Don't Stain the Carpet

A balcony above the treetops. A baby in his mother’s arms.

Eyes as dark as her own looked back at her. They could well have been hers. But the sense of detachment was unbearable.

It wasn’t fair.

She placed his spine against the balcony. “This is just another thing your father won’t understand,” she murmured. “But I can’t do this.”

She let go of him. Top heavy, he tumbled backwards with a terrified wail – a wail for his mother, in some excruciating irony. She watched him strike the tree branch beneath, and heard the wet thud of him connecting with the earth. The relief was agonising.

She turned back from the balcony, and went to make herself a cup of tea.
A crack made her turn, teacup almost to her lips. She dropped it. It shattered into the priceless cream of her carpet.

He crawled back onto her balcony, neck twisted off to one side at an unnatural angle, leg snapped outwards.

“Mama...” he whimpered, beginning to crawl across the stone floor towards her room.

She slammed the glass windows closed, and turned her back to them, one hand going to her mouth to stifle a sob of combined terror and distress.

“Mama Eeeaaaave...”

She braved a look downwards. The child had aged. His neck was still cracked, and he craned at a strained angle to look up at her.

It was no longer a ‘he’. It was older. Blonder. Blessed with the darling face of only one possible person. She bolted across the room, pressing against the wall next to her fireplace. The child’s blooded and muddy hands lifted to press against the panes.

“Why you hate me, Mama Eave?”

It stretched up, hand going to the handle of the window, and slowly pulled it downwards. It shuffled in, further staining her carpet. Violet’s blue eyes stared doll-like back at her, smile growing.

It developed into another blonde V. Verity stood before her, in peasant rags that reached her hips. She pressed something bloody between her thighs, grasping at severed flesh and consistently trying to push it upwards.

“Cobb...” she wept. “You cut it off! You bitch, you cut it off! I hate you, we all hate you. It’s your fault. I’ll have him, still! I will!”

Her nails curled into the wallpaper.

Verity’s neck lifted. Her feet left the floor. Her hair darkened, curled, and the flesh fell away from her hands. A poor, small, insignificant piece of manhood that served no more purpose now than further ruin to her carpet.

The third V. Verne, glassy eyed, hanging from her chandelier. Twitching. Reaching one hand out for her.

“You ruin everything you touch, Eave. It’s time you come with us. Your son bids it so.”

The broken baby appeared between her hands, and he began to cry. His mouth grew larger, and larger, until it became a howling vortex that dragged each of them inwards. Verity crawled across the carpet, snivelling and stuffing Cobb’s discarded penis into her mouth. Violet’s skin fell from her body. They came ever closer.

The baby’s smile transcended the vacuum.

“I’m going to kill you, mama.”



Mereavus didn’t wake crying this time. She awoke with such a start that her body flinched entirely, and she pushed herself up sharply from the sweltering confines of her sheets. A much more horrified sound left her lips, and lifting to cover her mouth.
Her eyes slowly closed when she realised that it was a dream. All a dream.
But she wept, nonetheless.