To Kill a Balloon Man
folie à deux
/ˌfɒli a ˈdəː/
noun
A delusion or mental illness shared by two people in close association.
"A Dragon has 3 Heads."
One to be Monarch whose Crown Will Weigh Heavy.
. ⋆˙⟡₊♕₊⟡˙⋆ 𓉱 𓉳
One to be a Murderer who will unleash Death.
∴☥∵ ⚰ 𓂀 𓇋 ☩ ✞
And one to be Mad whose Ideas will change History.
𓆝 𓃰 𓃱 𓀀 𓀁 𓆣 𓆤
A Monarch… I am that monster~ ⋆˙⟡₊♕₊⟡˙⋆
The boy choked on his words.
His face turned bright pink in embarrassment… He was shy. This sounded like the script of a cartoon. It was childish…
The mirror fogs as he speaks, staring at himself. A boy in animal pajamas, dark-skinned, hair a mess. He clutched a wrinkled piece of notebook paper like it held the secrets of the universe, or at least a passing grade in 4th-year drama class.
His mother, Olivia, stepped into the room, dark-haired with ragged clothing. She smiled and adjusted his bow tie.
They were not rich, but Olivia did everything she could to help Issak. He was her heart.
Her smile.Her sunshine.
Her boy was her pride and joy. Her everything.
Smiling as she heard his lines for his school play, she asked him,
"A conqueror? A king? And how are you going to do that, young man?" she teased, holding in her cough. Olivia was gravely ill.
He smiled, innocent and bright. "One day I'll have my own army, a group of friends and family who believe in me. We'll change everything!"
"Oh really?" she said, proud of her little chipmunk, tugging at his cheeks. "And what will your group be called?" she asked.
His eyes lit up. He moved his mother's hand off him as he got off his knees and stood up.
"It will represent a perfect world. We will call it…"
"Nirvana."
As his eyes flickered with a strange light, the television in the living room crackled to life.
Breaking News:"Active terrorist revolutionary group Nirvana has severed ties between the United States and their strongest ally, killing 40,000—"
His mother blinked, confused. She tried to comprehend the words she just heard.
"Issak…" she whispered. She looked forward, her vision blurry. Her sickness was so bad that she could hardly see his chest.
"Did he grow?"
"Wait… am I forgetting something?" Olivia questioned.
~It's not a school play, Mom.
Then she heard it again. It clicked. Nirvana?
~You don't even know, do you?
Her face drained of color.
~You're so demented and sick, you don't even know how old I am.
Her blood ran cold. So cold she felt her organ failure creep up her back. Like a rusty knife itching, dragging its filth against her spinal cord, she was paralyzed, frozen stiff.
Until suddenly… she snapped.
Olivia's spine bent at a 90-degree angle.
Her bones turned to biscuits as she bent and fell against the cheap hardwood floor.
Her elbows rotated inward with a wet twist, forearms curling under her weight as her knees blew sideways. In seconds, she wasn't standing at all.
She was down on all fours, trembling, shaped like something grotesque.
She tried to scream, but let out a ball of saliva and liquid alongside a horrific sound.
She tried to think, but her skull took the form of an animal, squeezing on her brain. She couldn't think.
She tried to breathe. But only then did the nightmare begin.
Her nostrils had slowly shrunk to tiny pinholes, useless needle-sized holes that pulled in nothing but a thin whistle of air. Every breath she dragged through her mouth came out as a horrible, wet, keening sound — an animalistic wail she couldn't control.
It was disgusting.
Issak looked at his dying mother.
And that's where it happened.
Like a madman, he took to the sky, imagining angel-like wings.
"You created me."
"Well, no more."
~Clap
"You will not be credited with the name 'mother.'"
"I was meant to be pure."
"Meant to be beautiful."
"I was not meant to be born through two humans fucking like pigs."
As the child's anger boiled, he continued,
"Everyone will hear of my legend… hear that I came to exist through…"
"Beautiful virgin birth."
"Conceived by the very universe as an answer to save it."
~
Cracking open like clay, her flesh turned pale and slick, taking on a swollen, rubbery texture. It glistened with a foul, greasy sheen.
The smell hit a second later — a sour, fermented stench, the reek of something that stank like a pig.
Issak's eyes turned black.
His pupils bled out of his eyeballs.
Her face began to melt in a horrific manner, the world around her turned—
"Mommy?" Issak whispered.
"I'm sorry you were a sheep."