#fathertrjames

Jan 1, 2000. The Millennium

The streaks of blood still stained the old planter’s face as he woke, staring up at the lid of his coffin. The events of the night before were coming back to him, and he merely sighed, closing his eyes again, brushing his hand through his tangled hair.

The rage in Lestat’s face. The spite. The power. He barely had time to brace himself. His hand on his neck. “Please stop.” Grip like iron.

“You’d be dead without me.”

The shatter. A million little pieces of glass like falling glitter. Falling. Lestat in that window. Did he reach out? The searing pain. Images of St. Sebastian. Wrought iron fence arrows, piercing his flesh. Helpless.

He couldn’t stop the cry that tore from his throat as he gingerly pushed the lid away. There were spots in his vision. It felt as if his middle would rend in half. He laid back, his palms on his tearing eyes as he tried to catch his breath. He hadn’t been this hurt in a long time. Finally getting up his nerve, he slid one of his shaking hands down the tender flesh of his abdomen, where the two huge gaping wounds had closed, leaving only pink scars over the flesh still knitting together below. Thank god.

The pain was incredible. He tried to sit up, pulling himself over the side of the blood-stained coffin. The room was spinning and he promptly threw up onto the hardwood floor. He slowly arose, trying not to cry out as he stood, one arm around his stomach, the other gripping the wall desperately as he stumbled out of his room at the house on Rue Royal. There was dried blood everywhere in the house from when he had dragged himself inside, cutting a staggering path to his coffin from the puddle at the foot of the spiked fence outside. He was surprised the cops hadn’t come.

“S—Stat…?” Louis called out hoarsely, barely loud enough for himself to hear. He needed the very man that had done this to him. He hated himself for it, but he was in dire straits…and he had no one else.

His tragic voice echoed back to him in a way that was unfamiliar as he winced down the stairs. The reason soon became apparent as he flicked on the lights in the living room. He gasped.

The room was empty of most everything, save for Louis’ red thinking chair, and three dozen books stacked spitefully in the middle of the room. They had been the only things in the room of over-crowded furniture the Creole owned. He started hyperventilating as it dawned on him, as the panic set in. He grit his teeth as he hurried down the hall, knocking into a vase as he caught himself on a table there. He threw open the door to Lestat’s bedroom as it crashed, the noise echoing in the hollow space.

“No…” Louis sighed, his hand coming to his temple. The room was empty. The floor was bare. Lestat was gone. He was gone. It gripped Louis just then. Lestat had left him for dead. Gone. He could smell the sweat of the movers that had been in the room. He had let a group of mortal men in to move out his things, while Louis slept, gravely injured, in just the next room. The Creole’s life meant nothing to him.

He slid down the side of the door jam, unable to stop the flood of tears that consumed him. I should have let you die. You mean nothing to me. The sobs racked the skinny planter’s body, echoing in an ugly way throughout the empty space. The pain was intense, but he didn’t care. He thought about calling someone for help, but there wasn’t anyone else. They had all abandoned him, one after another, and now, he was completely alone.

You deserve this. All of it. You’re worthless. Weak. A waste of life from start to finish. It was not Lestat’s voice, but his own in his mind, as he opened the door to his house and walked barefoot outside. He could not stay in that hollow place a moment longer. The emptiness was suffocating. He thought about returning to his shack on the outskirts of town, to escape it, but fuck…what was the point?

Lestat was right. His life had no meaning, no reason to continue. He existed only as a plaything for the great Marquis. Weak. Needy. Easy. All that lay beyond the light of the brat prince was a drudgery of books and slow-burn candles, thoughts of the past, but no creativity, and certainly no life. There was no happiness that could ever captivate him. No comfort. No feeling but pain and crippling boredom. He was someone merely to use and throw away, and he had let it happen willingly. Over. And over. And over, again. He was pathetic. For the first time in his life, there was nothing redeeming he found in himself at all.

And in that moment, he made a decision that would come to define the rest of his life.

It was late. The death sleep had held him much longer in his injured state, and he was glad for it. He had slept almost the entire night. It wouldn’t be a long wait.

Louis ignored the glass that cut into his feet as he traversed Pirate’s Alley from Royal, ignoring the judgmental stare of the brightly lit Jesus statue on the back of the cathedral. He didn’t need religion clouding his judgement.

He drew only passing glances from the fortune tellers huddled around candles in Jackson Square. He seemed just another lonesome drunk stumbling toward death. My life isn’t worth saving. He crossed Decatur and made his way up to the Riverwalk. No one will ever mourn me. He killed a man, one last time, and hid his body in the bushes. Noting the silver cigarette case in the man’s pocket, he took it, along with his lighter. There won’t be anyone to stop me..

Louis took a seat on one of the park benches that faced the river. He could see the hints of the sun in the far distance, much too faint for any mortal to see, but rising, slowly as the Earth made its faithful rotation. Louis lit a cigarette with his shaking fingers as the world around him began to warm.

He passed his fingers over the flame of the lighter, trying out the feeling that he knew was soon to consume him. It’ll only hurt for a moment. He had always had a love affair with the flame, it was a fitting way for him to die. In probably less than an hour, he’d be gone, a flash of white powder on the wind, a burden on the world no longer. It’ll be peaceful. He lied to himself.

He brought the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag, coughing and sputtering. He had never smoked before. He didn’t know why he did it. The second hit was easier, he blew a long stream of smoke up at the slowly dimming stars. The lights of the night were going out, one by one. He thought about Lestat, and the Gobi desert, and closed his eyes. The light was almost blinding now. He could smell his skin starting to smoke. He gripped the arm of the bench as the heat set in, the burn was beginning to become intense.