Lucid waking upon the extraction of the life from my body. The sound of my final heart beat ringing through my ears drowned out only by the steady drip of the blood pooling around my corpse. So this is death. Odd it is not so much different then I had imagined. No slide show before my eyes no bright white light, just the steady sound of heart pumping out the last of my body's fuel.
A steady sound, it will end just as it began. Tick tick tap, tick tick tap. Of all the sounds in memory, it was as non threatening as the sound of a kitten. Tick tick tap the rhythm had almost lulled me to sleep when curiosity from its proximity change lured me to seek out its source. Scanning the candle lit interior of my flat nothing seemed out of place. Tick tick tap the sound became a reverberating echo encasing my mind like the persistence of a leaky faucet.My natural sense of security within the confines of my occasional home arrested the need for worry, in retrospect fear should have been a welcome walking companion. With eyes gradually adjusting to the faint light the the sound moved towards me as I to it. Welcoming the intrusion of an audience.
Looking back the moment that could have changed it all seems so clear. It is always like that isn't it? Movies, books, life, Oh so maybe this is the still shot of my life.As fate would have it, no creepy feelings or sense of impending doom over came me as I sauntered towards the cause of my undoing.Tick tick tap.Rounding the corner in the narrow hallway to the great room that has become my final resting place the source showed its self.
Out side of the bay window overlooking the channel that fills my sometimes home with the sweet smell of salt water sat a huge black bird. It appeared to have a broken wing hobbling back and forth against the glass for balance. With each pass of its wing the tick tick, and then its beak the tap. My heart actually leapt in sympathy for the injured creature. Cole black eyes peered at up, pleading for rescue.
Hastening to the window my fingers fumbled to release the aged latches. Upon freeing them from their locked state, after much turmoil and prying, I released the window slide. This singular motion was intended to open the window enabling the planned rescue of an injured bird. It happened as a lack of questioning on my part. Never did it occur to me to question how an injured bird managed to become stranded seven stories high.
As the window slung wide the bird dissipated from vision, in its place loomed a black so deep there is no comparison.Not a person or a thing, but a complete void of everything, without even the slightest ray of light to afford distinction.Stumbling backwards to escape the unknown I failed to acknowledge my surroundings. My heart became a sonic boom in my head as it attempted to jump to safety outside of my skin. Fear fueling an awkward escape my feet became entangled in the large Persian rug spread across the mahogany floor I prided.
In decent my eyes fixed upon the void that moved towards me with the speed of the wind. As my head slammed hard into the coffee table the mass closed in. The blood began immediately eviscerating from the side of my head and throat. My body became limp as internally I tried to will it to flee. To no avail would be my protesting as the whirlwind of void bore down upon my flesh. No longer a void, thousands of tiny red spiders overtook my flesh. Bite after bite they ripped away at the protective covering of my being. As quickly as they arrived they scatter. No longer as a mass, but as a million tiny armies though each crack and hole in the room.
Here I lay.The inner most contents of my body splayed like raw meat for the unlucky who will ultimately follow the stench to my resting place. The sound again reverberates past the dimming of my consciousness tick tick tap. The bird. How could it still be alive? With the last of my vision fading I turn my eyes to the place it all began. On the window sill a black bird with its wing stretched in death flaps gently in wind. Tethered to its leg the entrails of a previous victim. So odd is it, as the darkness consumes me, the questions continue, as does the slow steady sound. Tick tick tap.
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