Cherubin

It was dark when he awoke. Almost absolutely. On the wall opposite, he could see the broken backed shadows of the pine trees sway inverted in the wind. He rose slowly and lit a lamp, placing it down with a dull clink on his bedside table. By this cowering orange light he dressed and stood, his bare feet on the floorboards. Listening. It came again. Quieter this time, as though it knew it had his attention and didn't need to be as loud. He thought for a minute, thought about blowing out the lantern and getting back into bed, forgetting about it.

But he didn't.

He picked up the lantern in his left hand, crossed the room and put his hand on the doorknob.

In his clammy hands, the cold metal slipped a few times before he caught purchase on it and twisted til the latch clicked. Again the sound, a dull wooden thumping, as though hundreds of fingers were drumming across the walls downstairs. He pushed the door open, feeling the black air push against it, gushing inwards, sinking his room into a uniform dark. He stepped out and into the hall, closing the door behind him. The corridor ran for roughly five metres before it ended in a staircase. Every metre or so was punctuated by two doors, one on either side, as he passed them his lamp cast undulating webs of light across the varnish. 

The closer he got to the staircase, the darker it seemed to become, this effect seemed to grow exponentially and by the time he reached the head of the stairs, he could see very little outside his bubble of sepia glow. He took the stairs two at a time, wincing whenever they creaked. The stone tiles of the ground floor were horribly cold and he began to wish he had brought slippers. 

As he contemplated this, lifting up each foot in turn to rub the chill from them, a grating sound, like a gritted rock scraped against granite sounded from ahead, in the darkness, towards the front door. He stood completely still, as though petrified, staring ahead into the black, as though trying to unknit it with his eyes. Again the sound, like an auralization of pain, longer this time, and the multicoloured pinpoints that flooded his vision in the absence of sight parted and the short white form of a garden statue came into the light. A cherub. Slung with folds of cloth and flowers. The soft curves of his form dull in the lamplight. A thick crop of curly hair. A cherub. Without his face.

He attempted a scream but the sound cheesegrated itself in his throat and sank back into waiting. He staggered backwards, hit a door and opened it, slamming it shut behind him. 

The kitchen.

The black granite floor like a sea of ink, stretching off into a nothing that no longer held what he thought it did.

Suddenly, it didn't feel like his home any more. The angular walls lurched towards him out of his peripheral vision, ceasing as he turned his eye on them. He sat with his back to the door, gasping in the cold, his skull fiery with a spiralling descension of horrific conceptions and half hearted explanations. A double helix of fear. 

He stayed completely still until his head quieted and then rose to his feet, slowly, not once taking his eyes from the door. 

I'm going to look.

I'm going to go out there and see that there's nothing there and then I'm going to go back up stairs and sit in my room and wait for morning. 

He turned, fixed his eyes on the rack of knives by the sink, then he backed away from the door towards the knives, not once taking his eyes off it. He turned quickly and grasped the knife, tugged.

It didn't come free.

He pulled again, panicking, tried another knife, dreading the sound of the latch clicking open.

Finally, the knife slid out and he whipped around,

catching his cheek on it's point as he did so.

The door was open.

Looking down, he could see the chalk like scratch marks on the floor. 

Followed them, walking half crouched, knife dripping his own blood onto his feet. It ran down his cheek too, starting just below his left eye, running tear like over his face. The scratch marks turned a corner and he stopped here, listening for the scraping. Then the music started.

A black keyed piano, the sort one would envisage played by wristless white hands. It picked out a wandering rhythm, almost waltzing. He recognized it straight away. 

 -the radio, Kurt Weill-

 -the quiet road-

 -swerving headlights illuminating the tree trunks-

 -he'd been drinking, had thought nothing of it, it had seemed like such a small thing then, something that couldn't possibly lead to what had happened next- 

The trombone joined in, crumpling scarlet trills, the drums and then the voice

 -that god damn voice-

 -that voice that had serenaded him as the figure loomed out of the night, the thumping collision, the rain, the panicking, dragging the body back to the car, into the boot, he'd wrapped it as best he could in shopping bags to stop the blood-

 -Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne und die trägt er im Gesicht und Macheath, der hat ein Messer doch das Messer sieht man nicht-

He no longer had control of his limbs, he turned the corner with the fear like a shuddering orchestra of purple. The figure sat at the piano, his back to him, the moonlight on his broken brow. His spider boned hands jumping across the keys. Around his chest the shopping bags clung like a loose fitting skin. The stench of earth and of rot filled the room.

 -burried him in the garden, beneath the cherub, grew lovely petunias over him-

 -Ach, es sind des Haifischs Flossen rot, wenn dieser Blut vergießt. Mackie Messer trägt 'nen Handschuh drauf man keine Untat liest-

The figure turned to face him. 

It didn't speak, just watched him for a while. 

He thought about saying something, then didn't.

The figure walked over to him, still watching.

Finally the words came.

'I'm- sorry'

'Are you?'

'Yes'

He said, almost pleading.

'Yes, yes I am'

The thing watched him sink to the floor.

Then it took the knife from him.

Held it, turning it in it's hands.

'Good'

It said.

Then killed him.

 -An 'nem schönen blauen Sonntag liegt ein toter Mann am Strand und ein Mensch geht um die Ecke den man Mackie Messer nennt-