orange, and they are no longer dull like unto the mauve and ruddy porphyry of your nameless tomb. Your lips are black and dry, but not for long—for I shall tilt to you and press my mouth to thine, my mouth that I have split with the rough blade of a ritual dagger. And as I kiss you I will whisper again your name, the sound of which will echo inside your tomb, that forgotten zone where you will claim me as thy newest feast.
V
I want to kiss you, devil boy.
It’s true, I have not bothered to see you since that strange yellow day. I’ve been preoccupied with that house on Benefit Street, and the area adjacent to it. You never mentioned that wooded plot of land, so I suspect you haven’t really investigated the neighborhood of the shunned house. You have been excited by its legend—but it’s just a story for you, not something that dwells and dreams in haunted Providence. I was mesmerized as you spoke of it, that day of yellow light when you playfully described it. I could not resist going to prowl through it after we had shared our little meal. Everyone in the café on College Hill was talking about the yellow day, and we never did discover any explanation for the phenomenon. Do you remember the shadows of clouds on the pavement as we strolled to our rendezvous? Have you ever witnessed such shadows of clouds before? I’ve been aware of shifting light, of brightness darkening into shade as clouds obscured the sun; but this was different, this display we witnessed as it crept before us on the wide pale pavement—those unnerving and grotesque silhouettes of that which skulked across the sky as we inhaled the perfumed air of the yellow day. Do you remember how nervous it made you, to watch those shadows play across the surface of my eyes, so that the substance of my eyes mutated into something new and strange, enhanced by alien element? I laughed at you then, my child, and pulled you to me so that you could kiss my cloudy eyes.
It was the yellow light that made you think of the yellow house and its unfathomable aura. You had mentioned it, briefly, once or twice; but on this occasion you expounded on its history and spoke acutely of its place in the history of spectral Providence. You mentioned that Poe had often walked past it on his way to court Mrs. Whitman, or as he ventured to dream in this burying ground to which I have spirited you. Perhaps Poe sat on this very oblong slab on which we are posited. You mentioned the history of that yellow house and told the tale of how two gentlemen entered into it so as to pierce its mystery, with only one of them emerging alive and semi-sane. They had entered the residence with curious scientific expectation, but they were unnerved by the patches of mould that took on the most suggestive of shapes (perhaps like unto the curious clouds that followed us across the pavement on that yellow day). They worked at their task as their health was sapped by the titan thing that burrowed beneath the yellow house, that dead yet dreaming enigma. How enticing your voice sounded as you spoke of it, and how impossible it was for me to resist walking down College Hill after our tête-à-tête, so as to touch my hand to the yellow timber of the lower section of the house on Benefit Street. I did indeed sense something—yet it didn’t surge from the house itself but rather from the adjacent wooded vicinity. I pointed to the little spot and asked you about it, but you merely shrugged and then followed me to the black fence, behind which rose a wooded hillside. I had been instantly drawn to it because woodland had always been a kind of asylum for me from the world of men. And so I stepped through the gate of the black iron fence, onto a small patio of brick. I glanced at the growths of shrub, their large leaves, waving to me in the yellow light of that uncanny day. I saw the pathway of large flat stones, on which I walked to seven lengths of stone steps that took me deeper into the shady area. I
V
I want to kiss you, devil boy.
It’s true, I have not bothered to see you since that strange yellow day. I’ve been preoccupied with that house on Benefit Street, and the area adjacent to it. You never mentioned that wooded plot of land, so I suspect you haven’t really investigated the neighborhood of the shunned house. You have been excited by its legend—but it’s just a story for you, not something that dwells and dreams in haunted Providence. I was mesmerized as you spoke of it, that day of yellow light when you playfully described it. I could not resist going to prowl through it after we had shared our little meal. Everyone in the café on College Hill was talking about the yellow day, and we never did discover any explanation for the phenomenon. Do you remember the shadows of clouds on the pavement as we strolled to our rendezvous? Have you ever witnessed such shadows of clouds before? I’ve been aware of shifting light, of brightness darkening into shade as clouds obscured the sun; but this was different, this display we witnessed as it crept before us on the wide pale pavement—those unnerving and grotesque silhouettes of that which skulked across the sky as we inhaled the perfumed air of the yellow day. Do you remember how nervous it made you, to watch those shadows play across the surface of my eyes, so that the substance of my eyes mutated into something new and strange, enhanced by alien element? I laughed at you then, my child, and pulled you to me so that you could kiss my cloudy eyes.
It was the yellow light that made you think of the yellow house and its unfathomable aura. You had mentioned it, briefly, once or twice; but on this occasion you expounded on its history and spoke acutely of its place in the history of spectral Providence. You mentioned that Poe had often walked past it on his way to court Mrs. Whitman, or as he ventured to dream in this burying ground to which I have spirited you. Perhaps Poe sat on this very oblong slab on which we are posited. You mentioned the history of that yellow house and told the tale of how two gentlemen entered into it so as to pierce its mystery, with only one of them emerging alive and semi-sane. They had entered the residence with curious scientific expectation, but they were unnerved by the patches of mould that took on the most suggestive of shapes (perhaps like unto the curious clouds that followed us across the pavement on that yellow day). They worked at their task as their health was sapped by the titan thing that burrowed beneath the yellow house, that dead yet dreaming enigma. How enticing your voice sounded as you spoke of it, and how impossible it was for me to resist walking down College Hill after our tête-à-tête, so as to touch my hand to the yellow timber of the lower section of the house on Benefit Street. I did indeed sense something—yet it didn’t surge from the house itself but rather from the adjacent wooded vicinity. I pointed to the little spot and asked you about it, but you merely shrugged and then followed me to the black fence, behind which rose a wooded hillside. I had been instantly drawn to it because woodland had always been a kind of asylum for me from the world of men. And so I stepped through the gate of the black iron fence, onto a small patio of brick. I glanced at the growths of shrub, their large leaves, waving to me in the yellow light of that uncanny day. I saw the pathway of large flat stones, on which I walked to seven lengths of stone steps that took me deeper into the shady area. I
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