Come back in two halves: (C) The Gamchicoth

[jack_babalon]

Where the angels won't even look down
February 10th, 2007
~Rob M.

"You broke my nose!"

"I didn't break your..."

"YOU BROKE MY NOSE!"

"You're exaggerating."

Adam's kneeling over a puddle his eyes straining to make out a reflection. He cradles his nose with his fingertips and looks as if to be praying or holding back a sneeze. Sarah sits there on the arm of what was once a lime green chair from the living room set from hell. She studies Adam looking for the man she once knew. She finds little except shitted out dreams and suicide magick. Around the circle of light falling from a sizable hole in the rafters the Gamchicoth sit crouched in the darkness watching them. She counts and gets 12 total. Gamchicoth are Qliphothic entities, creatures that were created in the shadow of the Sephiroth, cast into a mockery of existnece by the first act of seperation that preceded/caused the first act of creation.

The Gamchicoth are known as the devourers and they are the husk of the sephirot Chesed. Where as Chesed acts as the fountain of idea and substance in the tree of life, the Devourers feed off what has been wasted: Forgotten ideas, abandoned paintings trapped between sketch and the first strokes of brush, toys that no longer lead into imaginary worlds, the capitulation of dreams to things more practical, odd componets of appliances and half read books snatched from the trash. The Gamchicoth can't exist in our plane unless they have a host. They possess the homeless sometimes and sometimes a Gamchicoth spirit will inhabit the bodies of some of the wealthiest men alive.

"They're here for him." Sarah realizes. Adam's bleeding telepathically. He's flooding the area with the stink of soul death. They're circling his surrender the way sharks circle blood in the water. He doesn't even see them.

"Well at least I stopped bleeding." He straightens himself up

"I didn't hit you that hard... you know I never got that about you."

"What?"

"You used to run with all these bad ass characters, you've been in the scene since I was in Junior High..."

"I'm not that old."

"And you're a coke dealer for chrissakes. So how is it that you fight like Morrissey with the flu?"

Adam looks pissed. He tenses up, then just as quickly melts into a smirk. He answers her question with a shrug. Sarah just shakes her head in exasperation. She lights up a smoke, catches an expectant look, offers one and a light.

"So... you never answered my question."

"Never isn't up yet."

"Cute, but c'mon."

"'Why'd I leave you'?"

Now it's her turn to shrug. She sees that he won't let this go. That was always his problem. He has no sense of what he should give up on and what he should be willing to fight for.

"When I first met you you were so..." she looks for the word "Tense. In a good way. Electric. You were cocky, funny and the magick, oh you could see it burning off you a hundred feet away. Watching you in the pit that night, bouncing off skinheads twice your size, screaming the lyrics along, your chakras spinning like fireworks... heh, you were hard not to notice. I kept asking myself what you were doing with that bitch Trish..."

"Who?" Adam breaks the spell. Sarah looks up at him. She can't believe his bullshit sometimes. They just stare at each other waiting for the other to say something. That's when she sees it. In the eyes. 'He really doesn't know.'

"Some skank you were seeing before we met."

"What did you say her name was again?"

"I didn't." she says the words at the right frequency. They sink into Adam and coats his question in a light amnesia haze.

"So I just knew then that I was going to have you." She speaks quick, letting her voice reimprint over his short term memory. "That first night, remember?"

"Yeah." he chuckles more to himself than her.

"We got naked, cranked up the stereo, did a massive amount of blow and had mad monkey sex in a magick circle you spray painted. On my floor I might add!"

"I don't recall any complaints."

"That's the only the reason you're still alive. I lost my deposit and they say they still can't rent the apartment out because people keep seeing the echo of our ghosts that night."

"Shit...they should sell tickets."

"Modest as always."

"Well what happened then?"

"Phhhh... it was like drugs, Adam. You gotta give them up when they stop being fun."

Adam doesn't respond. He doesn't know how. It's as if each instinct to storm out, pound his fist into the wall and start crying are fighting each other for domination.

"Don't get me wrong. The first two months were some of the best in my life. And you know i've had quite a life. We hopped freight trains and made love. We called down strange gods to 'ride' our bodies and... wow. We went to shows, we went out clubbing, we went to parties with all those mad bastards you used to hang out with. Then..." She trails off. The light drains from her face into resignation.

"Then?" Adam pushes the word at her.

"Then something happened. You changed."

"I fell in love with you."

She looks back up at him. He really believes that. Hell knowing him it's propably true. 'Oh Adam... you poor pathetic bastard.'

"Then I feel sorry for you."

"Why?"

"Because then all 'love' means to you is me sitting there on the couch while you played video games all night. It meant renting a movie instead of us going out unless I was accompaning you on one of your 'deals'. Your love got fat Adam, it got fat and then it got ugly. You started getting paranoid. You started worrying about me when i'd go out with my friends. You got jealous and why? Because you knew you were getting boring but were to lazy to do anything about it."

"Oh fuck you... that is so not true. What, Sarah? What did you want me to do?"

"Be the man I met that first night."

There's nothing left to say. There never is when something most definetly needs to be. Adam stands there. This time he doesn't want to cry or punch or scream or run. He just wants to go back. He just wants the spell to never end. But it's too late. It is the one trick he has yet to learn.

A few minutes pass. The Gamchicoth are no longer merely restless. They move in closer, hungry for the intoxicating pain that Adam is radiating. The pain of realizing that you have wasted the most wonderful thing of all: The chance to be the man you are when you were that man.