I am creating a story that parallels Devon Pitlor's story "The Time Capsule." It is a mirrored reflection of the sequences in the plot.
The Time Capsule and The Destroying Angel
By Katje Kaase
"Amanita Virosa - Deathtrip to Hell
I cannot breathe inside your feather-wings
Amanita virosa - Bloodred journey
Paint all white to black for me!
Dressed with light in disguise she talks to me
In a morbid way she whispers…You will die!
Her feathers cut my flesh like razorblades
And her words burn my consciousness like thousand stars.
She's turning the world upside down, she's a beast inside of beauty
Seducer of Angels, Divine destroyer, pleasure and pain in Death."
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
It is a pure, crisp day as Skyler gazes out at the woods from the patio. Gale sits opposite her, drinking a bitter-sweet martini that Skyler prepared for her. The two sit in silence for a while and then Skyler's contemplative stare turns into a sadistic grin. Her eyes transform into slits and her mouth curves into a half sardonic smile. Gale begins to convulse, holding her stomach and gagging. This is the beginning - a slow justified revenge. Gale begins to vomit and her bowels let loose, with a foul smelling fluid that runs down her legs and seeps onto the floor. Gale stumbles to the bathroom and collapses on the floor by the toilet. Blood and saliva drip from her mouth and ooze to the toilet seat. Skyler is transfixed, noting all the symptoms and glorifying in her master plan. Diarrhea has invaded Gale's underwear and all bodily functions seem to be attempting to unload at once. She rolls over onto the tiled floor and through blurred vision, she can just make out a silhouette of Skyler standing above her. She gasps "what have you done?" Skyler is motionless, waiting patiently for Gale to expire. Soon seizures set in and Gale's eyes roll back, as she thrashes violently back and forth, frothing at the mouth at every turn. After excruciating pain and endless abrasions from hitting the side of the tub and toilet, Skyler knows that a hepatic coma will set in. Gale will be gone and her task will be complete, but first she must have a trophy. She reaches down and rips off one of Gale's fingernails.
Skyler takes five pictures of Gale on her cell phone. Everly and the gang are waiting to clean up the mess. Everly's brother runs a meth lab and the body is dumped in a barrel of hydrochloric acid, dissolving flesh, bones and all. There would never be a sign of Gale - in this world. The gang cleans up the patio and bathroom floor. They are meticulous, but Sklyer makes sure she saves the martini glass with Gale's lipstick on the edge. This would go into the time capsule. Even thirty years later, it would still have that dried imprint of her lascivious lips, and the talon-like fingernail will be preserved forever. But killing was not easy, even when you are the one chosen to do it. Skyler's work is finished but she remembers a book she must complete, The Great Gatsby, and a paper she needs to write for English class. It later gets an A, just as she expected. Skyler always did what she set out to accomplish. Her research on Amanita Virosa was perfect. She had found it in the woods across from her home. Crushing it into a powder and stirring in into Gale's drink was simple. And the effect was quite superb, a total shut down of liver and kidney functions along with the destruction of the brain. The gastrointestinal tract was compromised and death was the final outcome, a violent death, without ever laying a hand on Gale, the devil of destruction.
Everly's father proved to be a good source for drugs and disposing of bodies. The lab was also the gang's hangout, since her father had given her a key, just in case he needed her to run simple errands for him during his "cooking" sessions. Everly was a tall, skinny girl with hair so straight that the wind whipped it into little knots with the slightest breeze. Her parents were nostalgic and named her after the Everly brothers who sang sweet songs long ago. She cherished her name but she had loved Owen, her boyfriend, even more. It was Gale who robbed her of this match made in heaven. Skyler had witnessed the deed. She saw it happen- Skyler saw everything the night Owen was killed by a hit and run accident, although this was no accident. She watched Owen's body struck with a force that tore him apart and what was left of him was thrown like a dying angel into the frozen air, only to lay motionless on the deserted pavement. Skyler followed the car that night. She knew the police would never provide adequate justice. Only she and her gang could seduce this killer and send her to a hell she deserved.
It was the beginning of winter and small, bitter drops of snow fell. We waited for the blizzards to arrive and Owen's body to be laid to rest. Gale went on as if the world had not frozen, along with our hearts. She was not exactly pretty, but her dark eyes did cast a spell on some young boys. She had tried her bewitchery on Owen and did her best to captivate him with her portly but rather curvaceous body. Owen had rejected her in favor of Everly. This infuriated Gale and her jealousy went beyond the normal range of pouting, screaming and ranting. She plotted and schemed, which only added to her fury. She drank too much, a habit that was encouraged in her addictive family. Sometimes her binges lasted days and then she would encounter imaginary creatures in her dreams, wandering in wooded areas that looked familiar but hazy lifeless forms reached out to her. They were enveloped in white gauze-like shrouds. They seemed to be rooted under trees and could not break free without assistance. Someone was plucking them from the ground and piling them in a basket as they screamed in agony. Gale would wake with beads of sweat pouring off her and needing another drink, always one more to stop the horror of those illusive dreams.
Everly took charge, got all of us together and we met at the lab. There was a mixture of cleaning compound and chemicals in the air. She banged a steel pipe on a boiler and reconvened court. Everly sat the highest among us on one of the many pristine containers. The rest of us sat on piles of boxes loaded with meth. Gale was guilty. Skyler had witnessed it. Everly had a small steel container with her. She told us to write our names on a slip of paper and the word "guilty" next to it. Then we had to sign a paper telling how it happened. We all signed it in our best penmanship, noting how well our teachers had taught us the proper way to spell and arrange our sentences. Our gang members had memories of Owen, the six foot, athletic boy who found his way into our hearts. Everly placed his picture in the container. Miley threw in a watch that had once belonged to Owen. Candice, a short, compact girl, gently placed a poem Owen wrote for his 8th grade class. Sad that he never had a chance to read it out loud to the students. Everly said "there will be room for more later," like whatever object would be used to kill Gale. She asked who would volunteer. Of course we all knew it had to be Skyler. She was the only witness and possessed the innate ability to carry through any plan. Skyler's OCD tendencies never let her waver from the task at hand. Her blond hair and almond shaped eyes glowed with an inner strength. No one who looked in those eyes could help but look into their own soul. She had that gift of perceiving sins that were untold. So, the gang left it up to Skyler to do the deed - she would know how to kill in a most horrendous way. Lacey needed to get home. No one asked why. She was always a mystery and no one even knew where she lived. Lacey just seemed to appear like a lost kitten, and hung around our gang for companionship. Everyone broke off, returning to their TV programs and homework. Everly knew her parents would be listening to "Love Hurts" or "All I Have to Do is Dream" by the Everly brothers. Frozen ice pelted them as they left the lab.
Skyler was absent from school the next morning. "Everyone knew that she was performing a perfectly legal execution." Everly's word was law. And so, around eight in the morning, a container of powdered mushrooms and a pitcher of frozen martini mix in hand, Skyler knocked on Gale's door. Gale was still drunk from her colossal attempt to forget her dreams. In her inebriated state, she really didn't care who came into the house as long as they brought more booze. Skyler joked and said she really needed someone to hang with since she just broke up with her gang, a lie that went over well with a drunken sot whose thoughts were elsewhere. Skyler told her to sit on the patio and she'd pour her a drink that would be angelic. After rummaging around for a martini glass, Skyler poured the blend into the glass and added that special touch, the mushrooms called Amanita Virosa. Everly and the gang moved in, cleaned up the aftermath, disposed of the body and the sentence was thereby carried out.
The downloaded pictures from the cell phone were tossed that night into the container along with Gale's fingernail and the martini glass that was the last semblance of a deranged life. A few more of Owen's possessions other members dug up were also put in, like some football cards, an unopened condom and a favorite poem by some poet named Katje. Lacey sealed the container with a chain lock and yards of white ribbon. At midnight, we all went out and buried it under a tree by our old junior high school. Skyler, being the executioner, read a short poem about death being some kind of angel. None of us understood what that meant, but we all agreed that it sounded good. Then we shuffled along to our homes, but most of all to the comfort of our televisions. The time capsule was to be opened in thirty years. And it was.
Everly summoned them as planned at the appropriate year. They had a map and found the tree, although the grounds were now overgrown since the school had been closed due to families moving away. Everly was now Mrs. Blakely. This world had changed - nothing seemed the same. But the contents of the container were all there: the martini glass, the decayed fingernail, the gruesome pictures, the signed agreements of guilty, the souvenirs, the memory of Owen, killed in a jealous rage. And then, they began to depart as quickly and somberly as they came, but Skyler stopped them and said "did you ever wonder what Amanita Virosa meant?" The gang members, now in middle age, had never asked. Lacey no longer had teeth, Miley had lost all her hair for some reason and Everly wore no wedding ring. Skyler, on the other hand, still had eyes of flame and still exuded confidence and resilience. She said: "it is another name for 'Destroying Angel.' " And perhaps that is what she was.
Justice had prevailed. Thirty years before. And now they all knew the name of the deadly weapon Skyler had used and if Gale was still alive, she would have known that the dreams she envisioned were sure to become a reality. Once in a while, justice does prevail, even if only known to a few.
July, 2013