The Lamia Wish

The Wish

Before I tell you this, can you scoot over and promise me something? Don’t ever tell anybody about this because they are still looking for me. And it will never stop. Their thirst for it. The hunt is still on and the traps are still set but I won’t let them drag me back there again. It's just it's been five years since the clearing and I wake every morning and it's in my brain first thing, along with the sweats. Why is it every day that I feel the pain? The headaches that never stop. The bounty is all on my head now. But, I’m noone’s afterlife insurance premium payment if I can help it and I never told anybody the real story. About when they found me, when there was nothing left but my clothes. Sometimes I don’t sleep at all now. They found me piece by piece after that. It is said that there are strangers that threaten us and I’m not sure those people even know what they mean. In the building with no windows, they preached that they were here to rise and save us from ourselves. But it was all a lie. If they tell you that, don’t believe them. Heaven is the opposite way and the first thing they will do is take your toes so you can’t run. 

Do you want a sip from my flash before I go on? Are you sure? Oh, yeah, right. Covid. Frickin’ Chinese Wuhan Manbee Jahambee. Anyway, it was a rainy, sultry night the last time one found me. So tired from sleeping through the day, I heard him faintly when he called out to me at dusk. I don’t remember the words but I felt the rise inside me. It was just like the tone in my fathers voice. My family was already gone at that point. They had all just wanted it more than me and had paid the bill but I wasn’t ready to go yet. Because they made me, they thought my soul was theirs to barter with, but I fought back. “Surrender what I need and cradle my inner child”, I said. “With every sacrifice you get higher," they said. “Submit and be saved”, they said and it would wash the sin all away. I’ll tell you honestly, salvation may not have a price tag, but my family had a “for sale” sign around its neck like a truck stop. The collective consciousness of the synapses between us dissolved into a pile of jack squat. Is your kin religious? Yeah, well, you may know this then, but identity fusion is a scary way to run a family. All become one. Now they're gone and I’m the one left. 

Is your dad still alive? Oh, sorry. My dad was the first to go if you can believe that. Even at his best he wasn't half of me. A true beta at heart, he really just wanted to be told what to do. That's why they took him first when we came face to face with the enemy. And they had to really. He was our leader and so it was easier to dismantle us with him gone. He was always a sucker but had no right to sell my soul. That is my affair. And if it is truly ashes to ashes and dust to dust, with what functioning nervous system will I sense this promised afterlife. If thermodynamics is true, they will have none of me. But, Dad didn’t care about logic. He wanted the promise of identity more. His dad dying at 16 turned him inside out. He spiraled, and baited, and created, and then submitted. I know it ate him up inside. The punishment is death for all who live, he said. The disease needed a cure and no one ever saw it coming, they said. Give me a reason to pray for you, daddy. 

What do you do? I been talking so much. Really? Does that pay well? Dentist, huh? Guess it sucks a lot of people don't have teeth anymore. The government really screwed us when they let that South African take the reins. Crapping our pants and teeth falling out. What next huh? Yeah, your right, they should sell tickets. Crazy, I know, right? Ok, well, I’ll tell you the rest. 

Brother was next as he was still in training and learning the ropes. They wanted him badly but he had other plans. I miss him and always thought we would have time to talk it all out but no more. He was a foot taller than me and real serious. Used to pick on me and make fun of me but I guess that's natural. I was smaller. He was the golden child and the shock came hard when he found out what Dad had done. When he took his life, I heard a howl on the horizon calling my name like chanting. It was like an advertisement that I was now worth more. The only child. The contract would attract more of them and everybody was hungry. The infection had tainted a lot of the herd. 

Mother was last. Not because she was a fighter but because she never really cared in the first place. Broken, yet unspoken, she went voluntarily to the circus. I just remember screaming and the fall of a femme fatale. I can’t talk about my mother.

What about me?

My destiny was cast and before I knew of the crime it was all too late. There is a certain inertia in a family when the parents simply don’t give a crap. About literally anything. The children are left to bear the burden of growing and developing without fertile soil to grow in. It is the demons of creation that come out of the silent planet that are the threat and if you have seen this too, it is not our best selves, children of the damned, but we are adequate and prepared for the fight. Because someone has too. They tell you life’s a carousel, Heaven and Hell, but there's more to it than that. There's something in the middle where there is not living and not dead. A soul sold yet unclaimed is still free. For five years I have been hiding in the shadows, like a hunted hound. Running from our blood dynasty. I know what they sound like. Slithering, hissing, kissing, promising. But the angel's heart is rotten to the core and I'm only at home on the run now. Stay on the highway out of yesterday is my philosophy and keep moving and talking so the dead silence doesn’t overwhelm me. I wish we’d never moved to Fairfax in the first place. Wait. sssshhhhh. Did you hear that? I need to go now so don’t follow me because I don’t trust you. If I have you, forever we’ll live. Everyone can turn, even you, but in the end, who doesn’t?