The strides he took from the stairwell were subconsciously quick and silent, weighing down with each pace the faded boards, stiff and decrepit underneath his soles. Still, the flickering chandelier had not been attended to and the dust gathered on the tables, piling up in his lungs and sticking to the walls of his throat. He coughed.
Ambition had already faded from the eyes and his dry mouth foamed from all the panting which lifted up the dust from his aching heart, making him gag under the weight of his breath. His color was faded and his ears kept the time, continuously beating faster as the blood made its way through the habitually impervious crust that surrounded his brain. Not vexed, but bemused, and not without reason, but without judgment, and no one before him could push him backwards into the tub of water so that he could open his eyes.
Through the hall and into the bedroom he stopped before catapulting the uncomfortable shoes off from his feet and ripping the glasses from his face.
How much time was I down there? What time is it? Is it no matter? I think so, but I can’t be sure.
Dry, shaking hands made their way slowly to his collar button, and undid the demon that had constricted his poor, dusty throat. His cheeks blushed as the blood began to run back into his face, the light-headedness rushed through his body, leaving him to stumble into the adjacent bathroom and collapse on the counter.
Hitchcock’s Psycho won some fucking award. I heard it in the papers. What about Vertigo? Motherfuckers.
The dust was sprawled out on the counter, a pillow for Jackie to rest his head. A tear of exasperation made its way down his face, and his arms shook until his breathing calmed and his eyes were closed in relief, thoughts coherent and hands steady. He sighed.
He turned the faucet on.
Cold water splashing to the face, frosted cheeks and wider green eyes, and Jackie’s usually curly hair was now flattened and crawling with indolence into his eyes. The drops of water travelled down his face and off the tip of his chin, dripping and making their way down the contours of the porcelain sink.
A crow flew towards the house, and the benthos etched a claw against the siding, twisting Jackie’s ears.
Crooks never repainted the fucking floors, that shit.
He found a towel and rubbed it in his hair and face before throwing it to the floor. It curled up into a discolored yellow ball with a small flag-shaped piece sticking out at an end. Before a few seconds passed, it was kicked into the far corner of the room, shapeless and dirty.
Ronnie moaned.
The dust went back down into his body with that gulp, as the bright eyes flashed and the violent pulse in his neck recommenced. The moaning grew louder. He coughed.
The sun finally dipped below the horizon and the once bloodstained sky turned a deeper blue, while the last crows cried into the empty air and flew back into their holes.
The light-switch in the bathroom was flicked off and the paces resumed, now starting in the direction of the winding stairs. Most of the way down already, the body was visible, unrecognizably bloody and sprawled like a star in the center of the open foyer. Jackie used the cuff of his white sleeve to wipe off the lone tear that gently flowed down his cheek, and took a few steps towards the body of his dying brother.
“You’re a bloody mess.”
Ronnie slightly opened his left eye, and murmured a stifled “Who could have done this to me?”He smirked and then closed his eye, breathing incessantly soft and calm.
Jackie looked at his brother, and a look became a stare, and with the last warmth of his heart he walked over to him, and took a knee beside him and placed his brother’s head on his knee. The same white cuff he grabbed with his fingers and wiped off the blood from his brother’s face, rusted and aged. Ronnie’s face was crimson with blood; the skin of his cheek had been clearly cut open, and his left ear was spilling with the same blood it had filled up with.
His body was one of a dead man, and yet he still lived. A slash to the gut had left his oxford shirt utterly drenched, and his once blue jacket was now blotched with the color of wine. His entire body was bruised or broken, leaving him to yearn for the moment when his brother would end his life and the bottom-feeders would crawl through his skin and eat him from the inside.
"I can’t look at you like this, but you made too big a mistake. It was too big a mistake for me to keep you alive. A love you can’t let go is just that, and murder is just the hole that we shit in. I’m sorry, this...I-I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to you at all now, but we both know this was my mistake. But I couldn’t let go, Ronnie, I couldn’t let go.” He stroked his brother’s hair and kissed his forehead, still warm but transformed white from the color that left his body.
“I-I couldn’t do it either, Jackie. That’s w-why I did it.”
“I can’t think, I can’t breathe anymore, Ronnie. You should’ve changed my mind; I need her too badly. And tell me, what am I now? I’m a poor lump of a man helpless praying to a God that I’ve never met and dreaming for a life that I could never possibly live! O Jove! O Jove! Strike me now and again, now and again; my love is nothing sans truth and my truth nothing sans my love, and my life slow and my bed cold and empty, my home rotting and my mind drooling.” He was about to wipe his tears again, but the blood soaked his cuffs, and the tears came down salty and cold, the deep ocean unveiled. He reached by his waist to his holster and pulled from it his arm’s extension, cold metal, heavy and dense.
“What did you do when you found out for sure Maggie was dead?”
Ronnie’s bright blue eyes shone at his brother as he managed a weak smile. “I killed a lot of people, Jackie. Listen, I’m already fucking dead anyway. Take a last one, put me out.”
Jackie’s cold tears ran down his face fluid and infinitely, and the dust built up in his throat. He pressed the pistol against the back of his brother’s neck. Love’s blessing is what takes it away.
“Listen Ronnie…I fucking love you.”
And before the bullet penetrated his skull and reached his medulla oblongata, Ronnie murmured, “I love you too.”
And the crows sat by the window, staring, waiting for the moment when they would peck at his body and plunge their daggers into his eyeballs.
