The Horror Library - The Best in Horror Fiction

Esteban Silvani Presents - The Cosmic Binding Shop
By Stephen W. Sommerville

Printer-friendly version

Paul wasn't the only one entertaining the idea of asking Kim to accompany him to the tenth annual young actor's guild costume party. Rodrigo had been hot on her tail for the past several weeks. It hadn't angered Paul as much as he thought it would. When Rodrigo walked by, grabbing Kim's behind, Paul just shook it off, reasoning that nearly all actors behaved in this manner. In fact, Paul himself had been guilty on several occasions of feeling up some of the young actresses, rubbing up against them. The fact that people touched each other, and had flings from time to time did not mean anything. In the world of show business, the degradation is so prevalent; it makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Little House on the Prairie.

Paul had been enamored with Kim's big, brown eyes, light brown skin (being half Anglo, half African) and curvy body, ever since he laid eyes on her. Her acting ability was truly something to behold as well. She could play any part in any play and steal the show. It was during Romeo & Juliet, of all things, that she captured his curiosity. She had not only the audience under her spell, but the rest of the cast as well. Never did he imagine a non-white Juliet dressed in Victorian garb, playing out the part to perfection the way she had. Kim was truly special; her personality, facial expressions, the way she provided the right body movements to accompany her words. It was no wonder, really, that Paul had become so obsessed with asking her out.

Paul knew that Kim was a poetry nut. Wanting to sound at least somewhat chic, he went to the library and checked out several volumes of Pablo Neruda. After perusing through several books, he looked down the list that he had compiled, and tried to decide which lines to commit to memory. Forty-five minutes later, he shut the book, and repeated to himself, "Do not fear, I am yours, but I am not the passenger or the beggar, I am your master, the one you were waiting for, and now I enter your life, no more to leave it, love, love, love, but to stay," quoting that line from "The Question". He then smiled and thought to himself, "Gee, Neruda really was the greatest."

On the way to rehearsal, Paul stopped at the grocery store to pick up a dozen roses. Flowers, Neruda and a costume party; Paul figured she would not be able to resist such lovely splendor.

Life can really suck. Tears began forming in Paul's eyes. Not even five seconds had passed, and there she was, getting out of a silver Jetta with none other than Rodrigo. "No, no, no…this can't be happening. Why? Why him? He's a dog. He doesn't care about you!" muttered Paul.

Then, just as Paul threw the roses on the car floor, in his moment of rage, he noticed a figure approach the couple from behind. A monk, dressed in a black robe, with the infamous half-bald hairdo, came running out of the back seat, towards the couple who were already a good ten feet away from the car. This was no ordinary monk. He wielded an axe, and ran straight towards the couple. He came up from behind, and swung down, splitting Rodrigo's head open like a block of wood. Kim dropped to her knees, mouth wide open, but no sound came out. She was trembling, pleading for her life, as she watched Rodrigo's lifeless corpse fall to the ground. The monk looked down at her with a huge, maniacal grin on his face. He then lifted the axe over his right shoulder, as Kim braced herself for the seemingly inevitable. Paul, in the meantime could have sounded his horn, but was just so enthralled by Kim's "performance" that he just continued to sit there with his eyes glued to the "stage."

The monk did indeed let the axe come down, with a great swish, swiping right by Kim's head, missing only by centimeters. Kim let out a squeal, but then realized that her head was still intact. She then looked up at the monk, who stared at her with a Bela Lugosi-like evil grin.

"I am your biggest fan", said the monk in a high-pitched, slobbery voice. "I was in attendance during your performance as Juliet. Ah, you were marvelous. Such beauty, pain and sorrow flowed from your river, my dear. That is why I killed that heathen. You must go to the costume party with Paul; it is the only way you will survive. It is through him that your soul will continue to burn with that lustrous fire that drives you to levels of perfection only dreamed of by other mortals."

Paul then woke up, still in his parked car. He realized that this dream was a message from the gods. He picked up the roses that he had thrown to the ground. He then ran out, forgetting to lock, or even shut the driver's side door.

"Kim! Kim!" shouted Paul, as he ran after the couple who were just making their way inside towards the rehearsal room.

"Paul?" stated Kim in her best fake nice voice (Paul didn't know the difference).

"Kim, forget about him" said Paul while pointing at Rodrigo, "I had a dream, no, a revelation! A monk appeared to me in a dream and in this dream he was telling you that you must go to the costume party with me!"

Rodrigo, upon hearing this, broke in, "Hey, Paul. Calm down, man, ok? We are mature adults here…"

Paul then fell to his knees, cutting off Rodrigo by quoting Neruda, "I am the tiger. I lie in wait for you among leaves broad as ingots of wet mineral."

Kim gave Paul a puzzled look. Rodrigo, on the other hand was astonished by Paul's mastery of the Chilean's work. Rodrigo joined in on his knees, wearing his look of astonishment, refusing to take his eyes off Paul. Rodrigo then began to quote, continuing the poem, "El Tigre," that Paul had been quoting, "The white river grows beneath the fog. You come. Naked you submerge. I wait."

The two grown men peered into each others' eyes and smiled. The binding force of Pablo Neruda brought these two would-be enemies together in the cosmos. Differences were put aside, no thought given whatsoever to their rivalry as they continued to stare.

Just as the two men were about to reach their artistic high-- that other nearly unattainable dimension of knowledge and awareness, Kim broke in, "I hate Pablo Neruda. Besides, you are quoting that poem out of context, he wrote that one because…"

Paul and Rodrigo felt a violent disconnection; they descended back to their everyday state upon hearing Kim's critical words. Paul then winked at Rodrigo and continued the poem, "Then in a leap of fire, blood, teeth, with a claw slash I tear away your bosom, your hips."

Rodrigo, as if acting on cue, pulled out a butcher knife from a hidden holster in his right pant leg (he kept a knife, because he had to be "anti-gun" so he could get a student grant from the Hispanic Anti-Gun Organization). He then jabbed the knife into Kim's stomach, pulled it out and slashed across her bosom and then her hips, finally sticking the knife back into the stomach where it had been. Kim's lifeless body, with her frozen stare of shock still sketched on her face, fell into Rodrigo's arms. Rodrigo and Paul both lifted the body and carried it out to Paul's car so they could take her to the woods for a proper burial. The two comrades began chanting together the rest of the poem, changing it to plural, "We drink your blood, we break your limbs one by one. And we remain watching for years in the forest over your bones, your ashes, motionless, far from hatred and anger, disarmed in your death, crossed by lianas, motionless in the rain, relentless sentinel of our murderous love."

And so it was, for the two Pablo Neruda fans. After having discarded the body in the woods, they went back to class together, arms around each other, two young men, ready to change the world. Paul looked at Rodrigo and said, "That Neruda hater got what she deserved. Together, my friend we can eliminate the ignorance. Let us begin a mission of spreading golden dove wings over mankind."

Rodrigo responded to these thoughtful words with, "Perhaps very late our dreams joined at the top or at the bottom, up above moved like branches by a common wind, down below like red roots that touch."

Paul responded all the while wiping away a few tears, "You sound like the master himself."

"I'm only human, Paul. I'm only human."