Dali's Egg ~ 13. Things Fall Apart

Shepard Fairey

Jane Grissom watched as the apple pie took effect, she could almost see the memories boiling in this one – even more so than she’d seen in Shangaan, and he’d been very tasty. She’d felt like some tragic Tennessee Williams melodrama; made her ache nostalgic for the mythical south.
The effect of the apple pie had been swift; June closed her eyes in an attempt to fight it. She fought it, remembering her death in the woods. She fought it with her mind while her body attempted mutiny. Squinting, she watched the woman in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye she also watched the magpie as it bobbed up and down on the cage watching the two of them.
Alice in fucking blunderland, she thought, I’m gonna get killed again – two in a row – Jesus!
The room seemed to be breathing with her; everything was watching; even the furniture leant forward as if to listen, she could feel the breeze from the open doorway on the insides of her thighs as Grissom knelt before her and parted her knees.
Kali watched with disassociated lust as Grissom opened her mouth and ran her tongue up the fold. Kali watched. Shit, everyman’s fantasy was going on in front of him – and here he was - a FUCKING MAGPIE.
Grissom was shocked to find the back of her head hitting the floor. The force of June’s blow had travelled all the way from the touch of tongue, crackling static dynamic up spine through fulcrum of shoulder with a turbo-charge of uncontrolled anger sucked from knife edge memory to lungs full of water. Knife with buried blade brutal in the extreme fucking red-headed fucking animal!
Again and again she drove her fists into Jane Grissom’s face while the magpie fluttered and chattered in panic around her head. Grissom did not feel any pain, the blood was her own, but she could taste all the others in it.
June lifted Grissom up by the collar of her calico dress and slammed her against the wall next to the kitchen door.
“What exactly is it that you want from me?”
Jane Grissom hung like a rag doll between June’s fists, she attempted a smile, showing bloody teeth, she started to speak, but as she opened her mouth Kali flapped onto her face, pecking at the blood that gathered around her tongue. Grissom gathered her senses together and sent June flying back across the room and grabbed Kali by the neck.
“Ungrateful little fucker,” she hissed in his face before striding across the room to stuff him, feathers flying, into the black cage. She turned to where June was picking herself up amongst the splintered pieces of broken furniture,
“Ms McBride, please, I though we might both gain a little pleasure from this occasion, I didn’t think you’d be so offended by a little lip service.” Three long strides and she grabbed June by the throat and lifted her into the air; “Maybe I should let the boys have a go at you first.” She looked deep into June’s eyes as she ripped the dress from her dangling body “In fact,” she lifted two fingers to her mouth, wetting them “Might do you good to get a little Justice in you.” She opened her mouth wide, fingers in each corner and whistled shrilly, spraying June’s face with blood. “I’ll teach you to fuck with the gods.” She said pushing June down onto the strewn floor.
Kali watched. He watched as Jane tried once again to drink June’s essence. He wondered if he had played his hand too early, perhaps he should have kept his powder dry until he was certain of the outcome of this struggle – hedged his bets, so to speak.
He noticed that, in her haste, Jane had neglected to latch the cage door, but decided to wait, to play it by ear.
He watched as Jane contorted the woman’s body in order to restrain her while dipping her head between the thrashing thighs, the woman’s green corona once again flashing red as Jane’s tongue made contact. Kali watched as June rose in the air, the red corona buzzing down to purple, her left hand holding Jane suspended by the throat.
The door to the kitchen swung open violently, crashing against the wall. Grace filled the doorway, a large matt steel kitchen knife in one hand – she’d semi-surgically removed the stitches. Blood ran from her eyes, her lips ragged like teeth on a cartoon skull.
Kali noticed that Grace’s corona was black with the depth of her pain, he watched as she moved her head from side to side in order to gather the visual information she required through her damaged eyes.
June, her face contorted with the realisation of what she was doing, squeezed Jane Grissom’s throat with all her strength, hearing and feeling cartilage crack under her thumbs. She squeezed for as long as she could, then dropped the lifeless body to the wooden floor, she could feel the Judiciary approaching – she could feel it in her skin.
Grace lumbered forward clumsily, falling to her knees beside the corpse. She made a large deep gash in the side of her Grissom’s neck and, throwing the knife to one side; she bowed down to drink the warm gushing blood. Kali flapped free from his cage chattering wildly to join Grace, both desperate to regain what they could of their former selves from the ebbing force that stained the wooden floor around the body of Jane Grissom.
The fact that she was levitating a half metre above the floor did not seem unreasonable to June. She felt numb, she felt burdened, she felt like a god.
Her feet descended slowly to touch the floor, she bent to retrieve the knife and, almost an afterthought, dipped her other hand into the expanding pool of black blood. She lifted the dripping hand to her mouth, licking once before smearing it across her belly as if to advertise her newfound power. Both hands holding the knife flat against the indent of her spine, the new queen of Eden headed for the door.

“C’mon you lazy arse, hurry up!”
“You try running when you’ve been whacked on the knob.” Half doubled; Osiris hobbled along ten paces behind his brother, one hand at his crutch and the other still trying to wipe the bird shit from his suit.
“Yeah well if you weren’t so free and easy with it, waving it around like…” Anubis stopped at the stairs leading up to the veranda as June emerged from the interior of the house; she was smeared in blood, her hands behind her, as if tied. Anubis began to salivate lugubriously.
“As I commented earlier lady: you look good enough to eat.”
Osiris watched from the path where he’d stopped, watched as his brother was impaled on the gleaming heavy-duty kitchen knife that the woman had been hiding behind her back.
One-handed, June lifted Anubis up on the knife, forcing the blade up under his ribcage to puncture the last beat of his little macho heart. She lowered her arm slowly, allowing Anubis’ corpse to slide off the knife and land on the scuffed wooden boards of the veranda.
“Hey dog-boy,” said June to Osiris, “This place is under new management, still want to fuck with me?” There was a fluttering of wings from inside and Kali landed on her shoulder, his black eyes gleaming, his beak glittering with blood.
“Don’t trust him,” Kali whispered in June’s ear in a voice returned to him by the blood he’d drank from the corpse inside, “Don’t trust him.”
Osiris turned and fled across the sunset lawn where the sprinklers had run out of water and the grass was turning yellow.