The Haunted Traveler Vol 1 Issue 2

51
loquacious, a breath of fresh air in the vacuum that
made up his world. He still chanted her name over and
over as he struggled to sleep, a mantra more powerful
than any of his sister’s dark magicks.
Her butter skeined hair, her velvet skin, that
smile. Ah, when she smiled, when the world stopped
spinning and the heavens gasped, he was always left
with that one simple thought - How could such a thing
exist?
They wouldn’t let him see her at the end. He
had begged and pleaded with her saintly mother,
receiving nothing but silence from the other end of the
phone. Somehow that silence galled him more than
the self righteous lecture that barred his way to her
hospital bed; Mrs Keys enjoyed making him grovel.
That pious bitch lived to make him suffer - not that
she would ever use such a vulgar word; she would call
it ‘atoning’ but it meant suffering all the same.
Well, my high and mighty one, today will be
your chance at atonement and I will watch in silence,
but I will not hide my enjoyment, no hypocrite I.
He would bring Gemma back today, if only for
a brief time, one anorexic moment in which to finally
explain to her his absence and to say goodbye, and to
visit all that pain she endured upon her family’s holy,
hateful souls.
It feels like the whole planet is hurtling into the
sun, he thought as he walked toward the small gathering
by the bank of rowan trees, and I will catch fire
any second. It would not do to remove his jacket or
take off his tie. Ritual decorum transcended comfort
was its very antithesis, even if your neck was white