Issue Two
December 2024
Heaven and Hell / Solace
Wiebo Grobler
Whispering, whispering all around me, I can’t make out what’s being said, but I’m sure it’s about me.
The sour stench of unwashed bodies wafts through the drafty rooms, damp curling off the walls like peeling wallpaper.
My mouth feels like ash. I lick my dry and cracked lips, cutting my tongue on slivers of sharp, dead skin. My head twitches or maybe it’s my eyeballs, perhaps both. Things are staring at me from the shadows. Blotches of spilled ink creep toward me, growing into tendrils of sickly varicose veins stretching across the floor. I snap my head to look at them, and they disappear like smoke, only to be replaced by ghostly fingers touching the back of my neck and creeping up my scalp.
A flash of orange flame, the sparkle of silver foil reflects off my retinas like sunbursts from a pond. Blue, acrid smoke curls around my head like a lover's touch. The smell fires up my synapses, and I shake and salivate like a dog waiting for a treat.
A bubble and hiss before the familiar sting in my arm. I feel the sin rush through my veins. Sin. How can it be when it takes away the pain and lets me be me? It frees me from worry, cold, and thought.
The shadows fade, and the room brightens with a rainbow of colors and soft golden halos everywhere. I hear bells, peals of laughter, and loved ones’ voices. Taking a deep breath, my lungs expand like two hot air balloons, and I take flight.
Heaven and Hell
I look down on the world below. A kaleidoscope of greens, browns, and mandarin hues. The sky is so blue and so deep I can feel it touch my mind and once more I expand, and I’m free, free from this cage of bone and suit of flesh. I fall back amongst soft clouds that cushion me in a warm embrace, wrapping me up as I close my eyes, enjoying the wind on my face, caressing my skin, ruffling my hair as Dad used to.
I can smell nannies cooking and mum's perfume. Somewhere in a dark place locked away in the back of my subconscious, the small child I used to be cries out in shame at what I’ve become and how I’ve let them down.
And then I’m descending, descending slowly at first then faster, faster. The air becomes colder, and instead of caressing it tugs and pulls, tearing at me insistently. Clouds start to gather, ominous, roiling. My breathing quickens, and I’m no longer flying, but falling.
I can make out houses, rooftops, chimneys. One of the chimney stacks twists around like the neck of a grotesque giraffe, the pot on top expands, widens, and turns into a cavernous maw. I scream as it swallows me and spits me back into my body inside the house.
Whispering, whispering all around me …
Escape: original artwork by Anne Anthony
It’s always night under the bridge. The reek of unspoken things permeates the air, a perfume of purgatory and neglect. The constant drone of traffic above and the mindless babble of the river below means there is no real rest here.
At night, it turns into a monster. A dangerous wet crevice, eager to sweep you away and swallow you whole, whilst gurgling away like it’s all a game.
The constant dampness compounds the misery. Destitution and mildew go hand in hand, and everything below the bridge is covered in both.
I turn to the phut-phut of a two-stroke engine and the familiar phallic shape of a longboat slowly approaching the bank below. The porthole windows on the side glow like the orange eyes of a hungry beast.
A figure emerges to stand on the deck—a silhouette, a dark puppet—his right hand fluttering like bat wings, beckons. A few of us approach, the junkies scratching their arms at the diluted smack running through their veins, aching for a top-up. We stand there, heads bowed, feet shuffling. Dancing to misery’s beat. He chooses me again. The others slink away, and I sense their disappointment, but their eyes are tinged with relief.
He leads me below deck, into a room where thick orange curtains scream in fury, and I avert my eyes to the floor to avoid their rage. An ozone of cigarette smoke sting my eyes. I know what he wants, and he knows I don’t want to sleep in the cold and dark tonight. A trade once reluctantly, now willingly made. When certain boundaries are repeatedly crossed, it becomes a well-trodden footpath in a dark and dangerous forest. Often, it’s best to stay on the familiar track than stray into the unknown, where fresh new horrors with hard hands and wicked smiles await.
He guides me onto a narrow cot that groans in despair, and the dirty spring mattress squeals in protest as his weight presses into me. Wilted flowers in paint-flaked pots bear witness to my shame, their heads drooping in mutual consolation, and the ceiling boards scrape like the grinding of teeth.
My stomach swills, nausea creeps over me as the boat rocks side to side, the currents pushing and pulling like his hands. I hear the water gush underneath me, whispering, soothing. I say nothing. Do nothing. He doesn’t know my name, and I don’t know his. He saves me from the cold, gives me food, and lets me sleep in a bed for twenty-four hours. Remiss bliss.
I wear my damage on my sleeve. A criss-cross pattern of cuts and cigarette burns. A game of noughts and crosses where nobody ever wins.
Water gurgles underneath me, and I wonder how many more tears it would take to wipe my slate clean.
Solace
About the author
Wiebo Grobler
Born in South Africa and raised in a small farming community, Wiebo only had his imagination to keep him occupied, till he discovered the magic of books. He fell in love with the characters within from an early age. Soon he began to create his own worlds and stories in his head. These stories developed voices, which clamored to be heard. So, he writes. Shortlisted for his Flash Fiction and Poetry for the Fish Publishing Prize he had various stories published in Molotov Lit, National Flash Fiction Day, Reflex Fiction, and more.
Twitter: @Wiebog Bluesky: wiebo.bsky.social