A Christmas tale to mull over... A conversation with Jack at Christmas. I despise with a passion the Yuletide! To me its like a ravenous riptide that pulls you away into turbulent waters drowning you in superlative triteness, eventually washing ashore spent of all goodwill. Once youve coughed the rancid water from the lungs and crawled up the stony beach over the flotsam of dour, indebted husks, youre into another year of bloody noses and spiteful world events. Yet here it is again, hampering the morning journey with thick frost and forcing out a charitable spirit wrapped in ludicrous festive garb. I am a curmudgeon, I know that! My crepuscular spirit is year-round thanks to the loneliness of my existence. I rattle around this huge house like a marble in a cake tin now that the children have flown the nest and over the oceans and my wife finally succumbed to her accumulated ailments. Its pitiful just how quickly the phone calls stop and the invites dry up like an Australian lake. The Eulogy wafted into the breeze, over the wake and out into the graveyard to settle onto carved words never to be read again past the monotone service. Even the Christmas cards, that once stood like a Great Wall along the mantle and shelves, now cluster and have dwindled to single figures. Still, I have a constant companion here, albeit most unwanted one. You see, before she died, my wife insisted on visiting a medium to find a little peace in passing but what we got was a terrible exchange, taking home a dark spirit that sent the medium into a foaming-mouthed, gibbering fit before we fled as the room burst into flames. That was the day that things dramatically changed at home and she rapidly descended into a wide-eyed mute, covered in mysterious bed sores and prone to horrific choking fits. On the day she died I had gone to the shops to get some soups as she could only manage sips through puffed purple lips set apart from a grey complexion and eyes like corkscrewed coal. When I returned home, the house was being enveloped in swirling gloom whilst all around the late summer sun made the buildings golden yellow. I rushed inside to find everything strewn across the floors like wed been burgled. The stairs were showered with glass shards and all the doors had split down the centre as though cleaved by a huge axe. I managed to get up the stairs and to the bedroom where I discovered her in the corner of the room cloaked in a vile black shadow. She was shaking and rolling across the wall violently until a loud crack signalled a broken neck and a release from the entity that blasted into a fine smoke sinking through the floor and illuminating the room with evening light. I was frozen to the spot for what seemed like hours until I mustered the courage to call for help. The police questioned me but could find no prints or DNA and decided that it was self inflicted during one of her more violent convulsions. And so the warm summer gave way to a blustery autumn and sunk into the icy depths of winter with no sign of the entity that plagued her into an early grave. That was until December 24th and a hard white frost decorated the whole area except for one spot. I arrived home to find the swirling shadow hanging over my bay window like a black sail in a stiff breeze and an overwhelming sense of dread filled my entire body. Had the entity come for me now? I crept up the path, opened the door carefully and slid inside. The house smelled of fresh lilies and it was cold, not winter cold but the occasional icy nip as though a spirit was walking through my body as our paths crossed. I sat in my arm chair and stared at the long drapes in the warm firelight, mustering the courage to invite the apparition to reveal itself and join me and my glass of cognac. The chimes of the grandfather clock passed ten and stopped abruptly as the dark wisps seeped up from the floor and made their way behind the long lined curtains. If you are here to take me to the grave then can we be civilised about it? I blurted out half way through a second glass. It was strange to see the slender fingers appear and grip the curtain edge from behind them and the leather boot protrude from under the hem. Come and sit awhile and we can talk man to man before succumbing to our dark nature The curtain blew backwards and he stepped into the room reminding me of the song Dont fear the Reaper. He was tall, dressed head to in black with a silver tie and cuff links and his eyes bore deep into my humility. Greetings, I am the one they call Jack, The Whitechapel Butcher. In my head I could hear the detuned violins scrape a descending scale as the colour drained from my face. Hello, sir. I am...I am...oh...I... Fright had stolen my name temporarily and he smiled an insidious grey toothed grin under a murderous glint. You are Samuel and your wife was Katherine before she became a burden, a vapid waste of breathing life and a pitiful, slothful ruin. When theyre great in girth, theyre hard to drag but satisfying to expunge...indeed! I stared at the infamous beast letting his words sink in for a second then, with a heavy grunt, I lunged towards him and swung a fist and a glass that smashed into the back of the chair, emerging through a black cloud that reformed swiftly into the beast. If you are smoke then how did you do those terrible things to my wife with such force? I didnt, Samuel, I made suggestions in the dead of night to a long suffering, long since emasculated husband and he obliged willingly. But I saw you destroy her in your smoke state. I was by the door. A glamour, Im afraid, Samuel. What you saw was a reflection from an altered view. This was my fate in London in Whitechapel. I met my dark mentor on Christmas Eve when I finished a surgery on a drunken woman who died at the table holding her childs hand. I saw clearly the misuse of trust and the hollow future for our progeny. After scrubbing the filth from my hands, I sat as we are, by my fire and despaired until he appeared from behind my drapes. He told me of a calling that I have answered and that the photographers flash have woken the world to a monster in the form of man. He showed me the photographs and we revisited the awful scenes as you have. You see, Samuel, we are pawns in their game. Whos game? They are the men that run the modern world by means of the weighty purse and carrion view. They have amassed their wealth by speculation, by deception, by perversion and, in their superiority, they create monsters from good men in the throes of tragedy. They are the dark between the stars with no end to the depths they plumb. And we are their creations. How many have I killed? You are beast of scant mercy that has desecrated the beauty of trust. So many poor souls on the edge of descent to the grave and you are the reaper by proxy. You have doubled my number and added more besides who have dwindled with a broken heart. I am here to end your run and to bestow on you the mantle of dark mentor to the next name plucked from the hat. And by the hat I mean that they use the upturned skull of Adam, the first man, to hold names folded and placed inside. The person who plucks the name is the he that acquires the most wealth that year by means of the largest blood loss. Goodnight to all and to all a goodnight. He reached forward with a slender steel and cut my jugular. Then arose a clatter as the hooves of the hearse carriage horses drew into the room and collected me to be called upon for the next monster created.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:50:30 +0000
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