Green bile hypes him up until he would look lovingly on the deepest sin. And he would mince words with meat cleavers, and hack about in his Gobi mind for some meaning of any fury-buried thing, whether vegetable, mineral or damned animal, god or goddess; in his mind he lives, searching.

If the moment feels right he will beat the daylights and the nightlights out of his beloveds, and then gallon up his noxious fuming in rusted tanks, and mint coins of slander and puke; the fuck-wadded yellowcake stashed deepaway, as he fears the petty purview of even the most casual visitors. Hide it, hide it, cool and clammy in the downsinging earth, so no blindy eyes can see the loathing fumes that seethe and flicker there. Only a spark fusing, no clear intention yet. Not yet.

Driven, bile-minded, ploughing inward, ever inward where brooding sepsis and fear root.

In the begin years, dadadada flailed the thwacker at this tiny-aged boy and put the dread of slasher-kills in him, even then, at the mewling age of a tiny wolloped babe in harm’s way.

It started then. It grew after, down the year-to-year, in basement silence, hatching out Guy Fawkesish plots and scribbling Gothic incendiaries in the dark.

And now, so, now, now in this no-jesting moment, what could turn ever so easy on a wing flutter, given a kind word or two, does not. Does not, as no kind words come forth.

Now, the ancient terror and acid-eating fear singes the Gobi of his mind and turns, spiral-dusting, into whipperwhorls and tornadoes of hate. And he feels it deep in his ancestor bones and he loves it to the oblivion of love and he turns the yellowcake of it over and over again in his fisties, feeling he is well worn to it, well used to it, and the spinning whorls call to him oh so lovingly in aching harmonies and even cheeky-pie whistles.

And he’s hidden his hate away so deep in the whingeing world, that no one can see it but himself only, and he would love it til the world’s end, and would create that world’s end just to howl in full-throttled voice the love he feels for the yellowcake feel of it, and the blue-black danger of it, the thrust and centrifugal force of it and the sear-blinding panic of it.

And while you wait for your clipper-handed hair fashionista or sip, froth-minded and fair-willed, on a Frappacinnamingo and smile at your fair-browed barista, he grows sallow and greenier in his Gobi mind, as he sees no shining future like your very own one, no condo at the lakefront, and no Pomeranian panting pretty-wise down the street, no lunch out at the Flying High Nines under the rainbow-casting chandeliers, not even a bank account to speak of or a job in the offing. There is none of that for him. It is all yours, all of it.

And the one thought you have: you do not want him in it, here in your camomile, peach and heavenly life, you do not want to hear of his knife-wielding thoughts and his greeny gangrened imaginings. And you cannot lay a babyfatted finger on his pain, his blood-gushing wounds. Your eyes go cataractic white when you so much as tip your mind towards a thought of him. And if you catch a glimpse of him, you cover your blindy eyes with the white gauze. Then you turn your back on him, on his despair and on his unsounded need.

And while you rollock and roll and bathe luscious in the melanomic sun and go slobbery in sentiment as you sip cool wine in the cool leather of your Silver Ghosts and Phantom limo’s and Silver Seraphim, he is watching you and will not take his eyes off you.

And now his intents get to high heat and fire to crystal as he reaches, open-fisted, for the yellowcake.

About Rosalind Goldsmith

Rosalind Goldsmith lives in Toronto. She has written radio plays for CBC Radio Drama and a play for the Blyth Theatre Festival and has also translated and adapted short stories by the Uruguayan writer, Felisberto Hernandez, for CBC Radio. Her short stories have appeared in journals in the UK, the USA and Canada, including Litro UK, Burningword Literary Journal, Filling Station, the Blue Nib, Fairlight Books, the Chiron Review, Into the Void (2021 Pushcart nominee for “Leaving You”) and Fiction International. New stories will appear in 2021 in Stand, Bookends and others.

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