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You've met me. You know my effects. I have a solid gold eye and I use it to see the blood of the rich. I wear a cape so that I look like a sophisticate. I am well-armed. Both in biceps and in bullets. I rarely go anywhere without an entourage. I keep a host of servants and sycophants. They dye and puncture their skin in allegiance to me. I call them my favorites. My birds. My judases.
In the street, in between the facades of homes and shops, we move. We are an unwanted force. The messages on mats that grace the doorsteps are not for us. We take what we steal and we do what we please with it. This is what we collect: horns, cars, batteries, sumos, tramps, artichokes, phlegm, surrogate fathers, laminated papers, congealed milk, gel encasings, calisthenic machines, home pregnancy tests, brussel sprouts, americans, shouts, steady rhythms, the emancipation proclamation, star search, vellum, ostrich fetuses, names, ocean liners, fantasy football, your wallets and combs, rods, mental challenges. Once collected, this is what we typically do: sell it, steal it again, wear it, submerge it in liquids, seduce you with it. When I go alone, I try to wear your clothes so that you will recognize me. I keep a fake mustache in a secret compartment under your house. I wear gloves so no one can spot my tell-tale fingers. I don't like wearing vests. I don't like anyone who wears vests. I am careless with my teeth. When I was born, my two mothers and two fathers argued bitterly over what to do with me and who should have me. I was sent to live in four directions at once. I have only recently been reunited. But in all four directions, it was the same. I was schooled in stern towers of discipline. I drank the milk of knowledge from a community cistern. My eyes were never shaded. I spent four youths scaling walls, crawling sewers, garnering pleasures, and flicking glints. My one accomplishment was a certificate of answering. I knew the schoolmarm's daffy agenda. It required only a thin grasp of the material. I had grown fond of other things. I'd had enough of handsome ventures. It was time to grow up. I received a commission to attend to a sickly parish. I took a dozen sour stallions from my parent's pile and thundered to the far-off plague. It seemed to me I was a hero. I had wings on my head and the bones of my fingers were hardy. I saw the unburdening of a cruel fate as my mark of growth. Before my trumpets could be blown, a shrewd delegate of profiteers conspired to have me overtaken. I was shackled and made to wither in houses for the cold. My thralldom remained until my last sweat. The final drip of my infertile pores moved me to plead a bargain with whatever archknave would heed me. I was rewarded with an eye rent from my head, and the arcane warm-toned words of escape. In freedom, I vowed to stain the world. The hero was perspired. And this was how I sought my distinction. There is a well in a haunted village that I derive my power from. A gaggle of witches, they called themselves The Ballroom, once used the well as their mixing pot. Down at the bottom of the well is their brew. I had it drawn up and bottled. I drink a dram of it a day. I shun all communions. |