Evil Petals By Claudio De Luca.

I’m getting tired of coming home to not a soul. I am the only one. Everything is collapsed. Shapes of velvet comfort me as my supporting necessity develops into an unfaithful numbness. Money brought about the velvet. Money revived me. I am a new man, especially when I look at the flowers. The flowers encircle me in a spontaneous effort to beautify and change all that is sinister. They do. There are beautiful distortions of yellow becoming violet becoming luminous black – It is, as a rule, beautiful. As one looks at the colours, the light rays reflect through the tiny particles in the air, overwhelm the layers of tissue in your eye and eventually pass through, at lighting speeds, your brain, splitting into millions of impulses – yellow to wisdom, violet to sorrow, I remember the death of my best friend, and luminous black which fills my religion with doubts of innocence and peace.

“Daddy, wake up! A space ship has landed on your nose! He he.”

She giggles as a puppy stares, so innocently, at the fly on the wall that could destroy the wellness. I open my eyes to the blinding rays of sunshine that are born upon the angel’s face. My angel’s face.

“I’m up, I’m up! Where are the Martians?”

“Not Martians! Marshmallows silly!”

I laugh, she smiles, and happiness is great!

“Why did you sleep here daddy?”

“I must have fallen into a deep sleep as the flower fluff boys started last night.”

“You’re funny daddy!”

“As my colleagues think.”

“Why Daddy? Are they ugly to you? I’ll zap them with this gun!”

“No! Where did you get that? You must never touch it!”

Six Days later She shot me in the neck saying that I was a “darn Injin on da farm agen.” When the bullet tore through my epidermis it took 0.0002 seconds to shatter my vertebrae like a Christmas decoration. I felt pins and needles in my legs, that’s when I knew I was paralysed.

On the way to the hospital I lost 1.2 litres of blood, my life essence. In the operating room the Doctors asked me how I’m feeling, I told them I felt like a million bucks. A look of doubt filled their faces.

“Just remember one thing doc, when I’m out, don’t operate on me as if I’m already dead, I am not. Operate on me as if I am alive and well, as I am, as I will be!”

Everyone in the O.R. smiled as those words echoed from my mouth to Gods ears. I gave them a new mission: ‘Operation Living Dead’. I was under the knife.

Now, six months later, I rely on the currency that my brother in England (and all over the world) sends me every month. To be able to move around the house, I have been donated a special remote mouthpiece that enables me to control my electric wheel chair, in a way, I wish the absenteeism of the word “wheel” were possible. I am a “third potato wheel”, futile! My daughter helps me with many little things such as brushing my teeth, although it should be visa versa. The tarnished problem of having no “shoulder to cry on” is still getting me down –I look to the flowers for comforting.

Green, white, and a few shades of transparency. The sounds they produce are perplexing. They sound like an orchestra of noise, a silent howling of pain. The flowers, the flowers. They gave me a gift, limbs are now accessible, I can clutch again. The flowers…

“Daddy daddy! Why are you on the floor? Why is there blood? Do you want a plaster?”

“No, sweetie, Daddy’s okay”

I lied. I was in pain. I must have fallen out of my chair and pierced my eye with the pencil that I was holding last night, I had drawn earmuffs – I don’t know why.

Today is the day. I made an appointment with Dr Lamberts for an assessment of my limbs. I am planning, if the assessment goes well, to have my body wired to a battery– so that I can learn to move my legs again. It’s called a Bi-linear limsci-electric system. If all goes well, I will be able to drive a paraplegic-adapted vehicle within 22 months time. I will be able to take on the world again!

Death by bullet is a possibility now, my only restraint is the bud attached to me –it needs to grow before I can leave it. I ask my self, “Is it possible for an eagle to destroy a hare without harming a hair, just one, my little hair, my bud.” Suicide is not an option, it will demolish all I have created, I will have to kill the bud, and I can’t just leave it here, alone.

“Fuck prophesies! Fuck life, I am a hair on a blackened angel’s wing, I sway in the wind and that’s all!” BANG!

Flowers, red flowers, assault my head, as I am insane. They punish me, injure me. The pain is overwhelming – My testicles are crushed between my sockets, my eyeballs are staring at blades that continue to incise each layer, one by one. Flammable liquids are injected into my neck, then, ignited. I burn as Satan does. Am I Satan? Diavolo? Lucifer? Decisions are breached by pain, I decide in a moment of fear…I am Satan, or some kind of offspring.

As I notice the reflection of my scorched face on the blade of the knife that sleeps in my palm so peacefully, a more painful sight murders it. My fingers have transformed into bloody penises. I am in ecstasy every time I lick them with pleasure. I cut them, pain is wonderful, I am pain. I am wonderful. I steer the blade towards my jugular, the blade ignites, my neck’s flame is extinguished and re-ignited. Flames transform into flowers, I bleed acid that devours my epidermal tissue as it spews. It irritates me. I am invincible. I cannot die. My pain cannot die - only increase from now on. I am pain; I can only increase from now on. I am immense. I consume the world, the universe and the heavens. Everyone will now my pain, through divorce, murder, adultery and lies.

I beat the bastard; the Lord dies, or was he the knife that caused my pain? Is the universe I have taken over only hell? Am I the winner? I realize not, my daughter was my salvation. My brother – my demons. Playfulness has died. Bullets enter my neck, as I hear the prayers of the saved. Flowers consume my being - Evil Petals take over my thoughts.

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