Scarves - PART IV
Friday, September 22, 2006
Tattered Edges
Turtle slept soundly through that night, but then again she does sleep like the dead. I woke her twenty minutes premature, partly because I wanted to talk, but mostly because I was afraid the alarm would not want to go back to its former life after it establishing itself as a blunt weapon.
The sheets are covered in dried blood. I panicked and began to search Turtle’s neck for new wounds. Sweeping her hair aside I looked at one side, nothing, pushing hair across her neck, nothing. Yet now where there was no blood there is a crimson streak across her back. Terror overwhelmed me before rationale thought came through, informing me the dressing on my hand had become overly saturated. I laughed, and told Turtle that perhaps she should go take a shower, for it might not be a good idea to be wearing a vampire’s favorite perfume. She looked back at me confused, I held up my left hand, causing her to react with the yuck face. Walking to the bathroom Turtle reached for the scarf hanging on the mirror. She cocked her head and began to murmur.
“What is it?” I asked
“It seemed to move away from me. And now that I’m looking at...” She picked it up, looking closely at the scarf. “It feels wet.”
“Wet? Like a cake being left out in the rain, wet?”
“No silly, more like a moist towelette wet. And this stitching, It’s really complex, a tight lace, done with, I’m guessing a triple-zero needle.” I titled my head like a dog when someone says ball, “Someone really knows what they are doing. Hmm.” She opened the curtain a bit to let in some natural light to get a better look. The scarf shivered back away. Turtle open the curtain more, once again the same reaction. Finally, frustrated she flung the curtain open letting the morning sun pour into the room. There was a squeal as the scarf met the morning sun, then like one of those firework snakes the black scarf became darker, turning first to ash then carried away on an unfelt breeze.
“Well you don’t see that everyday.”
“ I think I’m calling into work today. You said you’ve seen those scarves?”
“Everywhere. But they never did that.”
The first place we stopped was at Mia’s restaurant, knowing that we could scrutinize her scarf. We were told that the she was supposed to have a shift that day, but had not showed up nor called in. We went back every day after, but I have yet to see her. I wonder if I ever will again.
I pointed out the scarves to Turtle: the pink and orange, the teal and brown, the blue and green, and the rare greyscale variety. For the most part the Wearer carried on with their lives as normal. Banking, eating, drinking, socializing, carrying on errands, living a normal life, but they all tended to stay away from deep shadows or unlit passageways. Turtle walked up to these people, engaged them by raving about how beautiful their scarves were. Asking where they purchased it, they would answer that it was a family heirloom or a gift. She would then inquire if she might be able touch it and attempt to figure out its texture and pattern. The usual reaction was one of fear. The Wearer’s eyes would begin to focus on the middle ground, as if they were trying to perceive something that was not quite there. Then they recoiled from Turtle’s hand and hastily departed our presence.
Since this technique wasn’t getting us anywhere, we decided that the best way to analyze a scarf was for us to enjoy a meal. We walked around looking for an available seat next to a Wearer. After a few missed opportunities we found one. I ordered food while Turtle sat observing the scarf the way a scientist would a new organism. Jotting down copious notes about the length, the width, the pattern, and discretely firing off her camera-phone to record the color. The next step was to touch it.
The slightest touch caused no feedback, but when Turtle elongated the scarf to see its stitches in detail, it coiled back, wrapping itself tighter around its Wearer’s throat. The Wearer, a teenage girl, reeled back grabbing at her throat as the scarf intensified its grasp, and looked vulnerably at Turtle. The Wearer sprinted to the bathroom, I presume, wrenching and pulling at her scarf, struggling to let oxygen into her lungs. Her friends sat dumbfounded, when finally one of them went to check on her, I motioned to Turtle that it would be in our best interest to leave.
I wanted to head back to CheckPoint Bratwurst and try to piece together what we had seen, but Turtle had other intentions. She bee-lined for the knitting store, picked up 4 skeins each of brown and teal alpaca yarn, and a pair of in-the-round triple-0 needles. “What are you going to do with that?”
“Make baby booties. What do think?”
The idea was if we wore a counterfeit scarf then perhaps we could blend in. Remove us from being prey to one of them. When I had mentioned that wearing the scarves would make us property to someone, Turtle responded by saying, I know, but they won’t know whose property, because no one ever claimed us. Therefore, an anomaly in the food pyramid. Somehow this all made sense to me at the time.
Every free moment she had Turtle would work on a scarf. I let her sleep at night, as I would lie awake watching as the curtains blew in the breeze, waiting for them to return. There would be nights I would shoot out of bed as I heard a woman voice cry out only to realize that her and her lover were enraptured in a moment of orgasmic bliss. Our suite faced a major thoroughfare never allowing silence, making it difficult to sleep during the day. I did my best to get a couple of hours when I could, the rest of the time; I would down pots of coffee.
I watch her sleep now, breathing slowly and peacefully dreaming. She wears the scarf, since the vampire made its intention for her. Another week and I will have mine, and then perhaps I can sleep serenely in her arms again. I put my arm on her back, getting lost in her rhythm. In. Out. In. Out.
In.
Out.
In the morning I found myself splayed across the bed. I glance at the clock, 5:45, Two hours have passed. I bolt up to scrutinize Turtle for the mark of teeth, but I cannot move from my prone position. Being half-asleep I thought my arm was pinned under Turtle. If I could have only been that lucky. Around the post of the bed and around my wrist is a scarf.
I twist and turn, moan and call, “Turtle! Turtle! Tortuga! Turn on the light!”
She goes from dreams to full consciousness in seconds as the lamp flickers on. She spins around to face me, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breathe. “Well, at least it will go with everything. Black is in this season.”
End?
Labels: fiction, scarf, vampires
posted by Don Taylor @ 12:16 PM,
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Scarves - PART III
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Starting the Row
I looked carefully at every scarf I saw and there were many, but only a few colors. There was the blue-green scarves, the orange-pink ones like Mia, the brown-teal, the greyscale ones and the red-black ones. But the fans for the Frankfurt football team wore that scarf, so they don’t really count.
I pinballed off those walking in the platz, recreating a tried but true clichéd movie scenario. Apology, bounce. Apology, bounce. I twisted and turned the wrong way to find myself swept up in the current of protestors moving towards the center of town. Too many voices to comprehend, too many people to move in any direction but one. Out of the corner of my eye I saw colors blue and green, orange and pink, brown and teal, and of course the khaki and green of the authorities. 2000 students marching into a small sealed off corridor. We were cattle being herded together to receive the bolt-gun between the eyes either by the authorities.
I started to shove and push my way through the crowd, not caring about the repercussions. My only concern was getting the hell out of there. The idea of causing a stampede, trampling over some innocents never came to mind. I hope that no one but myself got hurt. Falling twice, I scraped up my chin, chipping a tooth and slashed most of the skin off my left hand as I landed on an empty green bottle that should have been placed in the proper recycling bin. To avoid any questions I took my zip-up off, wrapped my hand tightly. That would be my one smart move of the day.
Turtle returning from work was greeted with small pools of blood throughout the suite, “Don?”
“I’ll clean that up in a minute.” I said from the bathroom, trying to downplay the scene. My hand was under the cold water, picking out small shards of glass, when Turtle rounded the corner. “What happened?” she asks, pulling at my hand to survey the damage.
“Nothing. I fell down.”
“And your chin?”
“Doesn’t matter. We have to talk.”
“No, we have to get you to the hospital.”
“Absolutely not.” I was afraid of the questions they would ask plus I hated the idea of needles in my hands. With no bandages and pink bathroom towels, I took one of Turtle’s clean white T-shirts and started to dress my hand. There was no way I was going to wear a pink mitten.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell happened?”
“You’re not going to believe me, but…” I told her everything and as foretold not a word did she believe. And who could blame her. It was a preposterous story of vampires and scarves; no sane person would even spend a second thinking about it. Fortunately for me, Turtle is not a sane person. She proved that by taking me with her to Europe, so for the rest of the night she pondered and vexed about what was. Never truly believing, but never dismissing it as the rambling of an eccentric lover.
When my head touched the pillow that night, I introduced myself to dreams like an overzealous salesman. The excitement of the day, along with the loss of blood had rendered me useless. The last thing I recall was Turtle kissing my forehead and reassuring me that all would be all right. The windows were left open permitting the cool breeze of the night to lessen the humidity of this sticky September evening. The Europeans have neither use nor consideration for screens or air conditioning, thus an open window truly is an open window.
At exactly 3:47 in the morning a truck slammed its brakes passing CheckPoint Bratwurst waking me from my deep slumber. Pushing my pillow down I went to put my arm around Turtle and crawl back to sleep when the glow of the streetlight revealed a figure sitting on the bed. The light captured the edges of his form as he sat perfectly still except his finger that was tracing Turtle’s figure pulling the sheets down along as he went. He spoke sotto voce, “Erkläre mir, sie schmecke so zart, wie sie fühlt?”
I did not move only watched his hand run from Turtle’s shoulder down to her hip revealing naked flesh. As his hand crept back up along her body, his head began to lower towards her sleeping neck. Needles began to prick along my spine as the room filled with a miasma of lust and fear. The sodium lights glinted against his pallid skin, his lips parted baring long ivory teeth. His breath cooled Turtle’s flesh instigating goose bumps to rise and fall across her flesh. Pausing only for a moment to lock eyes with me, discerning if I was repulsed or stimulated, he exposed his tongue to lick the salt off my love’s skin. In that instant a resounding thump resonated through the room as Turtle cracked the monster’s head with the clock radio. The radio roared to life with a Wings song as the vampire lunged for the window. “Ich erfreue mich in ihr für Jahrhunderte. Und Sie…”
Aroused from my fascination, I sprung from the bed after the fiend, only able to seize his scarf. Even in the radiance of a streetlight I could tell the scarf was black on black.
Turtle sat in bed with the covers tightly wrapped around her torso, pointing towards the window, “Was that…?”
“I think so. But how did you know it wasn’t me?”
“He, it, smelled of hard boiled eggs. You hate eggs.”
“Nasty little things,” I peered out into the courtyard looking for any sign of him. A six-story drop, on a secured facility, and he was nowhere to be seen.
“Don?” I continued to look out the open window holding the scarf in my hand. “I think you should come away from the window,”
I spun around expecting to see another devil in the bed with Turtle, but fortunately the only devil was her, “What? What is it?”
“I don’t think the entire city of Wiesbaden needs to be able to describe your manhood.”
As the adrenaline subsided, I realized I was indeed without boxers. Playing it off, I waved to the after-hours people, closed the windows, shut the curtain, threw the scarf over the mirror, placed the radio back on the veneer nightstand and stayed up till morning holding Turtle tightly as Paul McCartney sang, “Someone’s knockin’ at the door, Somebody’s ringin’ the bell, Do me a favour, Open the door and let ’em in.”
To be concluded...
Labels: fiction, scarf, vampires
posted by Don Taylor @ 12:00 PM,
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Scarves - PART II
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Casting On
A few days later, I went to eat lunch at one of my favorite haunts. Taking my seat, I waited for my waitress, Mia, to bring me a menu and engage me in a bit of idle chatter. Mia had become one of the locals I talked to on a regular basis. Helping me to learn the customs, the language, and in short gaining a different point of view than the one I had grown up with. She was well versed, smart, and spoke English perhaps better than I did, and yet due to Germany’s unemployment rate, she had to take a job as a waitress in Italian Alley.
She greeted me by running her nails across my neck, startling me to no end. Usually I can tell when someone is near but today Mia slipped beside me as easily as one slips between satin sheets on a cold winter evening. Her fingers were frigid though the sun was beating upon the cobbled sidewalks ferociously.
“Mein Gott Mia, your hands are like ice.”
“I’m feeling a little under the weather.”
Noticing the orange and pink scarf she was wearing I asked, “Sore throat?”
“Ja. Sore throat,” she said tightening the scarf as she glanced into the darkness of the alley.
“My Mom always made us drink tea with honey. That might help.”
“I’m German and work in Italian Alley, tea really isn’t my preferred beverage.”
“Well then, gargle with lukewarm water and salt. That’ll work too.”
Attempting to change the subject matter she smiled and inquired, “What can I get you today?”
I gave her my order and once again she ran her nails across the back of my neck. Her touch unsettled me. As any man would, I appreciate the affections of an attractive woman, but the relationship I had with Mia had never had any hint of temptation. Mia returned with a large glass of Chianti, placing a white napkin on the table, then the goblet of wine, she walked away looking back, eyes cast suggestively towards the red alcohol.
I picked up the wine, took a deep pull, reveled in its flavor, and went back to my keyboard to write more blather about Germany. After two paragraphs of getting directions to the local bakery, Mia returned with my pizza. Placing the meal in front of me, her scarf loosened allowing it to dangle, revealing two, almost unperceivable, wounds on her neck. Once again I did not think anything of it and instead went to work on my pizza. Taking the first bite, my gag reflex kicked in. The pie was swimming in garlic. Spitting my bite into the cotton napkin, I beckoned Mia over to ask for another pie. She shook her head and told – no -- begged me to eat it. Telling me it would keep me healthy, that there was a flu going around and she would hate for me to be unable to write.
I have eaten plenty that has been unsavory (two that come to mind are Mom’s Hamburger Helper and Turtle’s beer soup) so I choked down the pizza, drinking gulps of wine after every slice. Swallowing the third slice, I picked up the Chianti; the napkin clung to the bottom. Plucking it off I noticed there was a note upon it. Please take care of yourself. They’re watching you now.
My brow furrowed trying to grasp what this meant. I believed the handwriting to be Mia’s but she was nowhere to be seen. Did she mean they were the Polizei? They were out in full force that day attempting to keep a protest march civil. I had already had my bag searched three times, fitting the profile of the many students making their march on the Rathaus rallying against tuition charges. But what more could they want of me? Three officers walked down the alley towards me and I began to sweat. Fear overwhelming me, scenarios of them interrogating me and my German failing, flinging me into a German prison where I become the rag doll to a man sporting a traditional Bavarian moustache named Jurgen. The fight or flight impulses struck, throw down some Euro and run for anywhere but here, when again the glacial caress of Mia was felt. I was calm yet terrified as her fingers traced my jaw line.
I watched the khaki and green garbed officers walk by enjoying their 89 Euro cent scoops of gelato, as I listened to the shallow breaths of the woman whose head was perched upon my shoulder.
“Listen. I like you.”
“I like you too Mia, but…”
“Quiet.” I felt her hand tighten on my shoulder. The strength emanating from such a slight frame forced me to focus on her words. “I don’t have much time. But they have been watching you since you came here. They know you and will be coming.”
“Who?”
“Die Vampyrs.” I started to laugh. “I am not joking. When you leave look at the scarves. Look for them. They, we,” I heard her choke back a tear, “are their food. They might makes us one, they might let us die, but you and your woman, they want.”
“But why?”
“No more time. I will miss you.” She kissed me on the cheek and then bit my ear lobe piercing it with her teeth. I felt a droplet of blood fall from my ear onto her tongue. I turned to say something but she was gone, instead all I saw was scarves. At every restaurant a scarf. Why I had never seen so many before I can’t understand. I beckoned the other waitress, no easy task, asked her for the Rechnung and where Mia was. She told Mia had just left, her throat ailing her greatly and that my bill was twelve Euros. I gave her fifteen, told her to keep the change, grabbed my man sack and headed toward the Rathaus.
To be continued...
Labels: fiction, scarf, vampires
posted by Don Taylor @ 12:46 PM,
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Scarves - PART I
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
First Wrap
This has to be told, and I don’t know when I will get the opportunity again, if ever. Incredibly exhausted. Sleep is something that I cannot afford right now. I’ve added an extra scoop of ground coffee to the pot. It has the taste and consistency of 99-cent Salisbury steak gravy, but at least it will keep me alert. And most of all that is what I need to be. Let Turtle sleep, keep her safe tonight, she’ll be busy when she wakes. Tonight as for the past week, I keep my silent vigil watching the windows. Waiting for them. For they will come.
When we came to our new home, we noticed worlds of differences, most we accepted and easily understood. Then there was the oddities that made us confused, bewildered and just down right awed. One of the simplest curiosities was the wearing of scarves. Tightly wrapped around the wearers’ necks, even when the temperature was 80 to 90 degrees. We shrugged our shoulders, chalking it up to a fashion fad much like wearing underwear outside your pants, and thought nothing more of it.
After we began to comprehend the language, we made friends who understood the ways of our host. When there was a comfortable familiarity, we asked this question and many others. To our amusement we found the truth. The sporting of scarves was an old frau’s cure to alleviate a sore throat. We laughed and joked about this asking if it was also a good idea to wear a girdle to ease indigestion or to wear a knitted cap to treat migraines. A few weeks later, I discovered that this explanation was a ruse to hide a more elaborate, hideous reality. A truth that no one wanted to speak of, but I must.
Vampires.
I first became aware of the beasts about two weeks ago, even though I did not know it at the time. I was wandering back from the pubs late at night when I stepped into a big pile of droppings. After exclaiming what I had treaded in, I looked around to find something to scrap it off. In the gutter I discovered about half a Currywurst and proceed to remove the feces from my shoe using the meat as a stick. When the refused cooked meal touched the dung, the wurst began to move about on its own. Wiggling here and there. Squirming in my hand like a hamster in a tunnel. Without a second thought I threw it back to the gutter only to have it squirm its way to me. The meat was attempting to crawl up my leg and head north. Rather than find out what it wanted I did as most enlightened people would do and stomped the hell out of it. From the shadows, a booming laugh echoed out, then a very calm, pacifying voice spoke, “Es tut mir Leid. Ich schärtze sollte nicht scheißen in der Straße.” That was all I heard, as a sudden gust of wind came running past my neck, taking the voice into the gloom. I never mentioned this to anyone thinking that it was just my imagination and perhaps one too many Hefe-Weißen.
To be continued...
Labels: fiction, scarf, vampires
posted by Don Taylor @ 12:42 PM,
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