I Am Darkness
A short story in British English about a beached whale and its psychopathic doctor
CHAPTER ONE — Town —
I reminisce about my life in utero, and the flatteries I adopted can sway and cause one to fall prey to my predation, and I’m always revolting against the pious, how Brendan’s here in the meadows of Windsor to revamp himself and his faith in the otherworldly, but I am to fashion a way to break him. I’ve come to appreciate Brendan and his girly courtesies, and sometimes, he’d genuflect in front of me for the jollies. I’ve come to tolerate it when he’s not fawning, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything but contempt for anyone. I learnt to spot genuine attempts at being servile, and I got that it can’t always be the way I want it, but that’s not how I like it, and I have a Brendan, who’s always abasing himself and servile to a fault, and that’s the top-tier I can afford, but everyone is replaceable, and I need the new and shiny fix.
All the townies have been brewing make-shift ayahuasca, and we can smell the acacia around all the streets. By the silos, they mill metal on aspen wood and make staves for cranberry-wine barrels. We’d have roast turkey when we already had barbecued veal the day before, with other meaty and savoury assortments, but pork is forbidden. Philanthropists have been benefactors of Windsor for years, and we’d be home in time for the canticle crooned by the magistrate, the most splurging benefactor and among the richest in the world — the man in posters on walls of the streets. We’d join in the crowds for a new hymn. On Windsor Square, in an assembly, people are to take ayahuasca together, and a magistrate will schedule it, but Brendan and I are away.
We arrive at the brim of Windsor’s asphalt. The sun scalds on the outskirts, there are no acacia shades, and the heat starkly refracts air above the asphalt in the way it looks when oil’s on heat and vaporising. We’re close to the beach, there are the mangroves, and see the shimmery lagoon adjacent. Brendan’s been on about a beached whale that sieged the coast a few hours earlier, and I’ve been pondering if they’ll need a whale veterinarian as whales don’t prefer being beached, so it could be dying or sick. See the men glaring at us from the bulwarks of a vintage brig. We need to get behind the mangrove lining, it’s obstructing the sight of the whale. Sand characterises our toddling gaits.
Brendan's voice always sounds hoarse and as if he’s boozed up, even when he’s around someone you’d stay stern for, he would sound the same, and girls would stray from him. He’s sprinting to the forefront. When we’re together, he acts as if he’s my paramour, and it unrests me. We can hear the harangues of some of the whale’s bystanders. There they are! A jet of water is splurging out to the sky, it’s from the whale’s blowhole. Usually, mangroves are supposed to be abutting a sea, however, the brim of the sandy coastline is considerably spacious, and the mangrove lining seems to have receded. Scientists are in a parley. Brendan comes back and snags my hand, and we head closer to the whale. We take our shoes off, and Brendan takes his shirt and pants off, and he goes diving, clad only in his nether garments; I wonder if he has another pair of undies close by, he told me he was here in the morning.
‘It’s 97 feet long, but they want to take its oil reserves! They think it’s sick!’ Brendan, raucous.
I’ve studied how to excise tumours out of whales before; Brendan thought it could be good practice since I rarely get the time to practice whale surgery, and the extent of my certitude in whale surgery has mostly been theoretical though I’ve operated on them before. Hear the whale’s solemn wailing. It’s rather peculiar that a whale would lie on a shore, it must be close to being dead, and pilgrims may kill it themselves if it’s sick, and it’d be euthanasia. It’s absconded with seeds of the sea! See the coral reef glistening in the lagoon, and bear the whale’s cacophony.
‘Yes, it could be cancer, you can see the swelling close to its blowhole, the protrusion is asphyxiating it. If it’s cancer and we can push it back to the water, we’ll let it rest in peace in the sea,’ from the crowds.
‘Possibly in its late stages, it’s dying. It’s peculiar, whales have lower rates of cancer because of the size of the creatures. Who’s ablated tumours off of whales before? The creature has the most peculiar poses. We could possibly anaesthetise it,’ a man approaches waddling, the thickest lenses on his glasses; he seems reticent and not of the parley; he jaunts closer.
‘Brendan, come over here!’ I, David Curt.
‘Mr Curt, I’m charmed to be in your presence. I’ve heard so much about you, and your work is remarkable. You’d replaced a whole cancerous ribcage with synthetic bones on a leviathan, truly inspiring!’
‘Where do you know me from?’
‘I had acquainted with Brendan during last year's ceremony, and we had our own late-night soirée after, and last night as well, during the feast after the ayahuasca, he was on about you. I’ve affiliated with many stories of your tenacity in the field of whale surgery; I saw you on the news, you’re a polyglot!’
‘Oh, what else do you know?’
‘Well, your expedition to the forests of Scandinavia for the kidney transplant for the domestic caribou was monumental. Your global excursions to perform fetal surgeries on mammals who scarcely survive births made me credulous after you delivered the quintuplets, the Amber family it was; they were almost delivered prematurely because the mother couldn’t bare it anymore, and she tried to induce the births by natural methods, astounding! And that time you cut out burnt tissue and replaced it with allograft skin, Brendan showed pictures of the before and after, and you couldn’t see the scarring, truly tantalising, and I’ve seen easier surgeries, but blotches would be left after transplanting. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, you remind me so much of Daniel Tammet…’
‘Oh my, what a compliment.’
‘Everyone, this is the man we’ve been waiting for!’
Richard grabs onto me with his pruney hands, and he hauls me along. He’s got the shudders, and everyone’s staring at us, and some are sniggering because he’s jittery. I withdraw my hand, he looks back at me, and I snicker.
‘Breathe,’ I tell him, and he smiles. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Richard Summer. Will you help us understand the whale?’
‘Sure. It’s a sperm whale, and judging from its pose and the protrusion close to its blowhole, it could have cancer, and it could be asphyxiating it, and it’s egregious, it should be dead from the size of the blubber.’
‘I’ve heard you’ve performed on blue whales before!’
‘Yes, now that was substantial!’
It had probably hit the news, apposite professionals are here, mostly veterinarians. The leviathan’s wailing is getting sinister. Far out to the right, you can see men staring at us from the wharves of a dock. Brendan leaves the water, he’s heading towards me. He’s always had trouble being alone since we became mates, and that’s how I like it. For feelers, the test of sanity will be passed by the sequestered, and surely, that has to stand for something grander in this world.
Brendan’s always been sycophantic, it’s almost flirtatious how he tries to make it surreptitious, and he touched me as I slept before, and he called out for me from his dreams. We barraged through Alberqueque after meeting Brendan’s cousin who told us about a Scientology jubilee that took place last year. Brendan got an infection after a cactus splintered his foot, and it throbbed for weeks; he blacked out at the jamboree at some point. Brendan had to sleep with me because the situation got alarming — he couldn’t stop sweating and seemed to be in a trance. It’s been different since then, more sustained eye contact, and he became more reticent, and he seemed demure. The first day we talked, he’d be forthcoming about his licentious behaviour — the men he was with and all the flurries in his life. I warned him something grim would happen if he ever got too close to me.
CHAPTER TWO — The Sea Boar
It was beginning to dawn on me that Brendan had got too close to me when Lisa was pregnant. I’d reminisce all the times Brendan would get gloomy after the baby came as I was closer to Lisa. People say that a heart can part in two ways: a soul, and in the exclusively human, it’s another self, and I don’t think God is a killer, and I’ll wait to see how it all turns out. Maybe I’d’ be shut out from heaven’s gates, and I wouldn’t understand what they mean by it as it’s all blurry there. It’s not that I have to acquiesce, it’s that I don’t care. I say a day’s well done when gloom settles folks down. Perhaps my upbringing ferments me, however, I’m not regretful about it, and it is hypocritical of me, I admit it, and I’d strain to save face, but I could never tell anyone that, but I trust you.
When I was with Lisa, we’d get sexual at my place, but Brendan wouldn’t leave me alone, so he’d sometimes watch us get together, and he’d wait in the parlour while I broke her back. Lisa didn’t mind, or so it seems, and I didn’t. When I left her and let her take custody of the baby, but I’d still have to settle the money for the alimony and child support, she roistered in the autonomy, and she got sleazy in that way; I was done with her. I prance to the whale’s side, they’ve put a ladder with a bannister to the whale’s blowhole, and the drizzle has halted; this will be fun, getting on top of the leviathan. I head to the ladder. We’d need special paraphernalia to assay the whale, and I can see them under the tarpaulin.
The incentives of my domineering have never been repulsive to Brendan, and I’ve even slapped him across the face once when he got salacious and put his hands on my crotch after he contracted cerebral malaria; he’s always getting ill. I am haughty and brawny, I don’t judge him for dreaming, but I don’t make men stoop. Brendan smells of frankincense, he’s cleaned up before, and it’s very pricy, and they’re denizens of Somalia, Boswellia sacra, and are endangered. We’d have to go up to the whale to make sure it isn’t an artificial barricade in its blowhole. I head up the bannister with Richard.
Love is what I hate most; once you're caught in, you’re effaced. I’ve known idolisers to be the most ghastly people, but hold gall and they could open kind. Brendan’s always been tipsy around libertines, he’d gawk at Tom Sentsor when we were still students, but then they fought and he went and told everyone that Brendan was gay, and he then went and told his parents too, but Tom says he wasn’t interested in sex, but Brendan says they became intimate; then Brendan and I met up for the first time and we were inseparable, mostly because he couldn’t leave me alone.
Brendan always says he can read, but I’m sure he has trouble with it, he has lots of traumatic memories, and he’s scared of abandonment. He’d even share with me that time he found out he was adopted, and it explained why his mom loathed him, his dad had got him, and when they separated, his mom was given custody of him and his sister, but his mom only liked his sister. I could always tell that Brendan was hurt a bit more than everyone, but I never really cared and he never properly realised it either.
On top of the whale, you can see the size of the tumour, a toddler-sized ball, and it’s making it suffocate to death, we’d have to cut it out first before we can assay it as it may not have long to live. Richard is just behind me, he’s holding on to the rail as if it is to break. Richard heads back down. There are ways we could control the bleeding from such a cut: we could try temporarily coagulating its blood or we could cut it out in small pieces and partly stitch other parts back up, but it doesn’t look like it has long to live, and it may be dead before we finish cutting the tumour out, not from the blood, but from the tribulations of cancer.
‘It’s probably cancer!’ I say. The crowd goes despondent, with some sighs here and there. ‘We’d have to cut it out before we can assay it, we may need a power saw! Quickly! It doesn’t have long to live.’ The crowd gasps.
They‘re angling a shoal from the vintage brig, and they stare at our business. Someone eventually brings me a power saw and I step to the ground to acquire it. Seaweed is squashed by the man from his furrowing on the sand, he hands me the saw, and I head back up with it. More people are here now that the drizzling has quashed. A guitar player sets the mood under the marquee’s tarpaulin, but the power saw is to ruffle. Richard heads to the marquee and grabs a huge syringe, he climbs back up and gets on top of it. The leviathan is weak, but it moves after Richard injects the ketamine and aprotinin, and the ladder shakes up a bit as it wobbles after the injection. We wait for the drugs to take effect. It’s down now, it’s time to excision the tumour. I get on top of the whale, and I stoop to its insides. We haven’t scanned it, so I only cut out parts of the tumour, for the rest, we’d have to get more professional paraphernalia.
‘Everyone is staring,’ Richard.
‘Are they?’ I.
‘Yes, it’s quite inspiring work! The syringe will coagulate its blood, and it’ll knock it out for hours. Can I leave you to it?’
‘It’s okay, I’ll be done soon anyway, then we’ll have to get more professional with our incisions or else it may die. We’ll get more work done later on, but I’ll need you to keep the injections coming or else things could turn searing-like for it?’
I’m used to ablutions with blood, but it’s not spewing. The tumour’s corium is slimy, and it pops out like solid pus from a burst pimple, this was easier than expected. I turn off the power saw and lay it on top of the whale, grab the tumour and sling it onto the ground. The crowd cheers. I head on down the steps, and I go to wash in the sea.
CHAPTER THREE — Presage
Brendan and I are heading back to Windsor‘s heath, a crowd rests there on the roads, attired casually, and of all races; they come together every year for the psychedelic ceremonies, and from acacias, they’d make ayahuasca, however, ayahuasca isn’t usually made with acacias. Brendan’s been uppity for weeks about having been here before, you find your kind here. It was about time for the ceremony, and Brendan suggested we race back, we race. Everyone is headed to the town’s central square, and you can hear the magistrate call out for everyone from the megaphone, and you can see peons roll barrels of ayahuasca on rolling trugs towards the square. Brendan says that sometimes, they just pulp magic mushrooms; he’s been here ten times, and they’re instructed on dosing, and from what I’ve heard from him, it’s a bunch of hippies coming together and being vulnerable with each other, and some would walk around naked at the height of the ceremony, and they’d have small doses such that they’d be grounded to this reality, and I was considering joining them, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not for me, I just wanted to play predator when everyone’s guard for the meretricious is down, or is it up after they ingest?
We are finally here, a huge crowd is around the magistrate in a cassock, and he speaks to his legions from a platform. He is guarded by two men, and he speaks to a microphone on a stand.
‘Welcome to Windsor’s biennial psychedelic fete, where we take psychedelics, feast, and mingle amongst each other, the way we were intended to love as people, together! The psychedelics will come out in a bit, but for now, let’s recap on what we usually do here, surely there must be newcomers, and there are no laws on our little private island. The rules are simple — be good and we won't put you in jail, you’re pretty familiar with that one.’ The crowd laughs. ‘We created this place so we could have a place of freedom from all the bullshit in the world, and we come here so that we can vent and have a rebirth as our truest selves on this planet, whatever that entails. Note the guards around you, they’re here to keep things civil and fair, so reach out to them if you ever need anything. The peons are preparing the feast for us, it’s all free, and of course, we donate to have these festivities, and some of you are our benefactors. We have medical care for some of you who might need medical assistance, you can visit the medics if you happen to have a psychotic break, and they won’t be taking any drugs, however, you need to talk to the guards first before getting to the medics.’
The peons bring out the gallons of ayahuasca from barrels, and people line up to ingest from a cup; bitter visages from the people ingesting. Brendan steps up earlier than the 500–700 people, and he ingests; here he comes, he’s pointing towards our stead, and I think he wants us to head inside, so I turn around and head to the cloisters, and he races towards me; we enter the parlour, and Brendan goes to lie down.
‘I can kinda already feel it kicking in.’
‘Are you gonna start acting all crazy? How much did you actually take?’
‘Just enough. I wanna talk about a few things, then we can go to mingle outside.’
‘Talk about what?’
‘I don’t think I can talk about it just yet.’
‘Why do you need to be on ayahuasca?’
‘I told you, I can’t talk about it sober.’
‘Well, I don’t want to talk about it then.’
‘Relax, it’s not a big deal.’
‘Then why can't we talk about it.’
‘Okay, fine, you wanna talk about it, okay.’
‘David, I have a crush on you.’
‘What the hell are you on about.’
‘I like you.’
‘No, fuck off, you’re disgusting. Why are you even telling me this? I don’t think about you at all. I’m not gay. What the hell is wrong with you? It crosses our boundaries.’
‘That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it, so it wouldn’t be sober me talking about it, and I’d feel less shame, and I don’t think I could get over it without telling you.’
‘I hate you, do you understand that?’
‘Please, I’m gonna have a bad trip if you’re like that, I don’t mean to offend you, it’s just that I’ve been thinking about you often, and I can’t shake the feeling, and all the things you do to your girlfriends, you don’t do to me, and it makes me feel like I’m special to you.’
‘What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m straight; any feelings you think you may have are your fault, and this is incredibly repulsive and demeaning. What exactly do you want from me? Why did you want me to come here?’
‘I just wanted us to have a good time, you know, around people we both like to spend time with, and I thought that we could make new friends.’
‘I don’t need new friends.’
‘I just wanted to… You know what, fuck you, I know you like that I like you, you can’t hide it. I know about all your games.’
‘You are incredibly disappointing, you let me down, and now I’m furious with you, and I swear that this isn’t going to end well. I always thought you knew who I was, but you‘ve never known who I was. You come up to me with all this bullshit about loving me, it is disgusting! I don’t want anyone loving me; now you’re telling me you want to be with me. You really are crazy. First thing tomorrow, we’re getting out of this hippie island, and we are done for good, do you hear me? I don’t want anything to do with your effeminate bullshit anymore.’ I get out of the parlour and go slam the door. Brendan looks nervous.
CHAPTER FOUR — The Socialite
The outside is haunted by mirth, and some people are starting to get naked and have sex with each other on the open field. The peons bring out the feast, and it’s turkey and vichyssoise, crab and lobster meat stuffed in avocado salads, and beef sausages with cranberry wine. We head to masticate, but Brendan is already starting to trip out; we feast, but I still find Brendan incorrigible in how he spoke about his feelings for me; we’d have to settle that permanently, so I call out for him and ask for us to head back to the cloisters after he’s had his fun. It irks me that he doesn’t understand the full extent of his wrongdoing.
A man who owns a kaleidoscope tries to engage with us, his kid is a ragamuffin, he must have been playing in the dirt, and his wife has one of the most punctuating visages I’ve seen.
‘How are you enjoying the festivities?’ kaleidoscope man.
‘We’d like to be alone, please,’ what’s a married woman worth to me anyway but a stressor?
‘Okay, I hope you’re all doing alright, you both look a little tense.’
‘Yeah, yall should loosen up,’ the wife.
‘Yeah, we’d be better if you left us alone,’ I.
‘Okay, then, cheerio!’ Kaleidoscope man. They head out to other masses while Brendan and I head back to our parlour.
Inside our parlour, I head to my room and grab a belt. Brendan’s been tottering on pavement, so, it’s the perfect time for my plan. I test the belt’s elasticity, then I head straight out of my room to Brendan’s neck on the couch, and I wrap the belt around his neck and asphyxiate him. He’s struggling an awful lot, he kicks the furniture, and he can’t mouth anything, and now, I need to find a place to get rid of his body.
‘It’s alright, we’re just getting frisky.’
‘Oh, that explains the sounds, we’re guards, we were just checking in to see if everything’s alright. People don’t usually head inside after taking the ayahuasca.’
‘Everything’s dandy!’
‘Okay, we’ll leave you to it then.’
I need to think of a way to get Brendan’s body out of this place before the maids come to clean up the room, but people are walking around everywhere. I’d have to come back and get his body deep in the night, and they’d think he’s wasted and weak. Someone knocks on the door.
‘Hello, it’s me, Richard. Hello, is Brendan in here? I thought he might like a chat now that I’m wasted, hahahaha!’
‘Brendan’s not in here, he’s mingling with other people outside.’
‘Oh, is that you, Mr Curt, do you mind if I come in, and we could have our own little chat?’
‘No thank you, I’m rather busy with a girl right now.’
‘Oh my, sorry to intrude.’
‘No problem, just go away now.’
CHAPTER FIVE — Ken
I still haven’t got over the gall Brendan held to insult me. I’d have to be headed to the whale at midnight, so I can kill it and stuff Brendan inside the tumour’s cavity, and no one will know the difference. Midnight will, and I will be headed to the beach with Brendan’s body. It’s midnight, I start moving with Brendan. I tell a guard he’s had a little too much acacia and he’s passed out and that we’re going back to our rooms. I surreptitiously made it through all the cloisters, and it was time to dump him in the whale. From the marquee, I grab a scalpel and leave Brendan’s body by the marquee. I head up the steps and go to cut one of the whale’s primary arteries in the blowhole, and it spews blood heavily inside the blowhole, but it stays inside the blowhole, and it still can’t feel a thing. The whale is still knocked out, and it was going to die. Next, I drag Brendan’s body up the steps and bend his body into the fetal position, and I haul his body into the cavity. He can fit inside.
It’s been three hours since I murdered Brendan, and I’m worried that someone was around to see me ditch his body in the whale, but it was dark enough for no one to see. There is no sight of anyone, and the sun is about to rise. I should stay quiet and mention that the whale is blasted and that Brendan disappeared since last night and that I don’t know where he’s gone. I wonder if they’ll push the whale’s body from the shore, or if they’ll try and study it more, but it is dead now. I wonder if kaleidoscope man will be on to something. I did cut through a primary artery last night, and that is hard for an experienced whale surgeon to do. I’ll take a nap on the beach and wait for everyone to arrive.
‘It’s not awake, did it die?’ Richard, startling me to wake.
‘I believe so, I couldn’t leave its sight, it should have awoken, and I’ve been looking for Brendan, he’s been missing since last night.’
‘And I forgot to inject the anaesthetic, I thought you’d come back to look after it, and I couldn’t think straight last night. Did the power saw do it? Did it drown in its own blood? Was it an infection? What happened?’
‘The cancer must have metastasised, it was always going to die anyway, it just needed to catch a breath.’
‘Oh my, that’s incredibly disheartening.’
‘Yes, we should drag it out to sea.’
‘Didn’t you want to study it and verify the cause of death?’
‘No, I’m fairly certain cancer got it. We were together, you saw the tumour just pop right out of its casement.’
‘Yes. The whale is dead everyone! We need to push it back out to sea! We need all the bodies we can muster, we’d go swimming. Someone get the steps out of the way.’
About a hundred men are headed towards the whale, they take most of their clothes off, and they start to push it towards the sea. Eventually, they get to a place where the water is above their necks, and so, they stop, and the whale slowly begins to drift from its buoyancy, and away it goes, with Brendan’s body. That was so thrilling!
‘I wish there was more we could do for the whale,’ Richard.
‘I think its fate was sealed, there’s no use dwelling on mother nature’s wishes, that path is marked by heartache. It’s best we learn to let go and learn to grow.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘It is done, Richard, let it go, I already have, and I was the one cutting through the poor beast. Think of how it’s affected me, one of the top surgeons in the world. ’
‘You’re right, we should let it go. I wonder where Brendan went, he promised me that we were to meet up again at some point after ingesting ayahuasca, it may have got too intense for him?’
‘I think he chose to go home, he did tell me that his father was just diagnosed with cancer; the parallels give me the shudders.’
‘Oh my! This must be very difficult for him and you.’
‘Yes, he felt it best to go home, I believe, but he didn’t inform me of anything.’
‘He must have found it hard given you were the one who performed on the whale.’
‘Yes, but he’s left me uneasy, I’m not sure if he’s alright.’
‘Give it time, I’m sure he’ll turn up or call.’
‘Anyway, I’m sorry we lost it, it was a pleasure meeting and working with you regardless.’
‘Yes, thank you.’
Richard ambles away, and it begins to drizzle again. I go and sit on a chair under the marquee and watch the sunrise.
THE END.
