Excerpts from
The Watermark
By Naja Marie Aidt
Extract from the short story "Like Angels Fly"
All of the girls where crazy about Creepy, he was so ugly, and so nice and so tough on us in the casket, and we loved that, too, because it was as if the insanity lifted us clear up to God when we lay under the stars naked on the cool satin and were split apart. By Creepy´s brutal, desperate thrusts and the violence of his sharp nails that drew red tracks across your skin. Creepy only loved Plexus, but he needed us. He said so. He said we were his dolls and couldn´t tell our names apart. But we didn´t have any names that winter anyway, so it didn´t matter.
Creepy did have his name, however, his room, and he had Plexus. The only one of us, he even had a job. He made rubber masks for horror films and was so sought after that other countries ordered them. Most of the money he made was snow white, and he made plenty of it. Because he took all the tracks he wanted, which was quite a few. But then he wasn´t stingy when it came to sharing the goodies: you could always figure on getting off if you crawled into the casket with Creepy. We were really pretty crazy about him.
In the evening and at night loud, loud music boomed out of the speakers and made the walls shake. We shook too, dancing and dancing, knocking our heads against each other´s gonging skulls.
Our noses were dry and tender from snorting heaven. The lacerations in our genitals were sores because we put the cocain directly in them, and I have to admit it´s effective. A booster for the rush. The impatient rattling of handcuffs and shackles grew out of the darkness when the music died away and short, vibrant screams broke the morning stillness. Crosses were ripped off their chains and left marks on pulsating throats. We bit each other bloody.
That was when spring was approaching with its harsh light. Finally, the only thing that gave us enough lift was the sight and smell of blood. And we wanted so badly to fly. The wings practically grew out on our backs when teeth and little sharp knives marked us for each other. Let us feel.
I looked at myself in the mirror while scraping together delicate tracks of snow with trembling hands, and I felt very beautiful and invulnerable. I looked up at Creepy. He sat looking at me in the twilight like a black shadow with his smooth, shaved head a little on one side. He smiled to me. I was really pretty wild about him.
The winter was beginning to dissolve, melting snow dripped from the roof and the first buds stood out swelling yearningly from the trees´ naked branches. Beneath Creepy´s sky the lilac stars winked enchantingly and exploded in a sea of light which filled the whole casket. "You look like a Barbie doll that wants to die," Creepy whispered hoarse and groaning. He clamped my nipples in a long, cutting grip between his nails. I laughed loudly, rocking on the padded satin. I thought the bird was flapping its wings in its jar of alcohol. The winter had certainly been long, we were so ragged from all that cold.
Translated by Kenneth Tindall
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