Está no es una historia. Es un simple recuento de mi salud visual. Desde el anuncio que hice sobre el estado de mi vista han pasado unas cuantas horas de espera. Eternizadas por el hecho de que el hospital está en Coyoacán y hay que llegar allí tomando el autobús y luego el metro o el autobús y después el trole. O que, como cualquier hospital, tiene lista de espera hasta para las citas de rutina y entre cita y cita pasa un mes. Así y todo, el problema de ver gris del lado derecho se corrigió con la extracción del cristalino con una FACO y su reemplazo con un IOL. Incluso con el lente intraocular necesitaré lentes toda la vida y ya no seré capaz de ver de cerca como antes, que era capaz de verme los dedos a centímetros de mi nariz. Gracias a esto, habrá Merriam un ratito más. Aprovecho para anunciar que, Crimson Relish —en anglishki y sin traducción al español, ya está a la venta en Gumroad. Les dejo una probadita y EL LINK por si les llama la atención. También pueden colgar el link en sus redes sociales y hablar pestes. ¡Toda publicidad es bienvenida!
CRIMSON RELISH
One (teaser)
Because she owned his essence. It wasn’t just his name for names can be changed. Or his soul either for there ain’t such things as souls. What an individual is, is a bunch of thoughts arranged by a mechanism of delay which gives them the feeling of will; a self to avoid mistaking imagination to reality. She owned his nightmare. She was able to break the limits of self and turn this card into reality. But…what was his nightmare?
—Can I eat your nightmare?
A month, a century, a single quiet moment of afterwards silence, lingering among two shadows riveted against the rumour of the night.
—And my prerogative to deny thus. Thou art too much of a suckling pig. Dearie
His words unrolling from a gilded tongue in a low husky voice, mocking her.
—NOT AS MUCH AS YOU ARE! — She clicked her tongue and thought <<Why the Heavens do I care asking? I should just take it!>> <<Just piss off>>
Her compact shadow shrugged the matter off and jumped down from the two story building’s roof, into the alley. With no one to witness her cat’s landing, except for her partner.
Name? Arisa. Non human. Anoon, to be exact. ¿And what the heck is an Anoon? Too complicated to explain in one go in spite of it being simple: she was a nightmare eater and she lived in a world exactly the same though very different to the one we know.
She had a job. To hunt down every single demon and devil as the only religion of her world, the Faith, stated: to fight against the infidel. Until she herself and her partner would be killed too for being what they were.
Few metres ahead, the prey of that day was too busy playing predator to notice he was being observed; as he was laying on ground his own catch: two young women who had gone out partying, looking out for a routine’s change. And he was already biting one on the neck.
That, that was a big problem. Because her partner was something abnormal among freaks. Seker was a vampire who refused feeding on blood and survived sipping green tea with biscuits so he was hungry all the time. He hated biscuits by the way. Though his stomach wouldn’t hold on to cake.
And thirst had become an ivy jungle in his throat, growing vivacious, to the luscious thick smell of the blood coming from the girls. He stood there, doing nothing, watching or should I say, getting dizzy. Nauseated and overcome with the pang of hunger.
On the other side, she was not wasting time. Her red bangs flashed on the dim light of the moon when she tilted her head to concentrate in the shape-shifter chap. Silver bullets, Holy Water and starvation filled his mind without warning. The most simple of his fears turned into bad dreams as she projected them into his subconscious. For one of her abilities was to show someone’s mind, objects or situations which caused fear. At least enough to make them confounded.
Seker had to calm first to help her now. Slowly he breathed in, out, deeply. Fighting the panic. Recalling what happened when he lost to instincts.
Then, he briskly took out the leather gloves from the interior breast pocket of the raincoat. A bottle green raincoat. Dust to dust. The body of the chap sizzled, decayed and disappeared. As if it had been made of sand and wind had swept it away. The silver thread in between Seker’s fingers smoked off; his face and chest stained red from the blood.
Before it even started to dry, the same way the body had, he cleaned the blood on him, licking himself as cats do. Always immaculate, always neat.
Seker knelt in front of the victims and produced a first aid battle kit. Coagulant and gauze. The bitten one would have to wait for further assistance from the human side of the Mercy’s Army, the unit they belonged to. She lit a bengal and sent it above, to the black skies to pinpoint their location. Communication devices as radios or wires were reserved to humans. Their non human status, forbid them to get even close to one.
The green sparkles kept her attention up, on the sky. Once they’re over, she looked down and her sight caught his fragile yet taut body kneeling, trembling in repentance as he did every night.
—Condone my lust, in Heaven and in Hell, from the Fallen who forgot thy ninety beautiful names. I call your glory, you the almighty…Exert upon this humble servant thy Mercy to return to the true path. I request not salvation but guidance…—His voice was cruel and soft at the same time. His eyes met hers. They filled in sorrow and tears glistened upon his lashes.
Arisa felt it coming. It was bitter and sweet and delicious. A feeling many of us avoid like poison, or seek in order to obtain revenge on enemies. Something that makes us unable to think and spit the worse we might say even to someone we love for it makes us blind. <<Why the Pope should I remorse? Why? Why is he so heavenly fine while?>> She abhorred people praying. <<Handsome!>> <<Beau….>><<Oh! Shut up ourselves!>> Thoughts were running rampart in her mind, voiced by Arisa 1st, Arisa 2nd and Arisan. All shouting and about to nail their eyes out until she bit her lower lip to bleeding.
Calmed down and without further orders or insight tips, she kept herself butt-glued to the edge of the street. Waiting for the medic services, pretending to observe her short nails. Or scratching the many mosquito bites she had gotten due to summer like weather. Or braiding her bangs. Totally inattentive to Seker, who glanced in her direction trying to get her to do something she hadn’t.
Arisa ignored him. She knew what he wanted from her but…she didn’t feel like doing it. She was not going to do it.
This duel of wills was interrupted short by a sudden muffled noise which startled both. Arisa took cover in the shadows. Seker wanted to, but he couldn’t. His hand was applying pressure on the girl’s haemorrhage. He glared and ordered her to go and see what the noise was. Again, she refused to do as told. Perhaps it was just a cat and he was much more suited to cats than her.
Once more, he ordered. She got pissed off but obeyed; following the sound way up for at least four blocks. To her surprise, it was just a very musical shadow singing out of tune and slurring his words:
—So I’ll go to sHeaven and maat them..all virgaens to savour shex…
She walked up to him to enter his unfocused sight. The popular yet illegal song, went under a scared gasp. However, she smiled brightly to reassure the man of her good intentions.
It worked. It made him in his white stained shirt, to think she was one of those houries he had been singing about. He felt…He had expected something more modest, a bit less of a tight black sweat jacket. Perhaps something like a modest white dress. Something…come on…something…innocent.
He smiled back nervous. Arisa made a move, getting out of his sight. The man blinked and wondered if he had had a tad too much of booze. He rubbed his eye. She reappeared, giggling.
—Where do you live?
—Sirla…
—Do you mind if I take you home? —before he said anything, she took his hands and pulled in her direction.
There, in between their bodies, was a tiny crevice of space he anxiously wanted to short. He pushed her onto the closest wall. Error. It had been her who had pulled them both. She put her hands over his belt, kissing him.
—Mercy ought to deal with the waste—said a proud voice in her ear, taking her wrist.
Seker had been able to wake the other girl and made her to play nurse. Arisa growled in frustration watching the man –all alcohol evaporated from his veins-running away. <<How long has it been since I was laid?>> she asked herself.
She shook Seker’s hand off and walked back to the two women. He followed, satisfied he had saved the man from being entertainment. The thirty one minute waiting after, happened in the middle of a silence crunchy enough to physically snap. Both of them waited in hunger. Though, Seker was used to it whilst Arisa felt it was unfair.
