The Delphi Room Read Free Page B

pearl-round cheeks flattening into a small, drooping mouth. Eyelids puffy from crying, new awnings for damp pink eyes. My nose—slightly reminiscent of my father’s, if a lone photograph of him is trustworthy—shone red. (Where was my father? Shouldn’t he be knocking on the door? Introducing himself? Explaining what the Hell was going on?) An angry welt choked my neck. I did look thinner, as though the stuffing had been knocked out of me and my skin was struggling to catch up, and everything seemed looser, looser and dissolving, breasts in retreat. I pulled up my dress, placed a hand on my stomach, moved it down a deflated thigh. Dropped the dress and sighed, inspected my arms and veiny, piano-fingered hands. All of the marks were there, everywhere: freckles, bruises, traces of cellulite and the scar on my left arm from the afternoon the Shadowman forced me to try carving a flower with a boxcutter. All were accentuated by the horrible florescent lighting, the hellish trick of retail stores back on Earth, designed to depress you into splurging on the more expensive bathing suit. Well, I thought, that seals it. This ain’t Heaven.
    Peregrinations, again—God, get me off this fucking treadmill. Gold doorknob in my hand, wild rattling. Bashed my knuckles into the heavy white, polka-dotted it pink with my blood. Moved to the writing desk so I could get a running start, and splatted my pink-sundressed bag o’ bones. My heart spazzed, as though trying to pump clots, and I wore a groove between desk and door.
    Little pool of body curled on the floor, streaked bloody, joint-wobbly. My breath came in obscene gasps; brutalized, orgasmic rushes. All right God, or Whoever, or the Great Nothing, there you have it: blood, sweat, and tears. Happy now?

    INT. VELVET’S PURGATORY (HOPEFULLY) OR HELL (?)—MIRROR—TIMELESS
    The Shadowman is in the mirror, playing a tiny violin. He is once again dressed in black cashmere, his dark hair gleaming as though under hot lights.
    SHADOWMAN
    This is the saddest music in the world. It’s enough to make me weep leaden tears. It’s enough to make Beethoven weep leaden tears. In fact, I think Beethoven
did
weep leaden tears! You fucked up.
    Notes pour forth from the mirror, melodic quavers hooking themselves into the air, pearlescent nails sunk in flesh.
    SHADOWMAN
    Repeat after me. I will not go mad. I will not go mad. I will not go mad. I will not go mad. I will not go mad. I will not go mad.
    He stops playing the violin and smiles.
    SHADOWMAN
    Too late.

    What the fuck was
he
doing here? He’d forced me to follow his instructions, threatened to burn me alive after pulling out my fingernails if I didn’t hang myself just so . . . and I was stupid and naïve enough to have entertained the faint hope that if I did what I was told . . . I would be free of him forever. But if this was in fact Hell, then I guess I’m hooped. My bid to make a final getaway appeared to be a miserable failure. I could be stuck in bed with the Shadowman for all Eternity.
    I seeped fluids into the soft carpet while the clock needled the same numbers on the wall above me. Swayed to my knees like a dumb animal nosing the air after sleep. I had a sense that my skin was full of holes (partly true—skinless knuckles, scratches, bruises) and out of those holes hung nerve-tufts, with a spirally weight like Slinkies. Patted myself down briefly to make sure the sensation wasn’t based in fact—some weird turn-Velvet-into-sludge torture (although I must say I did an admirable job of that myself—why weren’t the walls padded? And why did I suddenly think of the garbage-compacter room in
Star Wars
?)—then crawled to the chair. My breathing was still shaky, and with one hand on the chair I heave-panted into the carpet, which smelled of lavender. This made me gag. Floral scents are inadvisable when one has thrown oneself against a wall. Hunched over, I felt my tonsils twist and a chilly sweat surge from my face and