Rebecca Gransden - Sea of Glass

The woman coughed, jowls shuddering. “Could you do me a favour, dear boy?” she said. Her voice was hoarse and haughty, her swamp green eyes surrounded by scleras the yellow of a public toilet porcelain urinal. She sneezed and pink mush slid down her philtrum, which she then licked away with a quick and pointy tongue. “I’m quite stuck here, you see. Can’t leave until the big guy shows, and lord knows when he’ll grace us with his presence.” She used her purse and motioned to the chair at the far head of the table, difficult to make out under the troubling candelabra light but definitely empty. “I’ve got a gift for him. Had to sacrifice many cairn bairns to get my claws on it. You look like you’ve got fresh legs. All you need to do is take it to the top of the table for me. I’m worried that if I stood up now I’d come something of a cropper, having had more than my share of nectar. I’m a bit sloshed, I’m afraid.” She giggled, and coquettishly gazed downwards to her lap. Where her legs tucked underneath and met the tablecloth her dress draped over her wasted thighs, nothing but bone. She opened her purse and rummaged clumsily inside, plunging her hand in to an extent which was impossible. Kattar moved, hoping to escape her while her attention was solely on her purse. “Ah ha!” she said, following with a triumphant fleeting wretch. She plucked a pinprick of light from the purse. It shone like a glowing dandelion seed, the tip of a magic wand, candlelight without gravity. “Hold out your hands, like a cup,” she said, and placed the softly radiant ball onto his met palms. He felt as if he held the sun and one clap could destroy all. The tiny spark danced in a low bounce as it settled in his hands. Then it moved by its own will and drew itself across his wound, its warmth permeating the welts and scratches. The ripeness of hurt and decay withered at its touch until his palm sat relieved and unblemished.

“Hmm, powerful little star, isn’t it?” she said. “You must be close to the outside for it to have been able to heal you like that. You look new.” Her eyes glistened. “How long have you been here?”

“I—“ Kattar stumbled. “I’m not sure.”

She laughed, low. “No one is, not now. The night is getting on. Take it and leave it on his chair would you dear? He’ll be sure to see it there, and if he fails to, well, he’ll sit on it and it will be a nice surprise. He needs to swallow it one way or another and from what I’ve heard he’s not one to be picky about which orifice he chooses to use to do so.”

Katter plodded along, keeping a fair distance, trying to be inconspicuous, carrying the tiny spark gently, afraid some mean wind would steal it in a breath. The chair at the table’s head was wider than the others, with sturdy armrests and worn wood. He approached and bent, ready to deliver the star.

The person sitting at the end of the table row nearest to him turned to face Kattar. The man displayed deformity, his face scooped away from beneath his eyes, a gristly blood cave which extended to his neck, itself scraped of its windpipe, attached with nerve and neck bone only. A voice came from the man, displaced, as if thrown by someone else. “What do you think you’re doing?” it said.

Kattar halted, the star glowing for all to see on his outstretched palm.

“You can’t put that there,” the man’s voice said, “not if you know what’s good for you.”

“It’s a gift.” Kattar’s voice shook. “From the lady, down there.”

“That’s irrelevant. I say you are making the wrong move, sonny.” The man reached underneath the table and retrieved a heavy bolt gun. Multitudes of voices amplified, chittering and guttural, choral and wasted multilingual. He pointed the bolt gun at Kattar. “Step closer and push your head against the end. Don’t worry, I won’t release myself on you. You aren’t my kind of cattle. I want to see how serious you are, that’s all.”

Kattar moved away, one step.

“I thought so.” The man and his voice swam underneath the noise of the room, clear amid the ramblings. “Eat it,” he said, “Yum it up, or I’ll chase you with this forever.” He waved the bolt gun around playfully, laughter lighting his eyes above the raw hole below. “The star, consume it.”

Hand twitched and star fell, the shining orb settling to rest on the wide arm of the head chair.

“You are a scaredy one.” The voice tapped his fingers on the white tablecloth. “Tell you what, you give me some entertainment and we’ll call it quits.” He grabbed the bolt gun and thrust it toward Kattar. “Pick one, someone, anyone. Off them, and I’ll ignore you. Look at these wretched folks, you’ll be doing one of my fellow guests a favour. This evening never ends.” The voice sat stilly, his eyes cold. “This is your last chance, there won’t be another. If you don’t take this offer I’m coming for you, and I won’t relent, I don’t tire, you’ll be my obsession, I’ll know you better than you know yourself, and when I’ve used you up I’ll cut you out of this world in a protracted torturous descent. I’ll send you back down, you have my word on that. No exits for you.”

Laughter and cheer flowed to the rafters, the clinking of toasts, sanguine revelry, loosened clothing, kicked off shoes. Kattar lifted the bolt gun, examining it, as if if he could figure the object out his situation could transform.

The voice sat pensive, pinioning the room to follow Kattar’s travels to the rear of the guests opposite, them near riotous and flirtatious, in oblivion and abandon. Kattar stopped and raised the gun to the back of the skull of a squat man, silver haired and tipsy, without ears, blood leaked to a thick tar around his neck, nearly asleep from intoxication in the mayhem. He won’t know what hit him. Macabre little show, no harm in playing along. The ticket to the EXIT.

The release. Skull fragments plunged and tore, the man tilted his dead weight onto the floor and rolled underneath the table. Kattar dropped the bolt gun in the recoil and it bounced and broke, clanging and thumping. The voice chuckled low and satisfied, the only guest to notice, the others lost to some other script.

“The way out is behind you,” the voice said. “It’s not the exit, just a doorway.”

Kattar turned his head to see a corner in the white walls, and a short tunnel to a bright lamplit strawberry gold door.

The star hovered up and glided forwards, humming over the table, rising mothlike over the decaying heads of the guests, above the strangulated blooms and withered vines placed in decoration, amid the scent of spilled wine and meaty leftovers, sweet rotting fancies, plucked dying fruit and moulding nuts, laughter ejected sputum and tears of pus.

The woman who had entrusted Kattar with the star reached her bony arms onto the table, attempting to drag herself atop it, dry heaving lungs popping with pleurisy, eyes wide and fixed on the travelling light. She let out a cry, loud, high frequency. “He’s not been invited,” she said, her head wobbling frantically as her eyes searched the room. Her vision impaired, she missed the sight of Kattar, but he sensed who her eyes were seeking. “He’s one of the riffraff and he’s bought his way out. The dancing star healed him. I should’ve raised the alarm then my friends, goddammit to hell! I was too concerned with ensuring my gift find its way to the chairman. It’s not fair, I tell you! He’s freed the star with a sacrifice, little shit. Where is he? Someone stop him from leaving. One of us could go in his place. Rip him up, let the first to feast get their ticket out of here!” A howl erupted from the throng, dilapidated bodies moving in ravenous syncopation, fighting with their frailty, falling from their seats, flesh sloughing from limbs shocked by activity, skin detracting from frame, clothes sacks for ghoulish innards.