Striking Six

I got lazy to finish the other hand!

Six

This world is strangely marvelous, as it is uniquely frightening. I, more than anyone else, knew this.

Many times I found myself staring at something that I wondered if it should exist or if the scope of human understanding was just too small.

No.

I suppose my scope wasn’t small. It was just that they didn’t like being noticed, and I couldn’t help but notice them.

“Are you okay, six?” Mr. Linus called out.

The short man was a ball of a person. His stomach was just as round as everything else about him, protruding and overwhelmed by the shirt that was most definitely two sizes two small.

I always wondered if the stomach was as taut as it looked. I would like to touch it one day even.

Flicking my eyes back to his face, littered with a few signs of the years that had gone by. Noticing his anxious look, my eyes shifted.

It always unnerved people when I stared too hard, or even a second more than briefly. I’ve heard my eyes were several shades too dark, pupils blown far too wide.

It was…. Uncanny.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ran my fingers enough my locs, sniffing a bit as I sat up.

Mr. Linus placed his hands on both sides of his waist. “Well you slept on the chair, for the fourth time this week, you even took Chika’s night shift.”

I couldn’t help looking up at him this time. “So?”

“This is a mortuary Six.” He said it as if he couldn’t believe he had to explain.

“It’s relaxing here. Quiet.” I responded.

“They are dead bodies here.”

“The dead can’t talk, Mr. Linus,” I countered, my eyes lingering on him for a second too long.

His own brown eyes broke away from me. “Hah.” Was all he could make out.

“What’s there to be worried about, Mr. Linus, the girl’s a winch,” The word winch came out much like a slur.

Recognizing the voice instantly I didn’t need to bother looking, instead I pulled out my band from my uniform's pocket and tied my long locs into a ponytail.

“Good evening, Tasha,” I said aloud, looking over for my bag.

Instead the woman around my age scowled at me. Although she was around my age she looked far more affected by the years than I did, with a face looking a few years older than she was, a hunched statue, and a mild odor borne from her strong reluctance to use perfumes, and shaving.

She, on the other hand, didn't respond to my greeting.

“We have a big one Mr. Linus,” she said.

Mr. Linus slapped a hand on his smooth forehead. “God. I have somewhere to be this evening.”

Tasha’s nose scrunched up at the words, realizing the married man was talking about his arrangements with his girlfriend.

Mr. Linus was not one to care to hide his many many escapades, and his wife was not one to question them.

Mr. Linus looked at me and sighed. “Go home tonight Six, this isn’t right, and don’t say I have never done a good thing for you before.”

I nodded at him. I was planning on going home tonight anyways. Too many unwanted guests were beginning to pop up at the mortuary these days.

I suspected something very bad was going to happen tonight.

Just as I picked up my bag to leave I looked back at Mr. Linus to bid him goodbye when I paused.

Behind the round man were two figures. Both were around the same height and mostly illusory save for the silhouette, and masks that displayed a singular emotion. Left had joy, right had anger.

The existence of these two strange silhouettes weren’t anything of surprise nor interest to me, rather it was what they were doing.

Both the silhouettes were bent somewhat, and had both fingers pointed at Mr. Linus. It was an overtly exaggerated pose just to gesture at Mr. Linus.

The Chorus. At least that was how I liked to call them, I had no idea what these things were, I simply called them what they reminded me of.

The Greek Chorus.

But even that particular detail wasn’t the least bit interesting to me. It was the gesture they were making. They didn’t do anything else, not even so much as twitch.

My eyes sifted through the space, towards Tasha. At both her sides were the chorus. One had the mask of sorrow, while the other had the mask of disgust, they were both making the same gesture as the other two.

I see.

I felt a wave of uncertainty and intense pressure.

“Mr. Linus,” I said while making my way out. “Be careful. You too Tasha.” I glanced at Tasha.

Then I made my way out, hearing Tasha loudly say “Cover myself with the blood of Jesus.”

I let out a breath as I left. It was hard to process the emotions I felt whenever the chorus did that particular gesture.

What did you feel when you knew someone was going to die?

Mr. Linus and Tasha were certainly going to die. I didn’t know when, I didn’t know how, but the moment the chorus performed that gesture they certainly would die.

The world was uniquely terrifying. Oftentimes I deceived myself, tooting my own horn even when I told myself I was the scariest thing in it.

Then every so often I see things that challenge that mentality, and those things hate being noticed.

All I had ever come across. Except the chorus. They had followed me so long I couldn’t remember a single moment in my life without them.

I strongly believed I was born with them.

Suddenly in the scorching heat of the summer I somehow wished I had a smoke. I sighed once again, looking up to the sky.

The sky.

The world was strangely marvelous, and enjoying its marvel was to rot in ignorance. Something I wished I had.

Then when I looked up to the sky, I would enjoy the cloud, the sun, without the horrifying sight that laid before me now.

In the sky lay a gigantic face. It was fractured and mostly incomprehensible, formed by a rough mass of shadows. It laid ruined, and unmoving as it always did since I could remember.

I didn’t know what that thing was. I had always seen its ever present form in the sky. It was almost as if the ruined face was everywhere no matter how far you ran.

I blinked, sucking in a breath, and then the scene before me disappeared, leaving only the clouds.

The world was utterly horrifying, and I was born to see every monstrosity that existed within it.

What a stupid fucking gift.

Sinking my hands into my pocket I sifted my way through the bustling streets. People were yelling to sell the random stuff they sold, many had multiple different things ongoing.

As I walked forward I could hear the sound of footsteps that nearly mirrored mine constantly following my every direction.

The chorus following me continuously was another constant in my life.

I really really wanted a smoke. My eyes tried not to remain in one spot for too long or I might see something that strongly didn’t want me to see them.

Every now and then I easily wrapped my head around the idea that I was special… gifted as she would say, every now and then as if on cue that thought was easily dashed into a million pieces.

Lost in a million empty thoughts, my shoulder bumped into another’s.

“Fuck,” came a voice so deep I nearly mistook it for a man.

I turned around to apologize when the words died in my throat. She was almost as tall as I was, with hair braided, loc’ed and in a state of beautiful disarray. She was easily beautiful, safe for the thin silver strings connected to her body, leading nowhere.

A brief look of surprise painted her face as she stared at me. Beside her a chorus member with a mask of sorrow held up a large placard that said Fortune.

“Fortune?” I uncharacteristically blurted out loud.

The woman’s eyebrows were knitted. “Mongrel,” she said without a hint of snide.

Mongrel? At least she wasn’t trying to murder me yet.

The sound of a young girl’s yelling called her attention. Her eyes turned towards a girl dashing through the street as two grown hefty men chased after her.

“I don’t have time for an idiot practitioner.” She said to me with her lips curling up a bit, and then as she took a step away from me she vanished like smoke.

I, on the other hand, had wide eyes. My heart was racing super fast. This wasn’t exactly far from a “normal” day event if I wasn’t careful.

But the woman did something none of the other monstrosities had ever done before, she called me a practitioner.

I had no idea what it meant but somehow it made my heart pound wildly.

I turned to a chorus member asking, “That — that woman just now, was she dangerous?”

The statuesque pose of the chorus shifted instantly into a one handed handstand, with a thumbs up from their other hand.

My eyes kept looking upon the empty space the strange woman once filled.

Practitioner. What the fuck did that mean?