[thisislife]

Do you know what day it is? It’s my birthday. And this series has worked out wonderfully well for ending on this date (the eighth part on the eighth day of the eighth month!). So, here is the final portion of the writing, as well as a link to the whole work. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

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Go down, south, deep into the ground until the tips of the flames can feel your boots all black and blue like blistered feet; you will find him there. Tell him to give it back — all that which he took from me. Had he let him in? He was at the door now. Sidestepping through the house. Go down. The man could feel his soul draining in slipping wavers of whirling whitehead wicked little whips – surge forth, and be beat back no more! – the lot of it swirling off into his brother’s waiting throat, licking, lapping, suckling at the hint of a breath. He lowered himself. The skin of it was overwhelming. “Brother.” I can still feel the thick of it. So many sharpened smiles before he lowered himself and the man receded down, down, into the root of his poison, and slipped through himself, and was swallowed, still writhing, down his brother’s greedy throat which bulged as a snake’s and gulped at the little trails of soul that still tied the man to his lips. I let him in. He was at the door now. Walking through the house. Curling through the creaks. Lower. He fed. “Be calm.” He was here. “Brother.” Spit-trails gleaming in the half-light. The man’s soul streaming away in gobs. The grimace of a brother’s smile. The animal indulgence. The satisfaction. He was walking through the house. The lash-break driven nature. Leaning over the bed. The man could see it blossoming in his eyes. He was standing at the door now. Lowering himself now. The man could see it blooming. The skin of it.

The gasp of it.