Harvey jerks on the shackles, but they won’t yield an inch. His arms are helplessly pinned over his head, and they’ve long since gone icy numb. When the doctors come around, they tell him that this is the best way to maximize blood flow to his heart. You don’t need to murder children to fill the emptiness in your heart, they explain to him. There are other ways. Try elevating your limbs to increase blood flow back to the heart.
He doesn’t get it, really, why they think something is wrong with him. But then again, he isn’t a doctor, and he doesn’t get a say in the matter. One day his arms are up. The next day he is dangling upside down by his feet. Maybe it’s working, maybe it’s not. But he can feel something different inside of him. Something swelling in his chest cavity—molting and shuddering like a crab breaking free of its husk.
This must be love, he thinks. It feels heavy inside him, like he ate too much. It makes him nauseous, really, and it doesn’t seem to be helping. He hasn’t lost his lust for violence. He’s shackled in this dark room with another patient, a blonde kid, whose curly surfer hair and West Coast intonations are grating on Harvey’s nerves. Murder is never been closer in Harvey’s thoughts.
Take earlier today, for example. Harvey had refused to eat his lunch. Or rather, it wasn’t so much refusal, as it was unwillingness to be spoon-fed orange cake by a giant hairless slug named Timotheee. The slovenly ghoul made Harvey sick on the stomach, even with all his kind words. And there was something inexplicably odd about the cake. Some tiny keening coming from the spoon, like an ant screaming in agony.
After the fat orderly finally sulked off, Harvey’s surfer neighbor perked up, rattling his chains in a manner that suggested he’s in a talkative mood.
“Hey, dude, listen!” the surfer kid says. “You gotta eat, my man. They’ve got a knockup pastry chef down there. He really knows how to butter the beans, you dig?”
“They serve beans here?”
“No, man, it’s just an expression. What I’m sayin’ is, the chef can bake a cake that will set your willy on fire.”
“Why the hell would I want that?”
The surfer kid shakes his head. “You haven’t lived if you haven’t had your pecker burned by lemon mousse.”
“You’ve got a twisted head. You know that?”
“Nah. I’m just sick. But it's okay. They’ll fix me soon.”
Harvey shifts in his shackles, trying to shrug free of the terrible stitch in his side. “You ever get tired of this place? I mean, has anyone tried to cut loose from here?”
“Well, sure. I heard of a couple fellas leaving, but there’s nothing out there, man. If you want to wander the desert for years, chewing on thorny bugs and havin’ lightning cook your brains, go ahead and leave. But I’ll stay right here. Three meals a day, and staff that really cares about you. I mean, where else do you get to eat cake in Hell? And listen—”
Harvey shuts his eyes and lays his head against the stone. The surfer kid is droning on and on about the food, about the sweet blood orange cake. Harvey ignores him. He can’t take this anymore. Maybe this really is Hell, and the Devil is a bleach-blonde surfer who won’t shut the fuck up.
The kid’s voice pipes up from the darkness. “Hey! Hey, dude, did you hear what I said about the cake?”
Harvey knocks his head against the stone wall once. Twice. And again.
Post a comment