After Stasis #6

“You don’t have to break the door, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He crossed the unkempt lawn with the slow easy steps of the weary, the swagger of those who had seen too much yet had understood too little, the drudge of ancients drunk with disdain for having lived thru what they perceive as eternity but is a mere blink for older gods. The muffled clump and thump of a heavy foot placed in front of the other that crushed the grass underneath said it all as Fat Johann approached.

His hands and mouth were clean of blood. The remains of his captors swarming with fat, electric-blue flies were nowhere in sight.I would have been surprised to find him in such manner with which he suddenly manifested that night, had I known him to be cast from the same mold as Old Vincent, Marcus or you. But Fat Johann had long given up the old ways for reasons none of us bothered to know, though I doubt he would bother to answer when asked. What stuck me odd was the way he regarded me, as if he had been expecting my violation; that his disappearance was a hoax, a cheap ruse to lure me somewhere isolated...Then on cue, like on any B Movie, his minions- Arya’s faithful- would reveal themselves; armed to the teeth and would surround me, eyes burning with malice. Then Fat Johann would disclose just how much he hated life in general so everybody else must die before he and his underlings commits seppuku and that the only ones standing in his way would be the coven. And then Arya herself would step out from behind me and say that after tonight the coven would be no more and that she has long been looking forward to feed your intestines on a stick. Then since I am not in man shape, I could not reply with some sort of witty, heroic retort that borders along fuck-you-and-the-cunt-you-popped-out-of without having to offend the MTRCB. So instead I will just growl defiantly (camera zooms in to my curled lips to reveal the fangs of fury), then with a howl that will echo across the night, pounce on the closet extra paid to take the first fall.

Of course, reality can be more languid than what passes for entertainment to the masses, if it has the mind to do so.

Lowering my head between shoulder blades, I readied for anything unexpected. I could almost hear you at the back of my head reminding me that ours was trade where you live by your decisions and die by your mistakes. Instinctively, my nostrils flared and my ears flattened. Fat Johann was but two or three paces from me without breaking stride.

“We are alone here, Ned.” he said with the same deadpan expression his face had hardened to as far as memory could take me. “You can stay as you are, if you find it more comfortable… Come to think of it, it’s better that way,since I've never known you to be much of a conversationalist.”