Flash Fiction: The Rape of Proserpine (1128 words)

The rain hit the pavement with unprecedented force it seemed. The sound of it hitting the corrugated iron on the shed roof was even fiercer. I knew it might be an indicator that my mood was heightened but I couldn’t help it. The rain felt angry. I felt angry. The wind blowing in my face no matter which way I turned. The light from the street lamp pushed itself into my world as uninvited as ants on the kitchen floor. I sat underneath the shed and let the rain drench me. It wasn’t too cold. I could sit there.

Stewing in my anger.

And the longer I sat there the angrier I became.

I had been walking home from a friends house when I noticed there was someone behind me. He was wearing a dark hooded sweater, sneakers, jeans and he was picking up his pace behind me.

The sensation of being followed immediately made my heart beat faster. The park was up to my right, starting with a series of trees were you could hide from the sun on a warm day and to my right there was the highway which was uncharacteristically empty this evening. I picked up my pace and noticed the man did the same. His hood was covering his head and I had no way of seeing his face but I heard his steps matching my walking speed exactly.

I was used to walking this spot late at night and although I’d always been a bit nervous I had never actually been in a situation like this before. Of course he could very well be a well meaning citizen on his way home, and I hoped it was just a coincidence that he happened to look intimidating and was following my lead. I felt couldn’t afford to take that chance though so I picked up the pace and in the end I was jogging, running but he met my pace every time. When I ran, he ran equally fast.

When the path turned in through the park I hesitated. I decided not to chance going into the park, even though it was a lot shorter way to safety, but hoped that someone would drive by who could help me. The man followed me and so I started running.

When we were just about clear from the highway and entering a quiet neighbourhood with houses people were surely asleep in. I wanted to run straight to the nearest house and ask for help but so far he had kept his distance so I turned, heading home, hoping that he would stay clear, walk the other way.

But still he followed me.

There was a single house with the lights on on the rout we took but I didn’t go to get help. Instead I felt I was being paranoid and ran a head, looking over my shoulder from time to time seeing the man gazing down at his shoes as he matched my steps.

When we were back beside the park, walking a small road with only a handful of houses. When I was just about getting to my neighbourhood he attacked. Suddenly he was upon me. I could hear him quickly pick up his pace, running fiercely the short distance between us and he pulled me into the park, holding my mouth so I couldn’t make a sound.

I cursed myself.

I cursed myself for not getting help while I still could. I cursed myself for being out there in the first place. I cursed myself for not taking the bus home. I cursed myself and I blamed myself.

He started feeling me up. He pushed me to the ground and sat on top of me with his feet holding my arms down. He ripped open my jacket and tore my t-shirt. He licked my ear and hit me when I tried to bite him. Then he moved downward. I fought him. I fought him with everything I had but just like before he matched me, a blow for a blow and he had no problem keeping my arms down while he pushed himself upon me, into my body and into my damned soul.

He grunted and he grinned and he licked my face.

And when he was spurting his devil seed into me it started raining.

Instead of heading home I roamed. Instead of finding help I wandered.

And the rage kept building in me. It built as the rain poured down. It built as the lights flickered in the street beside the shed. It built as I noticed the houses start to lit up. People waking up, eating breakfast, grumpily taking their morning showers and getting their kids ready for school. The mundane ordinary lives of regular people made me furious. The rain made me furious. The stillness of the morning made me furious.

And then I felt a slow sensation creeping up on me. It was as if it surrounded me and then entered my body slowly as not to startle me. First a calming assurance filled me and then I started to dissolve. First my clothes, then my skin seemed to seep down with the rain and dissolve in the gutter. My arteries and my muscles were suddenly one with the rain with my blood mixing up with the raindrops vanishing into the drain. When my skeleton was all that was left and a few well kept inner organs the rain seemed to gain strength and beat what was left of my body to the pulp so that the shards splintered violently and flew into a different direction, dissolving and becoming one with the ground and the dirt and the soil.

What was left underneath the shed was my outraged apparition and it rose into the sky and started its search.

I found him sleeping in a narrow bed in the cellar of a pathetic apartment house. He didn’t know that I entered his body, not the way I knew he had entered mine. He just felt me at first like an uncomfortable itch and then I was inside, roaming in his filthy thoughts, poisoning his green goblin blood. When he realised what was happening it was already to late for him. I made him stand in front of the mirror and shed his human skin. I made him stand before himself, look himself in the eye knowing I was the apple of his eyes, the sweat on his palms, his shadow on the floor.

I watched as he took his pride and joy between his hands and pulled until it tore off at the root.

And as he lay there screaming I ascended, vanishing from this existence entirely.

My rage stilled. The rain stopped. All was quiet.