Interesting? Glaring mistakes? Any other commentary?
Bossu watched fixedly as Adele, his maid, dusted his various knickknacks with a limp hand and a languid stare that was off somewhere else. She was humming some tune he didn't know with a dreamy look on her face, swaying her perfect butt underneath the tight uniform he'd given her to wear.
Her body was perfect, but her mind was clouded and defective. Though Bossu had made several unsubtle suggestions to her, and even a few violent advances, she'd made it clear that she didn't love him. In fact, she had made it clear that she hated him with the passions of a rabid bear on steroids.
She was obviously too flawed to be saved.
Bossu turned back into his room and took the three jars from the hidden compartment under the floorboards. One was empty, and another was had a hard-won concoction of pufferfish poison, a pureed millipede, leaves of ivy, and various juices from his pet tarantula, Michelle. He decided to put in a drop of vanilla for good measure.
The third jar contained an increment of antidote for the tetradotoxin.
He looked out at the sky, which was darkening in burgeoning applause for dusk. He wanted to grab the sky by its pants and drag it into blackness; force it to make way for the sign of his guiding loa, Kalfu–the full moon. Bossu would wait for Kalfu's sign of approval before doing anything.
He kneeled and said a brief praise to Kalfu that lasted fifteen minutes. Bossu had to leave out some of the less important attributes of his loa because he suddenly had to pee. Hopefully Kalfu would understand.
Kalfu had been with him from birth. The full moon had been shining on his mother when she'd given birth to Bossu on the side of the road on the way to the hospital. His father was attempting to deliver the baby, but there were serious complications. Bossu wasn't exiting through the proper route, and the mother was threatening to kill herself with her Swiss Army Knife.
His father, being an assistant to an intern to an apprentice of a nurse, knew the only way to save the baby and the mother would be to do a Cesarean. The fact that he had only seen it done once, and never done it himself, didn't stop him. He wrenched the knife out of his wife's hand and began the incision.
Both Bossu and his mother survived. Kalfu had shoved his hand into his mother's womb and yanked him out, his father used to tell him, and then stitched up the opening with a thread of his own saliva.
The birth was a miracle. The dark hand of Kalfu had wrenched him and his mother from death. Obviously, Kalfu had wanted him for his servant.
Kalfu was the most powerful of the dark loa. The loa were the lesser spirits moving the world under the eye of the One God, controlling life forces like life, death, fertility, prosperity, despair and success. Most loa were benevolent and just, but some were dark spirits of sorrow, violence, darkness and death. Kalfu was the most feared of all of them–and the spirit of black magic.
Some of the people called him crazy, some called him creepy, some people called him a sick pervy old man with magic sticks up his bum, but Bossu would not let go of his debt to Kalfu. He lived in old ways, in a modest house on the outskirts of town. He spent most of his days growing vegetables in his garden, secretly flipping through recipes in Martha Stewart's magazine for instructions on how to cook them zestily, and practicing black magic of death and misty horrors.
He was fully prepared to offer Adele to Kalfu–and meet his deliverer.
Bossu watched fixedly as Adele, his maid, dusted his various knickknacks with a limp hand and a languid stare that was off somewhere else. She was humming some tune he didn't know with a dreamy look on her face, swaying her perfect butt underneath the tight uniform he'd given her to wear.
Her body was perfect, but her mind was clouded and defective. Though Bossu had made several unsubtle suggestions to her, and even a few violent advances, she'd made it clear that she didn't love him. In fact, she had made it clear that she hated him with the passions of a rabid bear on steroids.
She was obviously too flawed to be saved.
Bossu turned back into his room and took the three jars from the hidden compartment under the floorboards. One was empty, and another was had a hard-won concoction of pufferfish poison, a pureed millipede, leaves of ivy, and various juices from his pet tarantula, Michelle. He decided to put in a drop of vanilla for good measure.
The third jar contained an increment of antidote for the tetradotoxin.
He looked out at the sky, which was darkening in burgeoning applause for dusk. He wanted to grab the sky by its pants and drag it into blackness; force it to make way for the sign of his guiding loa, Kalfu–the full moon. Bossu would wait for Kalfu's sign of approval before doing anything.
He kneeled and said a brief praise to Kalfu that lasted fifteen minutes. Bossu had to leave out some of the less important attributes of his loa because he suddenly had to pee. Hopefully Kalfu would understand.
Kalfu had been with him from birth. The full moon had been shining on his mother when she'd given birth to Bossu on the side of the road on the way to the hospital. His father was attempting to deliver the baby, but there were serious complications. Bossu wasn't exiting through the proper route, and the mother was threatening to kill herself with her Swiss Army Knife.
His father, being an assistant to an intern to an apprentice of a nurse, knew the only way to save the baby and the mother would be to do a Cesarean. The fact that he had only seen it done once, and never done it himself, didn't stop him. He wrenched the knife out of his wife's hand and began the incision.
Both Bossu and his mother survived. Kalfu had shoved his hand into his mother's womb and yanked him out, his father used to tell him, and then stitched up the opening with a thread of his own saliva.
The birth was a miracle. The dark hand of Kalfu had wrenched him and his mother from death. Obviously, Kalfu had wanted him for his servant.
Kalfu was the most powerful of the dark loa. The loa were the lesser spirits moving the world under the eye of the One God, controlling life forces like life, death, fertility, prosperity, despair and success. Most loa were benevolent and just, but some were dark spirits of sorrow, violence, darkness and death. Kalfu was the most feared of all of them–and the spirit of black magic.
Some of the people called him crazy, some called him creepy, some people called him a sick pervy old man with magic sticks up his bum, but Bossu would not let go of his debt to Kalfu. He lived in old ways, in a modest house on the outskirts of town. He spent most of his days growing vegetables in his garden, secretly flipping through recipes in Martha Stewart's magazine for instructions on how to cook them zestily, and practicing black magic of death and misty horrors.
He was fully prepared to offer Adele to Kalfu–and meet his deliverer.
Adele picked her keys up from the counter and flicked them around in her hand. She was ready to start yelling at the pervy old man and throw up in the process. The feeling of his presence was the worst feeling of sickness she'd ever felt, and she'd had yellow fever.
But he paid through the ass to have his shit cleaned. And there was another reason she kept working for him...one he didn't yet know about.
She jangled her keys impatiently. Bossu had already kept her late that day; it was fairly dark out, and she wanted to go home and make a late dinner for her little brother. He still hadn't dismissed her. He was rummaging around in his little room like a senile badger, after promising her a "bonus" for staying so late and doing the extra work. She hoped it wasn't the same kind of "bonus" he'd offered last time.
He finally emerged, shuffling with his leering half-toothed grin and leaning on his old staff, carrying a jar of what looked like vomit distilled in vodka.
"Here, here," he said. "Drink it. It will make you fertile, successful. White magic."
He put it on the counter before her. She stared at it and then stared at Bossu.
"This is my ‘bonus'?" she said.
"Oh no," he said, still smiling. "Money also. But this first."
"I think I'd just like the money, thanks."
His smile dropped into a flat crease in his face. "If you don't drink, my money will be wasted. This is a good charm, good voodoo for the money I give. Without it, you will lose the money and have financial ruin on you. Disaster."
She looked at him as though she was oscillating between the desire to spit on him and the revulsion at the idea of having her spit be defiled by touching his face.
"I'll take my chances. Just pay me, please."
Bossu rolled his eyes, hoisted his staff in the air and smacked her on the head with it.
"Ow! What the fuck was that for?!"
"Drink!" he commanded, his staff poised behind her head for another attack. She looked at him with a hard gaze. He was in between her and the door, and it seemed she wouldn't get paid, or out of the house for that matter, unless she drank his watered-down "magic" ox shit. Whatever was in the jar, it couldn't be more repulsive than hanging around Bossu any longer.
"Fine, you little bastard," she mumbled, and raised the jar to her lips.
