Marcha Fúnebre em Dó Menor

Jolly Roger

The Spoon

She’d been walking through that maze for days now – a maze of bark and leaves and grass and mud, sap and stone, and earth and water. Sunlight could barely penetrate the thick canopy above her, if it was still made of treetops for that matter. Everything looked blurred after a certain distance ahead, above, or in any other direction. The only thing she was sure of was the ground she stepped on. Or was she?
A quick stop was in order, her knees were killing her! A multitude of minute fauna had been stinging her shins for a juicy meal, so that didn’t help much either. She rubbed dirt off a tree stump and squeezed the thick moss covering it, making sure it was comfortable to sit on. She opened her backpack, taking out a canteen and a leather book and proceeded to pour half the container down her throat and the rest over her head. It wasn’t really that warm, but there was something besides humidity that made her want to be sure of the substance in contact with her face.
After pulling her hair back, she opened the leather book, took a pencil out of one of her pockets and began to write.

Day 28,
Claudia is dead. The infection from the massive wound caused a week ago by the mantrap had already spread up her leg and above her waist, finally reaching her vital organs. The lack of proper medicine made it inevitable. I would (kill) (scold) blame Dr. Hughes for losing the first-aid pack along with all of his belongings to a bunch of strangling vines, had he not been asphyxiated by them as well.
She told me (she’d like to see her friends ag) to keep going no matter what (and that she loved m), although I’m starting to feel that my current situation is rather hopeless. I buried her next to some white lilacs, her favourite flower.
There is no one left but me. Claudia, Dr. Hughes, Susan, Charles and Hernando are all dead. I still don’t know where Dr. Claymore might be after we stumbled into that strange giant spider nest, but I am starting to doubt his survival.
To think all of this began because of a spoon. A (fucking) spoon spun like a “truth or dare” bottle to decide what would be the next place to explore. Damn all these adventurous ideas to hell. Damn Claymore’s “lucky spoon” and his obsession with the unknown! I wish I was still that stupid, naïve, cowardl…

She was interrupted. It was that noise again, that weird rattling noise that sounded like two hollow blocks of wood being shaken and hitting each other. She couldn’t remember when she had first heard it, but it had haunted her ever since. At first, she’d thought it was the result of some kind of lesion in the internal ear, probably caused by the fall she’d suffered some weeks ago that had plunged her into unconsciousness for several hours. But had she heard that sound before? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
There it was again. And again. Was she going crazy?
She quickly put the canteen and the journal back into her pack and sprang to her feet; her hand on the gun she carried on her belt. It hadn’t been easy to pry it from Hernando’s cold hands, but she’d seen enough of that place to be convinced of its danger. What was it, anyway? Where was she? In a maze? A shrine? Some kind of temple? Ruins? Whatever it was, it was big and filled with labyrinthine passages; some hidden by foliage, watercourses, walls, doors, or devilish contraptions that locked earlier corridors shut to open new ones ahead.
‘Some sadistic architect you must’ve been,’ she mumbled while carefully walking along a stream.
Upon glancing at the stream a bit more carefully, she was quick to walk away from it.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said, her voice trembling while trying to find some other path to follow.
A pair of eyes closed and disappeared beneath the waters.
‘You already know what I’m capable of, don’t you?’ she shouted while backing away, ‘You bastards!’
Something sharp touched her back. She jumped, quickly turned round while taking her gun from her belt and shot blindly while cursing her lungs out until there were no bullets left.
‘A tree,’ she whispered, ‘a tree!’ She let out a short laugh at the sight of a perforated tree.
She reached for more bullets in her backpack. Her hands were shaking.
‘Calm down,’ she told herself, ‘You’re not going crazy...’
Just then, the noise was heard once more. She jumped at the sound of it and dropped all the bullets.
‘Damn it!’ she kneeled to pick them up.
Upon getting up, something caught her attention. Sitting on a ruined wall was what appeared to be a little boy, shabbily dressed with large nutshells and leaves, tilting his head at the sight of her. He wore a large hat made from leaves that kept his face in the shadow, but she could guess he was no human since his eyes shone orange from beneath the hat. He held a spoon in his hand. She clumsily loaded the gun in a hurry and pointed it at the boy, quickly changing her mind and hiding the gun behind her back, hesitantly. He just stared.
‘Do you speak?’ she asked.
He just tilted his head.
‘Do you know a way out of here?’ she asked again, insisting, ‘Do you even understand what I’m saying?’
The boy would do nothing; he just sat there looking at her with his shiny, expressionless orange eyes and playing with the spoon between his fingers. She decided to take a step forward. No reaction. So she decided to take another one. Still no reaction. She carefully made her way up to the boy until he suddenly faded into thin air.
‘Wait!’ She stood there confused.
The same rattling noise then echoed through the trees. As she looked back, trying to track its source, she was confronted with the same boy sitting atop a tree.
‘You stay right there.’ She tried to come nearer to him.
He let out a devilish giggle and disappeared again just as she was getting there. Her eyes darted in every direction. She knew the boy had something to do with that noise. It was driving her insane! It was also starting to be heard more frequently. Each time the boy would appear somewhere and disappear as soon as she got close. His mischievous giggle was becoming more and more irritating.
He reappeared farther and farther ahead amongst the trees and ruined pillars covered with vines until she noticed she couldn’t remember where she had come from. He was now standing atop a large tree with a trunk split in two.
‘I’m gonna get you, and you’re gonna tell me where you got that spoon!’ she said, her eyes shining.
She put her backpack on the ground and rubbed her hands together, proceeding to put one foot on the split in the trunk and starting to climb from there. The boy just stared at her, playing with the spoon. The trunk was getting steeper, but she only noticed this when the other half was closing in on her.
‘Shit!’ she cursed as she realised what was happening, attempting a jump before the halves could crush her.
Had she jumped a second earlier, her foot wouldn’t have got caught between the trunk’s two halves and she wouldn’t have smashed her face into the ground with a thud.
Everything was dark for a while, until a familiar noise followed by a familiar giggle brought her back. She lifted her face from the ground. Her nose was bleeding and her hands and knees were grazed. She winced in pain and confirmed the situation by glancing back at her stuck and crushed foot. Consumed by anger, she reached for her gun. But it wasn’t on her belt.
The boy was standing in front of her with both the spoon and the gun in his hands. Instinctively, she stretched her arm out for the gun, only to see her hand stopping mere inches from the boy. She tried to pull away as best as she could from the tree, but the pain was unbearable.
The boy’s expressionless eyes stared at her as he offered her the spoon.
‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘I need the gun, please...’
The boy nodded and tossed the spoon at her; it fell near her head. He then started fiddling with the gun just as he had done with the spoon.
‘Don’t-’
A loud noise echoed below the canopy.

Jolly Roger

The Cup

Tomorrow at five in the afternoon, in front of the opera house, was the only thing he could hear inside his head as he tried to fall asleep (one of the most difficult things is to try to sleep when you’re anxious, you know). The voice in his head was the one he had imagined she would have. Sweet, melodious, soft, like her curls (I don’t know how a voice can be like curls, ask him).
He had “met” her two weeks before by e-mail. Cathy, a recent friend of his, had introduced them (if by “introduce” one means “give one another’s e-mail address”). She liked what he liked, she listened to what he listened. Both enjoyed what the other did as well and spent hours conversing on the subjects they found to be of interest. They had seen nothing more but pictures of each other. Both were feeling rather excited about meeting. But there was one difference.
He was a utopian. He had this troublesome habit of falling for women he barely knew or saw (or didn’t know at all, for that matter), and therefore had become sure that they’d be perfect for each other. People like this usually forget the other party’s thoughts.

‘What, you expect me to date him?’ she chuckled.
‘Don’t be silly!’ Cathy answered from the other end of the line, ‘I’m just saying he looks really thrilled about all this.’
‘So am I, but according to you, he won’t take me off his mind for one second! Doesn’t that seem a bit too much?’
‘He’s always been like that. Chill.’
‘Fine. Tomorrow we’ll see.’ Then she yawned. ‘I’m gonna watch some TV and head to bed. See you tomorrow!’
‘See you.’
Cathy hung up. She stood a bit staring at some point in infinity, then passed a hand through her hair and went to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and took a milk carton out, proceeding to fill a newly-washed cup and drink it all at once.
‘Oh boy’, she sighed.
She left the cup on the table and turned the lights off.

1 AM. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t think of a way to avoid going straight to the point the next day. He decided he would tell her straightaway. From every refusal he had gotten throughout his life, this had been going too well to lead to another of the kind. It would work, he thought. Getting up from his bed, he walked towards the kitchen. He wouldn’t get there before hitting the table’s legs at least twice with his shins, as usual. Apparently, he was too lazy to turn on the lights. He opened the fridge and took a milk carton out, proceeding to fill the cup on the table and drink it all at once.
‘The two of us,’ he said, daydreaming (it was late night, though), ‘How grand!’
He left the cup on the counter and tripped on a stool on his way back to the bedroom. His nose started bleeding (it has been proven that when the ground meets the nose at more than a certain speed, no good result is to come from that event). He rushed to the bathroom, hand covering the nose, and stuffed his nostrils with toilet paper while holding his head above the sink. He could never remember if he should raise the arm that was of the same side of the bleeding nostril or the other one. Both were bleeding anyway, so it wouldn’t do much difference. He looked in the mirror while waiting for the haemorrhage to stop, and then went back to bed. The day after would be a big one, he thought.

1 AM. Nothing on TV, yet she kept zapping away through all nine hundred ninety-nine channels:
‘The prime minister has decided-’ click, ‘...always said life was like a box of chocolates-’ click, ‘...and off they go! Leading-’ click, ‘What I mean-’ click, ‘...news, tonight’s lunar eclipse is-’ click.
She’d better get to sleep, she thought. There were things to do before five in the afternoon. She got up from the sofa, stretched, and went to the kitchen. Her cat closed his eyes for a moment when she switched the light on and came to her, purring against her shins.
‘I’m not a food dispenser, Lucifer,’ she told the pet, barely looking at it, ‘You’ve had enough for today.’
As if it had understood, the cat left the kitchen to lie in his basket all curled up and pouted. She opened the fridge and took a milk carton out, proceeding to fill the cup on the counter and drink it all at once.
‘Friendly conversations,’ she told herself, ‘That’s gonna be it, and nothing more.’
She left the cup in the sink and turned off the light, heading to bed. Reddish light entered her bedroom window.

1 PM. He flung the alarm clock against the closet door and buried his head under the pillow, grumbling unintelligibly. Apparently it had been ringing since 9 AM, but he’d only managed to fall asleep around five (you never know the exact moment you fall asleep, so you guess). He got up with a yawn and went to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, he noticed a large red circle around his nose and went to check the pillow again. He let out another grumble and washed the dry blood off his face, then going to put the pillowcase in the dirty laundry basket.
He went to the kitchen, giving the fallen stool a dirty look. He turned on the radio and began preparing breakfast (or lunch, whichever you prefer). Wagner’s prelude to the 3rd act of Lohengrin was on. A good energetic start, he thought, right before spilling strawberry jam all over the kitchen from his knife in a conductor’s spasm (he liked classical music, you see). He opened the fridge and took an orange juice carton out, proceeding to fill the cup in the sink and drink it all at once. He left it on the counter, put on his jacket and left in a hurry.

1 PM. She was back from the grocery store. The cat had been meowing since she left.
‘There, Lucifer,’ she said while searching for the can opener, ‘I got you some food, you self-obsessed fur ball!’
The coffee machine’s red light was on. She would always forget to turn it off before leaving, and to turn it on to warm up before preparing some as well. There were still some errands to do. She put the can of cat food on the fridge and got a bottle of water, proceeding to fill the cup on the counter and drink it all at once. She left it on the table, headed to the hall and closed the door behind her. The cat remained, lolling about in the living-room and playing with a crumpled piece of paper.

He was looking at everyone in the subway. He liked to see what people looked like and try to guess what they were thinking of. Two more stops and he’d be practically under the opera house. His heart raced. How would he tell her?
‘There is no... No.’ he started, but corrected himself, ‘I have come to tell you... I mean... Basically, I think I love you.’
A woman sitting next to him raised an eyebrow, got up and chose another seat. He felt awkward. The train stopped. Then restarted, growing again towards a deafening metallic sound. He shuffled in his seat. Would she react as he dreamed? Someone wanted to sit between him and the window. Nonsense. There was no such thing. Or was there? The train stopped. He gave room to the same person that had sat there a moment to leave (it’s rather bothersome when people disturb you to sit somewhere if they’re only going staying in the train for five minutes). There must be something of the kind. He’d make her understand (but why wasn’t he seating by the window, in the first place). The train stopped. Everything had to go well. He couldn’t bear another refusal, for it would be proof of terrible luck. And quite frankly, he was tired. Someone was listening to loud beating music (how irritating). The train stopped. One, two, three...
‘Shit!’ he jumped.
Now he had to get out and take the train in the opposite direction. He sighed and flumped back on the seat, resigned; but still anxious.

She stood in front of the opera house. The sky was rather grey, but it didn’t seem like it was going to rain. Ten minutes remained. She gazed at the golden busts up in several circular depressions of the building’s façade: Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Berlioz, Puccini, Wagner, Stravinsky... She sighed and looked at her surroundings. She gave a look at her watch. Hopefully Cathy was right.

He got out of the subway up into the street behind the opera house, on the opposite pavement (his heart beat at a rate that would have made Gene Krupa jealous). The pedestrian light was red, traffic was going by, and he couldn’t stop fidgeting. Things would be more stable from then on, he could feel it. There was a woman selling flowers on the other side; that was just perfect. He took out his wallet and checked if he had enough. Then he stepped forward.

‘I’m telling you,’ she said as she got down from the bus, ‘He didn’t show up!’
‘But why?’ Cathy asked from the other end of the line.
‘How should I know?’ she buttoned her coat as well as she could against the light rain, ‘I waited until six! His phone was always unavailable...’
‘I’ll tell you something when I see him on Monday...’
‘OK, see ya.’
‘Bye.’
She got home and turned on the lights. The cat was curled up in its basket. She dropped her purse on the sofa with a sigh and went to the kitchen. She took the cup from the table to place it in the sink, but it slipped and crashed into the floor.

Jolly Roger