Page 144 of Rage

Samantha gave me life, gave me this lighthouse and island. So many wonderful, tainted gifts. It’s all so lonely without her: the drafty old house attached to the lighthouse, the brutal little island surrounded by sharp rocks, and the cats that won’t stop fucking staring at me—hissing when I get close, as if they know I’m not like them. That I’m not like anyone.

I’m Samantha’s abomination. Humans can’t speak to their god—can’t know what the point of it all is. But I’ve held my god in my arms and understood exactly what the point of my life is. It’s for her. Her creature, her monster, her everything—I will be it or become it.

I move through the long hall that connects the lighthouse tower to the adjoining structure. There are different areas in the house, but I’m not sure what their purposes are. Sometimes, I can sense a hazy memory, like I used to know, but no matter how I claw at the sensation, it never reveals more. My knowledge has holes. Sometimes, it’s shocking what I know when other, simpler things elude me.

My eyes shift around the room, searching for what I need. There are parts and pieces everywhere. There’s a brain, a foot, hands missing fingers, spleens, bladders, large intestines, small intestines…

I know all the parts she gave me.

I know all the parts she didn’t.

It has left me with a hole that makes me less human. There’s gnawing hunger inside me that grows each day, and she gave me no way to feed it.

I poured over her anatomy books and human biology texts. I even memorized her own journals about her experiment before I realized she was talking about me. I was only a thing to her.

I am not athing. Being nothing, being a thing, anit, a series of objects Samantha wanted to see come together and writhe beneath her…there is nothing worse than that. I will make her see I’m someone. I’ll take beinganythingother than nothing to her. Nothing is something I can’t accept. Can she fault me for that?

Sometimes, I think Samantha might be a cruel person. I don’t wish for her to change, but it’s difficult for me when she treats me so coolly, when she runs away without looking back.

There. I spy what I want behind a floating face. I move towards the large jar and bend down, looking at the severed head. It’s missing the top of its skull…and its brain. I eye the mouth hanging open, the rows of teeth. I wonder for a moment if this was me in a past life, if this is the man Samantha yelledat in my dreams—the brain inside my head. There’s a tongue in his mouth. I wonder if I used to roll it over my gums. I wonder if I talked, ate, and kissed, if Samantha herself tasted those lips. I hope not. I don’t care if it was me in a past life; I’ll be ragefully jealous of him all the same.

I know so very little, but I understand my mouth wants to press to hers. If I had a tongue, I’d taste hers with it. I’d taste the pulse on her neck. I’d taste the soft skin of her wrist. I’d taste the corners of her eyes and where her legs meet her body. There are so many places I wish to taste Samantha…if only she had given me a tongue to do so.

My hand moves up and shoves the jar aside. Behind the floating head is what I need—a severed tongue. Perhaps it’s even the one she cut from my head before stitching me up.

I must fix the empty places she left me with because, every day, my hunger grows. I want to eat the bread she brings in the mornings, still warm in the cloth, to swallow the spiced tea she sips all day, even when it has turned as cold as the sea.

Yet, it’s not only food and drink I’m starving for.

I’ve learned she purposely left me incomplete, although she didn’t effectively detail why. My hand reaches out to grab the jar, pulling it closer. It makes a soft growl on the wooden shelf.

She wants me incomplete, but what I want is different. What I want ismore.

With determined conviction, I take the jar back to the lighthouse, down the dreary hall with all its windows showing the sea. The yellow liquid sloshes quietly in my hand as the waves roar outside.

Today is…gray. I need more words. There is a feeling the grayness gives me, but all I’ve had to study are medical books, and the holes in my knowledge let me down right now. I need different books to help me—not scientific academia. Somethingabout the sea, or something about this feeling Samantha gives me when she touches my body.

So many feelings inside me, so few words to understand them. I don’t need words, not really. The feeling is there, and that is all that matters. Words would be nice, though. Words would be a softer way to show Samantha instead of holding her trembling body in my arms forcefully. I’m not sure I’ll ever be capable of telling her, though, and if I must show her in the ways I know how, I will.

I get back to the base of the lighthouse. She has me stay in here, next to the beakers, test tubes, and surgery table. I look for the tools I need—the needle and thread, the scissors, tweezers, and scalpel. I’m running my own experiments now. I’ve read how she made it work. Her science is murky. She doesn’t understand the exact mechanisms, only the tools.

Perhaps it’s because there is so much time on my hands, but I’m beginning to understand it, even finding room to improve her designs. Then again, maybe it’s the brain she chose for me. I wonder what sort of man he was while thinking of the dead head floating in a murky green jar, a past life of mine like each finger and toe. I’ve had so many lives, it seems, and there are so many stitches to document them.

Under my bed is a drawing I’ve made—Samantha, looking off in thought. It was amazing to see the pencil move and her likeness come to life on the paper. To think, it wasn’t long ago that I couldn’t even lift a pencil, and now, I’m drawing her—shading in the shadows around her lips, sculpting the lovely shape of her nose.

I turn with the picture in hand, going back to my collection of supplies by the window. The glass will help me see what I’m doing—even if poorly.

Outside, one of the cats hisses at me. He’s angry I’ve ruined his view through the window with my presence. His fur standsin a line down his bent back, his lips peeled back to show me his teeth.

It would be such a simple matter to kill him. I’ve killed other things. A mouse was running around, and Samantha hated it, so I snatched it up in my hand and crushed it. Maybe that was why she was so frightened when I wrapped my arms around her. Did she think I’d crush her like I did the mouse?

She’d been so startled by the rodent's death, her mouth hanging ajar as I opened my palm and showed her the broken body—blood dripping from my palm.

“Dear God,” she’d whispered. Her reaction was curious. I watched her neck move as she swallowed. Her eyes lifted to mine. “It’s okay, Casper. I’m not upset.” The idea of her being upset hadn’t entered my mind, but when she said that, I didn’t believe her. That was the day I learned Samantha was a liar.

I know now that I’m one too—one of omission. There are many things Samantha has omitted from me as well.

I care so deeply for her, and I want to know everything there is. I want her to let me in and tell me the truth. All of it.

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