Bigger than Jesus

Bigger than Jesus

When I took the knife I had to cut myself first. I just wanted to see what happened. You see, I was beginning to think that maybe I wasn’t there. Maybe I was spectre that had floated through my entire life while people looked right through me. Maybe I was a hologram that only I could see. I had to do it to make sure I was alive; to remind myself that I wasn’t a ghost yet; to prove that I bled too. I ran the silver edge across the fleshy white of my wrist. The skin gave like a tear in silk and as the blood oozed out in ruby droplets, I felt alive for the first time in all my bastard life. I cut again until scarlet hatred was flowing from me. I buzzed. I tongued the wound to see if it tasted as bitter as I felt. I grinned to the mirror with blood on my teeth. I looked like something crawled out of hell, which sometimes I think I am.

And now I go to do it. I start silently up the stairs, moving like a rumour through the house .I think the house knows what I’m doing. It whispers encouragement by not creaking the floorboards. I reach the room and open the door, relishing the cold of the handle against the hot skin of my palms. Inside, orange light from a streetlight outside the window reflects against her mirror and splinters into eerie rays. Some fall on her face, highlighting a cheekbone. Her bra lies on the floor beside the bed. I pick it up and run my thumbs along the inside of the cup. It’s all delicate lace and subtle blue embroidery. It’s beautiful and I feel an insatiable need to burn it. Finally I drop it and move closer to watch her sleeping. She could be made of porcelain. She is perfect. I let myself be fascinated by her gentle breathing and how her chest rises and falls in flawless rhythm. She sleeps the sleep of the peaceful, the sleep of the calm, the sleep of the unafraid… Not like my sleep. My sleep is the sleep of the plagued; of the bitter and resentful; of the lonely and fearful.

When I sleep, nightmares come; nightmares so terrible that I wake up wet with sweat, shaking so hard the bed creaks. I wake up so scared that my heart hurts and I forget to breathe. When I have the nightmares, I hide in the wardrobe. As a child, no one told me the monsters under the bed weren’t real. No one told me nightmares couldn’t hurt me. Terrors I dreamt were as real as I imagined them to be. Whispers of devils followed me out of sleep to claw at even my waking thoughts. I was safe in that small wooden space. By the time I was old enough to know I shouldn’t be doing it, hiding had become habit. And now my nightmares were becoming real but I wasn’t hiding any more.

She turns in her sleep, a lock of hair falling over her forehead. I want to kiss her, to love her, to be inside her. But that will never happen. I start to time her breathing, that pattern that rises and falls. I almost slip into a trance, hovering one hand above her face, the other above her throat. I wait for the moment.

Now. One hand clamps over her mouth and before I appreciate the soft warmth of her lips against my skin her blue eyes soot open and I slice the knife across her neck, safely slitting her throat. She doesn’t even scream. She is dead in seconds and it is perfect. I gasp, not moving my hands, trembling. Finally I take my bloody, shaking hands away from over her face and my smile slowly spreads from ear to ear. I have done it. I want to laugh. I am euphoric. This must be what a religious experience feels like. I watch the black blood pool onto the crisp white sheets and soon everything is drenched. Who knew the witch had so much blood in her? It is ink on a page and I am the writer. It’s beautiful. I run my fingers along the wet slice of her throat and then kiss my fingertips. Taste the juice of life. Drink, for this is my blood…

I kill the others just the same. They’re younger but it makes no difference. We’re all damned in the end. But I don’t knife the baby. I don’t know why. I just don’t do it. I smother it with a pillow. I’ve saved it trouble in the long run. If its life had ever turned out like mine, it would have wished it had never been born anyway. It would’ve thanked. It really would have.

I go back to Her. The blood is still warm and I get a kick out of that. She is paler now, her ice blue eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. I bend down and kiss her lips deeply. As I do, I wish the bitch had suffered more. Wish she had suffered like me. I feel tears sting my eyes and imagine myself driving the knife into her limp dead body again and again and again and again. I want to see carnage, I want to cut her whore’s flesh to shreds until the place looks like Satan’s butchers. I don’t though. I tear the covers back away from her naked body and drive the knife into her taught flat stomach. The hilt sticks out like a landmark, like a flag. I turn away and leave.

I leave the door to the room open, leaving it like the tomb with the stone rolled away. Downstairs, I think about washing the blood off my hands but I don’t bother in the end. It will never come out anyway. I leave the house and the black air outside is cold like a dead man’s breath. In the sky, a full silver coin glows. Even the Earth knows she is doomed and has paid the ferry man in advance. The night congratulates me. I feel like a fucking messiah. I am bigger than Jesus. I want to shout at the ignorant bastards in their houses, I want to scream at them that they didn’t know me yesterday but tomorrow I will be all they can talk about.

I go the village priest’s house. As I bang on his door I half expect the wood to burn. A poster on his window advertises “Jesus our Saviour” and it makes me smile. I bang on the door again. Did Jesus save Them? No. No, of course he didn’t. So I am right. That makes me bigger than Jesus. I turn to the door and start pounding relentlessly, grinning. Inside the house a light switches on. Did Jesus ever kill someone? No. I am more powerful than Jesus. I laugh and realise I knew this all along. I have just been waiting to show it. Suddenly, I can’t stop laughing. The door opens and the priest stands there in his dressing gown and slippers. And here am I, bigger than God. I fall to my knees laughing. The priest mutters something under his breath, asks me if he should call an ambulance. Do I need an ambulance? I look up at him, tears streaming down my face. I raise my bloody hands up to him gasping for breath. It’s too late for an ambulance now. Too late for anyone.

On my hands and knees again, I am violently sick. The three handfuls of sleeping tablets I took as I left the house are kicking in. As I am lying there, vomiting myself to death, I feel more alive than I ever have done. The irony makes me laugh harder. I am wired and I am powerful and I am excited. Black spots erupt in front of my eyes, and as I die I am just happy. Bitterly, bitterly happy.