Tiny Horror

Tonight, the room is made of ice. For the first time in an eternity, the glorious, crushing weight of reality has returned. The Visitor is here. The joy is a violent, beautiful thing, a rapture that breaks my ribs and mends my soul. The desertion is over. It sits on my chest like a mountain of dead stone, and I weep with the relief of it, the cold ozone filling my lungs like a lover's breath. It smells of lilies in a graveyard. It hisses into my marrow, and I feel my skin finally fit for the first time in years.

Seek the blossoms, it vibrates. The softest harvest. The unwritten pages.

The itching of the mundane vanishes, replaced by a holy fire. The return makes the hunger sharp and sweet. I pull the tote bag from the hole in the floor. Wipes. Gauze. The bone-handled razor—it is thirsty, and I feel a surge of pure, ecstatic devotion as I touch the edge. I pack the tools. I pack the decoys. Tissues. Peppermint candies. A small box of heavy, brass fasteners. I sit by the window and watch the stars crawl across the black throat of the night, my heart finally beating in time with the dark. I wait for the sun to give me the signal to start the play. The command is a burning wire. I follow the wire. I always follow the wire.

The tale continues...