In study of Edgar Allen Poe

In study of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat"

My Halo

The afternoon glow shines with radiance across the face of my brother, taking each creaking step slowly with heavy boxes full of books. Finally, both of us were accepted into this collage we have been looking into. The afternoon soon faded into a pale shade of blue as the moon hid the beauty of the day. The old creaky house was actually kind of terrifying at first sight, two floors for just us, no furniture, and no lovely home accommodations you would find in a Martha Stuart’s guide on Feng Shui. It was so old, so empty with hard wood floors decaying like pre-vulture corpses lying in a hot desert day. The texture felt like the hard grainy sand underneath our sox as we walked through the halls. Luckily for us, the power still was modern and we were able to at least find a place to put our T.V we received from a graduation gift.

The two dispersed from the one, leaving the digital clock sitting at the corner of the room to read one P.M. It was a half way digital clock, still running on gears and an old F.M, A.M radio built inside but the screen display were red digital numbers. The best part of this clock was none the less, the price, free. Both of us at this time, are rolled in sleeping bags like messy burrito’s you buy from the incredibly grumpy and vile old women at Taco Bell, whom every time you say thank you, you expect her to reach into your car and sock you one. Our eyes finally give into the sandman’s tricks and the T’V drifts out of mind and in to another parallel universe that our minds create. Suddenly, like the footsteps of children or the sound of falling mice from the ceiling, I hear the sound repulsing from the walls located in the main hall. My heart beats faster and my breath becomes quiet and steady. My brother now is completely asleep like he always is, sometimes mumbling random facts or quotes but nearly impossible to wake him from his hibernation like slumber. I slide slowly out from my sleeping bag, reaching around in the dark trying to gasp a hold of my cell phone to provide some light. My hand brushes along some spider webs, formed to catch prey as they scuttle to their own graves, but nothing that I could grasp with in my fingers. The sound gradually stops and eyes stare, piercing into the dark. Eyes that mine could not see.

The snow white mourning doves flutter across our ceiling, while void black crows squawk and chasing them away from the window sills. Melodic music drifts out from the lost little corner we had our clock in, playing a tune from last night’s play, The Wizard of Oz. My brother is already awake before I even arise out of bed. He’s sitting in the kitchen with this small, fluffy rabbit in his hand. “Good morning Neku, What time did you get up?” I said while rubbing my eyes and still trying to locate my forsaken cell phone. As if the question was completely lost somewhere between my lips and his ears, no answer was ever returned. “Look what I found, I named her Halo” He said as his hand brushes across the tips of the tan and black rabbit’s ear.

My brother and I grew up together, likes all families, we had some extremely tough times and silly fights. When trouble crawled our way though, we always find a way to stop the situation from getting any worst. This is actually the first time I’ve seen him in 3 years, I moved out and tried to live a forbidden life as my parents put it. All I did was move out to be with my girlfriend, forbidden I guess. One main trait we shared together was the love of animals, all sorts of animals. We never were allowed to own too many of them, We had lucky the cat who suffered a fated murder with a pair of scissors by the neighbor’s young daughter and a bird we never had the chance to name before he as well committed suicide on the cage’s brutally retraining bars. So this time with this rabbit, Halo, I will make sure nothing tragic will happen to her.

Classes have officially started, our house was still pretty empty but at least we have beds now to sleep in. We learned mainly about procrastination this semester but from what everyone else tells us, next semester was all about emotional stress and living with regrets. At home, we tried to clean but it proved nearly impossible for two 22 year old males to clean a house this size and be able to still live life. Halo has grown up now, her fur is pure white. Pure white except for this tiny small red spot located under her chin. We assumed it was kind of a birth mark, never really thought too much about how a rabbit can grow red fur but we never really questioned the fact. She was our friend, our ally in the fog of war. She hopped up and down the stairs every morning like a medieval knight on patrol of wandering goblins. Until one night, one night that my blood boiled in the heat of the day.

School has come down hard upon my back, like Altus carrying the world on his shoulders. Essays run through my mind, projects and more assignments. My stress peaked like a volcano ready to destroy the nearby villages of innocent civilians. Anger rised which brought back a lot of what I thought I forgave and forgot. Hatred, Bitter agony and despair ruled the kingdom on my thoughts and mind. The three years I was away, no one knows or I care to tell but it was none the less an absolutely disgusting experience. I was used like a slave, chained by the will of survival. No way of escaping, no way of changing course from the yellow brick road I had to follow. My palms became increasingly sweaty and now I rarely see my brother. He’s mostly out with his friends and girlfriend or hanging out at parties while I sit at home feeding Halo and cleaning. Sure I was invited with him, every time he goes out; I’m the first one to get invited. But there was work to be done, objects to be cleaned, thoughts to be banished from the brink of my mind.

The spiders have decided to colonize near the warmth provided from the clock. They have decided that it would be a superb idea to completely cover the clock so all I can see are red lights shining through a thick web of insect hell. Who knows what time it is, all I know is that it is immensely late and my thoughts of completely overwhelmed me. They invoked so much hate that the first thing I thought of doing was demolishing something. There stood Halo as I walked in the door. The door slammed behind me as if a mind of its own, in sheer darkness. She hopped over to me, nudged her head against my pant leg and without even a bead of hesitation, I crushed her front paws with the heel of my right boot. Yelping and screaming in pain, she collapsed onto the floor and I ended the night with another quick kick, sending her tiny limp body sliding across the dirt embedded floor.

I awoke again to the light of Saturday morning and strong cologne trail left by my brother as he departed for a long adventurous road trip with his friends. I stumbled down the stairs and my eyes caught, then locked onto little Halo. Her front paws still bent in directions normally not possible, gently pushing with her hind legs to avoid more injury. I watched her for a little longer as I stood on the stairs, clutching the rail with claw like hands. She looked back up at me, with an animalistic instinct and completely denial of raw pain, she hopped on all fours away into the beaming rays of sun light. I spent that day and actually most of the night drinking my thoughts away, creating a primal side of human behavior lost in the footsteps of time by human kind. I sat on this small wooden stool we bought a few days after we moved in from a classmate. The back leg was slightly crooked so you could rock back and forth on it but it provided enough balance so you won’t tip backwards and splatter what you have left inside your skull along the floor. As I rocked back and forth slowly with a plastic cup full of alcohol, my demonic wings grew out of my back, possessed with a demon created like a doppelganger of myself. I stormed around the house, yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs until sweat dripped down from my forehead. Finally I found her, I found Halo lying beneath a stack of missing papers and some old brown lettuce leaves. Quickly I seized her by her ears; my mind bent and was in shock by my own actions. Control was lost and my fist thrusted into her ribs, crushed her ribs in and through her brittle and fragile organs. Then I took hold of each of her little limbs, snapped them like a bear brushing twigs away in the forest. The sound of ruptured bones separating with marrow sent cries down each hall in the house and down my own spine. Her corpse now lies in my palms and a tear traverses down my cheeks. “No more pain, be at peace” I mumbled in the thick dark air.

That night I wash my hands in steaming hot water, trying to purge the blood and guilt from my hands and soul. My eyes constantly drift to the sight of myself, hiding behind the glass mirror and rising steam. Ashamed to looked, I turn off the faucet and let my hands air dry by shaking them with quick jolts. Water drops splashes from the tips of my fingers and soaks into the burgundy rug beneath my feet. The dripping and splashing doesn’t stop, Even though the faucet is off. My hands are dry and this is the only bathroom in the whole house, completely baffled by the situation. I start to precede downstairs, one step at a time, using my foot as a guiding tool. Toe, Heel, Toe, Heal. Then all of a sudden water, frozen cold water rushes on to my foot, soaking my toes and chilling the inner most core of my body. Without even a second notice, the water rises quickly and I am forces to dive underneath in order to reach the front door. My arms paddle like the wings of a falcon, sweeping rushes of water behind me so I can propel forward. Finally the door is in sight, the solid wood door that would keep me from my own survival. Crimson red paint peeling down the sides, rusted hinges and a broken eye hole, everything looked the same except the closer I swam, the better I saw it. There she was, Halo, drifting in her nautical grave by the door as if trying to escape her pre-destined fate.

A month has past but nothing has changed. I now lived in a completely empty house, washed out of the wraith of brutal water. Today though, my brother was coming home so I spent the previous weekend preparing dumplings and sushi for this exhilarating event. My knife travels quickly as if used by an adapt sword master training in his temple. Slicing and dicing the raw sushi and butchering the pork, preparing for a grand meal. A slight buzz in my ear caused me to twitch a little; just enough for the knife to miss the last cut of salmon but instead trim the top of my finger off. Screaming in agony and frustration, I run upstairs to the bath room and briefly wash off the open wound. Half way up the stair case, my legs lock in an abrupt stop and almost at a loss of breath, my lungs exhale and never bothered absorbing air back in. At the top of the staircase was Halo. No no, it wasn’t her, it just looked almost identical in every aspect as her. Its fur was soft, slightly waving in the soft breezy current weaving throughout the house. It had white fur but something really stood out to being extra ordinary. Its fur seemed to have red spots along it, red spots that almost look like they are dripping down from her stomach.

Happily as ever, the little rabbit hopped down the rest of the steps and greeted me with its huge luminescent eyes. With my other hand that wasn’t by now covered in blood, I reached down and picked it up. While continuing to dash into the bathroom, the little rabbit curled up in the warm crevice between my forearm and chest, slowly falling asleep in security. After treating my finger with whatever was left in the first aid kit, and everything that I was able to scrounge up around the house, I was finally able to spend some time with this new rabbit. We fell asleep on floor together, tired from the long day and leaving everything behind. The salmon was no longer safe and edible, sitting on the table waiting to be rolled.

My brother was settled in back at home now, slightly more tanned by generally the same kind hearted person. I on the other hand started to develop more traits that were not more favoritable. A personality malfunction within somewhere of the depth of my existence caused me to gradually once again become more bitter. It only must have been a few days later that my brother came home when I saw the little rabbit again. Memories of Halo flicker in my mind like a candle waiting to be put out, but as I stare at it, my mind fogs with a black holocaust of anger. This time without even hesitation, I lunge at it full force and momentum. It quickly starts to scamper away in fear but I recover quickly on my feet and grab the nearest object I could as a weapon. In this case, my hands lye on the blade of the knife I was using a few days ago to cut sushi. The sharp cold metal pierces my own skin, cutting deeply into the ridges of my fingers but the warm blood dripping down my palm allows me to better grasp onto the handle. As I catch up to the rabbit, strafing left and right, I raise my hand high in the air to come down like the final hours before the guillotine drop. My brother runs down the hall screaming for me to stop, my eyes look sideways into his and my arm drops full weight into his neck.

I am plagued by the demon that now encompasses my own life hood, my hands tremble as I drag my brother across the floor. His skin tearing against the warn down bits of nails protruding out of the wooden floor. “What I should do, How can I ..?” I constantly debate with myself quietly as if someone else was trying to listen. I could throw him into a saw mill, maybe drop him at a junk yard to be crushed, or perhaps build a wall in the basement to hide him in.

“No no, none of this would work, I would have to put him somewhere no one can ever find, I will tear a hole in my bedroom wall then break his body parts into pieces to slide in the crevices”

The smell lingered for a week, decaying in its own rotting juices. Eventually I added enough salt through this small crack I left on the wall, to cover the corpse itself so the scent died away. Just in time for the police to do their second round, this time a detailed search. They checked under floor boards and completely tore apart the yard until it looked like moles rampaged through the grass and dirt. They tapped along the walls and all the way up the stairs, finding nothing. “This house if very old officers, a lot of the walls here were made and built later on by future owners so I am un-sure what they contain” I said with confidence and a smile on my face. They now all crowded my room, speaking to me and asking me how I feel about my loss. “It’s hard to come in terms with what has happened, we were so close. I loved him with all of my heart…” Before my words could finish, a small nibble tore through the wall paper I put up. Quick thumping was heard trembling though the walls themselves, like falling mice or children’s footsteps. The police officers glared at me and then all pressed their ears against the wall paper. Soon a hole erupted and there sat the bloody dripping rabbit, with white fur and a finger in its mouth. Chewing on the finger nail and the salted, decaying skin. There sat a rabbit with bleeding eyes and soul less wings.