She Sang in Steam

This city. The city was my home.

The bitterness—the acridity—stifled my breathing, and the city's breathing. Almost.

The steam encircling the city was like its living spirit of the present and the dying ghost of its past.

As I began scouting the alleys of the dejected and disenfranchised, past the run-down strip malls, dealers selling rock, hookers selling a fuck, the chaos was peppered with calmness, as if the filth itself sang lullabies directly to my soul.

Like so many in this forgotten butt-crack of the American Dream, I found serenity in the disgraced, depraved, and disturbed.

Clichés roam where hope fears to tread, let alone linger.

Those who owned the finest properties were dominated and fueled by the eloquent and sophisticated steam. They were the ones overlooking the broken chimneys of afterthoughts.

While walking, I marveled at the clear stages of contamination and deterioration on display—from the wealthiest side to the human waste pile on the outskirts.

Golden and brass chimneys piping the cleanest water vapour, with systems running efficiently.

The scenery changed as you slowly walked, with damaged and faulty systems, dangerous pipework overheating and spewing putrid steam into the lungs of everyone.

Hope was a weak and beaten echo of the city's past, strangled behind the nasty liquor store, long ago struck down and scented by the allure of purchased power.

And then I saw her, my love, through steam—the steam that became the epitome of everything we were.

She was like an uncut diamond, a Sunday summer in heels, basking in the radiating light and heat of the sun on a snow-capped peak.

Sometimes, even the greatest price we pay is worth it.

That's what I told myself. That's what I choose to believe.

She was a miracle of curves and a shock of red and the dirtiest blonde I'd ever encountered in a messy bun.

I loved her to the depths of hell and back and had so far only said three words to her.

Not even those three words.

"Oh, hello there" is the anti-climax you didn't know you needed from this story.

This fable of the wretched.

There were signs, flags of a particular crimson hue; I should have made note of them. Cruelty always paired nicely with her seduction.

As we writhed, she verbally scourged humanity.

We came together in disharmony.

I forgave her quickly and freely and accepted her many flaws more readily.

I tried to fight it, tried to mould her, fix her, help her?

But, it's true what they say: "you can't help someone who doesn't believe they need help," or "Darling, stop trying to pressure me into changing, can I have mac and cheese after we brutalise that disgusting pair of fat oafs we met in the park?"

Just as the moon controls the tides, my heart was drumming to the beat of her heart.

From the moment we connected, our hands entwined. We walked through the misery together.

We were locked in a battle between the righteous and the corrupt.

We toed the line between the two, while others plunged headfirst into the greater of the two evils.

At her behest, we reached new highs, the upper echelons, and new depths, the lower levels of ordinary.

Base without grit or character.

Our destiny was an ending befitting the fiery, passionate melding of our entities—the dysfunctional creature of pure lust and frenzied power we had become.

We had set up our homestead on the outskirts of the dead-end city we called home—the 'Burbs.

We even had a picket fence, though I don't know why anyone would choose white.

Harder to clear the blood from white.

And when you are married to someone as vivacious, as phenomenally all-feeling and emotionally diverse as my dearest, you need to have a clean-up plan.

When you commit and give in to the beast that is love, you stand in their corner. It's the done thing.

Chivalry to the hilt.

Therein lies the problem, though. There needs to be room for clapbacks and disputes.

Talking each other off the edge of the abyss.

To prevent each other from screaming into the void unfiltered and ready for the void to give as good as it gets.

You not only stand by them, but you make excuses for them. Overlook their faults—not just the ones that make them fully human, but the darker underbelly, where the gristle and unchewable fat exist.

Humans are like icebergs; of the 30% you see on the surface, there is 70% hidden in plain sight.

—

One day, we lay tangled, her describing in great detail the treatment she suffered at the hands of her parents.

While not abusive, it was certainly neglectful. Woefully so.

That fuelled her singular mindset of disdain and misanthropy, to a point.

It was not just the what, but the why and how they lived without care or concern.

I felt I had to act—had to help her dispose of her parents.

It was a bloody mess. Quite literally.

They deserved it. So I felt. I justified it.

But then, you have to wonder if justifying a righteous act that involves fingernail slicing, swollen eyes, and gasoline for immolation is ever truly justifying.

I told myself this was justice.

Her neglectful upbringing ultimately led to a fiery end.

But justice doesn't scream as steam burns the skin from her mother’s face.

I still remember her mother’s screams as my love held my hand, and I gripped her mother's face, holding it to the scalding steam pouring from the chimney and pipework—my love's creative adaptation.

-

She would have all these plans. All these targets.

With each one in her crosshairs, and whom I disposed of in a random back alley dumpster fire, she would talk about another.

Then there was that one reject—a junkie with a bowtie, dishevelled look, and a tambourine.

He was harmless.

But my love, whom I would compose a baroque requiem for just as quickly as I would split the atom and drain the blood of one thousand soldiers of no specific army.

She stood gripping me closer to her chest as she breathed in the fumes of another cracked steam chimney—the brass chipped and corroded.

Looking down at our latest victim, she felt at peace just as much as she felt the fire burning within her.

Clarity had left me long ago, for I did not know why he met with her—his knuckles steel-enforced and free of pity.

He smiled.

I fear she saw too much of herself in him. Somehow.

Still, we dumped the body. Congregated in our temple of destruction and sensual sanctuary.

How long I had left, I did not know.

For I knew it would be me next.

I faced the Raven, my Raven.

She had outgrown me, and I served no further purpose to her.

I was her meal ticket, and she used me for protection from herself and as a means of attention.

I fed her ego, her bestial hubris.

There was a time when I once felt—well, anything.

That was gone.

I was a mere husk—a sheep in the arms of a wolf, hellbent on leading me to slaughter.

Would she join me?

I was sure she would.

As much as it was a high for her to lead me to some invented form of love, masquerading in front of the absolute horror behind our masks, she also longed for an ending befitting her beginning.

The knives were drawn at three in the morning, outside our favourite dive bar, when she uttered those three words.

Not those three words.

"Who dies first?"

To me and me alone.

As we embraced for the last time, our bodies merged as I felt mine drain away into hers.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: I may have gone a bit overboard. But, instantly was taken on a ride with this one. It is in response to the awesome queenly writer L.C. Schäfer and her June Dollar Challenge. You can find out more about it below.

Sorry about the length, LC!

Here are some other things: