Georgie, The Matricide Man

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The grounds were forgotten and unattended and almost unheard of by anybody except the ghosts of the old lake town. And they were too innocent to haunt anything. Occasionally, there were drunks from the north and outsiders that came here to bleed. But nobody was here tonight. There was only me and my gym bag and that odd glow in the rotten cabin. This whole edge of the native river was to be finally destroyed after the tech companies infiltrated the commerce. And I wanted to visit before it was swallowed. Like many failures, I had travelled. And across the uncertain and odd America of the twenty-twenties, I went back home. Or, to one of the areas where there was an idea of what home used to be. A memory where that demolished boy was still looking for me timelessly as he tugged from the shadow in my subconscious that I was embarrassed to look at. I hid from it everywhere like a disobedient shepherd. But I found a respite in this woody corner where once upon a year I was ripped from myself.

The light was bold and thick and sturdy. And from the shadow I mentioned earlier, there was a flash of envy that steamrolled through the architecture of my blood while it burned. I wasn't bold or brave. I had flesh. And that made me afraid of losing. But the light was fierce and invincible. It was yellow. And not a pleasant meadow yellow or a yellow that made up a sunflower. An ugly yellow. The yellow that grew on the iris of a psychopath. The yellow that colored fear and hatred. A fungal yellow.

There was rolling thunder from the west. But the camp was hot and quiet as February river ice. As if it could be shattered by a wrong step.

I clutched the iron that had roasted my wieners. Fights often made me clumsy and I didn't trust my punches. But the weapon quelled my uncertainty. But I wouldn't need it. The light was just a rare glitch of electricity from a distant storm. Or a subtle crack of stress from my months on the road that bent my senses into each other. And it would go away.

But it stayed. The yellow grew oddly darker and brighter. In my fake leather wallet, there was a picture of her. The one who brought me into the storm. The one who drowned here because of me all those weird years ago. The one who I told I hated because she made me move to this town where I didn't fit in. I hadn't ever looked at it. But if I gazed at it long enough, the light might go away and the window would be black again like it was supposed to be under the law of the woods.

I could barely see her when the fire weakened. The flames were gone and there were little red lava embers that still revealed her.

The nasty yellow was still throbbing. It bothered me like a bad and sudden stomach tremor. An ache that impended a turbulent vomit. Those stretched minutes before the relief of the spew.

And then there was a soft cry that bolted beneath the camp. It was mannered like a child's but the vocals were mature and middle aged. Like my mother's used to be.

"George? Is that you? It's YOU,"

I looked down at it. She was speaking to me. From the little paper dimension of the old picture.

"George. You..... KILLED ME,"

Her eyes were as yellow as that gross light in the abandoned cabin. Her skin was gray and cracked like old house paint on a shaken wall.

"You.... KILLED ME!"

Her glare was as hot as a wok fire. Her lips were black as creek leeches.

I dropped the picture onto the embers and they devoured her. To avoid the acknowledgement of her, I thought of fire. I thought about its relentless nature and how it burned and ate. And I smelled the smoke. But her voice joined the flames. I ran to the side of the camp that the lake edged placidly. At least the water where this nightmare was born out of was probably still cool and purging. I could run to the water and wash my eyes with it. My vision would never be the same after this. I had to clean them now. I could feel a contamination over them. The same yellow that grew on her was infecting my eyes after they matched hers.

I arrived to the water. I splashed it on my cheeks like a tired businessman. A man overworked and who had lost himself in flights and deadlines. And was trying to find salvation in the element that brought life. I could hear a rumble. A steady charge of something heavy. Like a train or a tornado. And her yellow stare appeared beneath the cup I'd molded with my cold hands.

"YOU KILLED ME GEORGIE!"

She was roaring after me from the deep of her grave. Her words were drowned. And they bubbled to the surface like hot boiling cannons.

I ran back to the camp before she arrived to the muddy bank. I could hear her bones scathing the sand behind me while I trampled and tripped to where I made the fire. If I turned around, I may go mad. I may have broken. I may have gone white like a dwarf star in the abyss of lost time.

Before I went in the camp, I found solace in the possibility that this was a psychotic explosion in my neurology. My father had gone mad a few years after my mother drowned here. He had heard voices until he finally blew his head off. Perhaps I'd inherited his gene of insanity. That was a better thing than to be here in this Godless forest with the evil yellow. But as soon as someone questions their sanity, they're probably right.

The fire was back at the camp. But the flames weren't from the authentic fires of earth that ate acres and were weakened by water. The fire was from a Hell beyond Hell. The flames were rounded. It was like a ball of carnage. And at its core was a film reel that replayed the movie of my dying mother. And the final cut was the youth exiting my giant pupils as I watched her sink and not come up. There was a marquee display above the scorch. Like how they showed titles in the old movie houses.

GEORGIE THE MOTHER KILLER.

It flashed in the same terrible yellow as my mother's new eyes. As the light in the old abandoned cabin. The flames were real. And they warmed my skin like a grooming sadist.

I had to leave. I had to go to my car.

I reached for my set of keys. At least my car could ground me as this carnival of guilt and torment was making me empty. I could drive away. I could leave. I could go and get a beer from a late tavern in one of the little Nordic towns up north. But then I remembered, in a moment of anxious comfort, that as I watched my mother charge from beneath the water, they had dropped from my loose pocket. And probably slipped into the watery tomb of the merciless lake.

There was a chuckle.

"You always were a screwy klutz, GEORGIE. You never did anything right after you KILLED ME!"

She was on the other side of the sick fire.

"KILLED ME!"

She said again. There was seaweed. There was sludge. There was muck. There was water from the day she died. Somehow I knew she was covered in the water from the day of her death. She moved closer to me.

I had kept a spare in my wallet. There was a key.

I went to the Chevy. I turned the key. I felt free. The radio blared. I muted the knob but the song got louder. It was the song I remembered from a warm July. A memory that I stored and focused on whenever I felt like I was too far away to be helped.

My parents used to sing it when we were on day trips to the hot springs.

But the lyrics were replaced.

"GEORGIE, THE MOTHER KILLER. GEORGIE, THE MATRICIDE MAN!"

It got more tumultuous. I ignored it. I stamped the gas and arrived to the exit of the grounds. And there she was. In the way of the narrow drive. The only thing blocking me now. But she wasn't ugly. She wasn't evil. She wasn't cursing. She wasn't yellow. Her eyes were sane and alive. Her clothes were as warm as ironed fabric.

"George. Georgie, it's ME! I'm alive! I'm really here. George! It's me! It's been so long, my pumpkin bunny."

It was her. She was as healthy as the wet oak trees. And only my mother called me pumpkin bunny.

"George. It's been so long. I've been waiting for you. And your father too. He's here. We're so proud of you,"

She put her hands together. She praised me.

I wanted to go to her. I wanted to feel her. Maybe it was real. Maybe all of this was a gift. Maybe all of this was a return. But no, that's not how death worked. At least I was sane enough to know that. Magic may be real, but so was death. And that's probably what made people go mad.

"Georgie. It's me. Aren't you going to come out of the car? It's me. The world can't hurt you anymore. Come out of there and be with me,"

She was smiling. Just the way I remembered.

But I stayed. I went against my urge. It was perhaps the only moment I ever felt in control of anything that urged me since that pale afternoon that disrupted everything.

The song faded. And a DJ from a studio in some twisted dimension narrated the calamity.

WILL GEORGIE GO SEE HIS MOTHER? WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS IDIOT? OR WILL HE JUST DRIVE INTO HER AND KILL HER AGAIN? LET’S WAIT AND FIND OUT IF THIS BOZO WILL KILL HIS MOTHER AGAIN!

He laughed like an office bully and dragged another record with lyrics of murder.

"GEORGIE THE MOTHER KILLER, GEORGIE THE MATRICIDE MAN,"

An old singer crooned passionately.

I wanted it to be her more than anything I ever wanted or worked for. But it wasn't. It couldn't be. I went into drive. And I closed my eyes.

I drove.

"George! GEORGIE IT'S ME! WHAT ARE YOU DOING SWEETHEART?!"

She was close enough to where I could still break.

And I did. I couldn't kill her again. I would lose all hold on the computer of my skull. I would live in a circle of guilt. I would be lost in the dark woods like a sorrowed ghost.

"Georgie! It's ME! It's your MOTHER! What are you DOING?"

The DJ returned.

MY GOD. HE'S ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN! THIS MONSTER! THIS PSYCHO IS TRYING TO KILL HIS MOTHER AGAIN! HE'S NEARLY RUN HER OVER!

I ran out of the car. I went to the reach of the park where there was an old trail. If I just ran and ran and hiked it would go away.

And then all of the night birds sang together. Their pitch channeled the songs of hate on the radio.

"GEORGIE THE MOTHER KILLER! GEORGIE, THE MATRICIDE MAN!"

Even the morning birds joined them. The owls. The ducks from the lake. The woodpeckers played percussion.

The words cut so deeply that I was forgetting how to run. My legs were weak. They were soggy. All I could hear was their song. It was true. It must have been. And that's why it crippled me so badly.

Why did I come here? What was I doing on the road? Maybe I should have stayed on the highways. I couldn't remember what I was doing out there anyway. Probably reminding myself I was a mother killer. Over and over.

I could hear the bull frogs adding bass to the rhythm. I couldn't remember where I was. I couldn't think of what was beyond the shadows of the oaks. I couldn't find the path. If I went further, I would be paralyzed. I would be a part of these woods. A dumb stump surrounded by culling voices. I had to go back to the camp. It was haunted, but I was safe there. Safer than the lost patterns of the taunting trees. A maze of guilt and despair.

The camp was burning madly. My little bag with almost everything I'd owned was eaten by the strange fire. And taken into whatever realm of insanity it came from.

The camp had become a theater. There was a grip on my shoulder while I observed the giant movie of me failing to help my mother. A desperate and craving grip. A hand that begged for an answer that I couldn't give it. The hand of someone who had been killed too soon and was lost on the stormy edge of Eternity. I turned around. I jumped backwards and nearly tripped into the growing fire of the camp.

Her eyes were too close. Her gaze made all of my blood black. My muscles were trapped. My thoughts were locked in it, too.

"You.... KILLED ME GEORGIE! MY LITTLE BOY KILLED ME! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME!"

She stepped toward me. Her ghost was in there and it was more real than the apparition in front of my car. She called me out from the mutation of her flesh. The water that drowned her dried in the heat of the evil flames.

There were only two paths. Move toward her and go blind, or go into the fire.

But there was a wedge on my right. A sliver of walkway that only went to the cabin with the sludgy yellow. In a few seconds, the path would be gone by the hunger of the fire. And she came closer. Pushing me into it.

"YOU KILLED ME,"

If I approached her, I would turn into something like her. I could already feel the mold yellow rising around my iris. It was hard to blink. I couldn't face her. But her mangled face was even worse as I imagined it.

And I moved. I ran to that cabin. Careful not to fall into the hot licks of the flames. They laughed at me when I got too close to them. And their chuckles entered my mind. It was all I could hear.

GEORGIE THE MOTHER KILLER. GEORGIE THE MATRICIDE MAN!

The cabin was cool as dry wind. It felt like the breath of night. It was immune to the fire of the camp. But the windows were bright with its scorch. It had overtaken the grounds. If I went outside ever again, I would be burned.

And the chant returned.

GEORGIE THE MOTHER KILLER. GEORGIE THE MATRICIDE MAN!

But it was my own conscience. Not the birds. Not the radio. Not the fire. And not my mother. The voice that used to guide me was now haunting me. I tried to think of anything except for it. But any image was distorted and watered away by the awful chant.

I was lost now. I was losing it. I clutched my hands over each other. I was fetal. I had to feel myself in order to stay alive.

'I'm GEORGE,'

I thought.

GEORGIE THE MOTHER KILLER. GEORGIE THE MATRICIDE MAN.

No. No. No. No. No.

"George?"

Her voice called from the room with the yellow. I could see her shadow behind it.

"George. Is that you? Are you out there? IT IS YOU. YOU KILLED ME!"

It was her. I'd rather open the cabin and jump into my terrible death and burn than face her. I got up. At least her presence broke me from the floor.

"George? I'm COMING IN THERE. AND I WANT YOU TO LOOK INTO MY EYES. It's been so LONG,"

I knew if she confronted me I would die. And not a real burning death. The death that made your head hollow. The death that made men where white jackets and bang their heads. The death that killed you before you could finish the feast of mortality.

The door opened. She moved toward me like a mummy. I moved my eyes to the fire on the windows.

"GEORGIE. My little PUMPKIN BUNNY. YOU KILLED ME,"

I cowered to the corner.

"GEORGIE. LOOK INTO MY EYES. CAN'T YOU LOOK INTO MY EYES?"

I looked at them. The yellow was all I knew now. There were no memories left except for when I saw her soul leave what they used to be to be on that afternoon here in the water away from the cabin.

"Yes. Look at me GEORGIE. LOOK AT YOUR DEAD MOTHER,"

Everything was gone now. There was only the cabin and her corpse. It took everything away from me. There was no ambition. No will. No life. No future. The more I looked at her, the less I was.

I couldn't even remember my last name. The only identity I had here was the Matricide Man.

The fire chanted.

GEORGIE, THE MOTHER KILLER. GEORGIE, THE MATRICIDE MAN,"

It was the only language I knew now. I used to know other words. I used to read. But it was all I knew. And the only thing I could see were her yellow eyes. And her twisted black mouth. And her gray and floppy flesh.

"Look at ME,"

She pried.

She came closer.

I knew this was it. I knew I was locked. I was mad. I went to the door. The dusty and tattered mirror showed me my eyes. They were like hers.

"Yes. BURN. Walk into the fire like the COWARD you are,"

I turned the stinging knob. But I froze.

She laughed. If I turned around, there would be nothing left. But if I walked out, I would burn.

"Turn around and face your mother,"

She laughed and moved me to the door. I wanted to know that the fire wasn't real. I wanted to touch it. I opened the door and scraped the edge of it.

It burned. I roared from the heat and she giggled. The same hand that couldn't pull her back up. The same hand that drowned her. At least it was disfigured now. It wasn't the same hand anymore. The fire had transformed its chemistry. I didn't have to look at it ever again.

I lamented for my flesh. The fire chant became louder. I wanted to hear my voice. It still made me feel alive to hear my voice. It still made me feel like me. But the chant muted it.

"Georgie, the MOTHER KILLER. GEORGIE, THE MATRICIDE MAN!"

I was singing with them all now. The fire and the birds.

"Yes! Sing it, Georgie!"

She laughed.

There was an ancient clock on the dark green wall. The dial on it rotated rapidly. Whatever life I had beyond the cabin was lost in time. Maybe I'd be forgotten eventually. Or maybe I'd be remembered around this lake town after the tech businesses boomed. They'd whisper about the tragedy of Georgie The Matricide Man.

I was still somewhere here. I was watching myself now.

I knew some part of me was behind the yellow.

"Yes! SING IT GEORGE!"

Everything was going black. Black as a death with no exit for the soul. Black as the other side of an imploding galaxy. Black as burnt wood. There were only several seconds of sanity left. I knew as she looked into me that all of my head was going away. I was empty.

"Anything you want to say before you join me down in the water forever, Pumpkin Bunny?"

She was sticking her tongue out.

A few words remained in me. The only thing I wanted to say in all these chewed up years.

"Mom, I love you. And I tried to help you out of the water. I didn't want you to drown. I tried to help you. It wasn't my fault,"

And I waited for the dark.

The curtain. The end of the big show.

I waited. I waited.

But it was quiet.

Her corpse was gone.

The fire was seized.

The terrible mantra wasn't turning anymore.

I still cried for her. I wanted her even if she was torturing me and decayed as a beggar's tooth. I wanted the song. If that's what it took. I wanted the pain.

But the cabin wasn't yellow. It was daylight now and the morning birds had gathered but they weren't denying me. I walked out of the cabin and the sun was warm but it didn't sting like the fire of the camp. The water shined and my thoughts returned.

My car was gone. As a matter of fact, I didn't remember how I got here. Perhaps I wasn't even here at the camp. I think I'd been in this part of my head for a decade and a half. Stumbling like a blackened wanderer. But there was a path over there by the woods. And I headed for it with all of the love that I'd lost on that terrible day where my mother drowned because I abandoned these grounds.

"Georgie?"

She faintly cried.

Wait no, because I was kid. And kids don't know better.

And her voice didn't call me. And she went to sleep where she belonged. And I walked quietly beyond the hill.