the flesh of your loved ones

Dear Edgar,

“Ten years ago, on this very day, marked the beginning of a device designed to murder hundreds of millions of innocent souls,” said this man to the eager crowd shuddering in the dark. The air attracts scents of gasoline into the senses of the cold, lifeless figures.

“There will come a day, and soon, that this will be your life. You will leave for work feeling on top of the world, looking just fine in your business suit with your briefcase, and when you leave for work, your wife and children will not see you come home. In fact, they will never see you again.” The old, black man lets his head hang, staring at his shoes. No one believes the content of his words, but trusts fully in his serene, faultless devotion to his speech.

“Our shells will lose the ability to see without electricity, and that will be the first thing to go, driving back from work. You’ll stare intrigued at the telephone wires around you when you feel their impact on your skull. They will begin to drive you into a world where the streets run red with all that can make them run.”

“You will almost feel your soul being ripped from your body as your loved one’s spawn will be ripped from hers. Your children will stand back, taking caution in a nameless fear as the one who sent them into the corruption bleeds from the means of their descent. And, yes sir, while you are torn away, a vehicle will strike yours…”

The freezing people are now whispering to each other, wondering where this man is going, wondering if his words are safe for their children who tug impatiently at their parents' shirts wishing to be home.

“This is when you will die, just a little, but you will turn from your blackness to see that the drivers of the cars around you have been taken away leaving nothing but their blood and their dry skeletal husks. You will find that it is on this day that the beginning will occur. And from now on, you’ll communicate in desiccated heaves and hoarse remnants of language in an alphabet that has been lost with your insides.”

Several of these people have left this man to believe whatever he wishes, denouncing him harshly on the way out. They would rather be out of his presence than pay for their fuel.

“This is the day that you will find nothing in your bank but fire and nothing in your wallet but the pain of those you have deceived all of your life, and you will do nothing but draw your curtain closed and feed on the flesh of your loved ones. That is all you have to eat.”

The attendant at the counter of the gas station steps in valiantly with, “Sir, I think it’s time you leave. These people are just waiting to pay for their gas, they don’t want your doomsday shit.”

The man with beady white eyes looks to him and kindly states, “I haven’t paid for my gas.”

To which the attendant returns, “It’s on me. Out.”

As the old man leaves, he smiles saying, “I feel like I need to leave anyway. Something tells me I don’t belong here.”

And as the old man leaves quietly and people thank the attendant who brags about how he’ll have the man arrested for not paying for his fuel, the world focuses on the “doomsday prophet” trotting away as the electricity on the block returns to life and the gas station erupts into flames behind him.

I’m sure you know what I mean Edgar. I’m at the Scottish Rite. I’ve killed Alexander. I am delivering this message to you through someone I trust. Respond to me Edgar, we must meet.

Sincerely,

Quentin Mitchell