Prey

                                                                                                                    
The acoustics screamed the songs of love which become weak with each turn of the record player.

The lyrics were biting as they filled themselves fat with sourness and like the eyes of one dead, they
had to be shut closed by an outsider.

It was as if he, the conscious dead; had waited in cured blood for some other spirit's arrival,
companship for his mocking cheerfulness.

The trace of an orchid shadowed his neck, a goiter, he spoke not a sound
a trapper of wild things
he moved guardedly towards his prey
he would have her to himself,
all to himself!

Just as he waited in aggravated pause to touch the loveliness of her back, she turned and was
off to some twitch of a sound
a voice echoed by aged decay elevated from a back corner of the room
He'd heard that dynamic range of envelopment before, its uniqueness wafting slowly around him
then melting
up again
then thawing
then cooling

Mother, a slight gasp escaped his delicately parted lips
His thoughts were trapped like a slapped crazy rodent
he slid shivering
his tail between his legs through the outhouse doors of his mind
while grasping at air
Yes, it was mother's voice. 
But she was dead or was he?