"Gifune, Greg F. - obedient flies (SS)(txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gifune Greg F)

“My God,” Devon mumbled when she had allowed him to flip through her portfolio for the first time, “are these…are these real?”
She sat watching his reaction as he dug deeper into the album, moving beyond her early pieces to those she had created upon arriving in the city. She smiled, able to see the portfolio clearly in his lap, recognizing the shift in maturity evident in her photographs, the progression of style and depth and skill. The shots of a homeless man she had taken while sipping her coffee, huddled beneath sweaters and a heavy winter coat. Her use of the single light from the street adjacent to the alley was masterful, cutting the shadows where the man lay draped in tattered and soiled clothes, toes exposed through makeshift shoes of plastic bags taped to his ankles, riddled with frostbite and black as the night sky. She had watched him for days, returning each night once she realized he had grown too sick to move, and had recorded with detached poignancy his gradual death.
Next came the pictures from the park she had taken after purchasing a wonderful night scope lens. Nights spent cruising for her next subject, shots of muggings and beatings and even a gang rape captured from the relative safety of nearby shrubs or from beneath one of the footbridges connecting the series of park streams and ponds.
“Please,” Devon had said, looking up from the portfolio with tears in his eyes. “Please tell me these aren’t real. Tell me they’re staged, that these are actors or models or—please, Lydia, please tell me they’re not real.”
“I’m just a witness, Dev. That’s all. An artist, nothing more, nothing less.”
“No, you could have done something to prevent these things,” he said. “You could have helped these people.”
Still a bit hazy from the wine they had consumed that evening, she watched him through eyes now blurred. “What are you saying?”
“The world’s in flames and you just sit back and watch it burn.” He dropped the portfolio as if it were some rotting, maggot-infested thing, and stared at her. “And it turns you on, doesn’t it. Doesn’t it.”
It was night, and since Devon had first moved in, she felt alone.
Again.
“My God, that—that first one is just a child, he can’t be more than—”
She blanched, having never heard him even raise his voice. “I only recorded it.” Devon struggled to his feet, blinking rapidly, looking like an animal cornered and aware that its days of freedom were over.
“Do you know why Todd did it?” she asked.
“Why does anyone do something so brutal?”
“Because his father was doing the same thing to him.” Lydia took the portfolio in her arms, cradling it tenderly, like an infant. “That’s what we do, isn’t it, Dev? We learn.”
He shook his head as if hoping to dislodge her words from his ears. “If this other boy was abused by his parents then I’m sorry for him, but—”
“I did the same, Dev, no different.”
“What are you talking about? You came from a good family—with money—you never wanted for anything.”
“I learned to accept, to be obedient. I did what my parents taught me.”
He staggered back a bit, nearly tripped, and then settled. The silence between them was deafening, until, after a fitful swallow, he whispered, “What did they do to you?”
Lydia’s eyes died, and she wondered if at that moment they looked like Todd’s had that day in the forest, that day he’d cornered her, that day she’d seen his picture in the local newspaper after he’d been arrested for slitting his parent’s throats while they slept. “They overlooked me.”

The wind picked up, and the old apartment building creaked and groaned. Lydia closed the portfolio, carefully returned it to the box and locked it shut. After putting it away in the closet, she hesitated near the window and watched the empty street for a time, a profusion of thoughts spinning through her mind like the snow squall just beyond the foggy pane.
It was time; there was no avoiding it.
The living room was quiet, the soft light from a nearby lamp framing Devon’s prone and sleeping form in shadow. Watching him, she breathed slowly, waiting to see if her presence would cause him to stir.
The faint touch of something foreign caught her attention. She raised her hand and glanced down to find a large housefly squatting atop it. Bringing her hand closer, she peered at the creature, watching it move in a gradual circle across her skin, its tiny legs barely registering sensation. Turning her wrist slowly, she opened her palm and allowed it to crawl to the center. Lethargic and subdued, it had lived far longer than it should have, and like Devon, was approaching death. The result seemed unnatural and pointless, beings reduced to something other than originally intended.

He had stormed off, leaving Lydia behind as he ran to his bedroom and began to pack, muttering incoherently, slamming things; frightening her.
Lydia made for the walk-in closet just off the hallway she had converted to a makeshift darkroom a few years prior. Once inside she scanned the recently developed photographs dangling from a cord strung from one corner of the room to the next, the trays and bottles of chemical solutions…and something else she kept there.
Devon had been so distraught he hadn’t noticed the razor when Lydia entered the room and threw herself at his feet. Begging him to understand, to stay, to just listen and to let her explain, she wrapped her arms around his legs, feigning tears.
Ignoring her, he continued stuffing his belongings into a suitcase. “You need fucking help.”
Tightening her grip, she drew the blade quickly—deeply—across the back of his ankles. His Achilles' tendons severed, Devon collapsed even before he’d had the chance to scream. Then she was on him, pummeling him with her fists, releasing a rage on his small frame that had been trapped within her for decades.

Lydia, her new companion still perched on the soft flesh of her palm, shifted her eyes to the roll of duct tape on the floor. She’d sealed his mouth with it in the past, but over the last few days it had no longer been necessary. He barely had the strength to raise his head, much less muster a scream or cry for help. Despite it all, she still loved him. He had taught her that a true artist was not a silent voyeur, rather a creator—an instigator—a god, in a way. She carefully reached out with her free hand and pulled the blanket down.
His ankles were still wrapped in gauze, but the skin beneath and around it had turned a peculiar shade, and the stench was overwhelming. Although she had done her best to dress his wounds, the others were even worse. The area of his inner thigh, where she had extracted a piece with a carving knife days before was still leaking blood through the dressing. She sighed. It had stained the couch.
After two days of photographing the changes in his flesh as it sat on the kitchen table, she’d made the decision to cook it, but what had earlier been such a compelling new series for her portfolio, now seemed a waste of time. Darkness had closed on her these past days, hampering her perception, and now she wondered if this final chapter of her portfolio would ever be completed. “Maybe it doesn’t matter.”
Devon’s head lolled to the side, his eyes glazed and distant. Drool clung to the corners of his mouth, and a wheezing sigh escaped him. “Lydia.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, only then aware that she’d spoken aloud. Glancing down at the fly, she wondered if he was watching too.
“No more,” he whispered. “Take me down to the snow. Please, I…I don’t want to die here.”
Slowly, she curled her fingers into a fist. Inside, the fly offered little resistance. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see.”