Closure

By Joshua Diabo

The phone rang and rocked in its cradle, like a chorus of angry wasps attacking my eardrums.

I did all I could to resist. The pain surpassed any threshold I had envisioned myself possessing. So proud. I was no longer that man I swore I would kill and leave buried.

I answered the phone to silence on your end. But, I felt the tug on the string that connects us on some far distant metaphysical plane. I like to imagine there isn’t any pain there. It has been a long time since I felt that tug. I pulled back against it with the force that I still had.

“Do you miss me yet.” I said with a venom I thought I had stopped producing. No answer would have satiated me. My eyes shut with the tightness of a vault. There was no bracing against what would come.

When my eyes opened I was slouched against the wall, limbs splayed. Like a doll that had been tossed away in anger by a child. The phone was somehow still held up to my ear.

Shallow breaths escaped the receiver. I recognized them as the same that had once reverberated against my neck.

They slowed over a period of time that I lost myself in. Though my body was useless, something in me ripped itself free and began to climb out of the bowels of my being, towards you.

The thing tore sinew, and crushed cartilage. Tastes of copper and the tang of stomach bile bit the lowest part of my tongue. My fingers twitched, whatever survival instincts remained attempting to fight back.

I knew there was no fight left in me beyond pageantry. The thing had its grip on my furthest molars. Red mist and the scent of burnt hair billowed from my facial orifices.

A heat began broiling me from the inside out. The liquid of my eyes vibrated to the silent rhythm.

I felt the base of my tongue begin to detach, a sensation like Velcro slowly being pulled apart made its way up into my mouth. Blood pooled in my tightly closed mouth. Whatever I held within could never be allowed to live. The thing shook with a ferocity that matched the static that was now emanating from the receiver.

I could no longer hold it. Blood pushed itself from my mouth with force. My teeth began to crack under the pressure.

A birth of blood and teeth, with my offspring shaking among the viscera. It was eyeless, and did not make any attempt to recognize me. Then the newborn thing dove into the phone’s receiver.

The phone sat on the ground unmoving. I steadied myself, then lifted the receiver to my ear and waited with held breath. It took more than I had left in me not to say anything.

 Thankfully, I didn’t have to. All that awaited me on the other line was a few shallow breaths, and the busy signal after you hung up.

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