They called me “The Devil”

I lay there, the hard baked earth burning my bare back. The lone vulture circling above. Waiting. The sun searing holes into my brain, igniting memories. Burning them up like a rag soaked in kerosene. But instead of leaving behind grey ashes it made them whole again. Memories are not something the glare of a desert sun can burn away. I did not have them all. There were missing pieces to the puzzle. Gaping holes lit by the sun. Filling up slowly.

They had left me here to die naturally. Vultures pecking at my body as I watched on. I wouldn’t be so easy to defeat. I still had something left in me. Hope. Wars can be won with hope. The vulture circled lower. Sensing the life draining out of me like water through a hole in an almost empty bottle. Life is a complex mesh of choices. Every choice affects the mesh in unimaginable ways. I had been successful once but people hated me for what I was. They called me “the Devil”. What I had created destroyed me. I had been one of the leading scientists in the world. I had created the ultimate weapon. A weapon for which the world would die. A weapon by which the world would die. Ironically I felt like Dr. Frankenstein. I wonder what he might have felt when his creation destroyed him.

The initial reaction to my creation was awe. And then came the calls. From governments and renowned terror groups, Private corporations and public sector institutions. Death threats. Protests. Awards. Magazine covers. It had all been a blur of activity. Like watching a movie from an alcoholic’s eyes. I was proud of myself. I had been stripped of my nationality when I sold the invention to the highest bidder. But there were many more eager to take me in. A welcome guest as long as I paid. The world had become a hotel to me. Countries merely rooms. Realisation hit me when one of the rooms blew up. And it hit me hard. I looked upon at what my creation had done.

The vulture was close now. Its wing span casting shadows across my face at shorter intervals. The radius of his circular descent diminishing. I looked up at him. His hungry eyes full of expectation. I had wanted to kill myself. But of what use would it have been to the world. I decided, a decision that had brought me to this situation, to destroy my creation. And destroy it I did. Without a scratch on my body at that. As I was the only one who knew the secrets of its engineering, a maintenance visit was not very hard to fake. They eventually found out when it blew up in their faces and came after me. Tortured me to build another one. When I refused they left me here for dead and went back to their conventional guns.

Hope trickled out my ear as the vulture prepared to land. Adjusting his wings against the rising hot air drafts. Tipping his tail he came down with a loud screech. I pulled my hand up over my face with every final ounce of energy in my body. The vulture landed beside me, unnaturally loudly, sending up a cloud of dust.

“CUUUUTT!!!” yelled the director. “What the hell do you think you are doing you Idiot!? That is the third time you’ve dropped that bird. You almost killed him this time. You’re FIRED! GET OUT OF HERE!”. I looked at the bird. Wrecked. Its wings askew. Another expense from the wallet of “The Devil”, a stupid robotic bird and a new idiot to operate it.

I slowly got to my feet as the lights in the set dimmed. The director came up to me. “ Take the day off son, you need the rest, these b******s don’t know what they are doing. Tomorrow we’ll do the scene where you get your super powers. Do yourself a favour , go home and take the wife out for dinner. Okay?” I nod solemnly, smile and go into my trailer to wash the grime off before I head home.

The Racquet

I stood there with my hands on the wall. I had nothing to do. There was no-one home. I went over to the clock. 8:45PM. She was late. I hovered in front of the clock absentmindedly watching it tick away the seconds. I slowly peeled my eyes from its yellow face and came out of the bedroom. Into the den. Everything was still. I liked it when the house was like this, calm and silent. I could think clearly. As though it could tap into my brain and read my thoughts, the compressor in the fridge kicked in. The steady hum I despised floated up the stairs. I moved into the small music room on the other side of the den. It had a window looking out the northern face of the house. The gentle breeze drowned out the rugged drone of the compressor to some extent. I heard the gate open and the car come in. It was a new car. I had not seen it yet. She had mentioned something about it the previous morning while on the phone with a friend. I went back into the bedroom to wait for her. I could hear her moving around downstairs quite clearly now that the compressor had cut-off. She had dropped her keys on the table with a clatter and was rummaging in the kitchen for something to eat. I went over to the mirror but not to look at myself. She used this mirror every morning. She looked into it and combed her luxurious black hair. I looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of the whole room. It always mesmerised me. I heard her footsteps come up the stairs. She always dragged her feet when she came home in the evening, weary from work. She switched the television on and watched the headlines before turning it off again. There was a soft click as she docked her iPod onto the stereo. She came to the bedroom door. I could not see her yet but her odour reached me. That sweet smell of sweat mingled with deodorant and car perfume. She shuffled into the room with her brown leather handbag and a white plastic bag in one hand and a slab of dark Swiss chocolate in the other. She dropped everything on the bed. She opened the plastic bag and pulled out a tennis racquet. She hung it on the wall next to the mirror and walked to the closet. She picked two towels and went into the bathroom. She was in there five minutes. Maybe an hour. She came out towelling her hair dry. She went over to her study table and picked up the novel she was reading and went into the den with the slab of chocolate. She must have eaten out today. A slow song was playing. I followed her out of the bedroom. She sat down in her favourite armchair and opened her book, slowly peeling the wrapper off the chocolate. I lingered behind her, hunger starting to gnaw slowly at my insides. The heat from the bath radiated from her body and her hair was fragrant from a new shampoo. I liked watching her read. Her brown eyes as they darted from word to word. Line to line. She did not read long. I watched as her tired eyes started to droop. I was ravenous now. She stifled a yawn with her book and stretched. Slowly getting up, she switched off the stereo and made her way back to the bedroom extinguishing the lights on the way. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the sudden darkness, I saw her standing there at the bedroom door, bathed in moonlight. She switched on the lights in the bedroom. I quickly followed her in before she could close the door behind her. She went over to the dresser and quickly brushed her hair. All the while I was behind her watching, mesmerised. She stood up and turned around. That was when she noticed me. I looked into her almond eyes. They had changed. The soft eyes now bore despise. “You” she spat. A deafening crack and a blinding flash. I woke up on the floor. My vision was slightly blurred at the edges. I could not move. I could not turn my head. The blur was spreading toward the centre. That was when I noticed it. The tennis racquet. Hanging on the wall next to the mirror. Red with a black handle. Its mesh sinisterly metallic in the moonlight.