Curtains

He remembered the way the curtains fluttered; every undulant ripple searing reminiscence amongst the synapses. He noted the sultry curl of the fabric, the slight colony of dust motes gyrating in the sunlight. He heard Ephraim cry out in the distance, some hazy dissonance reverberating against the window pane. Pulling aside the veil, he gazed rapturously at the reflection peering back. It never made sense. The eyes twining his looked like foreign soldiers about to die.

He could feel the death rattles rollicking around his skull. Somewhere Ephraim would be waiting in reprobatroy grace. Floundering around, time felt like a fresh jugular cut. He noted a certain lethality in people’s gait---an unrestrained violence fiending to escape. Without particular care he realized the room was ominously crowded. Bodies pulsated in sweaty exuberance. He felt the united plight of synchronized beating. It was like a bloodlust building to frenzy.

An insatiable thought began to germinate. Before fruition became a dream, Ephraim arrived. Ephraim exuded the type of calm that was necessary in world disasters. There was an eternal coldness in his gaze, a prison of emotion that remained caged. To shake his hand was to embrace the fleeting moments before death---an urgent struggle coupled with resigned finality. If you were a perfect stranger you would think Ephraim was capable of either terrific violence or rampant altruism. The reality blurred in the in-between.

The handshake was the sign. What proceeded next were perfectly executed acts of wild violence. At this point he stopped noticing the little details. His hands became busy ending life.

Ephraim left him to oversee the cleanup. His mind began regressing into more stable temperatures. Equilibrium’s hard to find in the aftermath of genocide. Squelching across the viscera he once again arrives at the curtains. They resemble kindergarten smocks the day they painted stop signs.