Chronos Devouring His Son [Short-Story] by Issa Dioume

Time seems to slow like running water gone still. Haunted and lost by the ghosts of the minds’ windmill trapped in the slow tic-tac motion of the clocks’ hands that kill. Strangling air out from his throat.

I need a cig thought Barnaclos. Nothing beats the delicious smell of cigs, warm coffee and
cold beer. It’s what gives life its worth!
Black crescent moons drew themselves like bags of filth below his eyes. His irises darted around
the room as he slowly soaked in its white walls. He was sitting, back leaning against the wall,
sheets covering one leg; The other: was bent and utilised as support for his head.

Slowly, he brought a cigarette to his lips and lit its tail end. The cigarettes’ extremity
bloomed red deep like cherry lipstick as he breathed in its sweet poisonous relief. As the smoke escape the aperture of his lips he thought – picturing gun-smoke – he saw himself in it. Much alike gun-smoke, he was the product of a violent act.

The result of the orange mist descending upon his male progenitor one evening. The mist of a voracious, lustful appetite for the sensual pleasures of the meat.

That same night, ‘father’ searched and found satisfaction in ‘mother’. Rape is what they called it. A violation of the fundamental right to one’s body – making temporary use of someone else’s body to satisfy your own bodies’ desires.
Effectively reifying them; dismissing them as: mere flesh, blood, and sex.
Dad had been subjected to physical violations himself during his budding years, at least, according to the authorities. Perhaps, was it to understand? Understand what had happened to him as a child thought Barnaclos…
a product of pain will breed pain.

Fortunately enough, ‘mother’ had opted to keep him. Being from a Catholic family had
taught her every life counts. Even an embryonic one. She, however, despised him bitterly, throughout his eighteen long years. She tried not to, but, was unable to conceal her true feelings. As he grew to resemble her aggressor, she felt nothing but resentment towards him; regarding him with fear.

Why let me live, to hate me?Perhaps, just like father thought Barnaclos it was to
understand.
He felt like an experiment… a therapeutic substance imbued with life.
Slowly, Barnaclos took another drag from the cigarette. A red rose sprung from its ghost
end, paring down the body with its glaring heat. As he exhaled, the smoke danced before his eyes, and, ‘they’ appeared.
Father, Mother, and I, dancing in the smoke.

*pang*

A vaporous infectious shadow cast itself on the white walls, where red roses now bloomed as gun-smoke spread through the air.

🥀

The circle is broken.

Written by Issa Dioume

Author’s blog : Writing, Improving, Coffee