Thin Black Hair Horns in Limbo

Upon opening the codex, Javier found himself sweating from the top of his forehead. Small beads of the sweaty substance slowly trickled down his brow. The air was moist. It appeared that the dusty book he was opening hadn't been open in years or even decades. It was tucked away in a box for who knows how long. The dust whirled up into his nostrils and he let out a big sneeze.

He was drawn to the box from where he got the book from. He was doing some sorting in his grandfather's attic and was immediately drawn to the raggedy cardboard. The stain on the outside of the box looked almost messianic in nature. A real Jesus looking type of stain. The cover of the book was engraved and leather bound with a floral pattern around the edges and a crudely etched bull in the middle. It was definitely the most unique looking book in the bunch. Javier runs his fingers over the etched bull and feels the bumps and ridges. He dips his fingers a few pages in to see crude cursive penmanship scrawled upon the pages. Some of the letters seemed faded or even effected by some liquid or water damage. All didn't seem lost. Javier could only assume that this was his late grandfather's writing. He honed in to try to decipher the scrawl.

After about 30 seconds of thumbing through the pages, he lands on a page with some crude line drawings with writings scattered about. There was something intriguing with the line work. Some of the letters appeared to have accentuated curves and loops. The drawings were geometric in nature and there were random body part sketches spread out on the page. Javier thumbs through a few more pages to see more of the cryptic handwriting and miniature drawings.

A large thud is heard downstairs. He quickly closes the book. Dust shoots out from the pages and goes right into his nose. He sneezed loudly. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and takes the book with him as he descends down the attic stairs. The hallway was dimly lit. He slowly gets down the stairs and looks up and down the hallway. The silence was deafening. He starts to walk down the hall towards the master bedroom. Another large thud happens on the opposite side of the hallway. This time it appeared to have been accompanied by some type of glass breaking. The sounds were coming from the kitchen. Javier slows down his pace and makes his way towards the kitchen area. He starts to sweat profusely. The hallway was damp and humid. With each inch of stepping, his heart started to beat faster. He starts to turn the corner towards the kitchen.

Whoosh. A dark figure more close to the ground rushes past him about 10 feet away. There wasn't much light seeing that the sun was setting. The natural light barely crept in between the curtains. The fast movement startled Javier and he quickly flung his back towards the wall. The dark moving mass hit part of the cupboard and some of the dishes were rattling. At this point, Javier doesn't know where to look. A feverish sense of anxiety sets over him. He can feel his heart beat through his veins.

He grabs a kitchen knife and clutches it with his dear life. He rushes to light switch and flicks it on. A scuffling sound is heard behind the kitchen island. He slowly approaches the other end as he analyzes the shadow protruding from the other side of the wood. Javier turns the corner while aggressively pointing the knife towards the mystery figure.

A black boar with a big snout and tusks is seen frightened and shaking. It starts to rear up its hind legs as if it were to leap and attack. They lock eyes. Man and beast caught in the gaze. The stench from the wild pig was something to be reckoned with. After a few seconds, it started to wash away in the background. The stare between them heightened in intensity.

Javier started to look into the Boar's pupils with great intrigue. He could slowly see his reflection even more clearly. It appeared as if he started to get younger in the eyes of the pig with each glance. After a few seconds, he could see himself more clearly within the reflective film of the eye surface. He was aging backwards. He could see himself as a kid.

The reflection in the boar's eyes reminded him of when he was twelve years old. Those were some memorable times in his eyes. A memory flashed right before his eyes. It involved him being at the state fair with his grandfather. They use to go every year and it was a highlight of his early summers. The cotton candy was his drug of choice while exploring the state fair. His grandfather use to take him by the hand and show him the different animals. His grandfather had a heavy interest in horses. He seemed to know all the colors and equestrian varieties. Whenever Javier would see a horse as an adult he would get a flood of blood and emotion to his head and heart. It brought his memories back to life on how big of an impact his grandfather had on his life.

Javier is rushed back into reality where he is starting intently at the wild boar. It seemed as if he had time traveled for a second. As if he lived an entire state fair visit within the momentous flood of flashbacks. It was much darker outside. The boar had rescinded its back legs and had assumed a seated position. A single thread of drool dangled from the bottom of his torn up brown lip. The threatening nature of the wild pig seemed to have evaporated into the atmosphere.

The knife was still in the clutches of Javier's hand. He no longer found the need to strangle the plastic base of the sharp device. He slowly lifted the knife and places it on the surface of the kitchen island. The boar's eyes started to water as if it was experiencing some bout of emotional entanglement. Javier slowly ducks down and gets on one knee. He reaches out his right hand to start to pet the boar. At first the boar flinches, but then relaxes its hide. It was readily apparent that this wild animal didn't have much history with human interaction. It was an alien experience for both of them. A budding relationship between two deceptively wild creatures.

The left tusk of the boar was slightly chipped on the end. Javier looked at it and then regained the gaze with the animal. The eyes of the creature became soft. It was almost as if the boar's eyes were tearing up. A glaze of tears aligned the sides of its eyes. Javier looked back into the pupils of the creature to get a deeper look. He got closer. The breath was strong and pungent, but more subdued and less threatening than earlier. His younger self had vanished from the the beast's pupils. He was looking straight into how he was now.

The reflection in the wild pig's eyes started to look familiar. He knew that he wasn't hallucinating, but there was something remarkably similar to the way he looked. Javier catches a reflection of a picture frame and immediately turns to look back. It is an old black and white photograph of his grandfather.
This sense of familiarity started to creep back in. He looked like his grandfather when he was his age. The connection seemed all to eerie and real. Javier rushes over the picture to take a deeper look. His grandfather appeared to be wearing a straw hat and overalls. The background looked like it was on some type of farm. Javier scans the background to see a few animals in the distant. There appeared to be a few cows, some rogue chickens and some pigs roaming about. He slowly starts to scan from left to right and spots a smaller black dot in the distance. Upon further analysis, he notices that this dot appeared to have legs and ears. This curious figure started to become more clear. Javier's eyes widen as he realizes that that dark figure in the picture was a boar. He couldn't believe it. He immediately turns his head back toward's the kitchen to see that the boar was not there anymore.

Javier scans the kitchen and then makes his way to the living room. All the doors of the house were closed, so there was no clear exit for the beast to escape from. The house was eerily silent. He could start to hear the chirps and hums of the crickets and cicadas in the front and backyard. He scratches his head and plops himself onto a reclining padded chair facing a fireplace in the living room. Did he imagine all of this? Was the boar even real? So many questions swirled about in his head as he comfortably reclined on the chair.

A hazy cloud of exhaustion hovered over Javier's head. So many eventful things happened in such a short period of time. At this point, he was losing his sense of time and was questioning why he was in his late grandfather's place in the first place. The dusty light bulb in his head went off. The attic! Javier rushed back up to the attic to get back to what he was doing. He makes his way back up into the attic only to find that the box of books he was looking at had been ripped and scattered about. Javier tries to find the handwritten notebooks that he was looking at before the boar encounter. He was sifting through old ripped up maps and pages from old smelly novels.

Javier frantically hovers about the dusty landscape in the attic. He looks to his left to see the cover of the book he was looking at peaking up from a couple old plates and dust bunnies. He reaches over to pick up to the book only to see what appeared to be bite marks on the side of it. There was a small strand of saliva that hung ever so slightly from the edges of the bite mark. He knew that it had to have been the boar. Why would the best rush up to the attic to reek havoc on a bunch of old books? Was there a wiry rat that attracted the beast?

Javier takes the bitten journal with him and attempts to scour among the other ravaged books. None of them had significant bite marks. There was something peculiar about the book he was holding. Something pertinent and magical. There seemed to be another book that had a dusty hoof print on it. Now the dots were getting connected. He knew very well that the beast made it up to the attic. He looks to see if there were any other exits in the attic. Nothing, but dirty and dark corners. The humidity was start to get to Javier so he made his descent into the rest of his grandfather's house.

It was getting late. He knew that he needed to go. The house presented such an awesome and bewildering adventure that his will to leave was stunted. He could feel some type of presence in the house. Whether he saw the boar or not was none of his concern anymore. There was some type of force controlling the direction and action of the house. Javier didn't believe in ghosts, but he knew that he wasn't alone in the house.

He steps outside on the front porch and looks up. The air was cool and crisp to the skin with a small breeze lightly dusting the tree branches in front of him. The moon was full and a few dark blue clouds lingered around the radiant sphere. Javier takes out a pack of cigarettes and tugs one of his last three cylinders and places it between his lips. He knew that he needed to quit, but after all the eerie happenings inside, he thought he was due for a temporary relief. He sucks in that first cloud of smoke and exhales a sigh of comfort. There was something odd about the taste. There was a lingering sourness that he never got from his cigarettes. He holds up the lit end to his left eye and squints to see what the problem is. He notices a thin and sharp looking black hair protruding from the top. He knew it wasn't his. His hair was much too greasy and curly and there is no way a stray hair could have neatly packed itself near the lit end of the cigarette.

Javier suddenly lost the taste for the cigarette. This might have been the last time he would smoke one. He found himself surprised by the fact that he was going to throw away a half lit cigarette, when normally he would always finish a full one. It was a commitment to the process. A sense of temporary completion. He pulls out the hair from the top and stomps on the cigarette with his left boot. He picks up the butt and throws it into a pot with a half dying plant.

There he stands holding a mystery hair up to his eyes. He leans in to take a whiff of the follicle. It was a familiar yet wild type of smell. His senses excite as he realizes that this was no ordinary human strand of hair. It was from an animal! Not just any animal, Javier thought to himself. He soon realizes that the hair was from the wild boar he faced off with earlier. There is no way that that hair could have made its way into to a cigarette. Much less a concealed box tightly packed into his back pocket! Things were getting much more psychedelic. Javier started to go through his memories to see if he had ingested any type of weird foods that could have caused these odd chain of events. Nothing really stood out except for a questionable egg salad sandwich from a convenience store.

Javier paused in disbelief. His craving for cigarettes had ceased. He never thought that this day would have come. At least not in such a momentous epiphany. Javier takes his remaining cigarettes and inspects them to see if there are any more irregularities or strands of hair. They appear normal. He aggressively tears up the tobacco cylinders and sprinkles them in the uncut grass of the yard. He wipes his hands on his jeans and stuffs the cigarette box into his back pocket crumpled up. The least thing he could do was not litter at this moment.

A sigh of relief escaped his mouth. Javier starting pondering on the events that got him to the moment he was at right now. So many twists and turns from the house that he could frequent often as a child. Was all of this a grand scheme for him to quit his bad habits? Was the wild boar a sign and some type of signal from the after life? Was his grandfather speaking through an animal that may or may not have been a figment of his imagination?

All of this thinking was making Javier tired and hungry. He had the salivary cravings for a burger. One of his favorite foods. It was funny that that craving would be the one that he had at that moment considering his interaction and connection with the wild animal moments before. He was much too tired to feel any type of compassion towards any type of animal. At this point any type of protein would do accompanied with salty spuds and a sweet drink. He knew that this was an appropriate moment for him to feel like he deserved such delicious decadence.

Javier races towards his car and plops himself in the front seat. With haste, he turns the key and lets the engine rev and warm up. He takes a few minutes to look at the front of his late grandfather's house. All the memories. All the times he would go there for a sanctuary and solace. There was a sense of resolve that came over him. An end of an era. A new beginning. His eyes started to water and his mouth mad a small smirk. He knew that things were going to be begrudgingly okay. The new path forward was at least tobacco free.

He backs his car outside of the driveway and whips his car to go down the street. He hits the break and adjusts his rear view mirror so that he can take one more look at the house. This might be the last time he would see it. An eerie fog started to creep up near the front door of the house. He started to think how fitting it was that there would be such an eerie ambiance right as he was driving away. It was odd considering there was not any fog in front of him. He drives down an incline and loses the house in his rear view mirror. The fog was now rising. Javier concentrates his sleepy eyes on the road ahead of him as he reflects on how he feels like changed man. Good things were on his horizon.

As Javier drives further away, the seemingly eerie and gray fog turned into a cloud of smoke. It seemed as if Javier did not stamp out that tainted hog hair cigarette completely. There was just enough dryness to ignite some of the planter and the dead plant leaves within it. A perfect combination for the beginnings of a flame. As the first flame ignited, a rush of wind had allowed the growth of the fire to veer towards other plants and the house. Eventually the whole porch caught on fire. Then the house followed. All of the material objects and memories were slowly burning to a crisp. When the flames reached the attic, the old books and journals of his grandfathers acted as perfect kindling to really edge in the rest of the house fire. The roof collapsed and the house fell into itself as if it was resting on some type of sinkhole.

A ripe stench made its way through the neighborhood as people looked out their houses to watch the flames flourish. It smelled like burnt hair. Burnt black hair much like the one that was placed in the cigarette. The cloud of smoke turned black and then started to slowly dissipate as the fires were put out by the local firefighters. The smell lingered for a while and the house was now a black mass of burnt materials. In the middle of the black mess lied a silhouette that seemed to be untouched by fire in the center. Whatever it was, it had four legs and a jagged snout. It was by the far the stinkiest part of the whole scene.

DG