Henry Fanning AKA Hephaestus (crippled_god) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2011-12-01 23:41:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | hephaestus |
In the darkness of your room your mother calls you by your true name
Who: Henry/Hephaestus
What: A closed, short narrative.
Where: Henry's apartment.
When: Wednesday night, 29th Nov
Henry Fanning reached down to dip his brush into the paint, before bringing it back up to dab at the canvas. It was difficult to match the colour of Iris’ eyes, but with the right mix, it came across. Besides, he liked a challenge. “Henry, can I convince you to get to the opening? You don’t have to make any speeches or anything, I know you hate that.”
Henry didn’t stop painting, simply talking to back at the phone on loudspeaker. “I’m sorry, Bill. I have plans,” he lied fluently, reaching for another brush to add a darker shade of green to the thick snake wrapped around Iris’ body.
“Plans? Henry, you don’t have plans. You have things that happen to you.”
He sighed, setting the brush down and limping over to the phone lying on his desk. “I’ll be at the gallery next month, but my next two weeks are booked solid. Keep me informed, huh? Thanks.”
“Look, you need to-“
Henry tapped a button and cancelled the call. He disliked people like Bill. People who sought to drain money from him, and wanted him to make public appearances so everyone could look at the mysterious freak. It was too awkward, too...unnecessary.
And even if he didn’t have plans for the particular day his new building would open, he was making plans. He was going to go to that party everyone was invited to, and he was going to drink and smile and be a nice guy. That’s what people wanted, wasn’t it? That’s how you looked normal, right? You did things you didn’t want to, you rolled the dice and maybe someone would like you. Who knows, a fell more lucky rolls and that person could grow to love you. Wouldn’t that be something?
A sharp pain stabbed deep in the back of his head. He dealt with pain often, but had never built up a tolerance to it. His leg always hurt (especially on cold mornings when it felt like his joints were freezing and expanding to shatter) but the recent headaches he was experiencing were something else. They couldn’t be ignored; they had to be dealt with.
He dragged himself to the kitchen, popped open a bottle of painkillers and took two dry. Henry glanced over at the kitchen table, and for a moment he thought he saw his mother. Henrietta Fanning, three years before her death, with a crucifix clutched in one sweaty palm as the chair strained beneath her enormous weight.
“That boy, that crippled little demon seed…he’s the bane of my existence,” she would say to her friends, who were so sympathetic to her difficult life. “I pray to God and Jesus every single day that he would be cured of all his bad ways, but he’s still got the Mark of Cain on ‘im. I mean, can’t you see him? Can’t you just look at him? Ooh, it makes me want to vomit.”
Henry moved toward the main living area, and suddenly he heard the shrieks of his mother. “You always gotta be draggin’ that fuckin’ leg, makin’ such a fuckin’ racket? I swear, it’s a damned miracle I don’t lose my fuckin’ mind takin’ care of a noisy little monster like you.”
He tried to banish the memory, and walked a little faster, the blunt pain in his leg growing. “He’ll be nothin’,” said his mother. “Never gonna get…get a leg up!” And she would laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and her flesh would shake as she did.
Henry fell onto his couch, putting his cane aside. She always came to him when he felt anxious, when he felt things were going too smoothly. She came to him through the hazes of memory, an opponent who couldn’t be defeated because she’d died when she still had power over him. He never fought back. He never escaped. He just…let it all happen.
And here he still was, avoiding certain duties while forcing himself into so-called ‘pleasures’. And all the while, he was dragging that leg and making a fucking racket.