Story: Maybe Then I’ll Fade Away.

by Joseph D’Lacey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.6MB)

Read by: Alasdair Stuart
First appeared in: Dark Fiction Magazine
Duration: 6.58
File size: 10mb

Artwork courtesy of: Haley @ DeviantArt

Excerpt:
Devlin’s hand, tightening like an adjustable wrench around my throat, forces me back into the chair. Somehow, he re-secures my left wrist. I must have had the strength to tear it free but now I’m weak as an infant. There’s so much to recall. This has happened before, that much I know.

I strain forward but there’s no breaking loose this time. Devlin’s hand, now free to work more daintily, reaches for the jolt switch. His – its – fingers aren’t how I remember them. They’re more mechanical to look at and yet the fingers move like a tailor’s. Like a pianist’s. So flexible. So delicate.

Just before Devlin’s hand reaches the machinery, I notice the door. Once red, the way my cellar door used to be, now it’s black. Mostly. A spray can is discarded on the rammed dirt floor. Spectres of red, of how the door once looked, persist beneath the hasty paintjob. Why would Devlin rush, not do the task properly? His hand – no, his index finger – reaches the jolt switch. It describes a movement. The gesture a winner makes; licking the finger and drawing an imaginary line in the air.

From hi to lo.