trying to get in

sounds obvious enough, but i'm starting to really face this basic fact: i'm going to have to get used to people reading my stuff, especially the extremely personal. SO, with that in mind, here's my effort toward getting into School of Visual Arts's MFA-Visual Narrative program. applicants were given a choice of three themes: 3 (& the related iconography, the Trinity, etc.); pie (or pi, whichever); or evil (its embodiment, Satan, etc.). i decided to go with the one i knew best...

The Wastes of Shame

Stab, loop, slide, slide. Stab, loop, slide, slide.

“You’re finally here,” she said. Her cat Uriel looked up from grooming himself on the back of the couch. The living room was still, save for her knitting. “I expected you before Thanksgiving. You’re late.”

“And you’re stubborn.”

“What do you want this time?” she said, half-focused on the budding creation in her lap. She’d been excited about making this scarf, as she’d found the perfect yarn—a beautiful winter white, with the texture of angel hair. Fur rising on his back, the cat issued a low growl to the empty air.

Stab, loop, slide, slide.

A pair of boiling eyes settled on her pet, then disappeared. Uriel jumped, howling at a thing unseen, and bolted down the hallway and into the bedroom. Soon, all was quiet again, and the young woman tried to focus on her needles and yarn.

Stab, loop, slide, slide. Stab, loop, slide, slide.

She paused, looked up from her project, and scanned the living room, waiting. Hardwood floors reflected the faint twinkle of the Christmas tree lights, stockings (one for her and one for Uriel) hung from her bookcase, and her miniature crèche sat atop her piano. Decked though it was, the room lacked cheer and seemed “off.” A quick sigh, a nod; seeing anything was unnecessary. Feeling his gaze was enough. She resumed her knitting.

Stab, loop, slide, slide.

“What a lovely scarf you have.”

A large pair of crimson hands became visible, flapping about all that she’d finished so far.

“The better to strangle me with?”

“Come now.” Powerful arms took shape, followed by equally strong shoulders and torso. Soon, a devilishly striking body materialized, with an equally alluring head atop its neck. “How can you say something so… ugly about me?”

“Everything you say is ugly. Don’t pretend I’m stupid.”

            Satan hit her with such force that the left side of her face was a panoply of purples, blues and blacks, swollen within seconds. She sank into trembling confusion as he cradled her, embracing her as a lover would embrace his beloved. With a simple caress of her cheek, he had her in thrall.

            “Now see what you made me do?” His voice was soft, perversely gentle. “If you hadn’t have angered me, I wouldn’t have had to hit you. You are my prized possession, but even champion horses know not to bite their riders.” He stroked her face and whispered, “Now let’s be honest with one another. Who are you really angry with? I doubt that it’s me.”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. My love, whether or not you say the words, He already knows what is

truly in your heart. You cannot hide from His judgment.” Satan paused to tighten his hold when she began to shiver again. “I apologize,” he said softly, stroking her hair. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. But, whether you like it or not, I can only speak the truth—you have pierced His side.”

“What can I do?”

She choked on her tears as he lifted her chin.

“I won’t let you drown in your despair,” he promised, smiling. Satan’s eyes were glittering more brightly than before. “Stay with me. I will protect you.”

His face was so beautiful, and she felt the strength coursing through him. Maybe, perhaps, he really could save her from her fate. If she would just let go, then she could lose herself in him. His smooth skin was somehow soft and provided comfort, scorching though it was. She told herself that she could accept this pain. At least damnation made sense; someone had to be punished for the state of her soul. Somehow, she’d deserved this. That was the only explanation. But this insistence of grace, that she was worth being saved—that by itself was torture because of its outrageous irrationality. And yet, it would not let her go, soon opening her eyes to an unavoidable fact—his was not the shelter she craved; it was no shelter at all, not even for himself. A tear slipped over the blister on her cheek.

“I want to, but I can’t. How can you protect me? You couldn’t even protect yourself.”

His second punch was harder than the first. Another blow to her temple, and everything was hazy. So hazy. Head throbbing. Skin red-hot, as though it was truly ablaze, a heavy weight pressing on her chest. As her lids flickered, the surface of her eyes burned, stung by the pus creeping into her tearducts.

“I’m hurt that you would doubt me. Don’ you know,” he purred, “How much I love you?”

For the moment, the mental miasma clouding her brain granted her a perilous curiosity. Her palm on his shoulder surprised him, and Satan’s delight increased as he watched her singe her hand, slowly sliding it across his torso. Like no other, she explored him without fear, and he slid his tongue over his fangs, restraining his appetite and biding his time. She lifted her hand from his left hip and licked the burned skin a little before offering it to him, allowing him to suckle her scorched fingertips. He grinned as she ogled his body.

“What about this scar?”

“Michael thought to chain me, drag me across Heaven as his captive,” he said, pleased to see her docile at last. “But I fought him. I brought the gears of Heaven to a grinding halt, and I will do it again.”

He squinted, seeing the fog in her eyes dissipate.

“But… you lost… Didn’t you?”

He grabbed her neck and slammed her down, snapping sofa’s frame in the process. A ravenous wolf, he mounted her, shredding her sweater until her chest was exposed and her breasts slashed. Satan’s flowing locks receded into his scalp, replaced by short, black hair. His skin whitened, and the flesh on his face drew closer to his skull. She tried to look away, but his newly lean fingers clenched her cheeks and forced her to look. It was all the same. It was that same son of a bitch who haunted her dreams, the one she’d once trusted. Too familiar. It was him, but, more than maddening, it wasn’t. His eyes—not the small, beady brown that had terrified her. These eyes were worse, each a sable conflagration just barely contained by transparent eyelids. Saliva fell from his fangs, and she trembled; the predator would have his meal. Satan pressed all his weight and hissed in her ear:

“`Member me?”

Hers were the cries of an animal living the nightmare of a botched slaughter. The screams, the writhing were nourishment, and he lapped it up, licking her shrieking, resistant body. Soon his shouts drowned hers; he cried out in ecstasy at her every angry refusal and fearful plea for him to stop. At last, he roared as she begged to die. Then she blacked out.

Her lids fluttered open, and not entirely sure what had happened, she pushed herself upright. Then she felt it, all of it. Black handprints were burned into her flesh. Lacerations, bites, claw marks were everywhere, her legs and hips, her arms and torso. Everywhere. She turned to her left; Satan was sitting there, calm as ever. He was licking his claws with twisted amusement, and blood dripped from the upturned corners of his mouth.

“Whore.”

She had a bulletin board in her kitchen, and on that board was pinned a picture of her when she was still in college. In it, she was smiling. Life was good. There was light in her sparkling, ocean-blue eyes. Here? Nothing. Her eyes were dead, her voice monotone and quiet.

“It was ten months before someone whispered that word, five or six years before I could name it myself. But I knew what it was, maybe even as early as an hour afterward. The cold, strange bathroom, the cold, strange house, so many people I didn’t know, the one…” Her eyes darkened as her memory continued. “I’d never wished for you to take souls before, but if I’d had the chance to slaughter him that moment and hand over his soul, I would’ve gift-wrapped it for you. If I’d done that, it would mean I’d be handing my soul over as well, and you knew that. You delighted in it. And if I wouldn’t go that far, then you would milk my freshly perverted self-image, butcher me, and eat my anguish whole.”

Satan stared at her mutilated cheeks.

“You’re ugly,” he said. “Look at yourself. Your skin is sullied. It’s grey and battered. You may once have been a thing of beauty, but now?” Unable to say anything, she started to quiver. Satan smiled and pulled her close, cradling her once more. He spoke softly. “You see, love? I’m the only one who is even capable of accepting you. To your beloved ‘God,’ you are vile. You came to me. Foul. Unclean. Trash. You are the reason you’ve gone through Hell.”

Tears of pitch began to roll over the cracks that now blanketed her face. Flecks of skin flaked and fell, exposing the rancid muscle beneath.

“You’re a liar,” she whispered. “I never asked for any of this.”

 “After all of the love I’ve offered you,” he began sternly, “You again insist that you’re worth—”

“Liar! You offer nothing,” she screamed. “I am more than what he did to me!”

Satan watched half of her cheek disintegrate and frowned at her galvanized will.

“You disappoint me,” he sighed. “From the beginning, I knew you would grow to be a threat, if I didn’t take you first. Your God watched and did nothing as one of mine defiled you. You could have found comfort in me, in rejecting Him for allowing this to happen to you, but still you denied me. What is wrong with you? I don’t understand it. Your stubbornness, your refusal to take the easy way I offer.

“You don’t quite get the picture. I knew I had to find a way to break you, but I was never going to annihilate you. I was going to rebuild you, make you my own, because no one gave me a helper suitable to my needs. But if you forsake me now, I will throw you into the maw of Hell. I will abandon you.”

“Enough of your self-pity. No one tossed you away; you abandoned yourself.”

            She saw a hand, a finger leveled at her eye.

            “I think the time has come for you to close that filthy mouth of yours.”

            As Satan’s fury surged, so the surrounding air grew toxic, and she struggled to breathe.

            “I admit that I sip from your cup from time to time. But your every effort is wasted,” she heaved, straining to release her words. “Do what you want. I’ll nev—”

            A gunshot with no bullet—she howled, bringing her hands to the obliterated socket. Her body wavered, and blood poured from the tattered recess, drenching the needles and yarn in her lap. Half her face was scorched, but, at last, she slowly opened her remaining eye. Though her vision was blurred, she understood what was before her; his finger was still there.

            “You were saying?” Satan dropped his hand and kissed her without warning, licking her lips slick. His dulcet tone churned her stomach, and she lurched forward, vomiting on the floor. “Really, trying to defy me at this point is ludicrous. If you like though, you can test me. We’ll see who can hold up longer, although I’m surprised that you still believe that resisting me is in your best interests.”

            “Do it,” she whispered, spitting red droplets.

            “You’re serious?”

            “You’re desperate for life, you even prey on the shitty one I have. You’re a brat; if you can’t have it, neither can I. You’re pathetic.”

            His roar deafened the shot that destroyed her remaining eye.

            “You think,” he yelled, “That disobedience is so simple? That it comes without cost? You touched the scar he gave me!” With a nauseating and juicy punch, he plunged his hand through her back, his claws piercing her chest on the other side. “I will not be the only one to pay the heavy price for rebellion! All will bear this burden with me!”

            “You’re alone,” she murmured, “Sad.”

            “You will be silent!” A sudden squeeze on her heart, and the gash in her torso was a gushing, scarlet mess. Satan withdrew his arm from the shell of a woman, this absurdly defiant thing, and seized her hair, clumps falling out, inflamed scalp exposed. “You,” he said, “Are very strong, or supremely stupid, to think you can somehow survive. I must admit that you’re excellent at provocation. I should have expected that.” He yanked back the blood-soaked bulge of a head and leaned in, staring at the gaping sockets that seemed to stare at him. “Perfect. You’re hideous, nearly ready for the journey.”

            Satan’s skin sizzled where her spit had hit him between the eyes.

            “You can’t have me.”

“You try my patience. You must know that as soon as your soul is appropriately disfigured, I own you. Even now your body is turning into nothing but a leather bag. It cannot stand the iniquity that lives within you. Thus, it rots. You will lose your former beauty forever.”

            Her crusty hands gripped the sodden scarf and removed the needles from their stitches. Without a word, she played at knitting, as though she could still see.

Stab, loop, slide, slide. Stab, loop, slide, slide.

            “You are a stubborn creature. I knew that from the very beginning.” Satan smiled as pus oozed from the massive cavity in her chest. Whole patches of skin were dropping from her neck and arms. “But you’re falling apart, quite literally. Now, I can take possession of your person. I am you, and you are me.”

            “Are you sure that’s what you want?”          

“You are aware,” Satan lowered his voice, “That if I am to take you with me, we must be joined. Completely.” His caustic breath caressed her ear, leaving nothing behind but a seared hole. “We are one.”

            “Fine,” she conceded. “You can take my body, but you have to take everything that goes with it.”

            An abrupt pain threw Satan back; the familiar acuity was frightening, even to him, and with good reason. To his shock, both his prodigious chest and her mangled breast were skewered, impaled by her heretofore harmless knitting utensils.

“You… would destroy yourself… just—”

He coughed, and noxious bile began to pour from his wound. Her injuries were now scabbing over, and he struggled, all the more incensed by her sudden, quiet calm. With his every frantic effort, he only managed to drive the spike further into his flesh. Though her body labored, she held fast to her barb, determined to keep it in. He slashed his body, mad with rage, while she sat, motionless, a near-corpse.

“Piece by piece, bit by bit, under the light of the moon, by the flicker of the candle, through whispers in the darkness, little by little, you are slowly ravaged by the waste of your cause. Each time hope passes from one human being to another, you decay just a little more, advancing with both bluster and frailty toward the day of your demise. Each time even one person refuses you, though ten may fall to your deceit, that single rejection of your delusion breaks a bone and makes you falter just a little more.”

Even without her eyes, she could see him thrashing.

“How dare you,” he thundered. “I’ll obliterate you!” For all he tried, he could not remove the point; so long as she could hold hers in her own chest, her self-excoriation would be his. In his frenzy, he flayed himself, and his infernal scar ripped open, causing him to erupt with greater wrath. “You! Michael! The whole of Heaven! I will destroy it all!”

A faint ripple quickly coursed through him, and Satan wrenched the needle from his chest, snarling as his skin layered itself closed. His torso was stained black, and his scar, the reminder of his divine humiliation, was further burned into his body, all the more conspicuous. He turned and saw the cause of his release; at last, her body had given out. Her hands had disintegrated, and her makeshift weapon had fallen between her legs, the stumps of her arms resting at her side. On sight, it was no longer able to be called human, and the thing lay still. Its neck had almost completely wasted away, leaving only the sofa to support the skull. He glared, furious but silent.

“It’s sad, really.” Each word broke a rib, the cracks louder than its voice. Satan waited as the decrepit creature struggled to breathe. “Your true form—all you are is a body of raging futility. I’ll die…  and you’re still alone.”

Satan snapped the needle in half, then waved a hand over the carcass. Glowering and gripping his chest, he gradually vanished, his final words lingering long after he’d gone.

“You’re a fool if you think I’m finished with you.”

She blinked, and saw her cat sitting on the back of the sofa, purring and licking his paws.

“Good kitty,” she said, smiling.

Uriel padded over, settled at her shoulder, and rubbed his head against her soft, warm cheek as she adjusted her sweater and picked her knitting off her lap.

“Only a foot left,” she thought. “Guess I better finish this up. It’s going to be a gorgeous scarf. Such a beautiful red…”

Stab, loop, slide, slide. Stab, loop, slide, slide.