The Life of Mr. Manning: a brief Episode
Mr. Manning is a normal man with a normal life. He has pale hands that carefully divide his
time between idleness and intricate business matters. Mr. Manning walks the dog at eight-thirty each morning before work, but Mr. Manning doesn't mind the superfluity of repetitive menial tasks such as this. There were other things to do, so he did them.
They made their way down Fifth Avenue, the sun, a distantly hanging bronze, touching the tops of glittering city buildings, waves of heat rising from ever-widening spaces that were cramped and filled with people: The people rushing along in faded sneakers, and faded automobiles. He considered the morning offering, the various storefronts and donut shelters, 24 hours, and the weak, bleary-eyed truck drivers and waitresses inside them. Coffee? Tea? Vegetarian omelet? A big fat greasy cheeseburger, with lots of onions and ketchup and scrambled eggs in between the steamed bun. Mr. Manning decides to skip breakfast. It'll only weigh him down.At the curb he waits. And we follow without question as I now follow the red yellow and green and yellow, the walks and the don't walks, and the pedestrians with the right of way…and they must wait for me to walk, or run me over flat, as in cartoons, springing up like an accordian, so that I'm restored to former glory and stick figure pedestrian mode…The signal changes and Mr. Manning crosses the street, barely noticing his surroundings, or the people brushing up against him. Mr. Manning turns his thoughts cheerfully to other things. Sidewalks become broken. Scene changes. Gradually breaking away, and the big noise of the city falling behind him; a swollen memory transfixed in gold, winding down to a hush; the hush of a mother hushing her infant in a nearby window, the scent of cabbage and rot drifting from it.This neighborhood seemed darker, somehow stranger than the rest of the world he inhabited; an abandoned community, filled with dealers, buyers, and sellers of filth in all its wondrous packages, dull and brightly wrapped.Mr. Manning waits for the prostitutes. They were more suitable for his employer's purpose, and he found one, solitary and gloomy; the eyes caught him first: she stared at him. Blond, big-busted, tall and very thin, as if she hadn't eaten in days, displaying her product, and trying furtively to look comfortable in heels she'd probably worn all night, standing in the very spot she now stood, when she wasn't on her back, or on her knees making a day's wage. She told him to leave his dog outside -- she wasn't into kinky threesomes, with eager pets and their imaginative owners, and if he wanted that sort of experience, he could go a block down Fifth to see Wildlife Wilma: she'd do anything with two legs or more, but Mr. Manning passed on the invitation and tied his dog to the railing leading up the stairs.
Mr. Manning followed Candy, the prostitute, along the dim corridors, through a door marked: VACATED in someone's handwriting, hanging from the doorknob, like a Closed and Open sign.
She opened the door.He followed her. In the center of the room was a stained mattress that smelled of urine, Tampax, diarrhea, and other forgotten treasures that people had left.She undressed quickly and waited for Mr. Manning to do the same. He paid seventy-five upfront and told her to close her eyes, because it wasn't polite for a woman to watch a man in heat…
(eyes closed)She braced herself for him, felt the weight of his body pressing down on hers.And then it went in. He slashed at her with the cold knife, trimming smooth white flesh the way they'd showed him to; the images rebinding across his mind in an unknown language; with a meaning he could not fathom; a small price to pay for continued life; his own, worth more than the trash he slaughtered every morning: that's how he justified it, but still, so many had died by his hands, the pale hands his mother used to wash under hot scalding water, over and over again, because of what he had done with them… with those hands….Slowly he came back to half-reality, the blood-washed shade glowing, holding away the anxious sunlight. The smell was enough for him. He didn't need to see it better; he could feel the rhythm of it, under his fingertips.Mr. Manning removed the device they'd given him for collecting brain matter. The blood was drying on his face. He wiped it away.
She had screamed only once, but who cared? Hookers were paid to scream.He grabbed a treat for the dog, pocketing the collection disk before going out, checking his face in the cracked mirror and washing it with rust-water that he gargled and spat out.The sun was fully awake when he emerged from the half darkness. His hands were sticky.He untied the dog and gave it a bone. She wagged her tail in eager acceptance, not minding the fingernails, or the fingernail polish at all, chewing it on the way home -- no one seemed to notice. He was no more unusual than any other man emerging from that part of the city: a man walking his dog.
Twenty-three minutes later Mr. Manning was home. He let the dog out in the backyard to play and went upstairs to see his wife.
She sat staring out the window. Golden hair complimenting broken rays of light, that darted about the quiet room. He calls out to her softly.(no answer)Closer. He moves closer, touching the shoulder. It's too soft and his thumb sinks in, leaving a wet mark there: Something's swimming beneath the skin, and gazing up at him, with large bulbous eyes, outside and between the holes and spaces in the white blouse.
The face is sunken and demolished, bubbles oozing and inflating, popping and deflating across the black railroad tracks of her face. Now he remembered. The aliens slept and lived in the refuge of his wife's body, as Earth's atmosphere was too dry for them, a human body was far more hospitable. They had attacked her one night, long ago now, -- he'd forgotten how long -- as she was attending their garden of squash and onions and cucumbers, forcing her down in a blinding second, they themselves burrowing beneath her skin; ripping into her spine, and she, screaming just momentarily, but snuffed out before it could really travel to attentive ears. He saw the light flash in his bedroom window, and he went down to look for her in the backyard. It was there that he found her, face down in the garden, the stars so bright and close overhead that he could grab a hand full of them if he'd try; so thick were they (the creatures) and immense, that her blouse billowed out and rose and fell, her legs split open and bleeding. He found the hoe and raised it high to force them out of her: that's when they first spoke to him. They were keeping her alive (or actively captive) until they'd safely left the planet, after Mr. Manning had helped them with their objective, of course. He would feed them, and his wife would continue to live, so long as he cooperated. They would help him to forget. And he believed them. They were going to leave soon, and Clarissa and Mr. Manning would be happy again and normal and take a long cruise somewhere far from here.It reaches out a tentacled hand. Mr. Manning screams.They help him to forget again… Mr. Manning awakes in a cold and empty bed.
Mr. Manning dresses in suit and tie. Mr. Manning knocks on the door of his wife's private study. It was her turn to walk the dog. She says to him, she's a little busy, could he possibly take her for a walk? the voice muffled by the closed door. Mr. Manning obliges. There's something he wants to say, but he's having trouble remembering it. He tells her he'll be back in a half hour.She doesn't reply. There's a sucking sound, but no reply.Mr. Manning steps out onto the backyard.The next door neighbors laugh derisively at him. "There he is, all dressed up to walk the dog." he says to his wife. "Where can I get a job like his?" But Mr. Manning ignores the comment. He never liked them anyway.With the dog's leash firmly in place, they begin walking.He notices that she's gotten fatter. Clarrisa must be giving her table food again. He makes a mental note to ask her when he returns. That'll be the first thing he'll do before work. Let the dog
out in the backyard and go straight up the stairs to see her...
Mr. Manning is a normal man with a normal life. He has pale hands that carefully divide his
time between idleness and intricate business matters. Mr. Manning walks the dog at eight-thirty each morning before work, but Mr. Manning doesn't mind the superfluity of repetitive menial tasks such as this. There were other things to do, so he did them.
Originally appeared in Black Petals #8 Spring 1999 issue
Copyright 1997, rev. 2002
