Blood Lite

Dear Prudence Steven Savile

Miller held the pen poised over the scrap of paper, think­ing about what he would write.

My Dearest Darling Prudence, Just nipped out to the shop to buy a packet of cigarettes. I might pop into the pub for a quick pint, catch up with some of the lads and watch the second half of the game. You know me and football. So, if you come back and I am not here, don't worry, I'll be right behind you, singing and dancing if we win, sulking and in need of some TLC if we don't. Hope you had a great night out with the girls.

Your fool in love, Miller

No, that wasn't quite what he wanted to say.

My Darling Pru,

Just nipped out to the shop for a packet of cigarettes. I'm gasping here. I feel like I'm living in Old Mother Hub-bard's house. There's nothing in the cupboard, not even a digestive to munch on. There was a time when twenty a day would do me, then I met you. Now I could smoke for England. Could there be a link? I think I'll drop into the pub on the way home, watch whatever's left of the match, have a smoke and listen to some idiots talking about how crap the game is while I drown my sorrows. You know me and football. I'd rather sit in a smoky bar in the company of drunken strangers than alone in the house while you gallivant here, there and everywhere. I'm sure we'll lose, so most likely I'll be a bear with a sore head when I get in. Not that you'll notice. You never do. I might as well be a Ken doll you can put away in his box when you're finished playing with him —only I'm not as flexible these days. I feel about as sexless, though. That's a form of torture in some countries, I'm sure. Melting the genitals. If it isn't, it ought to be. Women of the world could unite in emasculating their men. Life in plastic. It's fantastic.

Your love toy, Miller

Better, but still not right. There was so much more inside him he wanted to say.

Dear Prudence,

Won't you come out —no, I promised myself I wouldn't do that anymore. I used to think it was cute you were named after my favourite song. Now, I can think of so many more appropriate tunes, but the one that immediately comes to mind sounds like a love song but isn't. It's funny, it always ends up on these greatest love song collections but its evil. That's why it fits. "Feels Like Heaven." Only instead of love its about twisting the bones until they snap, the poor sod screaming without anyone being able to hear his pain. That's me. Scream­ing and snapping while you twist.

Well, you know what? I'm sick of it. This worm's turning, baby. Oh, hell yes. Screw romantic love songs for the bunch of crap they are. God, it's liberating to say that. No more pretending that ours is the great

love.

I'm going out to buy some cigarettes and then I am going to the pub to drink myself into oblivion. You've driven me to it. Does that make you all warm and tingly, knowing you've reduced a grown man to drink? I'm hoping my liver perforates before the night is out, or I can suck down enough smoke to give a small third world country cancer. Right now drinking and smoking myself to death seems like a great way to go.

It's Monday so there should be a game on. Watching other people kicking seven shades of shit out of each other should serve to appease my need to do bodily harm.

Should, did you like the way I said that? Your shrinking violet, Miller

That brought a smile to his face, but it barely scratched the surface. He let his thoughts run down a different track.

Prudence, Bane of my Life,

I had one once, you know, a life. .. but that was before I met you. To think I used to love you. If I could hop back into a time machine and warn Young Me, I would, in a heartbeat. How sad is that? I'd go back to the day before I met you and spill my guts about all the vile things you do day by day to ruin what shred of self-worth I have left. I doubt I'd believe me, though. I'd be like Nostradamus predicting the end of the world, but without the cute poetry. "Tomorrow you will meet the devil, "I'd tell myself earnestly. "You won't rec­ognize her because she wears human skin and speaks pretty words with her forked tongue, but don't be gulled by her words or flattered by her looks. They will fade. Her wickedness will not. When she smiles at you, run and don't stop running until your lungs collapse." Prudence, Prudence, what is a boy to do? Smoke a cigarette? Coitus Nicotinous? See, instead of a life all I have now is an addiction to nicotine and a need to drink myself into a stupor. Cigarettes with­out sex are like fish without bicycles. The feminist in you will understand that, I'm sure.

I remember when we first slept together, think­ing I was the luckiest man in the world. I lay there all night just watching you snore and imagined all of the things I wanted to do with you. Now I watch you sleep and my head explodes with all of the things I want to do to you. Instead of climbing Machu Picchu and the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, it's all about choking the life out of you until you turn blue. I imagine you kicking weakly at the bedsheets then lying utterly still.

All this excitement has given me quite a thirst. '

Don't wait up.

Miller

Prophet of Doom

Yes, that was what he wanted to say. Blue is the color of my heart. He smiled, ready to commit it to paper and banish forever the image of the doting husband, but even before he had set the first letter down, his mind was racing with another, more creative missive.

You Know Your Name, It Is Legion Do you know what I want? Right now, more than anything I want to see you die. I'm simple to please like that.

Let's play a game. Let me count the ways:

By hanging, your feet dangling inches off the floor.

Drowning in a vat of acid. No, a bathtub, your hands slapping at my arms as I hold you down.

A silver bullet between the eyes.

A stake through the heart.

Sunlight and a crucifix.

A gypsy curse.

Set ablaze by a mob of angry villagers.

Defenestration. That's another great word, isn't it? See, all this thinking about you is good for my vocabulary.

Disembowelment. Decapitation by a rusty chainsaw. Fed into a wood chipper. How much Pru would a wood chipper chip if a wood chipper could chip Pru? That's today's million-dollar question.

Eaten by a pack of hungry wolves is good. Struck by lightning would do. I love the smell of ozone in the morning.

Anaphylactic shock. I'm not fussy and wasps have always frightened you, so that's a bonus right there.

Hell, even a good old-fashioned heart attack would raise a smile.

That's a lot of ways to die, some of them were good enough for Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and all those other Universal Monsters, but shall I tell you a secret? Not one of them is good enough for you, Prudence.

Piranhas aren't good enough. Plague isn't good enough. Warts eating away at your genitalia, still not good enough. Mad cow disease? I pity the cows. A thousand cuts? Come on, there's got to be a more inventive way to do it.

How do you kill the Antichrist? Blessed flatware from the kitchen of the Lord? Dull, dull, dull. There has to be a better way. Voodoo? Witchcraft? Sacrificing a virgin? Sacrificing a wizened old hag (easier to come by around here)?

Nibbled to death by gerbils?

Hmm, I rather like that one. I wonder if the pet store is open at this time of night? I'll check when I'm picking up the victuals —cigarettes and alcohol.

If not, buried alive does have its charms.

Don't say I don't love you —I am always thinking about you. Even when you are not here.

M

He grinned, delighted with himself. Then doubt set in. Was it wise to reveal his hand so early? Forewarned, forearmed and all that. Could she find silver-bullet-proof armor?

Slut Bitch Whore, I have plans.

Such plans.

Oh yes.

Such plans.

Must remember to buy plastic sheets to catch the blood. I can get them now while I am out buying cigarettes.

Shall I tell you what I am going to do?

Oh yes.

Everything is better shared.

First I will gut you, then I will stuff you and stitch you back together and then I will have you mounted and put on display in the Met. I already know what the plaque will read: This Bitch Ruined

My Life.

Your taxidermist, Miller

He relished the image of his wife stuffed and displayed as an exhibit, but even as he felt the warm glow of freedom seep­ing into his limbs, those doubts solidified. He saw it now, laid out before him, chains of cause and effect. No, no, no.

Oh, Pru, You Clever, Clever Bitch, I get it.

I understand your game. You think you are so much cleverer than me, don't you? You think you can play me like a ... a... I was going to say radio, but that doesn't work, you're a passive listener with a radio, sure, you can twiddle the dials but essentially you're at the mercy of the DJ, then I was going to say a guitar but we both know you're tone deaf and about as musically inclined as a bag of nails. And you're the antithesis of sporty so let's forget football analogies while we're on. Chess! That's a miniature reflection of a war, black and white generals going at it head-to-head. That's perfect. You think you can make me your knight sacrifice, pushing me out to murder the queen only to get taken in turn.

Oh no, no, no. See, it's all about the long game, looking moves ahead. I'm no fool. You telegraphed your play. I can see it plain as the nose on your fat face. You'd give yourself up, driving me to murder, just so your specter could lurk behind The Chair and gloat as they juice her up... I get it. It's the ultimate, the queen sacrifice. Not only do you get to ruin my life, you get to sink your fangs into my afterlife. I don't think so. See, I'm too clever for you. As David Bowie sang, this is not America. We're civilized. We've done away with state-legislated murder. I know, I know, you think with this new lot in power they'll bring it back —-just for me. Sorry to ruin your scheming, m'dear.

Check and mate, Grandmaster Miller

But should he let her know he was on to her schemes? Could he somehow twist it for his advantage? Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey, as his mom used to say.

Prudence, Woman of My Nightmares, I still think about you all the time. They were such loving thoughts. But times change. I still think of you all the time but now my head is filled with all of these vicious, horrible, nasty things I want to do to you.

Familiarity breeds contempt, and all that.

I hear voices, goading me on, telling me to cut you, to hurt you, to punish you. They want me to do unspeakable things to your corpse. I try not to listen to them but when you leave me alone like this, they get louder and louder until I want to scream and it seems the only way to shut them up is to surrender and do what they say.

I am going out now to walk and to clear the demons out of my mind. In the words of Captain Scott: "I may be some time."

Call it an exorcism, only instead of a Bible and holy water I'm shooting for the purifying essence of cigarettes and alcohol.

Nomini patri et Philip Morris... Father Confessor Miller

Dearest Prudence,

Got lonely without you, so I just nipped out to the shop to buy a packet of cigarettes. I'll be home soon. Hope you had a great night out with the girls. Been think­ing about you. A lot.

All my love, Miller