Renfield or, Dining at the Bughouse
Bill Zaget
The Master comes, not on an ass, but riding the waves, sailing a schooner from Varna. Not dragging a cross, but hauling his native soil. The dark Transylvanian earth. This is the Master, in whose veins flows the blood of the ferocious and the lion-hearted, of Thor and Wodin, of Icelandic tribes with their Berserkers, the blood of the Szekelys, more potent than that of the ancient witches of Scythia, who mated with desert demons; the blood of Attila and the warlike fury of the Hun, who scorched the earth like living flame; He, who drove back the Magyar, the Lombard, the Bulgar, and the Turk; He the noble Voivode, Count Dracula, the Son of the Dragon, in The Land Beyond the Forest.
F-f-f-f-flap of wing… Breath of fire… Smouldering… The demon blood… Sea and foam… Sailing ‘cross the Channel… Fifty boxes of earth… Sweet teeth… Berserker… Fallen out… Believe… Not one…
Whip the child Whip the child Whip the child!
Where… ?
A room… and a meal. Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? The Last Supper? A feast on St. George’s Eve, yes. And to do it justice: a bowl of
Master?
Master?
It’s not, you know, is not whipped icing and shavings—the whip and the blade perhaps—but not all sorts of f- f-f-fruity toppings that appeals. I mean, I used to believe that chocolate was mankind’s greatest invention. Right up there with fire and telephone. I no longer believe. It is a child’s belief, and I am not one. Not one!
The simple joys have been replaced. Joy is not so simple, now that my sweet tooth has fallen out; and in its gummy place, I swear, a sharper one is growing. As is the craving for more exotic delights.
Ergo, I wait with longing, and in the meantime, dance and rave—extraordinaire—for the good Doctor Seward; but will not, will not touch his culinary offerings, for I have begun to find and forage for myself—as it must be.
They are everywhere, yet are often unseen. They can blot out the sky, yet can seem to disappear. They burrow beneath or hug the surface of the Earth or take wing, and away… ! From the Latin,
It’s all a food chain, round and round. The bigger eats the smaller. And what goes around may come around, but the hunger blots out the thought. Thinking is a terrible thing. As terrible as feeling… anything. No, I must eat life, step by evolutionary step, in order to break the bonds and forge new links, that I may become
They come to me. The Doctor cannot stop them. They have no bones, to make one choke—imagine that! You see, they carry theirs on their backs; an “ex-o-skeleton” it’s called. It holds them together, this protective shell, not to mention giving them a certain crunchy
And so the Grand Experiment continues. First, with flies. They sniff my shit in the chamber pot and are drawn like, well… flies.
Phylum—Arthrapoda, Class—Insecta, Order—Diptera…
First. It was the smell that first attracted it. The fly. And the stillness. The scent of a human female, of a male, and another, who was lying flat—no longer human, but very nearly so.
Decay is-z-z-z-z-z… dizzying, like rotting meat. Ahh…
The fly, the proverbial on-the-wall-type fly, took in the intimate scene with its feelers, sense hairs, and compound eyes, like huge bulging buds atop its head. Patches of light and shadow; a young boy, grub-human and curious, entered the room. The fly, also curious, flit and rode in on his head, smelled his shining hair, and licked the oils with its’s-s-sucking mouth. The boy stopped and stared at the body, which lay on the bed.
“T-Timmy,” the female clicked and hummed. Her oils had a similar taste. The taste of Mother.
The other male, not flat, but standing grim, the one the Mother called “Doc-tor,” hissed at the boy, “Stay out of the room!”
The shaking air wafted waste. Flesh, losing freshness, the turning of oils, excited the fly-e-e-e-e-e. It lit upon the Almost-Man, who was not really asleep, but near death. He too tasted like the boy, in a subtle sort of way, this Father-Flesh.
“But Mummy, I, I…”
The Mother-Flesh shook her head and sighed. The Great Doctor-Human pointed, “Out!” The fly landed on his medicinal nail, then the wall, and finally the bedsheet, which quivered for a moment—a pale foot stuck out and gasped for air—and then was still. The fly settled on a stubby toe, set its proboscis down and lapped the stillness and the sweat, the darkness that was nestled there.
“Timmy!”
And the boy ran out. Oh, there’d be other times to savor his youthful juice. For now the No-Longer-Father- Flesh was a treat the fly could not resist. But living smells invaded the feast. The mosaic blur that was the Mother missed the fly, but barely, as it leapt and flew, attaching itself to the overhead light. It could sense the looks it was getting. The Doctor-look, stern and arrogant. The Mother-look, with heaving breath, trickling the ancient odor of superstition.
“I am but a fly,” he buzzed. And then was still. “I” was new. The death-sweat and the pain were new and surely belonged to the Dead. And yet he felt the Father no longer down below, but within his insect gizzard. It clung to his hairs and rimmed his eyes. Even his eyesight had somehow changed, although he wasn’t exactly sure how.
Perhaps the Mother was to blame, with her woeful Mother-stare and the fear that souls can be stolen at the moment of death—all directed at this common fly and somehow made real. Or so the fly thought, with almost human craft.
Not even as a maggot had he felt such squirming novelty. The Father lay heavily on his wings, but he was able to make it out an open window. Soon his wondrous cargo no longer weighed him down. He felt so light and of light itself. Never had he flown so high. Could he fly to a place called Heaven? That was new too, this “Hea-ven,” where he sensed could be found an Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Sweetness, like the mixing of sugar and excrement, but sweeter still by far.
Open… gates… Heavy Father… Out! The gizzard… the flesh… Sucking… Dark… The Daddy-toe… Rotting meat… The chamber pot… Ecdysis… Decay… Ecdysis… Power… Dead centre… Chains…
Cut into Cut into Cut into Out!
