Graphomaniac
A horror short story. A bit heavy, this one.
The dark screen gobbled up his words, both taking and giving, a symbiosis of verbal vomit, the beautiful feed devouring every word he wrote.
There he sat, feet shuffling, eyes blinded by the dark, blinking intensely, fingers shaking, aching for another dose, give me that dopamine, yeah! Now! I need it now!
The room came to life from the light in his eyes. Words, words, words, beautiful, ugly, loud, silent, lines and lines, give me those lines, yeah baby, I’ll sniff them up I’ll inhale that sweet glitter, summer rain washing my hands in blood, I don’t care if it makes my fingers sticky, give it to me, baby, those shining words feeding me, I know you want it, my sweet Carolina, gimme that shine, flash that dress, so I can get under your silky smooth skin, I’ll drink your juicy love tonight…
The comment section singing in a chorus of praise, virtual clapping fed his ego every night. Voices merging in a sweet song, words drawing magical runes in his bloodshot eyes. They want more magic? He’ll provide. A never-ending livestream of words, a braid of guts he’s pulling out his insides to feed them.
“Bloody brilliant, man!”
“You’re a beast! Ripped my heart out, Mika! Keep it up!”
“Luv ya’!”
“Mika, I’m crying. It’s perfect, the way it doesn’t make sense, and does make sense altogether. Genius!”
“A perfect essay. Give me more.”
You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby. You’re my babies, let me feed you the words boiling in me, pour that syrup into your wide-open eyes.
“I have something fucking special for you tonight, fam! Behold!” His finger hit the publish button.
Images, lines of words written on flesh, his crammed handwriting covering every inch of her skin, while she’s lying on a dirty mattress. Perfect handwriting, perfect everything, lines of perfection tracing her beauty, the imperfections of her erased by my words. I am her creator, I re-created her mortal form into eternal words, dirty slut Danae purified by Zeus’ divine flow of gold. She shines tonight, a neon sign on the side of the road, a cheap motel, I gave her five stars, I made her shine. She’s not a hooker, but a goddess blessed by my words. Tonight, she’s a star.
The word flow never stopped while he grabbed a plastic bottle, pills bursting onto the keyboard, bouncing, jumping, happy puppies in the black snow, he caught them and devoured them one by one, here Xanax, Xanax, that’s a good boy! Here! Here it comes, the high wave rolling over him, all those chemical delights, one hand still tapping away on the keyboard, the other grabbing a mug of whiskey to wash down the pills, I’m a washed-up genius, lost in my beautiful mind, now gimme that gold, fam, gimme that gold!
Silence. Cold sweat breaking on his forehead. And then it came pouring down on him, lines, and lines of golden shower.
“I’m speechless, Mika! Fucking awesome!”
“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen! I love it!”
“Wow, wow, wow….”
“You wrote a whole-fucking-essay on her skin? Who would ever think of that? A genius.”
“The depth of this, Mika, you’ve outdone yourself! The form and the content of the essay… I’m crying!”
“I must commend the patience of your model. It must’ve taken hours. Brilliant work, man!”
He reclined in the chair, eyes blinded by darkness, smiling insanely. Laughing, crying, yelling to the ceiling, hands on the keyboard, always typing. It never stops, I’m always writing, the words, the words, haunt me, she was so patient, oh, yes, she was dead patient, her cold skin drank up my words, I wrote her death, what a beautiful way to enter bliss, eternal ocean of my words she’s drowning in, coughing, choking on me, what a glorious sunset, red blazing streeks across her throat, bleeding words out her innards, she danced like a fish out of water, the dance of death. It was hilarious, I laughed while I wrote her agony, the last minutes of beautiful shaking, grotesque moves of passion, orgasmic tango of tired thoughts, we danced for hours. Me, writing her into existence, while she’s growing cold to the indifferent world, nobody ever cared for her life, while I gave all for her death. The precious gift of her Macabre last moments, dark song of the dying swan choking on its own bloody throat…
He rejoiced reading the lines and lines of praise until a foul comment disrupted the perfect flow…
“Um, guys! I might be new to this author, but this looks disturbing. The girl’s posture, and everything looks like she’s been r*ped and unalived. I’m reporting!”
But his fam was always there for Mika. He read them tear her to pieces in the comment section.
“Are you a fucking bot or just an idiot?! It’s art, ever heard of it?! It’s supposed to look like this! Read the essay, fucking moron!”
“What a dimwit!”
“Who let that minor bitch in here? Ban her!”
“Don’t listen to her, Mika! Fucking haters be hatin’!”
And the golden lines were back, flowing harmoniously, yes, feed me, fam! I do anything for your sweetness, I’m your LA hooker, Latino flavour, spicy jalapeño nightmare, I’ll colour your dreams red, just you wait, I’ll make the next one suffer more and write on her agonizing face, my words will trace the lines of pain around her wide open eyes and mouth…
“What is this bullshit? This is just some fucking gobbledygook posing as art. The guy’s a psychopath, he should get some help.” A comment appeared, disrupting the shiny lines of praise. Mika jumped up, fingers shaking, typing compulsively, cursed, cursed forever by these words braking him into pieces, never stopping.
“You don’t have a fucking clue, you’re a disgrace born from the womb of misery, nobody would care if you’d get swallowed up by a wale and shat out by a penguin, I’ll fucking slit your throat with a garden hose, and I wouldn’t care nobody would ever find out then I’ll dump your corpse intothetrashwhereyoucanswimwithyourfuckingfriendsthebananapeelsyou’reafuckingdeadmanwalkingyou’redeadmyheadwillburst…
Mika typed yelling his guts out, eyes bulging, slobbering onto the keyboard, heart pounding, heart pounding boom boom boom boom…
“Open up! It’s the police!”
Heart pounding boom boom boom…
BOOM! They broke down the door. A couple of policemen rushed into the room, their flashlights cutting into the darkness, ripping Mika’s body out the black oblivion. They grabbed Mika, broke his hands behind his back, and pulled him away from the dark screen, while his fingers still shook typing in the air.
“Sir, you’ve broken into private property. Squatting is illegal in this state,” they explained, “you will come with us.”
“I didn’t steel anything, you cosmic bloodsuckers!”
The policemen snickered to each other in the dark. Fragments of their exchange reached Mika’s ears.
“Get the paramedics here….”
“Sheesh, pissed all over himself….”
“There’s no electricity or running water here, this nutcase needs a shower and a straitjacket…”
Mika glanced back at the dark screen, as they took him away, fingers typing in the air, eyes riddled with invisible lines in his head. The screen had never lit up, while in his eyes it shone like a portal of light. Nothing had stopped, it never would. Ongoing, he wrote beneath the surface of reality, inside his head the screen never went dark, and the words had no end.
Creepy as hell- well done.
Great pacing, and I loved the ending - something way scarier when the chaos is in the mind and not for real.