November 2008
Something to Do With Sebastian by Douglas Lind
A Rainy Night of Density with a Reckless Neurotic by Richey Piiparinen
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DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us
Archetype
by Lise Whidden
Lise Whidden's work has appeared in Shine!.. A Literary Journal, Lily Litereary Review and Hiss Quarterly. She resides in North Carolina with her husband ( who is alive and well) and a boxer bulldog named Daisy. The work is fiction, but she has always found Uncle Sam terrifying.
I wish I were asleep when the dreams come; my awakened mind is frightened of the things only closed eyes should see. I have a memory of our first meeting, but I hesitate to describe the way your dark hair fell against my arm and how the sun seemed like an overhead light just switched on. I should have looked for shadows on the ground; light always throws a darkened reflection. Your smile lifted my breath and I wished on that sparkle in your eyes. I wanted you to look at me. But last night, I saw--I saw for the first time what you are in the night after you have left the stage of day. In the place of a young man sleeps the image of a wicked old man with ashen skin. You appear to be “Uncle Sam” without the top hat of stars and stripes. A beard streaked with shades of gray and white tangles beneath your mouth. In your exhales, I smell the yellow breath of your teeth. I hold myself still, afraid that even the whisper of a moving sheet might wake you. I stare at you while I hold my body rigid only allowing my neck to turn my face towards what you have been all along. I close my eyes hoping I will be propelled back into my illusion of a lover with dark hair and eyes the color of autumn grass. Then I realize that I know the true nature of what I open my body to when you squeeze my thigh a bit harder each time we make love, leaving pale round blue tattoos where your fingers touch my skin. And the bite, last night you bit my lip and I tasted copper. I slip out of bed and go to the kitchen for a drink of water hoping that when I return my lover will be here. But when morning arrives I hear the laughter of a young girl beyond this room and a red stain covers the soft beige sheets, a rich texture of fluid paints my bare legs vermillion as it leaks from the half moon cut in your neck and all these colors taste like pennies in my mouth. The sun is starting to glow through slits in the blinds and the blade of the knife in my hand is a mirror. My hand tightens around the butcher’s hilt. I have to show them. Your mask is back in place, a young man whose dark hair is spread out in blood, but the glassy sheen of the knife reflects your true image, a cruel old man only this knife and I can see.
Archetype is copyrighted 2007 by Lise Whidden and may not be reproduced under any circumstances without the author's permission.