Smile When You Go

О старости и человеко-оболочках.
Основано на реальных событиях. Отчасти.
На ваших. В том числе.
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Granny Vals (V. Als) was a rhetorical woman in her after 80-s, whose inability to get enjoinment from her latest living strangely correlated to her ability to suck the living out of anybody else. A man, a bush, a pigeon – anything would come her prey, eventually. Not that Granny Vals (mostly called, Her Hagginess) was a vampire of a sort – at least, there were no witnesses to her quite loud and worldly rumoured ‘mischieves’ – but it happened that people’d go rough and disastrous on her any time she’s around, and those who’d go the worst felt the worst for a day, or a week. To clear and simplify, Her Hagginess was very hateful woman. There were very few who’d call her a granny, and much fewer who’d call her a woman. Although, from the very name (nickname, indeed), everyone knew her as a total hag, top notch.

But, why? Obviously, you need some explanations, examples, maybe. How many times have you deemed badly at those little grannies, patching the here and there streets? They’re standing, or kneeling, or tottering, mashed to their previous ages of coats and thoughts; their eyes are like those water-wells which have no bottom, not in the romantic way, but in a way of grim and sorrow, and no blinking, all right over you, pulling out whatever is inside your own eye-trinkets. Devastating sights, Deranged activities (barely active), Delirious approaches (to the living), Devious arrangements (to themselves) – have you encountered those creatures, carrying weights tight in-between their heads and shoulders, portraying bent-bone penguins at the edge of endless civil war? My fault, maybe you haven’t. But, that Granny Vals, Her Hagginess, was just that all.

Yet, the most exhausting thing about her was – her smile. The absence of the thing. Indeed, she would laugh sometimes at something silly, mostly unlaughable to anyone at all, but never would she smile to a person, whatever good that person (oh, poor fellow) urged to mean. She would just take him on a trip into her almost transparent abysmal eye-holes, pretending she’s not hearing anything, and – to a wideful tremor of her hands – she would open a bottle of beer and dry up to her cavern of tongue-slimes and shattering fangs, applauding back to his endeavors all the rottenness, likely the same acidic as that down her spine. Poor fellow would get sick, eventually. While, Her Hagginess would shine. Not that she would jump around and sing ‘My Fair Lady’… she never showed a weenie of relief. But deep inside she’d keep the gem, extracted from the living being, which is her only hope to manage, still, get on her feet and do 4D’s routine for yet another dozen, and another dozen, yet another dozen… to escape the final D.

She was…

Her Hagginess (oddly rhymed to happiness) had heard a numerous threats, curses, incantations even, but she laughed back – in her unsmilingly way – mumbling in unemotional loony-pitched vocals: “Oh, yes, I know, I don’t do anything, I sure must die. It just seems, I’m not that dying attractive…” – [dai-no-trak-tiv], sounded like this. Maybe, Granny Vals thought of a word as a joke, but Her Hagginess just missed on any thought, providing to the living nothing but the awkwardness and paleness, with nerve destruction.
 
Granny Vals had a son, she adored, and a daughter, she spat on. She lived with her daughter, although, for her son was too much of a busy man, running big things around, controlling big staff, big blah-blah. In truth, he couldn’t stand his mother, at least, not in her latest days’ shape. There were times, when Veronika Als participated in life as a quite recognizable woman: some men fought for her, some people awarded her, some family loved her. Then, everything grew on her, as did the ages: the husband – gone, the house – gone, the work – finished. Could have been the time, when Veronika would start to represent some new activities, desires, hobbies, yet it happened that the only thing she’d represent would be the things she’d lost. That’s when the stage was owned by Her Hagginess.

I heard the story of Granny Vals from an old associate of mine, a partner in crime, that she says. She had a vision, dialed my phone, instructed on the crack and the location. By crack we usually define the so-called deadly living, or unlively dead. Those are not harmful, in a manner of harm, which provide maniacs or politicians, but they are loosening the living threads inside human beings, or, if putting backwards, they’re tightening the noose round the livelings, which we are. The simplicity of understanding cracks is to picture the one, who’s standing before you, as a vessel, a well, connecting one spiritual plane to another, shaped in a human form, most likely the one you’re quite used to and close, as a person. I am the snipper, a p to a sniper, who snips those cracks down. In your words, I’m putting down those like Granny Vals, in order to keep you refreshed and full of new perspectives. Now, you are likely to call me a cynic, a murderer, a whatever spite your mouth could blight, but if you listened carefully, I’m not killing anyone, just taking a photo, a photographed smile. I did that to my own grandma, and she was relieved, I’m sure of that. Aware, even.

Most of the times, it’s not hard to get an appropriate picture. Yet, Granny Vals wasn’t a smiling type. Her Hagginess had been ruling her for a very long time, eventually leading to abandoning all the sincere emotions. The only thing left alive was showing off through her actions: Veronika became an addict of collecting anything – from torn sheets to torn packages, used cards, silly advertisements, many a beer cans; furthermore, she still had her extractory urges, meaning the body, the womanly pleasures, weirdly being extracted with objects, mainly used for the tequila shots. She started to picture the world as a newborn, experiencing its dimensions in the coming life. Still, should the new day come, Veronika remembered nothing. But, she was a woman, after all.

I do enjoy my job, despite the tricky cases. Granny Vals was tricky. Eekey, also. Reeky, too. When she opened the door, I had a bouquet of eustoma, a blond Belgian, a cherry bun, a handsomeness. I tossed them onto her, the daughter was at work. I took the photograph: Veronika would go with a smile, pitched one, crimson tippled. I left her lying in pajamas, closing up my shirt.

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Her Hagginess happily smiled,
On the 29th day of the moon.