Stripping off his jacket and jumper, he inspected the bite marks in his chest. No, they were not the neat double-pinpricks of a dandy. Concentrated on the upper left side of his ribcage, they were the ugly clusters of a wild beast.
Understanding flashed like lightning.
Cupid wanted to dig out his heart and eat it.
The frantic scraping against the door continued.
A weapon, a weapon . . .
If holy water wouldn’t repel the abomination perhaps hot water would.
Michael yanked the showerhead from its fitting then wrenched the heat dial to maximum. The shower was a poorly manufactured foreign model, bereft of a temperature-limitation device. Often, Michael had nearly been parboiled by the wretched instrument. Now it might save his life.
After a few cold spurts, the shower spat steaming water.
Michael would not open the door to Cupid but if the putti broke through the flimsy wood, he would prepared.
Perching on the toilet he waited like a gunslinger listening for the church bell that announced it was time to duel.
When he woke up, Michael believed he was in Heaven.
He was smothered by white clouds, gently swirling. Had he passed over, as the euphemism went? No, he decided. The clouds were hot and wet and he could hear shower water drumming inside the bathtub.
Sitting up, he winced at a throbbing pain in his skull. Probing his scalp, he discovered a contusion as big as a hen’s egg. Evidently he had fainted, knocking himself unconscious on some hard surface.
But that did not explain the shower pumping scalding water or the teeth marks carved into his chest.
With a croaking yelp, Michael remembered Cupid. For a second or two he whirled into a terrified panic. Was the malign sprite still present in the house? Hovering patiently outside the bathroom door? Or lurking elsewhere, with the patience of a funnel web spider poised for an ambush?
Suddenly, the tension easing, Michael laughed at the whole foolish saga.
The previous night, his strongest fear had come to pass. He had suffered a seizure and it was preceded by delirium tremens - literally translated as the shaking madness .
At the time, the madness dimension had felt unspeakably awful. Now it was comforting. It explained everything. Cupid had been an hallucination, a freakish contortion of the mind, and it seemed so real Michael had injured himself attempting to resist it. The fingernail gouges stippling his chest were caused by his own fingernails as he grappled with the apparition. Though deeper, the bitemarks had not been engendered by Cupid’s savage teeth but once again, his own fingernails as he doubled his efforts to cast off the pouting, rotting, evil-reeking putti .
No enemy existed except Michael’s Calendar-scrambled mind.
Michael ventured onto the landing. Gouges and incisions sagged into the bathroom door but they too were his handiwork. Wasn’t it possible that, terrified, he had not attempted to open the door but to claw his way through - as if his capering brain had plunged him into an animalistic frenzy?
In the living room, Michael peered at the Venice photograph. Cupid was missing from the corner of the frame but that did not prove anything significant. Most likely, Michael had torn off the cherub in a fit of rage. He never liked the tubby little fucker. Perhaps this act of petty vandalism triggered, if not the hallucination itself, the form the hallucination had adopted.
“Bloody hell. What a bizarre night,” he sighed.
Monstrously hungover, he donned a woollen coat - he was too vain to venture out in his tattered leather jacket - grabbed the hazelwood knobstick and strolled to the petrol station.
In a celebratory mood, he bought three bottles of Calendar.
Home again, he put the bottles on the carpet by the sofa, switched on the television and drank. Diagnosis Murder was on the box and Michael dreamily imagined he would quite like to be a crime-busting MD.
The first bottle was soon gone. After starting on the second, Michael
Understanding flashed like lightning.
Cupid wanted to dig out his heart and eat it.
The frantic scraping against the door continued.
A weapon, a weapon . . .
If holy water wouldn’t repel the abomination perhaps hot water would.
Michael yanked the showerhead from its fitting then wrenched the heat dial to maximum. The shower was a poorly manufactured foreign model, bereft of a temperature-limitation device. Often, Michael had nearly been parboiled by the wretched instrument. Now it might save his life.
After a few cold spurts, the shower spat steaming water.
Michael would not open the door to Cupid but if the putti broke through the flimsy wood, he would prepared.
Perching on the toilet he waited like a gunslinger listening for the church bell that announced it was time to duel.
When he woke up, Michael believed he was in Heaven.
He was smothered by white clouds, gently swirling. Had he passed over, as the euphemism went? No, he decided. The clouds were hot and wet and he could hear shower water drumming inside the bathtub.
Sitting up, he winced at a throbbing pain in his skull. Probing his scalp, he discovered a contusion as big as a hen’s egg. Evidently he had fainted, knocking himself unconscious on some hard surface.
But that did not explain the shower pumping scalding water or the teeth marks carved into his chest.
With a croaking yelp, Michael remembered Cupid. For a second or two he whirled into a terrified panic. Was the malign sprite still present in the house? Hovering patiently outside the bathroom door? Or lurking elsewhere, with the patience of a funnel web spider poised for an ambush?
Suddenly, the tension easing, Michael laughed at the whole foolish saga.
The previous night, his strongest fear had come to pass. He had suffered a seizure and it was preceded by delirium tremens - literally translated as the shaking madness .
At the time, the madness dimension had felt unspeakably awful. Now it was comforting. It explained everything. Cupid had been an hallucination, a freakish contortion of the mind, and it seemed so real Michael had injured himself attempting to resist it. The fingernail gouges stippling his chest were caused by his own fingernails as he grappled with the apparition. Though deeper, the bitemarks had not been engendered by Cupid’s savage teeth but once again, his own fingernails as he doubled his efforts to cast off the pouting, rotting, evil-reeking putti .
No enemy existed except Michael’s Calendar-scrambled mind.
Michael ventured onto the landing. Gouges and incisions sagged into the bathroom door but they too were his handiwork. Wasn’t it possible that, terrified, he had not attempted to open the door but to claw his way through - as if his capering brain had plunged him into an animalistic frenzy?
In the living room, Michael peered at the Venice photograph. Cupid was missing from the corner of the frame but that did not prove anything significant. Most likely, Michael had torn off the cherub in a fit of rage. He never liked the tubby little fucker. Perhaps this act of petty vandalism triggered, if not the hallucination itself, the form the hallucination had adopted.
“Bloody hell. What a bizarre night,” he sighed.
Monstrously hungover, he donned a woollen coat - he was too vain to venture out in his tattered leather jacket - grabbed the hazelwood knobstick and strolled to the petrol station.
In a celebratory mood, he bought three bottles of Calendar.
Home again, he put the bottles on the carpet by the sofa, switched on the television and drank. Diagnosis Murder was on the box and Michael dreamily imagined he would quite like to be a crime-busting MD.
The first bottle was soon gone. After starting on the second, Michael
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