Invasive creature Slithering through unctuous blood Poisoning my system With indigestible venom Blocking arteries Licking nerves Curling into spaces Where no spaces were Like cholesterol This snake at my core Lingers.
The first slice hurts The second less so The third is a pleasure Exposing innards Revealing truths But the snake, this viper Remains untroubled Sliding elsewhere Gliding within Leaving only scales of injustice Behind.
Acceptance is the key Acknowledgment of this other Welcoming the pain Desiring what poisons Not expunging So I sit, run, sleep With my significant friend Saying good morning Bidding good night Until my serpentine deconstruction Ends.
There was no particular difference in our styles. We wrote as we were, evil and worse. Yet, there were discrepancies. Some might have termed them oddities.
Kara had a propensity to exaggerate situations. I had an inclination to err. Only when our shared editor pointed this out did we ourselves notice.
It became a farce, our correcting each other. Soon after, it became more, each desperate to put the other right. Our editor said it didn’t matter. But it did.
I tore up all her notepads. She snapped my pencils in half. I flushed her ink down the toilet. Kara laced mine with something she ought not; she knew I sucked my pen whilst thinking.
I died on a Monday. Kara spoke at my funeral just three days later. I rose from my coffin and laughed when she said how good a husband I’d been. Our editor, now her editor, laughed too.
Kara self-published her book; it was under-appreciated by others and overrated by her. I read it over a person’s shoulder whilst haunting a toilet. Neither the manuscript nor the toilet was clean.
When Kara joined me in the afterlife, we joked about it. Our editor was now God. Neither of us liked what he had to say.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Petals folded, clasped tight No perfume escapes Here, protected from life’s thorns and barbs Cocooned isolationists sleep Dreaming in false colours Of Edens closed and gated Ones milked in moonlight And bathed in ebony shades Shame! If only someone had told them Within the rose all worlds are possible Once we cease to scream
You know when your time’s up by the slowing of your breaths. A blink takes a century, a smile forever, the world around you stalls. Teardrops catch mid-cheek like dewdrops in a web. The blood in your veins turns sluggish and turgid. Your every organ closes down with a malfunctioning sigh. That’s what they say, but that’s not what happened to me.
I hung in the moment as Hell opened and Heaven slammed closed its gates, straining, determined to breathe, convinced of putting words to my madness. Battles raged all around as though I wasn’t there, smiles flitting across faces, scowls more, love, honour, all instants in time. More was lost in those seconds of non-redemption than eternity could hold. Infinity wrapped in a watch face, I crumbled.
That’s what you did to me, when you stole my heart. You killed me with a bullet not shot from a gun. You attacked with a weapon called love, then walked away and left me to die. Kindness, that’s what you murdered me with. I never stood a chance.
I never will.
It was an unfortunate situation, she and I, an overlong affair. We had our good times, or hours, or first moments, which were longer than most. I should have counted myself lucky, really. Honestly, I should. But I didn’t, and neither did she. Shame! After all, she was my mother.
She had no status, no place in this world. She barely had a life. Then again, neither did I.
#
We met one Easter morning and had married by tea in an unorthodox ceremony involving a stray cat who fussed our feet like catnip. It then peed on the floor. We laughed like hyenas. The pastor didn’t. The next day became our anniversary, and the next, and the next. Not a great legacy but something. We all must have something.
We left the city for the coast on an empty bus, a move in direct opposition to the latest trends, and got off at the last stop because the driver made us. He smiled as he did so like a man in the know.
We found a tiny house with a bed, a toilet, a door, and a view. This was all we required. This and each other.
It began soon after.
#
She forgot my name by Halloween and my face by Christmas. My voice went last. Perhaps it reassured her? A somnambulist by day, worse still by night, she wandered. I wandered with her when I could. It was only a matter of time.
#
New Year’s Day. I found her mangled body upon the rocky shore. She’d stepped from the cliffs as though them our lawn, whilst the sea fret tickled her eyelids and vindictive gulls egged her on. I was sad, but not inconsolable.
I buried her deeper than I ought, marking her grave with a simple cross of two bound sticks. There, I scratched the message: To My beloved Wife.
Later, when malicious gossip made the pastor aware of my situation, he visited one gloomy afternoon.
“It’s untitled, anonymous!” he exclaimed.
“What is?” I replied.
“Her grave, man. Her grave!”
“As was she.”
“Because she had no name?” he ventured, calming at my obvious heartbreak.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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