Ritual

Farwell Helen

You titled this it would have happened here. Shall we get into why your notes have been different?

Dear Helen,

I stalked Instagram and Tik-Tok for whores, trawled twitter for wayward misanthropes, and plumbed the depths of eating disorder Facebook groups in a bleary neon odyssey, but I found you on Reddit. I cherish the conversation too much to reproduce it, Helen. I wasn’t sure what I was doing; I was just sure that you were special.

They always told me I’d miss her. I doubted it but I think it was supposed to happen that way. Did you know you can lose your voice writing a letter? You were used to being misunderstood. I don’t think it would surprise you.

You never cared if people knew what you were talking about. I couldn’t figure that part of you out. Was there an audience in your head? Things just broke to the surface. You thought the chaos was funny, but you had to know it isolated you on some level. Fear brings out old cognitive architecture. Was that why you thought everyone was making fun of you? You’d become a child again? You always thought you were very cute with the random humor. Maybe you were to someone, but it was a flaw to me, darling.

It’s why it came to mind first. I’d always thought that cliché about missing a person’s flaws was overdone. I understand it now. It can’t be overdone, and it’s inaccessible to those who don’t bear the agony.

How many people traced that scar on your back with their eyes? Maybe I was lucky to have touched it, but I feel cursed by every caress I gave it. I can feel it under my fingers as I type, my keyboard pliant, fleshy, numb to my touches. I did prick you by the way, very lightly, just to see if you were telling the truth.

I think about your contorting impassioned face. You assured me you were still very boyish then. I don’t know if I’d have cared. I’d have cleaned your vomit to hear your groans. I looked up photographs of the procedure in the bathroom, watched as much of a video as I could stomach.

You picked Pikeville because you were used to driving the Mountain Parkway. I promised I knew a stargazing spot—awaking your abandoned passions was an easy way to get you to like me. There were tears in your eyes when you talked about the Tombaugh Reggio. I won’t pervert that with metaphor.

We got coffee from the stand in the grocery store by the river.

Your uncle had given you a Bulova that you “blessed” when you went through a Wiccan phase because jewelry from a family member seemed lucky to you. It really was a nice watch. Too big for you though. Is that why you liked it? You always were insecure about your hands. Freyja works in mysterious ways, I guess.

You had a child’s obsession with chocolate. Your mocha-caffeinated eyes darted, a vein pulsing in your neck. You told me that in middle school you had so many dreams about being made fun of that you couldn’t remember what was real. I made myself comforting while you spilled, the natural bubbling over of a recluse.

I called you strong— people need to think they had hard childhoods— and asked how you coped. There was something quixotic about your fixation on heavy metal, like you thought you could fight your culture by surrounding yourself with the trappings of demons, a lonely triumphant Lucifer in her icy chasm. But you yearned to regain heaven. One of your great comforts in life was a gigantic soft drink. Music always confused you, but toward the end I think you at least started to realize what it is. That song about putting someone in the ground stayed with me. So did the one where you’d hiss “She comes to the serpent’s kiss” not because they were good but because you liked them. I saw your softer side in the motel.

You fucked like a hungry kid biting off more than she could chew. You didn’t even really like men. We took a lot of breaks because you couldn’t cram it down your throat the way you wanted, and anal embarrassed you. I loved watching you try to arch your back, the frustration on your face, the way the scar bulged. I’ll never have another orgasm like that.

God you were stupid. You buried yourself. You should have let yourself love ballet. The interest suited you.

Instead you indulged your Satanic streak, another black metal burnout convinced their own misery was the most profound thing in the universe. Sometimes I wanted to leave you alone in a dark room with a camera and see what performance art came out.

Did your half-ironic bravado ever convince you? You wilted at conflict. You were always upset when people blamed the mother, but you blamed your mother didn’t you? Or maybe it was something else. Maybe you were just sad, because on some level you always had to wonder if the rift between you happened almost as soon as you were born.

You compared it to secondhand smoke and apologized to me because you thought you were being insensitive to your cousin. You really thought you’d kill your mother if you lived your life. It was sad. It was part of why you’d given up. It was her wasn’t it? That was the “God” your short stories called a demiurge, the “God” that your metal music blasphemed, the “God” you defied on the church steps that night. There were people you could have talked to about it you know? Your friend from the bar? The younger brothers thought you were pathetic. They didn’t see that you were wonderfully sculpted, made for me.

I shared the photo. Sorry.

I went through your computer. The powerpoint was how I knew you’d want it. Based on the timestamp you’d have made it in class, just before you dropped out. That’s the other rule about picking a girl. She has to want it. She doesn’t have to admit it wanting it. She just has to want it.

The fact you’d never see your own corpse bothered you— you told me when you talked about wanting to become a coroner in high school. I think this is my attempt to show it to you. You’d find it fitting. Digital remains fascinated you. I stitched things together from what you’d saved, rebuilt you word by word. Now everyone can see how pretty you were, can feel my pain. You told me the worst thing you’d ever read was that people like you metaphorically wore a woman’s skin to hunt her better. It’s wrong. You wear the skin to remember the life you took.

Loss is what makes a man a man. I think that’s what the ritual is about. It’s why you have to love her, why she has to want it.

The ritual is old as men and women. The same can’t be said of the Brotherhood. We’re all well off. Rich is a stretch. We don’t worship Satan; our internal mythology holds that we’re descended from pagan cults. I know it can’t be true, but the Brotherhood is ancient in one sense. For all of history, some men, for some reason or another have gathered together because they need to get crazy over a bitch then kill her. After that they go back to their normal lives. It’s meaningless. It’s timeless.

You were a controversial choice, but other brothers have chosen twinks a time or two. It’s rarely the sort of thing that gets you barred from the Order. There are more ways to pick a girl as there are rules. The important thing is that she makes you feel something. It’s beautiful. You and her, that’s all the ritual is about. The others can’t touch your sacred bond, only envy it.

Part of me thought about calling it off, but I watched myself drive you about an hour of the way out of town, to that forgotten little street, to the chapel with the torn steeple. You smiled when you saw candles in it. “Spooky.” You waved your hands in front of your face like a dumbass.

You laughed at the robes at first, but I saw the glint in your eye. You wanted it to be real. Needed it to be real, and I hate you for it you selfish cunt. I did it for you. I can’t believe I did it for you. Can’t you see I had the harder end of the deal? I hope dying was everything you thought it would be because if you were alive, I’d chain you up somewhere and hold onto you as long as I could. If they bottled immortality, I’d force it down your throat. I’d never let you go.

You made a show of stripping for them, probably telling yourself you wanted to feel desired but it was really because you didn’t plan on living much longer anyway. You let the elders wash you by hand and eventually got used to the groping. Thanks for wearing the lingerie from the photo. You could’ve shaved better though.

I think you realized it was real when they bound your feet, but it was too late by then. They started with your back. We carve runes. They’re random. They don’t mean anything.

It took three stabs through the chest to kill you because I kept hitting the sternum instead of hooking under toward the aorta. My hand shook the whole time. Blood glazed your pale stomach in thick spurts. It’s hardest to watch the light leave green eyes. You’d hate me for saying that. It’s okay. You should. I’m a pervert. I’m a bad person. I took your for myself and my I’ll never give you up Helen. I’ll be dead by the time this is posted.

Maybe we can finish that conversation about your writing.

Don’t expect anyone to look for your ashes. I imitated that stupid joke where you fake your death a lot. Nobody’s going to believe this.

Yours Forever—

Glen :D

JK lol.

Anyway if you liked the weird self-insert horror please read A Sick Grey Laugh by Nicole Cushing. She’s better at it.

The abandoned church on the Mountain Parkway isn’t even near Pikeville! It’s just outside Salyersville :D