Tours of the Black Clock

125

ON MY APPROACH, I’M surprised at how dark it’s become. I stream farther into her, looking for the light of her beach; I can only discern the outline of the thing that fills her. Even I didn’t expect it would become this consuming. The larva’s now so large as to block out everything, and my way to the cove of her womb is obstructed by it. For a moment I regret everything. For a moment I forget the smell from which I’ve made this thing inside her is the smell of his evil, rather I confuse it with my own infidelity. Until I make myself remember Megan and Courtney, there’s a moment when I forget my resolve to sacrifice whatever redemption might be left in the world for their revenge; and my memory is owned by the nights in Vienna I loved you. I turn back and desperately retreat. Someone calls out: is it he or I? “Geli.”

Dania screams. She sits upright in her bed which is soaked with sweat. Across the street she can hear the voices of the tourists in the tavern; she looks at the clock. It’s past midnight. She can’t be sure at this moment what it is that’s made her cry out, it could have been any one of a number of things. It could have been the convulsion, only one of many, of whatever’s inside her; she presses her hands to her stomach. It could have been the dream, only one of many, of giving birth to a monster; she shakes her head clear of its image. She suspects, however, it’s neither of these that’s made her scream: she believes it was the voice calling her by the name she will not accept. She stumbles from the bed to throw up yet again, long past the time for throwing up; this is now her eighth month. I’m not fighting hard enough, she fears; she would reach down into herself if she could, and struggle with it hand to hand, and make it her own. Her will wanders desperately looking for a weapon.