Nightmare Fuel, Day the Ninth - You want to Live Forever

Continuing, and returning to a theme I'd played with before. THis image should have been an easier one, but I found myself uninspired. We did get some great SF-horror from Kary Gaul, a sharp-edged but tender meditation from Samantha Dunaway Bryant and, of course, the continuation of Charles Moore's serial story.

Following is my latest. Enjoy.

You Want to Live Forever

You don't remember where you were born or your first day of school.

You remember that you want to live forever.

So you go to a doctor. Not the one who advertises on TV or the one your insurance company recommends. To the other one. The one who operates behind a nondescript door in a nondescript apartment building in a part of the city too nice for you to fit in. You feel ill-at ease talking to the doorman, your heart pounds as you walk down the narrow, marble-tiled hallway to a bronze-doored elevator. Inside the elevator is dark and cramped, faded woodpanelling and failing lightbulbs. You walk the hall to his apartment


                                                     and forget


You don't remember your first pet, or your best friend from third grade.

You remember that you want to live forever.

So you go to a temple. No, not the one your brother-in-law won't stop talking about. The one you heard whispers about from someone who knew someone who knew someone. The one that isn't in the phone book, that doesn't have a website.

So you travel out of town, take the left turn onto the unmarked road through the woods. The cabin is built of rough-hewn logs and is free of any sign or other markers. A set of windchimes made of what looks like bone rattle a random tune as you approach the unpainted wooden door
                                                               and forget.

Image by Beau White
https://beauwhiteart.blogspot.com.au/

You don't remember your mother's name, or where you went to school.

You remember that you want to live forever. So you find a "traditional healer". No, not the one from the far-east, and not one with the connection to the indigenous people around here. The other one, the one whose traditions you don't even know.

So you travel down an anonymous suburban street, to a 1950s ranch. Inside is all candlelight and the cloying spicy scent of some form of incense that you can't quire recognize. He leads you to a table, paints your face with plaster, for protection.

The last thing you see is the thing's mouth, a giant leech attached to your eye. Drinking away the poisons that build up in the soul over years, or decades.

Drinking the memories of your first kiss and the temple and the doctor.

You don't remember your siblings or your childhood home or your first car.

You see its teeth, nothing but its teeth.

You remember that you want to die.

But you can't.