Iconoclasm

Ethan flings the sliding closet door open as if he’s shoving a heavyset woman out of his way; it slams loudly and rattles in its track.  He’s through the opening, flying toward Ian like a raped ape, screaming in a high-pitched tenor that breaks into a shrill moan.  Above his head, his hands wield the bottle as a club.  Every tendon and ligament flexes and bulges under the tension of his grip, and Ethan swings it into Ian’s head.

When the bottle comes down, the thickest part of it splits into the top of Ian’s skull with a sickening crack.  Another blow lands, and another one; the strikes begin deforming the bone.  Blood runs down his face, and his eyes roll back.  The blows keep landing until the skull gives way; the brain exposed through the split skin spills out onto the sheets.  There’s a sucking pop as Ethan dislodges the bottle from the gore with each strike.  He goes until the whole top of Ian’s head has been pounded down into the jawline; no features are recognizable.  What’s left of his head looks like a bowl of brightly colored Valentine’s Day M&M’s.

Ethan smiles at his work and takes a deep breath.  An excellent job.  Ian got what was coming to him, that slippery snake, that subversive, that megalomaniac, that anti-intellectual, unscientific piece of shit got got.  Just as Clint had shown that gay Jewish black trans guy what was up, Ethan had come to know the feeling of showing someone what’s up.  In fact, the whole endeavor was sort of altruistic; never again would Ian bust out his Japanese voice, and he certainly couldn’t talk in an African American vernacular.  The thought of escape had never entered the equation other than the nebulous idea of getting away, but it was one that never needed to be reckoned with.

“Ow,” Ian said.  He drew a hand to where the bottle smacked him.  “Ethan, is that you?”

Ethan looks at Ian, and then he looks at the bottle.

Plastic.