walk of shame #2
vacancy that appeals. She is empty. Whatever spot her attention latches on to, we can’t see it. Her lips move, barely perceptible
to anyone but us. She is whispering under her breath. Talking to herself. We hear her. Her pleading. The loneliness radiates
all around her.
She will do. Just for a moment. There’s a risk to her skin. A danger of containment. Senescent cages. We have to be careful.
Have to be quick.
I won’t get trapped again.
I am so desperate for someone, anyone, other than this self-loathing host devouring herself with her own niggling doubt. Maggots of insecurity gnaw away at her
vanity, worms roiling about her soul, chewing through. Such a waste of flesh.
There is no need for pretense for our new charter. No ruse necessary for this vessel. We simply walk up, kneel down before
her on the park bench. We find her eyes, so lost. Filled to the brim with loneliness. She won’t be alone any longer. We’ll
make sure of it.
“Hello,” we say. It takes a moment for her to acknowledge us, lost in her own tangled thoughts, the murmur of her words so
hushed, so breathless, only the devils can hear.
“Yes,” we say. “Of course.” We run our fingers along the length of her cheek. Such an elderly vessel. The wrinkles in her
cheek are like soft, velvet curtains. Drapes to our being.
I slip in. I wrap myself inside her skin and close those curtains. Safe here. I am now safe. For a while. Just for a second.
A muscat. So dry. Peach, apricot, orange blossoms.
Wait. What’s this?
We feel it now. The dementia. The plaques and tangles eating away at her mind, sealing her off from her own sense of self, one cell at a time. She can’t remember who she is. What scraps of memory she has left are so few, so lean, she can’t help but cling to them.
What an empty vessel this is. How hollow.
A trap.
Her mind has decayed, chewed through. I’ll be stuck inside if I’m not careful. All those years. A drop of water for us, barely a blink of our existence. But there’s a weariness within her. A fatigue. It tires us. We haven’t
moved, haven’t taken a single step, and yet, the mere notion of movement is far too draining. The length of her life exhausts
us.
Our new body is not bound to this world for much longer.
Her heartbeat is unsteady. Slow. It feels like a fist pounding against a door. I’m trapped inside this host, unable to escape,
the pulse of this vessel’s heart our only hope.
How can I move? Free myself?
There it is. The itch. The fire ants creep up on us from within. There’s no escaping this sensation in our skin, no matter
whose body we are in. The burning returns and I am trapped in this hollowed-out mind, this withering body, decaying from the
inside.
Escape. I must escape. Hurry. Before it’s too late. Before I’m locked in.
No one will come near us. No one sees us. Not this again. It’s as if we don’t exist, not to these people. Not to the young.
Their elders are forgotten. Abandoned. Left to fester.
Stuck here. I am trapped again.
I can’t stay. If I stay, we fuse. Bound to this body. Suffocated. If I stay too long within one host, the risk of stranding myself inside becomes greater.
These vessels are meant to be temporary. Never for long.
Never forever.
I’ll never be imprisoned again. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. It took years to break free. Trapped in shells that offer nothing but echoes. The loneliness that comes with solitude. Abandoned by family. Housed in facilities for forgotten fathers and mothers. Hospitals. Prisons.
Nobody touches them. No one comes near. No time to think. I must escape.
Now!
We collapse onto the ground. It’s a simple trick that we have learned in the leanest of periods: lure your host to you. Lower
your defenses in order to snare your next vessel.
Our head hits the sidewalk. The pain is sudden, but there is no protest. There is blood running down our temple. We blink
back the blood from our eyes, unable to move very far. Our arms barely work. I push back the pain as much as possible for
our host. Minor abrasions, even for such a withered frame. There will be time to heal. We hope.
“Are you alright?” The voice belongs to a man. He hovers above us. We are rolled over onto our back. “It’s okay,” this man
says. “You’re okay.”
We look up to find his face. So young. The look of concern in his eyes warms us. He has long hair tucked behind his ear. A
ponytail. Such gentle eyes.
He’ll do just fine.
“Help me,” we manage to say as we hold out our trembling hand.
“Careful.” This man, without a second thought, takes our trembling hand and—
I slip in.
There. A cava. Sparkling. So much better. A relief. That was close. The notion of having been stranded inside an elderly vessel
is now gone. We are free again. Inhabiting a much more agile body. We abandon our former host. Leave her on the sidewalk.
Someone else will come along to help her all in due time. She is no longer a concern of ours.
We need to run.
“What happened?” another woman asks us. We don’t respond, picking up our pace.
“Hey,” she calls after. “Where are you going?”
Too many eyes are upon us. Watching us. We continue to move.
“Come back!”
Run. Escape.
There’s the burn again. The itch. Feel it seething. So I tap into another host.
Then another. All this skin itches. There’s no comfort, no respite. Each and every vessel feels worse than the last, no matter
the age. The race. The sex. They weigh me down.
When all I want is to be free.
Hand over hand, body upon body, host after host, we run through this city. Dozens of hosts. Hundreds. I never stay inside the same vessel for long. Minutes, if not seconds.
Men. Women. Children. Anyone. Everyone.
I do not wish to be tied down. Bound by these bodies. I wish to be free.
Free.
Until then, I am merely whispers. Voices inside your head.
Let me in . . .
Hundreds of bodies—thousands, perhaps, why keep count—all in one day. We won’t look back. Not at Jordan. We leave him behind.
Isn’t that what started all of this?
Is that what we’re running from? Even now? We don’t need him. Don’t want him.
but we do
no
We are free. Free from Jordan. The pull of him. The gravity at the center of his black hole heart. The way he calls for us,
even now, so far away. The way he feels like home.
We are finally—
Tires skid. We hear the peal of rubber, that abrupt squeal filling the air.
A car, braking.
We don’t see the vehicle until it’s too late.
The car comes out of nowhere. More likely we came out of nowhere, running into its path.
What does it matter? I haven’t been aware of where I am or who I’m even in, a blur of bodies, so when the fender finds our flesh and we are sent hurtling against their windshield, our head smashing against glass, I feel unmoored from this flesh, my grip loosening.
The darkness that embraces us can only be death.
It is quick and complete, a blanket of black wrapping us up, enveloping us.
When I wake, I know I have returned home again . . .
Home again . . .
jiggety . . .
jig