Foul Play

April 2, 2015

The car floated down the freeway passing through an endless night that clung like a ragged garment or the claws of a feral beast. Jeremy Quill lay on the backseat pretending to be asleep. He was small for his age with a shock of unruly hair and deep blue eyes. He stared out the window through half closed eyes as the car passed oil refineries shooting flames from chimney stacks. Mom and dad were in the front seat — solid, silent and cold. One moment he lay in the backseat and the next he was somewhere else.

Jeremy was dancing his brains out, cranked on some new designer-drug. The music tore through him like blasts from a bazooka. Everything mutated into sexual desire and intensity. He was in a crucible of intense heat, melting like soft metal. Ecstasy was short lived. He knew it couldn’t last. Time always played the trump card. He was forced to hang his sweet, new body on a meat hook and return to face the judge and jury. First he’d side step to the car that floated past the sirens of hell.

It was safe pretending to be a ten year old boy, but he was a bad boy. He had the experiences of an adult in his head. Mom and dad could never understand how their sweet baby could be so ruthless. The boy drank hard liquor and smoked grass. Threats didn’t bother him. Jeremy was the Alpha Male in the house. He enjoyed bullying his parents. They were too stunned by his behavior to defend themselves, instead they simply cowered and gave in to his demands. Jeremy enjoyed shocking his parents. He forced them to sit in hard backed chairs in his bedroom while he sat on the bed looking at pornography and making lewd remarks. All the while the digital phone kept track of time.

Jeremy flipped into an older version of himself. He was well aware of the entanglements caused by his erratic behavior, but he had to keep moving to stay ahead of the authorities. He had fond memories of the time and place where he currently found himself. He just had sex with Marigold, a sweet high school senior who wanted a little excitement in her life. She was so innocent, putty in his hands. He stood over her body and smiled. He didn’t know what he liked best, the sex or the death. Then, he remembered: he loved her breasts best and he had to have them so he took them. The week before he met a boy named Jason. The results were almost the same, but Jason didn’t have nice breasts… he had an adorable penis and now it belonged to Jeremy. For just a moment he was wistful: all the killing — all the torture — what was it all for he wondered. Self doubt dissipated in a rush of narcissistic pleasure. Jeremy was outrunning time — death was his jumping-off point, the trigger to immortality. His phone purred like a kitten. Time to run.

This time everything was different: a totally new experience. He was tussling with an older man who smelled like sewage. Jeremy couldn’t imagine why he would pick this abhorrent creature for a victim. The man was like a mutant with peeling skin and blood red eyes. He was naked and his body was covered with scars and welts. He was twisted and misshapen; but he was as strong as an engorged gorilla. Jeremy realized he’d been forced into this fight. It was territorial. The monster wanted what Jeremy possessed: the power over life and death — over time itself. The man held Jeremy in a binding embrace, crushing the life from his body. Jeremy felt the searing breath on his neck as the man pulled him closer to extinction. Being this close to death was like an electric jolt and Jeremy became inflamed with passion. He wanted to live and all his resources came into play . Jeremy’s resolve was resounding, heard above the grunts and mewlings of the battle. He broke from the monster’s hold and managed to draw his butchering knife. There was no fight left in the foul man as he struggled to regain his balance. Jeremy did not miss a beat as he stabbed and chopped at the lowly body that seemed to be wasting away before his eyes.

Jeremy had met his match. An entanglement in Time put him at odds against an older version of himself. As a result, Jeremy Quill was never born.

Written by leebalanarts Posted in Speculative Fiction Tagged with identity, Original Art, Original Writing, science fiction, time travel