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Corn Dust
--~Based on the Hannibal-Episode "Sakizuke"~--
How to start? How to describe something incredibly beautiful and unbelievably sick? Something divine and perverted. Unique. And morbid. Obnoxious. Merciless. Powerful. One of a breathtaking kind. Fortunately just one. Though there should have been two, I think. Or maybe not. One was enough. (I've been there. For several hours. I followed you. It wasn't easy. The danger of being caught was hazardously high. But I took the risk. My disfigurement has made me shy: I've learned to become invisible. Unseen. Unheard. I melted into the landscape. I was dirt and corrosion and the corn all around. I didn't even breathe. I watched you walking up the granaries in your kinky plastic suit. And without a sound I slithered closer...)  A picturesque place on the countryside, four silos and a nearly endless labyrinth of maize, a lonely road in between, glistening in afternoon heat, the sky above of the deepest azure, flecked with fluffy cotton-wool clouds. A peaceful composition: a rural still life, its tranquil charms close to Van Gogh. Not a single bird disturbed the painted blue. Some cars stood around, abandoned and forgotten, silent remnants covered with flash rust and omnipresent dust, their broken windows reflecting the sun. The heavy scent of ripe corn mingled with the warmth of metal and soil, nearly covering the fragrance of embalming fluid, resin and slow decay. One of the silos exhaled death into the motionless air. (Though my heart hammered so loud I've been scared its beating would echo throughout the entire tower, I could hear the muted sizzle of the liquefying drug foaming up on the spoon. Why didn't he get up? Why didn't he try to fight this moment you condemned him to death? Nestled into his creation he just stared at you, awe and confusion in his eyes, exhaling a moan when the deadly needle deflowered his vein. You watched the junk leaving the syringe and talked about God. Your favored topic, it seems. Killing must feel good to him, too. I wondered that you didn't hear me hiss.
"There is no God", the dying man said.
Not for you, my friend, I thought.
"Certainly not with that attitude", you replied.)  There once was an eye at the bottom of a granary. A giant eye, staring at the sky through an air vent in the middle of the roof. A giant eye in amazing shades of olive and brown, big and round and full of visions. God's eye. Or the mirror image of God's eye. Or its travesty. Or just... a symbol of emotionless cruelty and wasted dreams. A lot of wasted dreams. Side by side in a perfect circle, surrounding another perfect circle. A sample board, starting with milky white and ending with dark coffee. Arranged material, bent into shape, naked and genderless: 47 bodies, sewn together with grotesque stitches, arms and legs fixated with special glue, carefully slathered with all kinds of conserving balms keeping rot and insects at bay. A taxidermic masterpiece of art. (About 60 had to die, those 47 have been chosen. The others have been drowned in a river far away. Disposed waste. Garbage. Useless.) Only 17 of them got identified later. There once was a giant eye at the bottom of a granary, its pupil built by 47 extinguished lives, selected because of their skin tone. There once was an artist who slayed about 60 men and women to create an incomplete vision. And there was an emotionless killer in a transparent overall who convinced this rogue artist to become part of his masterpiece, promising him to accomplish his dream. But seriously he just betrayed him. This giant eye was blind. "I've been there till sunset. I watched you sewing and sawing. Pressed against the silo's roof I waited till you left the scene. The sun has given me headache. My heart ached as well. Aware of a sudden dizziness I carefully climbed down and finally stepped into the half-light of the granary, looking at all these shimmering bodies. They appeared like dummies. The scene was completely unreal: the dreamscape of a surrealistic painter. Paul Delvaux. With a touch of Ruedi Giger. Each corpse a brushstroke...
To my surprise it was cold down there. I got naked and stretched next to the artist, wrapping one arm around his waist. I inhaled his scent, sensing that he was still breathing. I longed to say something, some words of solace and admiration, but... I just avoided staring at his leg stump. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. The stench of blood was overwhelming.
Night sneaked up. My skin covered with goose bumps. I moved my head and looked up at the sky, a perfect round in the middle of the roof. A single star blinked down on me. I wanted to know how it feels, but all I felt was the artist's body finally growing colder. I wasn't part of his vision: my skin tone didn't fit his dream. It was good this way. Next to all this death I was grateful to be alive. So I got up and dressed again, leaving this country mortuary. I had a slight sunstroke. And I urgently needed a bath." With a deep sigh he took a sip from his drink and ignited a cigarette, expecting an instant warning, for smoking was strictly forbidden inside Hannibal's house, yet, to his astonishment, the Doctor just moved by to open the windows.
"Now, to sum it all up, Francis: what did you feel?" The older man's voice was emotionless, distant, as if he were talking to a patient. Cool night air filled the surgery.
Stretching on the couch Francis exhaled a long stream of smoke. "If you would take the paintbrush from my hand to finish my painting I would bite off your fingers."
"Why so aggressive, my dearest Dragon?" Leaned against the window sill Hannibal offered an undefined glance from dark maroon eyes.
While his blue eyes narrowed, Francis' lips curled to a smile: "Because I don't think the artist wished to become a part of his work. He was a weak little man. Too weak to withstand the charms of a snake. You hypnotized him. You whispered to his ear. You spoke of God as if you were his best friend. Fvck you, Hannibal: you have no idea how much I loathed you this very moment." He took a last drag from his cigarette and emptied his drink, provokingly dropping the stub into the glass. (Another dangerous faux pas!)
The Doctor just slowly shook his head. "I'm sure not God's best friend. But maybe I'm yours."
"Maybe", Francis snarled and got up from the couch, smoothly stretching his muscular form. "You could prove it to me."
Pushing himself off the window sill Hannibal stepped up and touched Francis' shoulder. "So how shall I prove my friendship to the relentless Great Red Dragon?"
"Feed me", the younger man frankly replied, his smile widening to a big grin. "All this talk of God and corn dust made me hungry."  (The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
Sanity will always lie in the eye of the beholder.)
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