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Hours slipped by.

The sickly light streaming in through the window gradually waned, and Gramat ushered in its favored son.

I sat on my disheveled cot, teeth working on a piece of hard bread, and waited. Beyond the door, the dark called out to me with seductive sighs, desperate for another merrymaker, another lover, another life.
Stoically, I resisted the call, for, in all my short years, I had learned to accept a few truths.

Along with the knowledge that fathers never come back and that women always have a means of survival, I learned that the evening hours of Gramat were to be avoided at all cost. That my mother would choose to spend three days out in the very heart of the beast, despite her slight frame and broken heart, spoke of her courage.

Or perhaps it spoke more earnestly of desperation, for, when the Blossom called, she raised up her own voice in helpless response. And it was during these times, when the need to gorge her addiction was most strong, that I grew used to staring at a plain wooden door.

On the other side, Gramat came to life and rotted.

How sleep ever came to me amidst the cacophony of human nature, I don't know. If I dreamt, I don't remember it; there was little room for imagination in my life. With concern for my Mum and a healthy respect for what lay beyond the door crowding my mind, I lay my head back on the coarse pillow of burlap and straw, closed my eyes, and fell into a restless rest.





The fingers woke me.

I shot up, and, in the darkness directly in front of me, saw a shape lurch back into a crouch.

I flailed behind me for a candle, forgetting about a means of lighting it, and scrambled to a standing position, the candlestand held out before me like a knife.

"Be at peace," said a pulpy voice.

I squinted in the blackness and made out a hunched figure gathered up against the dining table. A smell like festering wounds suddenly assailed my nostrils and I gagged, bile rising in the back of my throat.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

A ragged cough cut through the space between the figure and I.

"Lonely. So lonely. Just passing by, that's all. Just passing by and wishing for things that I wish for. Things I wish for every day."

"Get out," I said, and made a brave step forward.

The outline backed away, grinding itself into the table leg.

"Oh, but your voice is sweet. So much like my dear one. So much like all the dear ones in the market place, in the homes. Their words like cream on my tongue. Their faces like whitewashed stones. Smooth, dear, sweet."

I edged back toward the bed and felt around for a wood match with my free hand while my eyes probed into the murk.

In that instant, the figure shifted slightly, and a high pitched scream tore out of its silhouette and into my ears. I felt, for the first time ever, a strange prickling go down my neck and spine as the repulsive noise washed over me, and the smell of filth and desecration seemed to envelop my face like a smothering rag.

"You want to see my face?" it hissed.