she embarrassed Him. Humiliated Him. His teeth clenched in anger, but He had to check the pressure so as not to crack the partial denture in His mouth.

From behind, He loomed over them, watching her clutch the thing to her bosom like the dolls she used to play with. He circled around her, bending His knees and minding the way they creaked and snapped. He took it from her arms, and said simply,

"No."

He walked away from her, and she thrashed against the chain, howling. she could see the glint of metal near the basement stairs He was walking towards.

He lobbied it into the bin as He took his first step.