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Asphyxia.A condition arising when the body is deprived of oxygen, causing unconsciousness or death. Suffocation that throws the victim into the darkness. At least, that is, how Joly described. I believed, it was time to experience it, because "Rousseau believed in empiricism!"It started with a simple arguing, as always when I decided to stay after the meeting. Sharp, short comments, then longer, comprehensive sentences. Words following words, I stayed funny, he was getting louder and louder. Then it was continued with a touch - I pointed at him, he swatted my hand away.
I pointed at him once again, he grabbed my bottle, smashing it on the floor. I told him it was abusive smashing a bottle on the floor during an argument, he poured some fine insults on me, accusing me for making him angry.I gave a witty reply - and he pounced without a word.The raw power nearly crushed my tendons, the outburst made me breathless. Speechless. I couldn't see anything but him - trying to murder me. It was like the moment of enlightenment. The first time he chose to touch me, physically. Intentionally.His sudden, strong grasp embraced me, his fingers encircled my neck like an iron-chain, pushing my larynx back into the depths so viciously that I started choking and gasping silently.
Apollo was not human, I'm telling you. Apollo was a vengeful god - and he was holding me by the neck, pinning me against the wall that I nearly broke my spine. He immobilized me like he was powerful and almighty enough to decide: was I worthy to live or perhaps I was bound to die by his hands, being crushed into millions of pieces, falling at his feet.It was just another outcome of our little bickering. It's never been another way. But maybe, maybe this time I went too far...I couldn't help though. His attention was downright satisfying. I was the only thing who challenged him and he needed me in his life. He was just weak to express it. Weak... No, he was proud. So painfully proud. He was vulnerable but never weak. And I lied when I said he would express anything...Black spots started dancing front of my eyes, making the sight blurry by the tears that the pain squeezed out of me. I didn't allow them to roll down and reveal my agony. I was not that generous to show him he was superior. That he was succeeding in breaking me. Taming me. I merely trapped his gaze with mine, shocking him with the realization how indifferent I was. That his lion-like ferocity couldn't scare me. That his fire couldn't burn me because I either burnt into ashes or stayed alive. There was no middle path, not an aurea mediocritas of Horace."Kill me." I gritted my teeth. I pushed him further, toward the inevitable brink of his last drop of self-control. He growled and I felt the wall behind me, how my back melted against the vertical surface. It was cold but not colder than his actions toward me. They were passionate but it wasn't the hot flame this time. It was the white, the icy one. I pressed my back against the wall even more and imagined the ceiling was falling upon us, burying us forever. Lying in the same grave. I squirmed as I started getting light headed. "Kill... me."The grip was like metal. He wanted to break me into pieces. Thoughtlessly. Mindlessly. Blindly.
He wanted to erase that derisive smile of my face that never ceased to exist. It merely turned weaker and fainter as the seconds passed.
"Tell me... What.. stops you?"
“You take the things back what you said!”
I was close to a numbing euphoria. He demanded his right and kept me in a sedative limbo. My lungs burnt like a snake started gnawing inside my chest, sneaking up, to my throat where the life itself was violated by those hands...
“I… won’t take back… anything… It’s the freedom of speech…”
“Freedom of speech not the freedom of idiocy!” He growled.
And he strangled.
The moment when the pulse is getting higher and higher, as the desperate heart is trying to race faster and faster to pump and transport the blood and the oxygen further... Droplets of perspiration was rolling down my temples, trailing a salty wet trace down the skin. It was frosty and I was getting less and less air in the suffocating silence. He was breathing heavily. I was merely breathing. Another drop... Like shimmering catatonia, ticklish on the surface of the flesh. Like the life dallies, but it slowly gets smothered by the toxicity of unconsciousness.
Another drop.
I felt I was melting beneath his touch, slowly fading away."Kill me!" I cooed, now louder. More aggressively. I provoked him like he provoked me with his passive-aggressiveness now.But this time, he squeezed hard.
So hard, that I was sure the mark of his fingers will stay there for days. It was certainly a more elegant way to die than dying by getting beaten or mutilated. It was an art and I spurred him so well that he became the master of it. My limbs turned weak and I started slipping into the depths of the sensation that was almost like the hazy clouds of Morpheus. Like I surrender myself to the darkness so easily, like a limp body slips into the obsidian coloured water. He was providing me a better sensation than opium. He was becoming my drug.Even though I was a skilled fighter, I never tried to fight him physically. I merely tried to escape with theatrical, dramatic frenzy - but it was all just a game, for my entertainment. He rarely lost control like this, rarely broke out of his stoic marble stillness. And, intentionally or unintentionally, he let me see this side of his. Was I blessed, was I special? Oh, who knows these things!
When my thoughts became blurry, I kept the eye contact, staying perfectly still like a tree because he was the lightning and he could strike me anytime.
Fear? No, it was not fear. It was torturous curiosity. To see, how long he would go. How much would it take to release me, to admit that he was too damn generous to do it. A constant challenge, a constant provocation. I was this dark little whisper that reminded him, he was human, he was mortal, that forced him to prove his right, to defend and explain his perspective. To show he was still so worthy to be followed.
I forced him to act human and yet, I called him a god. What a shame that no one seemed to appreciate my witty, vitriolic sense of humour!I was addicted to sense the occasional swirl of his callous hatred toward me that danced together with my defiant, blithe rebelliousness. A perfect amalgamation.
I managed to sneak into him with my words - and managed to disturb his saint equilibrium. Just like his words disturbed me, when his Laconic syllables cut me like acid cuts into the healthy white bones.I cracked a psychotic, crazy grin and a shocked understanding sparked in his eyes.
I could see it, even through this veil of heavy anemic feeling. That I scared him with my lack of will to live."Unhand me..." I whispered and it was the softest, most silent whispers of them all.And his lips parted, he sucked in breath and let me go with utter disbelief in his eyes. He released me quick, fast, rough, like I was some infectious disease and he feared he could catch the illness with a simple touch.I gasped and bent forward immediately, slowly sliding down to the floor with my back against the solid wall. I could barely see his boots, how he stepped backwards – with a glance up I started laughing, painfully, weakly and I could see his stunned expression that held a glimpse of horror. Like Archangel Michael sees the true face of his rival, Lucifer - and is being abhorred by it. He sobered up almost immediately, the momentary rage vanished, and now he was unable to comprehend the results of his glorious destruction.
Like he was asking himself: "Oh dear... Oh, dear, have I almost killed one of the Les Amis de l’ABC with my bare hands? Have I almost killed one of my soldiers of this holy crusade of mine?...”Yes. Almost.
And we both knew, we knew so well, that he would do it again.Because he was capable of being terrible like that.