The Malevolent One – Part Two
New Fiction Stories
The decapitated head of the woman dangles lifelessly. A metal pole shoved up her neck where her spine normally would be keeps her suspended in the air. Her face represents a false facade of calm, her lips are sealed. Her skin looks smooth — almost porcelain — with its serene texture. The ears on either side of her cranium do not stick out in any way; in fact, they seem to be attached completely to her skull, earflap and all. Her eyes and nose, however, are the most horrifying aspects of the woman’s limited anatomy. The woman’s eyes stare upward toward the heavens in a penetrating gaze, almost as if in her final moments were spent praying to an iniquitous God who either didn’t notice or care enough to intervene in her life. The most frightening part of the woman would have to be her nose — or lack thereof. She must have put up a struggle before death because it was lopped unevenly off, a rather harsh punishment for stealing a rotting mold infested chunk of bread. Where her nose once was now remained a jagged slice. Because of her wound, Joe was offered the sight of her nostrils and the beginning of the woman’s nasal canal. She was a revolting image but Joe couldn’t help to sway off the irrefutable lust he felt toward her. He wanted to touch her head, her smooth delicate broken skull. He lifted his arm and it began to tremble with the anticipation. He was only a mere precious centimeters away from poking the crater in the middle of the woman’s petrified face when a force from besides him struck out and throttled his wrist, violently pulling it down and away.
“Sir,” said a husk of a man with a fragile, high-pitched voice. He wore a jacket of a rich night ebony with corresponding trousers. Around his throat he had a rather cheap-looking purple tie that had a pattern of books swirling all about it.
“Please,” he said. “You or any of our other visitors are not allowed to place any part of yourself onto the artwork. If you fail to follow these rules, I will have to summon security to remove you. Is that understood?”
For only a moment, Joe allowed himself to feel chastised and embarrassed. The large, almost well-dressed man had spoken down to him, causing Joe to feel like a child once again. But the shame died down quickly as the rage stewed within his gut and manifested in his thoughts. With his stormy gray eyes, Joe scanned the fat man from head to toe letting his anger boil into a steam that begged to be discharged. Joe tore his wrist from the stranger’s grasp without much effort and squared his shoulders, making them parallel to the idiotic man huffing and puffing besides him.
What would be the most imposing way to disarm the situation, get what I want and send this fool off blubbering like the day he was born? Hmmm, well, first off, I could attack his being drastically overweight and obese. Maybe suggesting he roll his tub of a body down a flight of stairs. That would be pretty great but no, that is the obvious route and he has probably gotten used to that sort of childish mocking. I mean, look at him — if I was a child again in his elementary school class, I would have made his life a living Hell. Fuck, the thought of flaying his gratuitous blubber has me nearly orgasmic right now. No, maybe the best course of action would be to insult his manhood and pride. What does he do here working at a museum? He’s most likely some low-life office administrator. Whatever he does here, it couldn’t possibly warrant that substantial of a paycheck.
As Joe was about to go into this insult, he held himself back once again.
(em>I need to say something so cruel and sadistic that this sad sap suffers from more than just mental trauma. I want whatever lowly psychiatrist he could to afford to jump off a bridge because even they couldn’t handle what I said to this man. Joe looked upwards and observed the impaled marble statue in the identical fixed stare. I’m going to threaten his life. Let’s see, does he have a ring? Yep. Now I’m going to imply that this man used to be much skinnier before than he is now because in this condition, who would possibly want to even lay a finger on him. So when he got his sure-to-be-miserable wife pregnant he probably gained a lot of sympathy weight, thinking, ‘You know what? I’ll lose it later,’ but never did. So this man would more than likely lose control if I mentioned his wife or children at all.
Joe relaxed his shoulders and was about to lay into the man, claiming he knew where he lived and how he would force the fat man to watch as Joe excoriated skin from his children and threw them in a pit of salt.
“They wouldn’t die quickly,” Joe would say, telling the enormous man that they would suffer long, tedious deaths without respite. Joe would claim that he never would be caught because he was too smart and well-connected to be captured and sent to jail. But before he had the opportunity to threaten anything but the meekest gasp of a word, Joe heard a resounding voice boom from behind him. The voice belonged to someone Joe was quite fairly familiar with. Especially considering that it was owned by his father.
next: The Malevolent One – Part Three
previous: The Malevolent One – Part One
more by FRANCISCO LEYVA
photograph by Daria Nepriakhina
