This is the first chapter of the limited series Solomon Iron.
Read Part II, here.
Read Part III, here.
Read Part IV, here.
Tucked away in a booth, at the back of a café, Solomon Iron watches the world slip into darkness. Outside, the sun diminishes and its last remains retreat before the advancing gloam. An hour before, whilst the sun clung to the last vestiges of its domain, the quaint café had caught his eye as he stalked the city. It was without much reason other than the need to pass the time, that he entered, and then, found himself a seat.
There is nothing particularly special about the place. As cafés go, it’s quite ordinary. A barista busies herself behind the service counter, grinding beans, brewing alchemic concoctions, injecting steaming air into chilled cow pus. Waiters move about, taking care of their patrons’ whims. Golden lighting washes over the decor and ambient music cascades in the background. The aromas of coffee and confectionery converge and thicken in the air. All the necessary components for a café are present - the soupy homeliness, the warm peace, the sleepy glow - and with that, there is the deep need within Solomon to enjoy the soul of the place.
He watches strangers indulge in the treats before them. There is a part of him that wishes to be like them. It wants to frolic in the innocence of another’s company. It wants to be free. It wants to be clean, but mostly, it wants to be untouched by the underbelly that skulks beneath the world. You see, although he appears to be ordinary, Solomon isn’t. He is from that dark place that sets the hairs on your neck alight. He is a part of the dank cavern which humanity turns its back on, and he has sat on the throne of that black place far too often. He has done things which will forever hold him to its realm.
As much as he would like to appreciate the beauty of simple things, like the pleasure of tart dissolving on his tongue, or studying the delicate patterns splayed across the wings of a butterfly, he cannot. From where he is from, there is only the hideous and the cruel. There are no sugary comforts. Nor is there the arabesque intrigue of small, winged creatures. There is only ash. There is poison. And mould. And the dust to which all things return. But, he wants to be different. That is the relentless whisper in his soul. He can feel its yearning, he can hear its endless pining, and yet, as he sits in the café, observing those around him, Solomon can only appreciate the mechanics of decay operating beneath the spectrum of the ordinary world.
He is desperate to turn from the darkness, to see as others do, to do as others do, but such wants are futile against the urges which damn him. At the far end of the café, a man sits in the depths of a comfortable chair, a novel open across his lap, a cup of coffee resting in the palm of his hand. This is what the world of light observes, but all he can see is the bulbous trap of the cushioned seat, the invitation to sink into the slow, fetid digestion of time. Across the café indiscriminate faces hunker behind laptop screens, peering with glazed eyes into the electronic aether whilst their day drifts towards extinction. Along the communal table dirty cups and cutlery wait for collection, whilst the twitching insects that worship the dark goddess of decomposition congregate and clap their chitinous tongues in praise. A cursory glance of the ordinary overlooks the pot plants in the café, but Solomon sees the clouds of parasites hovering about their bastions of greenery, fluttering between the nests of eggs buried in old soil. He sees them toil beneath the leaves. He sees the hunger of their blind children. These are the aspects of the world Solomon sees. These are the aspects he wants to be blind to.
Nausea curdles the lining of his stomach and a cold sweat drowns his lower back. Distraction is the best medicine. Solomon loops his finger through the handle of the cup before him and peers into its bottom. He looks at the black entrails of coffee resting in the dregs, the grain coagulating like wet soil in an open grave. He looks at his watch, and the nausea bubbles with vaporous explosions. There is still time before he must set off. He has work to do, but there is still time. Despite the illness stewing in his belly, Solomon raises his hand and beckons the waiter.
From the behind counter, a creature midway through the horrific transmutation of puberty approaches him. Its hair is long and greasy, its features crowned by a moonscape of blemishes and burgeoning pimples. Solomon watches the waiter cross the floor, weaving between the chairs and tables. He is met with the stench of pubescent hormones and stale deodorant when the waiter comes to stand beside his table. The petri dish of chemical changes and biological lycanthropy emits the stink of a tropical gutter. Solomon examines the specimen before him, and a pang of sympathy rings in his heart, and yet, beneath that distant rise of human emotion, Solomon tastes his deep disgust for the kid’s unkempt state. Solomon wants to rally beneath the banner of empathy that unfurls within him, but his darker disposition, that wolfish beast that sits upon the throne, is ancient and stubborn, and it will not let him go.
The waiter shifts from one foot to the other. “Everything okay here?”
Solomon doesn’t answer. Instead, he springs from his seat, and breaks the empty coffee cup across the kid’s face. He follows the kid’s descent to the ground, and then pummels the ridges of bone and cartilage to marmalade pulp. He finishes off with a flourish, and buries the ragged remains of the cup handle into the boy’s throat. Solomon rises to his feet, stands over the kid and watches as the last bubbles of life gargle from the mess he has caused. The pink froth. The spittle. The fragments of bone. It all reminds Solomon of a science project.
The waiter asks the question again. This time his voice is tight with dramatic irritation. “Is everything okay here?”
The twisted ground of fantasy fades and Solomon returns to reality. His throat is dry and small droplets of sweat run down his back. He simply points to the empty cup in front of him and offers a thin smile.
“Another one coming up,” the boy mumbles as he walks away from the table.
As he waits for his order, Solomon turns his attention back to the café and tries once again to look at things through the lens of an ordinary person. He ignores the traces of decay beneath the surface. From what he can tell, its a popular spot. Most of the tables are full, and as the evening grows into its inheritance, more pedestrians enter from the street, their passage over the threshold ushered by the metallic chime of the welcome bell above the door. He traces the hodgepodge of human existence, from the teenagers engorging themselves on the fodder on their phones, to the elderly couples sitting in the company of their old age, their appetites for conversation exhausted by the long years spent together. A popular spot, he thinks.
A few feet from where he sits there is the odorous perfume of fresh courtship. The woman is handsome. Her strong features offer a beauty of unique peculiarity, which Solomon finds fascinating. Perhaps in another universe, he could have sat across the table from such an extravagant specimen. The man who holds her attention is well-dressed, cursed with weak hair and a soft, boyish face.
The waiter returns with the fresh cup of coffee. As he places it on the table, Solomon studies the rich, acne-ridden landscape of the kid’s face. The thought of his leprotic lips, bubble and crust, settling upon the rim of the cup is enough to revolt Solomon. Again, he imagines the boy sprawled across the floor, clawing at the air as blood spills from his throat. This time, Solomon cannot stifle the sardonic smile that creeps across his face and the waiter forces a hurried retreat from the table. The awful turn of thoughts leaves a sour taste in Solomon’s mouth, and despite the curling steam from the coffee, Solomon takes a sip. From behind the rim of the cup, he returns his attention to the couple.
The girl snakes her finger through her bright hair, twisting the long strands like a boa constrictor as she listens to what her Romeo has to say. She leans forward on her elbows and laughs. From where he sits, Solomon can hear its music drift across the room. He wonders what it must feel like to be with a woman like that. The man whispers something, and blood flows to her cheeks, where it blooms with the blush of a collapsing star. A dangerous light flickers across her eyes, and Solomon can almost feel her eyes look at him in that way. He can almost feel the joy of her smile encapsulate him like warm treacle.
He looks at her sweet Romeo. The limp hair. The weak face. The soft chin. The smug, satisfied smile cutting through his putty cheeks. Before Solomon can hold it back, a hot wave of jealousy flares through him and the urge to destroy good ol’ star-crossed Romeo rises from the darkness within. It’s not something he wants, not anymore at least, but the desire is born immediately, and it surges forward, the rampage unstoppable and he is powerless to resist.
There is an alley behind the café. Solomon noticed its mouth earlier, when he approached the café. In that throat of darkness, he’d drag the man to his doom. Perhaps throttle him against the corner of the dumpster until the pale matter nestled in the bowl of his skull fell free and landed with a soft splash in the dirty water pooled along stinking corridor. He’s done it before. But too much time has passed to remember the details of that victim. The details were vague now, the victim’s face nothing more than a mask, but he can still remember the crack of hard bone. Like an eggshell.
Bile clings to the back of his teeth. He doesn’t want to think about such things anymore. He wants to be different. He wants to be like everyone else. He swallows another mouthful of coffee.
Death and murder are the parts of his soul he wishes to bury deep beneath the earth. He wants to shed that skin and be reborn. He needs to be different. Something deep within snickers at the ignorance of such thoughts. Different. You already are. The shadow in his heart knows the depths of the void separating him from the land of the living. The black ocean which surrounds him would rather engulf his crooked soul than allow him to land upon the shores of society. Another greedy laugh ripples through the fibres of his body.
Desperate to shake the vileness of his murderous self, Solomon pulls his focus back to Juliet. He catches her midway through a laugh that consumes her entire body. It is a sweet tune. He follows the contour of her hair as it falls across her face, veiling the sharp cheekbones beneath smooth skin. She bites her bottom lip, her teeth playfully chewing upon that flushed rose bud, and in that breath, she annihilates all resistance. Solomon shudders. Never has something so beautiful looked upon him with the adoration she offers her Romeo. Perhaps in another universe.
Solomon lifts the cup of coffee to his mouth and takes another sip. He places it back onto the table and begins to unravel a set of earphones. The exercise of undoing is a relief. Distraction is the best medicine, he tells himself again. It frees his mind from the conflict within. The twisting and untying is insignificant and soothing. Once free from the chaos, he places the apparatus in his ears, plugs that jack into his phone and navigates via the screen to a special playlist. He pauses, and looks at Romeo and Juliet for another moment. Perhaps in another universe.
He looks down at his phone and considers the playlist, and then he presses play. The sounds of the café recede into oblivion as the music of Julian Estrada fills his ears. He sits back and allows the singer to paint the world with his voice of whiskey and tobacco. Solomon lets the music muffle the grotesque whispers in his mind. He has listened to this playlist before. It is one of many on his phone. His phone is cluttered with them. Many playlists, from many artists. And he has listened to all of them. They are his trophies. You see, although he appears to be ordinary, Solomon isn’t. Before killing them, Solomon listens to the music of his victims
Oh my God. This is sooooo good. " injecting steaming air into chilled cow pus" made me laugh so hard. But man, Jeremy Irons is so cool. Can't wait to read more about him. Where'd you get inspiration for him? For this story?