Dark City

44.

Nathan walked through an eastern market beneath open sky, a dry wind caressing his face like the hands of an old woman.

He followed the light of an inviting fire into a little bakery. His team was inside, huddled in the corner against the clay wall. Nathan could only see a wall of their backs, fire flickering against their desert camo fatigues. The heat on his face from the oven was intense. It was hotter in here than outside if that could be possible, and the room smelled like wheat and body odor.

Nathan's brow was wet with perspiration. He looked to the flames glowing deep in the oven. Her heard whimpering prayers to Allah, the sound of nails clawing on clay and sputtering fragmented sobs.

Not this.

Nathan looked at the floor. A discarded hijab lay there dirtied with sand, all wrinkled and trampled. A cold wind rushed in and the fire went out. They were outside now. The stars blazed like pinholes in a black tarp pierced by shrapnel. The huddle around Mahsa opened up and Nathan was invited in.

Not this.

He shook his head no and somebody laughed and the circle closed and he heard the sounds of pleasure and suffering intermingled. He tried to shout out for them to stop, but his throat filled up with sand. A voice in his head sang:

Who can take a chainsaw

Cut the bitch in two,

Fuck the bottom half

And give the upper half to you?

He awoke choking on his own tongue, his lungs burning as if they were still being ravaged by desert air.

Nathan smacked his bottle of Klonopin off the nightstand and the pills fell across the floor. In a fit of thrashing he decimated all the prescription bottles on his nightstand. No more chemicals. No more mind numbing agents. He was ready to seek the monsters of Shark River Hills and tear them apart with his bare hands. 

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Music: "Take a Bow" Muse