LIII. I See With One Eye
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"I see with one eye, but have two."
Be silent, be silent, be silent...
Lolita blinked her eyes, and pus rolled onto her skin like tears. The day was dark and dreary, devoid of color, and like Londonʼs great fog, smoke drifted around them. Groaning, Lolita cracked her eyes open slightly, slightly, the creaking of the wooden floorboards echoing like grating teeth. The house was a graveyard of dusty, decaying furniture and peeling, yellowed wallpaper, with dying men falling out of the sky alongside her.
I will not die here. I will be silent.
"I se-e-e with one eye, but have two. Or perhaps one."
Be loud, be silent, be l-o-u-d...
Lolita groaned again, head throbbing.
"For f*ckʼs sake!" she shouted.
And the silence came in, in a chorus of growls.
When Lolita awoke, she came in contact with the Ghostly Woman and her mutt, a dog of devilishly circuitry, with his bone sewn from telecomm wirings, his flesh from rustic metal, its teeth bolts of electricity, crackling with intent of exploding. Her heartbeat loaded with hushed whispers, thumping rapidly in her chest, her breath bated. The Womanʼs eyes were obsidian, threatening to turn her to stone and devour her whole, as the snakes hissed and her dog growled. This was the hell-mouth, spewing its acid and venom on her, and she could only hold her breath. Be silent, when all she wanted to was succumb to her screams. The fires of the hell weren't the only thing kindling with her rage.
"I see with one eye, but have two," the Woman said, sharpening her own teeth.
Lolita drew blood, digging her nails into the heel of her palm.
"Get the f*ck out of my face," she deadpanned.
"I see with one eye but have two. The f*ck does that mean?"
The silence became screams, and in the presence of the dead, Lolita felt nothing. The Woman screamed with the shrill longing of ghosts, and the hunger of ghouls, beckoning the spirits towards them. And so, the blood evaporated into the air, painting the Devilʼs eyes into the ceiling above, mocking God. Staring up, Lolita wiped the droplets, pus and blood, off with a wince. This hell was different, neither cold nor hot, but suffocating, and she cursed in frustration.
This panoptic prison, this Jamaican nightmare, was a jail of broken thoughts, that she saw with one eye, rather than two...
The Old Man from the Beach clung to the shadows, body hunched up as a deadman's would. The black in his eyes unnerving.
"Eopsin," he said simply.
"The snake goddess; our snake goddess," Lolita shot back. "You people have some f*cking nerve."
"Us people?"
"Oh, quit the act."
The moon swallowed one eye, not two, and Lolita. The power was adulterating that Lolita experienced, an anger that reaped only what it craved revenge for. The demons from Croatia, from Korea, still hungered for diluted light, the monsters from Hawaii still hungered for recognition, but most of all, she wanted to eat him. To peel his skin from bone, and watch how beautiful that would be. The tears took Lolita like a thief in the night, having her choke on her own breath.
"Robin stole the future from me when she sent me here."
"It seems, Lolita," the Man murmured. "That youʼre as big a fool as I expected."
Lolitaʼs face went stark, clutching her dress, as the circuitry of the dogs emitted their sparks and the fog thickened.
"How do you know who I am?" she whispered, guarded.
The Old Man stared, and then, his eyes melted in his very sockets. Eyes of smoke, wings of smoke, consuming him whole.
"Long before the creation of Adam and Eve, I have been alive, Lolita," the Old Man hummed. "There are many people in this world that claim they know things, but I am an Ifrit. Long before man and God, I was here. They call me the Ifrit from Versailles, as a coy nickname, Voltaire to ease their anxiety, but I always know. I see with both eyes, it seems."
The Ifrit from Versailles wore many faces, and as her resolve vanished, he showed his true one. A statue, a monument, with chiseled Eastern features and skin that burned like a smoky, electric blue, fire. The nightʼs frostiness crept upon them, burning with his skin, and he let the night in. With the Snow Queenʼs rage, the night etched itself into his skin, the deep, rich, blue skies and stars swirling around his arms, face, neck, his beard made from the pitch black meteors. The constellations, galaxies, and nebulae gleamed against sapphire tinge of his skin. His youth captivated her eyes, lingering, and like that, she was moved beyond repair.
"Come, Lolita," he said, as if it were a dirty secret. "I have been expecting you for quite some-time now."