Poinsettia
By: ShinigamiForever
Of all murder weapons, the most interesting, intricate, and personal is a desk. When approached with a desk, the murderer is given a variety of tools with which he can work. There is the desk itself. Heavy, cumbersome, a hammer nestled within the needles, the desk is artless and clumsy, unfit for an artist. The various pens and pencils, quills and envelope openers-- weapons for a deft hand. Under one person's control, an instrument of literature and artistic beauty becomes an instrument of a more sickening and amoral beauty. Terrible, murder is, yes, but is not terror the beautified point of every murder? Revenge is personal satisfaction. Passion is fluent liquid satisfaction. In this way, love and murder aim at the same goal: satisfaction.
A desk. This one is plain, the table top barely marred with the dull scratches of quill pens. There are a few blue-black ink stains on the glossy surface. The color is McGonagall's trademark, a night black, too dark for eyes to stare. And it seems, always, to be wet.
I run my hands calmly across the surface. The black dragonskin gloves I had worn earlier are crumpled on the floor. A small vein of blood is slowly slinking its way toward the shiny hide, washing the edges. Soon the gloves will be drowning in blood the color of grape juice. Dark and thick with maroon.
A disarray of student papers are scattered across the desk. Students with good grades, students with bad, Boots Terry with a perfect score, Bones Susan with a less. Students. Names of names, titles of titles, answer to questions that are all unanswerable. Magic. Magic does not demand answer. It demands questions. Have these students questions to match the answers? Does he? His name is among the rest, but he will not be one to receive his test with answers that are not answers but questions disguised as themselves. I fancy the black ink of his words are already turning cherry red at the edges. His handwriting is sharp and angular, full of hooks, jabs, and parries. His handwriting is defensive. Much like him.
A jar of quills on the desk, soft tipped, the colors a muted brown in the light of the blue window. The birds in a pot, high towering over them, a treetop of glass beads. One lonely hat pin remains solitarily watching. An assortment of green and gold, glass and gold thread, tangles atop a thin sturdy needle. The rest, more glass beads and colors, are thick in the blood. Blues and purples already being blanketed by red. The skin is puckering around the edges, drawing the needle still further down. A grotesque yet ornamental Frankenstein. That's what he has become. But instead of screws and scars, he has hat pins and trickles of ruby holly berry red flowing down his cheeks.
The last tears of the dead.
This is not a perfect murder, though. There is reason to suspect me, as there has never been before. The perfect murder is without obvious or subtle causes, without suspicion, without passion. He has enemies. Perhaps I am one of them. But a gruesome murder such as this, no one would want to stain anybody's fingertips with the blood of his, with the crystalline blue of hat pins. Especially not a student. They will murmur in the halls tomorrow, it reeks of Dark Arts. Or they will say, Slytherin tactics. And they will stare at me with vengeful eyes, with puffy red, but they will not pin me down like a butterfly and direct this murder to me. For even I have no reason to kill him, and yet, he is dead.
Or did I have reason? It begins and ends with beauty. Can you deny it? I loved his beauty, him as an eleven year old entering the store, hesitation like a lover wrapped up in his arms. I loved his beauty, and I wanted his beauty as I wanted the beauty of so many others. He is not the first. The first murder, that is the loss of virginity. Afterwards, it is only matter of time and patience before you crave the ecstasy of another. I hated him for his beauty. I still do, in a way, although he is dead. I hated him to give myself a reason to deny his beauty and to love it from a distance, to admire the maze of his labyrinth appearance. He is beautiful, with sliced cucumber eyes and obsidian hair. The wire thinness of the strands of hair, crayon pink lips, and skin fluent in the language of honey. He is undoubtedly beautiful. But hurry through the years. Peek into the future. Fast forward the present into the ages to come. Wrinkles will crawl their way like dying wallpaper to his face, unfurl their branches. The watercolor beauty will blanch in the face of time. The color will retreat from his skin; he will become paper fragile, and his victories of youth will mock his tender brittle bones.
My hand trembles slightly. I sneak it into the recesses of my pocket.
Death is not what we need to put a stopper on. Death is the stopper. Age is the bottle. Beauty is the fabric Age gnaws away at. I have inserted the stopper. The fabric is saved. That is why he is lying on the floor, eyes closed by dragon hide fingers, blood starting to slow with cold. The blood that has already formed pools around his black robes. Pity. His hair is starting to dry in the blood too. I lower a hand, considering brushing the bangs away from the little eddies underneath, but instead draw back and brush back my own, as if that action could change his appearance.
I think, when they find him, they will draw back, eyes brimming with tears and horror, but they will see him as a young Jesus with his crown of thorns around his neck instead of on his head. The thorns of glass and gold and silver hat pins. The thorns that form their own ring.
They will have to find another to bear the cross.
Not that it matters to me. Their crosses I care nothing for. I have taken what I needed, what I came for, what I wanted. His beauty is mine to keep like a frozen gilded flower. Like a perfect shadow of a day, and that is what he is, the summer day I compare the beauty all around me to. Plaintive his smile is, but he was their Jesus, he was their savior, and he bore their crosses, and now he is dead.
The door is silent as I open and close it. From the doorway, the hat pin in the quill jar glistens like a ghost before fading under the heavy skin of the door. I smile, lips taunt with the taste of his beauty under my skin, with the image of the blood pooling all around him. When I go home, I will pluck a young branch of the weeping willow, and I will make a crown of leaves for him, bury it in the dirt and make that his grave. And his beauty shall be the leaves, and I will come back and use them to make crowns for this young King Arthur who never claimed his own, and now I shall make them.
But I am not home yet. And there are no willow trees nearby. He can only wear his crown of needles around his neck, and I will take care not to tread over the glass pieces of his memory.
Of all murder weapons, the most interesting, intricate, and personal is a desk. When approached with a desk, the murderer is given a variety of tools with which he can work. There is the desk itself. Heavy, cumbersome, a hammer nestled within the needles, the desk is artless and clumsy, unfit for an artist. The various pens and pencils, quills and envelope openers-- weapons for a deft hand. Under one person's control, an instrument of literature and artistic beauty becomes an instrument of a more sickening and amoral beauty. Terrible, murder is, yes, but is not terror the beautified point of every murder? Revenge is personal satisfaction. Passion is fluent liquid satisfaction. In this way, love and murder aim at the same goal: satisfaction.
A desk. This one is plain, the table top barely marred with the dull scratches of quill pens. There are a few blue-black ink stains on the glossy surface. The color is McGonagall's trademark, a night black, too dark for eyes to stare. And it seems, always, to be wet.
I run my hands calmly across the surface. The black dragonskin gloves I had worn earlier are crumpled on the floor. A small vein of blood is slowly slinking its way toward the shiny hide, washing the edges. Soon the gloves will be drowning in blood the color of grape juice. Dark and thick with maroon.
A disarray of student papers are scattered across the desk. Students with good grades, students with bad, Boots Terry with a perfect score, Bones Susan with a less. Students. Names of names, titles of titles, answer to questions that are all unanswerable. Magic. Magic does not demand answer. It demands questions. Have these students questions to match the answers? Does he? His name is among the rest, but he will not be one to receive his test with answers that are not answers but questions disguised as themselves. I fancy the black ink of his words are already turning cherry red at the edges. His handwriting is sharp and angular, full of hooks, jabs, and parries. His handwriting is defensive. Much like him.
A jar of quills on the desk, soft tipped, the colors a muted brown in the light of the blue window. The birds in a pot, high towering over them, a treetop of glass beads. One lonely hat pin remains solitarily watching. An assortment of green and gold, glass and gold thread, tangles atop a thin sturdy needle. The rest, more glass beads and colors, are thick in the blood. Blues and purples already being blanketed by red. The skin is puckering around the edges, drawing the needle still further down. A grotesque yet ornamental Frankenstein. That's what he has become. But instead of screws and scars, he has hat pins and trickles of ruby holly berry red flowing down his cheeks.
The last tears of the dead.
This is not a perfect murder, though. There is reason to suspect me, as there has never been before. The perfect murder is without obvious or subtle causes, without suspicion, without passion. He has enemies. Perhaps I am one of them. But a gruesome murder such as this, no one would want to stain anybody's fingertips with the blood of his, with the crystalline blue of hat pins. Especially not a student. They will murmur in the halls tomorrow, it reeks of Dark Arts. Or they will say, Slytherin tactics. And they will stare at me with vengeful eyes, with puffy red, but they will not pin me down like a butterfly and direct this murder to me. For even I have no reason to kill him, and yet, he is dead.
Or did I have reason? It begins and ends with beauty. Can you deny it? I loved his beauty, him as an eleven year old entering the store, hesitation like a lover wrapped up in his arms. I loved his beauty, and I wanted his beauty as I wanted the beauty of so many others. He is not the first. The first murder, that is the loss of virginity. Afterwards, it is only matter of time and patience before you crave the ecstasy of another. I hated him for his beauty. I still do, in a way, although he is dead. I hated him to give myself a reason to deny his beauty and to love it from a distance, to admire the maze of his labyrinth appearance. He is beautiful, with sliced cucumber eyes and obsidian hair. The wire thinness of the strands of hair, crayon pink lips, and skin fluent in the language of honey. He is undoubtedly beautiful. But hurry through the years. Peek into the future. Fast forward the present into the ages to come. Wrinkles will crawl their way like dying wallpaper to his face, unfurl their branches. The watercolor beauty will blanch in the face of time. The color will retreat from his skin; he will become paper fragile, and his victories of youth will mock his tender brittle bones.
My hand trembles slightly. I sneak it into the recesses of my pocket.
Death is not what we need to put a stopper on. Death is the stopper. Age is the bottle. Beauty is the fabric Age gnaws away at. I have inserted the stopper. The fabric is saved. That is why he is lying on the floor, eyes closed by dragon hide fingers, blood starting to slow with cold. The blood that has already formed pools around his black robes. Pity. His hair is starting to dry in the blood too. I lower a hand, considering brushing the bangs away from the little eddies underneath, but instead draw back and brush back my own, as if that action could change his appearance.
I think, when they find him, they will draw back, eyes brimming with tears and horror, but they will see him as a young Jesus with his crown of thorns around his neck instead of on his head. The thorns of glass and gold and silver hat pins. The thorns that form their own ring.
They will have to find another to bear the cross.
Not that it matters to me. Their crosses I care nothing for. I have taken what I needed, what I came for, what I wanted. His beauty is mine to keep like a frozen gilded flower. Like a perfect shadow of a day, and that is what he is, the summer day I compare the beauty all around me to. Plaintive his smile is, but he was their Jesus, he was their savior, and he bore their crosses, and now he is dead.
The door is silent as I open and close it. From the doorway, the hat pin in the quill jar glistens like a ghost before fading under the heavy skin of the door. I smile, lips taunt with the taste of his beauty under my skin, with the image of the blood pooling all around him. When I go home, I will pluck a young branch of the weeping willow, and I will make a crown of leaves for him, bury it in the dirt and make that his grave. And his beauty shall be the leaves, and I will come back and use them to make crowns for this young King Arthur who never claimed his own, and now I shall make them.
But I am not home yet. And there are no willow trees nearby. He can only wear his crown of needles around his neck, and I will take care not to tread over the glass pieces of his memory.