as quoting Whizzer Brown "I believe the correct tense is hanged"
Whisps of winter air are cold and viscous, biting and taught. Towers of ivory and gold scrape the sky, somehow making the pretence of sunlight feel real. Shadows made of glass, frosted window panes painting the perfect picture in the skyline, reflecting back the natural beauty.
Rainwater collecting along gutters and window sills, pooling into irregular shapes. Scratchy carpets that feel like home under bare feet, stones trapped between toes as you shuffle for your apartment with wet hair dripping down your neck.
A young man’s blood, thick and dark as it runs down a pavement, diluting with the rainwater, washing away as though it were never there. Just like his life, too young to leave a legacy.
The peaceful smiles left on dead men’s faces from where they never saw it coming.
A mother’s wail, a loud cry, a hint of thunder in the sky. The panicked sound of dead men walking, the threat of violence constantly approaching. A father’s groan as he stands in shock, his heart aching, beginning to rot.
Rocking their son in their arms, as they try and whisper their goodbyes through tearstained eyes.
He’s a romantic.
He’s a poet.
What’s more romantic than death?
Shiny gold was all he could piece together as he nursed his drink in trembling hands. Reliving the ghost of recognition on their face as their eyes met.
“Rough night?” a man with teeth as straight as the bar asked, his eyes sparkling with an unknown, raw emotion he had never seen before. Familiarity.
Pretty boy. Very pretty boy with almond shaped eyes and hazel hair that fell over his forehead.
Dark bags dragged his eyes down as he looked up, “ My- my son was killed.” He whispered, fears spilt into hoarse moans peppered between clutches of his head and face tensing in pain.
The stranger didn’t flinch nor react, instead listened to the singing of late-night traffic outside, cars piling into rows straighter than he was. “A simple yes would’ve sufficed.” He muttered, saluting to the bartender as golden liquid turning ruby in low lights was slid across to him. The ruby liquid slipped silkily down his throat, replenishing his morality with a satisfied sigh. “I planned on getting laid.”
His eyes glossed over as he copied the pretty boy’s motion. “Planned?”
“I’m still here am I not?” he responded, expression sharper than ice cubes crushed between anxious teeth.
The man brought a wallet from bundles of layers, dark stains residing where he had embraced his son a final time. Crisps notes gentle as angel wings are passed across the sticky wood.
Pretty boy straightens up as he sees the untouched cash left in the leather lined purse, “Say, do I recognise you mister?” he asked, a shroud of boredom surrounding him, trying to seem disinterested.
“Marvin Feldman, New York City’s mayor.” He replies, outstretching a shaking hand. It’s caked in dark red crusting blood.
Pretty boy stares at the hand, so small and inconsiderate. “Whizzer Brown.” Was his only response, swilling his drink so the ice cubes created waves similar to those that engulfed the titanic. “You’ve got a little something—” he brought a finger to parched lips, grazing it over teeth. He slowly went to touch the mayors cheek, feeling the blotchy, red skin beneath his thumb as he wiped a speckle of blood away.
A speckle from where an explosion of his son’s head caved in and burst like a watermelon.
Thick tears fell from the mayors eyes as his face relaxed into the pretty boys hand, as though he were Atlas holding up the heavens. He was broken, shattered into tiny inconsolable pieces as he wept silently for his loss.
“Where’s your wife mister Mayor?” pretty boy asked, taking a glance to his right, words light like fairy wings.
He choked back a sob, a bitter sob that swelled from his stomach like the water rising in a well. “Dead.” He whispered. He wept into his glass, the golden glow of the liquid turning salty with tears. “S-she h-hung herself.”
Pretty boy reaches into his thin jacket pocket, spare change clinking against something else of the metal standard. “I believe the correct tense is hanged.” He produces a thin foil film, unwrapping with nimble fingers. They are feminine, they too are pretty. He pops pills out with well-kept nails, the tiniest hint of dry blood collecting beneath them. The smell of peaches waft from him, an unusual smell, not a bad one, but sweet yet deceiving. He holds out his hand, two pills residing in his palm.
He takes a double glance at the tiny blue capsules.
“Just aspirin mister Mayor, I have the feeling you’ll need it.” pretty boy says as though he can read his mind.
Slowly the Mayor reached towards the pretty boy, his face blurring and softening. “You look like an angel—” he whispered, the warm lighting creating an angelic halo above the pretty boys head if only for a moment before he swayed out of focus again, “are you here to take me too?” he was on the verge of begging for the grim reaper to take him.
The pretty boy chuckled, a high and melodic sound like wind chimes on a front porch on a blissful summers day, “We both know it would be the devil taking you.” He responded, “and lucky for you, I am one.” Pretty boy turned back to his drink, wetting his finger in the chilled liquid, the condensation blurring it, “People always think Lucifer will be ugly, uglier than life itself. With grating horns and matted fur, with tails made of whips and snakes, with hundreds of teeth sharper than diamond.” Dribbles of the liquid dripped down his finger as he shook it, the illusion being formed of blood tainting his scotch, “But people neglect to remember that Lucifer was a fallen angel who cut off his wings in the scorching sand.” Delicately he ran his finger around the ring of the glass and suddenly it came to life, humming quietly, “The devil is more charming and more encapsulating than any angel will ever be, because he has felt pain, because he doesn’t belong, because he knows your darkest desire.”
The pretty boy stopped, wiping the absentminded upturned thin-lipped smile from his face. He drank. The ice cubes fall forward onto his face, but he doesn’t flinch.
The cold is his home.
He stands a single pill on the splintered wood, the refraction of light turning it a muddy brown. Pretty boy looks at the mayor again, eyes dragging first and foremost to his icy cold pupils. Wintery blue, the colour of the sky as it meets the ocean’s horizon. Bloodshot and piercing yet murky. He languishes in the cold.
The cold is his home.
The Mayor cracks his knuckles, empty pops filling the space between them.
Pretty boy’s fingers dance down his jacket as he creates the illusion of a fresh iron and stops as he reaches his waist, looking up to him, “Mind paying for mine sir?” he asks, the teeth returning in a chilling smile. The smile itself isn’t chilling, the smile is heart-warming, sweet, and genuine, but his eyes don’t crinkle, his eyes stay still and emotionless.
The mayor swallows, Adams apple bobbing up. It seems large against his thin, veiny neck. It stays raised as he stays on the precipice of crying. He nods and the pretty boy gets up to leave.
His hands seem to gravitate instantly to his pockets, but the mayor reaches out, his hand looping in to the crook of his elbow, feeling how silky smooth the flowing fabric is beneath his rough paw. Not what he expects.
Pretty boy spins around instantly and the mayor catches a glimpse of the glinting metal on his knuckles before they’re stuffed frantically into pockets, first signs of emotion showing on his empty face. There’s a loud metallic noise, like the sound of a sword drawn from its hilt, and the mayor draws his hand back as though the pretty boy is made of fire. “Sorry—” his apologies are sincere, not what the pretty boy expects “I know you’re with them. Tell them… tell them I’ll have it, soon, tomorrow. I just want- need sleep. Tell them I’ll never cross them again.”
The mayor thinks he is lucky that he bumped into Whizzer Brown instead of the others that had been following him, the big burly men capable of squeezing the life out of him with their bare hands without a flicker of emotion.
Whizzer Brown leaves with a lump in his throat, pocketing the poisoned aspirin without a second thought.
Broken men stand like crumpled paper.
Broken men have nothing to live for.
It’s no fun killing a broken man, instead it feels like euthanising, that’s what Whizzer Brown tells himself. But Whizzer Brown is a romantic, and Whizzer Brown couldn’t help but feel a quickening in his heart as the mayor told him he looked like an angel.
In the city that never sleeps, there’s no such thing as darkness.
Except for the darkness in one’s soul.
Except for the darkness that hides in the corner of one’s eyes.
When you’re all dark, sometimes it’s refreshing for someone to tell you, that you could have deceived them into believing you are light.
Whizzer Brown trudged home, guilt nauseating and playing tricks on him as in every corner he saw the dead, their faces beginning to blur as the number climbed frantically.
37, 38 and 39 tonight. Not including the mayors wife.
40 as the he approaches his door with the uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. 40 as his heart stops and his eyes catch the tiny drop of blood as clear as day on the white skirting. 40 as he sees the man sat in the arm chair in his apartment in the dark. 40 as a single shot is received to his head and he slumps to the floor. Fuck. Whizzer Brown turned the lights on to see the body. Fuck.
More will follow, just because he couldn’t bring himself to kill that damned man with the almost curly hair, but not quite, the man who asked him if he were an angel, the man who saw his wife and son die in front of him in one night, the man who will wake up tomorrow having forgotten ever met Whizzer.
If Whizzer Brown was one thing, Whizzer Brown was screwed.