TWISTS AND STONES (Episode 6)

What will you say? You’re done for. Think about it. How will the world receive your story? What will your parents say? Will you ever get out of this position you’re in? This incarceration, this bed? Will you have a good life?

Sigh.

I have nothing on… Well except for my boxer briefs and the marks adorning my body.

I hear the door opening, but I can’t see their faces. All I see are silhouettes. Still I look up to face them. I keep my clenched hands steady beside me. The tightness across my shoulders and down my back is threatening to affect my lungs. STEADY, I tell myself. Your future is out of my hands now. Just accept.

Finally, the silhouettes stop in front of me. Meeting their stare with my own, I smile sheepishly. They are here for me.

Peace, finally.

***

2:34 PM

Naya: PING!!!

Naya: PING!!!

Naya: Babe wassup, I’ve been trying to reach Beeko but he isn’t picking my calls. And we just finished talking some minutes ago. Have you heard from him? I’m kinda worried. Call me when you get this.

2:54 PM

Naya: PING!!!

Naya: Moira, please try not to laugh at me, but you know that feeling I get when something bad is about it happen? It has started again. And no, I am not being delusional.

Naya: You really have to call me when you get this.

3:10 PM

Naya: Mo, I am on my way to Beeko’s house. Come over as soon as you can.

***

Blood…

It was everywhere. Little splashes on the couch and dark patches on the rug.

Everywhere.

Charles was on the floor, in a fetal position and breathing heavily. His bloody palms alternated between clenching and shaking spasmodically. Beside him, Beeko lay still, lifeless, with the blood oozing from the tangle of skin and muscles that is the lesion on his neck, to slowly form a grotesque halo about his head.

“Charles!” Naya chokes out, her shock mingling with budding fury. “You bastard! What have you done!”

“He said…He said he’d kill me…” Charles stammered, while still in some sort of catatonic state. “He said he’d kill me…So…I –”

Screaming a long sound of grief, Naya rushed at him, falling on him with pounding fists. “What did you do! What the hell did you do! Tell me, Charles! You bastard! How could you do this!”

He didn’t fight her back, and he didn’t try to shield himself from her ineffectual blows. Finally, Naya heaved herself from him; her eyes were moist and her hair was disheveled. Her voice trembled as she said softly, “How could you… It’s Beeko… How could you?”

Charles stared up at her, his countenance one of someone still trying to comprehend something elusive. “He was gay… Did you know that?”

Naya stared aghast at him, before screaming, “You murdered your best friend because he was gay?”

“You don’t understand… He said he would kill me…” Charles whimpered.

Naya curled her lip at him. “Well, you killed him. and I hope you get exactly what you deserve for it.”

“Oh my God!”

At the gasp, Naya whirled around to face the owner of the voice at the doorway.

“Who are you?”

“What happened here?”

Both questions were asked simultaneously by Naya and the newcomer. Before Naya could answer or ask anymore, the man continued, “My wife already called the police. They say they’re on their way. Were you here when it happened?”

***

Blood…

Moira rushed into the apartment and stopped in her tracks, so arrested was she by the sight of the blood. Eddying around her are Naya and Beeko’s neighbour, who started out of the apartment upon her entrance. Her eyes took in Beeko’s supine body, as it lay there, unbelievably still. The sight of him felt like a blow to her chest. Suddenly she had difficulty breathing. Then she saw Charles, who was still folded in on himself by the wall, his head cradled in his bloodied hands. Her eyes turned flinty and a muscle worked in her jaw. However, when she turned to Naya and spoke, her voice didn’t betray her inner turmoil. “Naya, what happened?”

The other woman began to narrate what she had encountered.

“Moira…” Charles’ voice croaked.

She turned an icy look to him. He was staring up at her with an unfathomable expression.

“I’m sorry, Moira…”

She didn’t respond to him. Instead, she turned from him back to Beeko. Something inside her recoiled at the sight of his body. Who knew there was much blood in a human being? She walked over to him and dropped to her haunches beside him. She stretched out her hand to him, not knowing what she wanted to do, but hoping for a miracle. She couldn’t touch his neck because it was mess of tendons and flesh. Gently lifting his wrist, she felt for a pulse.

What she felt startled her in spite of herself.

It was faint, thread, but it was there – a pulse!

Beeko was…alive?

Feeling a surge of feeling, she whirled around to Naya. “Did you call for an ambulance?” At the shake of Naya’s head, her voice rose. “You mean you didn’t call for help? What the hell have you been doing since you got here?”

“But he is dead. Beeko is—”

“He is not dead!” Moira interrupted with a shout.

Naya gasped, and her hands flew to her cell phone in a frantic effort to get connected to the emergency services.

***

He is not dead!

The sound of my sister’s declaration bursts through the fog that is my mind, a faint shimmer of light touching down on all the blackness.

“He’s not…He’s not dead…” I choke out.

But none of the women are listening to me. Naya is on the phone with the emergency services, and Moira is looking agitatedly about for something. Her eyes keep flying over the stab wound on Beeko’s neck – the place where I struck repeatedly and killed him.

He is not dead!

“Here…” I rasp.

Those cold eyes turn to me.

“Have my shirt.” I am already pulling off my bloodied shirt for her to use to stop any further bleeding.

She hesitates, obviously caught between her resentment of me and her need to save Beeko’s life. The latter wins over, and she snatches the shirt from my outstretched hand and presses it to the side of Beeko’s neck.

“Don’t die on me, you hear me, Beeko!” she begins to urge my friend. “Don’t you dare die on me!”

Through the din of emotions crowding my mind, a sound breaks in. It is the distant wail of a siren.

Written by Vhar & Eros