The Apartment

In a dilapidated apartment, a man sits in an armchair.  His face is old and grizzled.  The light in the apartment has left with the sun.  This man takes comfort in the darkness.  He can hear the cars drive by on the streets below him.  He can feel the rats scurrying over his body.

He speaks to them:  “Do you want to hear a story, Clyde?”

In the darkness, several rats look up at the man and shake their heads.  

He tells the story anyway:

“A long time ago, the world was filled with magic, but the magic was controlled by a God who used it to enforce his will on humanity.  Then a wizard came along and found a way to take away this God’s magic by sealing it away in the blood of humans.  With its power gone, the wizard slew the God and humanity was liberated.”

Several of the rats grumble, “Oh my word, not this again.”

The old man carries on:

“So the world was without magic for a time, and the wizard was powerless…”

A rat on his arm pipes up.  “So the wizard got frustrated and in his frustration, he ate a human, drank his blood, and became the first vampire.  The end.”

“No, that’s not the end,” the old man growls, “and I wish you’d stop interrupting, Clyde.  This is the story of the origin of vampires.”

Several of the rats scurrying over the old man speak in unison.  “I know about the origin of vampires.  I’m a vampire.”

The old man huffs, “You’re a nest of rats.  That’s what you are.  Why don’t you take human form anymore?”

The vampiric nest of rats answers, “Humans are silly.  They change their morals to whatever suits them, as if any of it will end their suffering.”

The old man sits up.  “Clyde, did I tell you about how the old wizard used the vampires to bring morality into the world.”

“Yes, yes,” the rats bellow aloud.  “We drink the blood of humans to eat the Sin of mankind.”

A key is heard jiggling into a lock.  The rodent forms of Clyde freeze.  The apartment door opens.  The rat nest scatters away from the encroaching light.  Two figures walk through the door.  The old man has vanished from his armchair and Clyde watches the two beings from the surrounding shadows.

“Welcome home,” announces the larger of the couple, a muscular man with dark skin.

The feminine one grips the big one’s hand.  “Bernard, it’s ugly.  I don’t like it.”

Bernard closes the door.  “It’s all we can afford for now.  We’re gonna make it work.”

The apartment is a one bedroom, with a fused kitchen/living room/dining room.  The smaller one puts a purse on the dining room table.  Clyde sniffs the air with his myriad noses.  This one doesn’t smell like a woman.

The feminine individual slowly raises her arms.  “Soon, I will be more than just Jamaal Jones.  I will be the beautiful and talented, Chaka!”

Bernard comes up behind her and embraces her, rubbing her flat chest.  “You’ll always be my girl,” he assures her.

Every rat in the apartment licks their chiseled teeth in delight.  Their mouths water as Clyde thinks of how delicious their Sin will be in his mouth.  

The two lovers walk around the apartment.  It’s not a long walk.  Chaka takes some of her make-up out of her purse and sets up the bathroom.  She does her best to avoid the small black pellets all over the bathroom sink.  

“Baby?” she calls to Bernard.  “’Nard?”

Bernard comes into the one bathroom.  Chaka points to the sink.  “What are those little black things?”

“Oh,” Bernard responds, “Baby, those are rat pellets.”

“Pellets?” she blurts.  “As in doo-doo?”

“What?  You’ve never seen rat pellets before?”

“No!” she shrieks.  “You’ve seen my house.  I don’t come from this.”  She begins to sob, “I don’t…come from…this.”

Bernard wraps his arms around Chaka and pulls her close.  “It’s okay,” he comforts.  “They threw you out because you love me.  My momma threw me out because I love you.  That’s what you have to remember: we’re here because of love.”  He grabs her by the shoulders and looks at her hard jaw and gentle face.  “Nothing bad can come from love.  The apartment is bad, but, with love, we’ll turn it into the start of something beautiful.”

“We will?”

“You’ve got that audition next week,” Bernard reminds her.  “You’re gonna knock’em dead.”

The two share a long kiss, while Clyde watches from the shadows.  One of his rodent forms, a female, raises its rear haunches.  One of Clyde’s male forms climbs on top of the female and fornicates with it.  Several more of Clyde’s parts pair off and copulate, while Bernard and Chaka turn the pain of their situation into passion on top of a left-behind mattress.

Afterwards, the lovers leave the apartment to find food.  As they walk out the door, the old man reappears in the armchair.

“Clyde, what are you doing?” he asks.

“Masturbating,” squeaks Clyde from the orgy of himself.

The old man makes a noise of disgust and says, “I know what you’re doing.  I want to know why you’re doing it in front of me.”

A couple of rats on the floor next to him finish fornicating and answer, “You said masturbation wasn’t a Sin anymore.”

The old man sputters out, “That doesn’t mean I want you to do it in front of me!”

Clyde’s copulating bodies squeal in ecstasy.

“That reminds me,” says the old man, slapping his thigh, “when the old wizard, the first vampire, drank the blood of a human, he found that some magic still flowed through the hearts of humanity.  He found out that it ebbed and flowed with their actions.”

A rat shuffles across the dingy rug in front of the door, shouting, “And since he was the God-slayer, he could decide which actions could produce dark magic and called these actions ‘Sin’.  But that doesn’t make any sense.  There was already magic in the world: light magic.  Babies use it all the time.”

“Be quiet, Clyde!” thunders the old man.  “Stop interrupting!  The old wizard had to release dark magic back into the world to balance the light magic, the magic of creation.”

A rat on the old man’s lap opens its mouth, but thinks better of it.

The old man continues:  “That’s when the wizard created the vampires to cull the humans by seeking the dark magic, the Sin, trapped within each of them.”  The old man concludes, “Now isn’t that a good story?”

Clyde stops masturbating.  “That story stinks.”

“But it’s true!”

Clyde explains from the man’s shoulder.  “I know it’s true, but it still stinks.  The humans are still overrunning the planet, and the world is still out of balance.”

“You are an impertinent creature,” the old man observes.  “I AM the Balance.  I keep the magic and morals of this world in order.  You should show some respect.  I just gave you my awesome origin story.”

“…again…,” mutters several rats.  Another rat hops onto the old man’s lap. “You only tell that story when you’re about to change the nature of Sin.”

“I am the Balance, Clyde,” proclaims the old man.  “I’m not the God that once was.  I grow and change with humanity.  I’m a more merciful being.”

“You’re a wuss,” states Clyde.

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Because it’s true,” Clyde replies.  “If you’re going to rule humanity, then humanity has to live up to your standards.  If you change your rules to suit their whims, then you’re not a god.  You’re a wuss.”

The Balance waves his hand.  “Bah!  You’re just a nest of rats.  What would you know of mankind’s nature?”

Clyde blithely responds, “And yet you keep telling me that story…”

As the night goes on, the door opens and the two lovers return to the apartment, arm-in-arm.

Chaka kisses her man.  “I’m so lucky to have a man with friends.”

Bernard puts a bag of fast food on the dinette table.  “It’s good to have friends with food.”

The two lovers sit down and pray to the God the Balance murdered to bless their food.  Around the apartment, from the shadows, Clyde watches and agrees with the lovers.

It’s time to eat.

Clyde nips Chaka’s heel.  She jumps up.  “A rat just bit me!”

Bernard stomps at the rat but misses.  Two rats drop from the ceiling into her hair.  Chaka wrenches off her wig and throws it in a corner.  Three more rats fall from the ceiling, and begin gnawing at her scalp.  Bernard swats at Chaka’s head to no avail.  With two hands, he manages to pull one rodent off.  He tosses the creature aside and looks back in horror.  Chaka has fallen, screaming, to the ground under a deluge of vermin.  Bernard wades into the mammalian pestilence, grabbing handfuls of fur looking for his lover.

Chaka’s high-pitched wails become halting screeches and then coughs and gurgles.  The rats recede to Bernard’s momentary relief.  Chaka then sits up with a jerk.  Bernard can see a glazed look in her eyes.  She’s coughing up blood.  The rats gather in a semi-circle around her.  Suddenly blood spurts out of her mouth in thin lines leading to the open jaws of the surrounding vampiric horde.  Bernard falls backward in terror.  Unsure of what’s happening, he can only mutter short, stunted sentence fragments in his attempt to ask: Why is this happening?

Endless minutes pass for Bernard before Chaka’s body falls back down without her blood or her soul.  

One of the rats saunters over to Bernard, rises up on its hind legs, and speaks:  “This is really your fault for committing a Sin like this.”

“W-wuh, what?” stutters Bernard.

Another rat approaches, “I’m a vampire, kid.  I eat the Sin, and, coincidentally, the blood of mankind.”

“N-n-no,” stammers Bernard.

“No, seriously,” says another rat.  “The name’s Clyde.  All the rats you see are me, and your Sin is particularly delicious.”

Bernard musters the strength to argue: “Love can never be a Sin.”

Five rats speak, while walking over Chaka’s corpse.  “Sorry, kid, but the Balance says differently.”

“NO!” booms a voice.

The Balance appears in a show of splendid light and radiance.  “I can see the love this man has in his heart and I have been moved.  I declare that their bond is not a Sin!  The Balance has spoken!”

Bernard covers his eyes from the brilliance.  He shouts, “Praise the Lord!”

Several rats shake their heads.  “Wrong guy, kid.  This here’s the Balance.  God’s dead.”

The visage of the Balance darkens slightly.  “No, I am not God!  I am BETTER than God!  I adapt to a changing humanity!”

“Funny,” scoffs Clyde. “Human blood still tastes the same.”

Bernard slowly gets to his feet.  He looks to the Balance.  “Please, Jesus.  Save me.”

“I’m gonna eat ‘im.”

“YOU WILL NOT!” shouts the Balance.

The apartment’s rats all chitter in unison, “Oh, yes, I am.”

The radiance of the Balance dissipates.  “But I said their bond wasn’t a Sin.”

The rats move closer to Bernard as Clyde speaks to the old man.  “You should pay attention to your origin story.  You put dark magic in their blood.  The amounts may differ, but Sin still exists in all humans.”

“Please, Clyde, have mercy,” the Balance begs.

The rats swarm the outcast.  “Sorry, old man,” say the rats.  “One of us has to be consistent.”