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The First Cut Was The Last Harvey Kennett
The silver moonlight shimmered over the desolate landscape, bathing the fields of black volcanic rock in a mercury hue.
He paused, to catch his breath. It was ripe and full, and hung heavy in his lungs. If the exertion didn’t kill him, they certainly would.
A howl in the distance ! Not far from his present position. The only other thing he could hear was the roar of the sea in the distance.
He looked up at the majesty of the moon. It was full and inviting, like one half of an argent bosom. Yet, something in its demeanour signalled a fate pending imminent closure.
He pressed on, stumbling over the field of black rock as a man might swim in a sea of glass. He ignored the lacerations to his naked body, adrenaline and endomorphins flooding his bloodstream, urging him to run, RUN !
The howl ripped the air once again, slicing through its frailty like a razor though skin.
Almost immediately, it was joined by a chorus of others, some distance ahead of him and to his sides.
He stopped once more, his heart rapidly trying to provide life support to its host, but getting the timing wrong and erratic. He clutched his chest in pain as he sank to his knees, realising that he could run no more, and waited for his slaughter.
They homed in with astonishing alacrity and precision, to the weakest points of his imperfect and defenceless form. The first cut was the last.
*********
Xavier woke with a start in his bed. His muscles tense and body drenched in sweat. His heart thumped in this chest cavity, like some monstrous bass visibly emanating from an inferior speaker.
He reached for the sepia-coloured plastic bottle, containing his medication.
*********
Weeks before, the psychiatrist had said that Xavier was suffering from acute paranoia. That asylum seekers were just ordinary people like him, and his fear was totally irrational.
Xavier, a geneticist by profession, readily agreed with the prognosis and laughed with the psychiatrist. He laughed because the psychiatrist had not seen his research at the Cambridge Institute of Genetic and Hereditary Diseases. Had not seen the Study in to Ethnic Romanians and the peculiar traits they genetically shared. Had not been on hand to witness his discovery of the dormant L Gene. Xavier named it “The Lupus Gene”.
Xavier tried to convince the psychiatrist of his findings, but the psychiatrist just laughed and dismissed Xavier’s absurd ideas. Xavier had obviously been working too hard and needed a holiday to rest and recuperate.
The psychiatrist suggested a trip to somewhere warm and sunny, insensitively joking that there weren’t hordes of Rumanians in Hawaii, unlike England. The psychiatrist proposed that Xavier meet his fear head-on and try proximity therapy in a neutral environment. Xavier agreed, reasoning that he could revisit his findings after a holiday to check their validity. It was an insane idea, after all.
Xavier flew to Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii, via San Francisco, and took a small prop plane to “Big Island”. He rented out a small beach property at Kalapana.
It was little more than a wood and corrugated iron shack, but it was peaceful.
He was more than apprehensive of the diminutive young girl, Majata, a Rumanian immigrant who had lived with her family on the island for over 12 years. The girl was a mute, and worked in several homes in Kalapana as a housemaid. She was about 17 years of age, lithe and her eyes never missed events occurring around her.
She met him at the house when he arrived in the late afternoon after 23 hours of non-stop travelling from the UK..
**********
Xavier closed the bottle and placed it on his bedside cabinet.
He glanced over at the alarm clock. It’s blood-red neon letters displayed 10.41 pm. Xavier cursed to himself. He had only intended to have a short nap after his exhausting flight.
The last thing he remembered was coming in to the room, having a shower and falling unconscious on to the bed.
Majata had obviously left by now, so he ventured downstairs, not bothering with a dressing gown, to fetch a glass of orange juice to help ease the vile-tasting tablets down.
As he closed the refrigerator door, he took a sip from his glass as he gazed out over the mesmerizing sheen of the moonlight reflecting off the blackened rocks outside his window.
The glass fell in slow motion to the floor, where it shattered in to a million shards of revelation, watched by the pairs of yellow wolf-like eyes just outside the window.
Xavier dived for the back door and started running in the silver moonlight, which shimmered over the desolate landscape, bathing the fields of black volcanic rock in a mercury hue….
*****
The next day, Majata’s father Ivan telephoned his brother in Cambridge, England, to assure him that the house was ready once more, should he have any more patients with irrational lycanthropic fears….
READER'S REVIEWS (3) DISCLAIMER: STORYMANIA DOES NOT PROVIDE AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR REVIEWS. ALL REVIEWS ARE PROVIDED BY NON-ASSOCIATED VISITORS, REGARDLESS OF THE WAY THEY CALL THEMSELVES.
"Well written interesting piece of Flash fiction here! Enjoyed the descriptive passages and ironic the twist in the end. Good write Harvey! " -- Monte.
"Very descriptive with great imagery...I like Monte enjoyed the ending" -- mattie.
"Very good writing! From the vivid description to the story flows into an unexpecting ending, this is truly a masterpiece!" -- Luis Felipe Moura, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
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