"Can
you hear the evil crowd?
The lies
and the laughter?
I hear my
inside...
The
mechanized hum of another world...
Where no
sun is shining, no red light flashing.
Here in
this darkness... I know what I've done,
I know
all at once who I am." -Steeley Dan "Don't Take Me Alive."
-----------------------
Feet
Inches from the bow of the ship, the forms from the fog hold me still. The Hydra’s eyes were filled with
insight deadlier than any poison could ever be, what would be the point of
escape when it would just follow me for the rest of my existence? This snake is
not quick like the cobra nor waiting in warning like the rattlesnake…
Melancholia is a slow killer, a twisted hybrid of the crushing force of the
anaconda and the bite of the black widow. Watch on in apathy as spiders crawl under
your skin! As your friends fall away from you! As your life seeps away slowly
before your very eyes! Try and hide it but they’ll know, they will see the lack
of life behind your eyes and desert you to your wastes while you wait for the
final sleep to come for you if it feels that mercy is deserved. This surrounding black fog is sentient corruption riding high
with its chosen name of Melancholia, willing to turn a mother against child,
willing to turn a man against himself and then his mind against the world. Its
victims catatonic in their own thoughts and shattered hopes, its touch is
numbing to flesh and brain. I never needed to hear the words I heard in my head
when the phantom serpent opened its eyes, but if I had not…
I felt a point press against my back, pressing into my spine. Its approach was slow but with a force not unlike gravity’s overbearing relentless push downwards. Into my back it began to dig... it took its time as the skin and bone started to break. Looking outward and unable to even cry out or even weep, my eyes held nothing but darkness. Fog becomes more and more difficult as you try harder and harder to gaze through the impenetrable layers of mist... a direct contradiction to the tried and true thought that the harder one works the more he gets done. If anything can destroy a man's moral it is to destroy what he knows to be most true.
I felt a point press against my back, pressing into my spine. Its approach was slow but with a force not unlike gravity’s overbearing relentless push downwards. Into my back it began to dig... it took its time as the skin and bone started to break. Looking outward and unable to even cry out or even weep, my eyes held nothing but darkness. Fog becomes more and more difficult as you try harder and harder to gaze through the impenetrable layers of mist... a direct contradiction to the tried and true thought that the harder one works the more he gets done. If anything can destroy a man's moral it is to destroy what he knows to be most true.
The
serpent's tale coalescing from the depth of the fog, moving toward me slow...
agony, agonizingly slowly, provoking a slow horror as I watched it move toward my
mouth. I struggled, I struggled I tell you, I tried. The more struggled the more
they pulled on my limbs an... I'm sorry... It's still happening, I can still
see it coming, it's not over, but god do I want it to be. JUST FINISH ME! JUST
FUCKING DO IT!!!
I almost expect Melancholia to giggle... almost. Think about it, have you ever seen a snake laugh?
I almost expect Melancholia to giggle... almost. Think about it, have you ever seen a snake laugh?
The
arrowhead in my back just broke skin; soon it will make its way to bone. I
can't feel it, why do I pretend? The truth is so hard to take, always so
difficult to take. I can only force moments of clarity in this soup... When I
looked into Melancholia's eyes it... it told me more than I'd ever want to
know. I could see things from its eyes, its mind, reflecting me out to its
perspective. From its view I learned things, I learned it was... a guardian... a guardian here to protect us from ourselves and end us if
we reach too far. It told me of the childish "ambition" of Aphid, of
her working to bring me here in the hopes of using me to improve the lives of
the apathetic creatures around her, possible denials, decline, struggles, the
slow drain of color from her skin, even her f-...Oh god I know thatNO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!
Memories that are not my own, thoughts and opinions not my own flood my mind... not my own... not my own... Not my own... Not my own. The tip of its tail touching my lips as my jaw becomes slack against the protest of my body, the serpent's tale sliding between my teeth and down my throat, spreading its poison. No... no.. NO! No.. no.. non- NO!!
In the black my brain struggles to grasp the paw of the Red Eyed Wolf, struggling against the curdling ideas laid into my brain by the serpent. Scraping my thumb against the shining bone, still clutched in my right hand, a rush of feeling spread through my body for just a second and I felt it. I felt the cold sting of the arrowhead in my back as it forced itself into my spine through an open wound. It drove me forwards, cutting through the barriers in my mind and taking the paw of the wolf with earnest need. Starting to suffocate my eye turned red in the dark of the fog, my mind consumed by the instincts of the wolf. In the red and orange haze of the wolf's mind I saw something new: Melancholia had no reason not to lie. Unable to struggle, tightly the Red Eyed Wolf gripped the bone. He can't let this happen. No, he won't let this happen. Survival. Existence at all costs no matter the means. All factors considered, all paths scouted, all eyes gouged out, all joints smashed, urges crushed beneath a steel boot, all threats eliminated, the quickest and most effective way no matter the cost...
Memories that are not my own, thoughts and opinions not my own flood my mind... not my own... not my own... Not my own... Not my own. The tip of its tail touching my lips as my jaw becomes slack against the protest of my body, the serpent's tale sliding between my teeth and down my throat, spreading its poison. No... no.. NO! No.. no.. non- NO!!
In the black my brain struggles to grasp the paw of the Red Eyed Wolf, struggling against the curdling ideas laid into my brain by the serpent. Scraping my thumb against the shining bone, still clutched in my right hand, a rush of feeling spread through my body for just a second and I felt it. I felt the cold sting of the arrowhead in my back as it forced itself into my spine through an open wound. It drove me forwards, cutting through the barriers in my mind and taking the paw of the wolf with earnest need. Starting to suffocate my eye turned red in the dark of the fog, my mind consumed by the instincts of the wolf. In the red and orange haze of the wolf's mind I saw something new: Melancholia had no reason not to lie. Unable to struggle, tightly the Red Eyed Wolf gripped the bone. He can't let this happen. No, he won't let this happen. Survival. Existence at all costs no matter the means. All factors considered, all paths scouted, all eyes gouged out, all joints smashed, urges crushed beneath a steel boot, all threats eliminated, the quickest and most effective way no matter the cost...
The Red
Eyed Wolf closed his right hand like a vice.
The
shining bone shattered in an eruption of searing light which consumed and
pierced even the dark fog of Melancholia with a thunderous blast as the hope in
the bone was sacrificed and a bright white, golden and yellow heat, penetrating the atmosphere. The arrowhead in my spine broke off and Melancholia screamed a
desperate scream before being consumed by the waves of heat, an "eternal guardian" no longer. The wolf just smiled the wide open mouthed
smile a wolf does as the blast seared away his hide from my body. As he was ripped away I shut our eyes.
Moments
later I hit the tan sea with a resounding crack, emerging relatively unscathed
from the wreck. The sanctuary was destroyed, its ivory hull sinking into the
tan waters like a frosted cookie in milk.
Still clothed, yet I felt so naked in the unfamiliar seas. The.. I didn't hear the
wolf's voice alive in my head anymore. I... I.. I remembered his last words were to get to shore. It took more time than I thought it would to reach the shore, so easy to stay afloat when working yet so easy to sink when you start tiring in the tan seas. Reaching the shore gasping and vomiting tan jelly, climbing on rocks and
scraping the wet sand off my limbs with my body weak from the exhaustion I was
no longer exempt from. I coughed and I sputtered but most of all I wondered to
myself, confused "Could the wolf really be gone?" So strange, the
thought never oc- AGH! I could see shards from the bone were still stuck in my hand while dripping sounds and a sting from behind told me that I was also bleeding from
my back. I wrapped my wounds in pale dying grass, impromptu bandages that I
didn't care if they absorbed anything. It hurt, so much hurt.
My skin feels as if a layer had been peeled off, my mind was still reeling from the loss of something it thought could never die... and I was bleeding in at least 3 different places so to call my gait shambling would be putting it lightly. I needed his numbed feeling and endurance but... I couldn't hear the wolf anymore. It was chilling, all the things I had gotten so used to in the countless hours upon hours upon hours upon hours I had grown used to the company of the wolf, the crimson steel mist of his mind, the red tint in his eye, and the snug fit of his skin. The Red Eyed Wolf never tired, even when hurt. He rarely felt pain, was striven for safety without need of it himself, would strive for that survival using methods that didn't always make reasonable sense, and was all in all a freakish, occasionally paranoid, frequently destructive, determinate beast... a beast who's lack of an objective aside from safety had made things ultimately pointless since I left the prison. Another angle on the wolf I hadn't realized until now, that despite being all these things he only cared for the immediate future, something maybe I saw before but I hadn't seemed to matter seeing as a threat was present... But now's not the time. I'm bleeding, I’m stuck halfway in the middle of an unending hilly open field where the only shelter I could see was the very thing I sought to avoid. I'm drained enough to collapse but I can't... not yet, not now.
My skin feels as if a layer had been peeled off, my mind was still reeling from the loss of something it thought could never die... and I was bleeding in at least 3 different places so to call my gait shambling would be putting it lightly. I needed his numbed feeling and endurance but... I couldn't hear the wolf anymore. It was chilling, all the things I had gotten so used to in the countless hours upon hours upon hours upon hours I had grown used to the company of the wolf, the crimson steel mist of his mind, the red tint in his eye, and the snug fit of his skin. The Red Eyed Wolf never tired, even when hurt. He rarely felt pain, was striven for safety without need of it himself, would strive for that survival using methods that didn't always make reasonable sense, and was all in all a freakish, occasionally paranoid, frequently destructive, determinate beast... a beast who's lack of an objective aside from safety had made things ultimately pointless since I left the prison. Another angle on the wolf I hadn't realized until now, that despite being all these things he only cared for the immediate future, something maybe I saw before but I hadn't seemed to matter seeing as a threat was present... But now's not the time. I'm bleeding, I’m stuck halfway in the middle of an unending hilly open field where the only shelter I could see was the very thing I sought to avoid. I'm drained enough to collapse but I can't... not yet, not now.
Turning, I am nearly
blinded by a streak of glare standing between the city and I, the leviathan
obscured by buildings. The glare is concentrated, like a signal mirror, frozen
at one position and reflected either nearby or in my eyes. Then suddenly the
glare moves in a swift arcing motion, almost like a wave and behind me I hear a
loud blast of air which blows toward me. The glare disappears, replaced by a
figure off in the distance who stares for a moment before turning away and
walking toward the city... a clothed figure.
There's only one person
it could be...
I turn back and to see a
hole where there shouldn't be, in thin air, white curling mist seeping out.
Could this be what I think it is? Could this be a way "home"?
Twisting my neck again back in the direction of the city I see she's gone.
Mercy? Spite? A trap? How can I answer?
Does it matter? My
options are few... so I'll dive.
Diving back into the haze of a fog was so easy now that it was there. It's less of a maze now, and more of a
hallway, the smoke curling and winding and curling and winding beneath and between my fingers as the air suffocated in the haze.
And it's lead led me...
It should have ended
there with a return to earth, everything turning out fine and I returning to my
normal life with tales of this strange dimension and proof but
no, apparently I don't deserve a happy ending... Apparently, god is
bitter like that.
My eyes opened and hurt
incredibly, like looking into the sun, which turned out to
be fluorescent lights in a hospital ceiling. Tubes, transparent tubes
running out of just about every orifice, a needle of a
less gentle kind in my vein pumping things inside and the feeling of waking up from bad sleep were all too surreal for their own good. The nurse was just outside and heard my struggling, she rushed in to help. Her scrubs were light blue, her skin was tanned and her face... was unimportant. She was the one to inform me that I had been in a coma for three years because of complications with a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor, her delivery cold, honest, brutal with only a hint of serious caring. This was just work to her and she made no attempts to hide it.
Several weeks of physical therapy went by before I could walk again, muscular atrophy is a bitch. Later I learned that most of my friends and family had moved away after I fell into the coma and every single one refused to pay for my stay so it all came out of my checkbook. Someone... I don't know who, had been kind enough to leave a large stuffed rabbit with a zipper in its back by my bedside. Opening it later revealed an ornate box, and inside that was my favorite gun: a revolver my niece had once painted over in a mix of yellow, pink and green one day in July. I remember not being able to get mad at her for it; it hadn't ruined the gun and it was strangely fitting for the white and blue paper targets I shot at on the range. She's gone now too... Hit by a drunk driver while playing in the driveway. God, I loved that little girl and I love my gun, it's becoming my only friend in the world against the magnetic whispers in the back of my mind. I made sure to take great pains to hide my friend from the prying eyes of the hospital staff.
Nobody believed that the things I had seen and felt were as real as they seemed, but how can you blame them when all the facts point to no more than a vivid coma dream? The days that went by proved that to me and me alone. My ruined financial status left me with less than a thousand dollars to my name, and all my possessions sold to help pay for my treatment... all except my clothes and the revolver. For a while I slept in a homeless shelter among other vagabonds, hiding my gun beneath my heavy brown leather jacket, seeing all that dirt and grit that we hide behind new coats of paint...
Memories and visions crept back in like a walnut in a man's lung. The black skies of Praecord... people, places, things, ideas I heard all around me all drawing connections to Praecord... And there she stood in the center of the cosmic mix that was my mind, reflecting any beams of light in the darkness to blind me. It couldn't leave me alone, none of it... It stayed there in the back of my mind, heckling at me. It was supposed to be over... IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OVER! But no, they still talk to me in my dreams... letters written and sent from across plains of reality in my dreams. Lay me down to sleep mama, let me hear the words of pieces from a world with no sun...
The Innocent:
"Pain… There are so many different kinds so far removed from one another it’s almost seems senseless to keep them all under one word. It’s because we don’t want it… What drew me here should have fled when it had the chance but it was brainless… brainless, blind, horrible, despicable, adorable, destructible, untrustable, unsociable, unbreakable, divisive, seductive, reclusive, elusive, deluded, end of all… So close my rose and yet so far from my prison as I fall apart, hiding myself from your eyes… hiding myself from my eyes… My Muse… my derailer… my friend… my victim… I victim... I innocent… You prepared in a field dressing… I criminal… you doe… you hunter… I prey… I lost… I’m lost… I’m tossed. I'm lost. I’m so horribly lost. Pathetic, blind, obsessed, vendetta, the bars of my cell can’t hold me without a shell of form… No golden lantern to shine a way out as I rot before my eyes I cannot sleep, I cannot rest, I cannot relax, I cannot even delude MYSELF ANYMORE as that’s when the worms crawl inside my brainandgiggleas theyeatme fromtheinside. I want it more than anything, but none the means or time. Pieces betray THE VERY FLESH THEY CLING TO for utility or waste away. WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO SEE the cloudy fog before my eyes with the straw man lying pretty in the center of this plain of rotting hay. I have no crimenorrhymeorreasontrappedforevernomattertheseason…
Aphid… Aphid… I can hear your silent, tortured whispers even now… Deaf I still hear them… Lobotomized my mind still clings to you… empty shell I still feel you… Oh god if I could only still touch you I would rend the flesh from your chrome bones while I lick your brain clean of the filth that covers me now in my cobweb hollow. Cometomemyrose, fadeintothedarknessofmyabyss,myribknifeawaitsthenectarinyourneck. It's all running together... "7 years bad luck is worth 4 years of torment." Shelved, I spoiled, trapped I toiled… and now the audience watches as the decayed yet undying missionary goes to kill its god.
Several weeks of physical therapy went by before I could walk again, muscular atrophy is a bitch. Later I learned that most of my friends and family had moved away after I fell into the coma and every single one refused to pay for my stay so it all came out of my checkbook. Someone... I don't know who, had been kind enough to leave a large stuffed rabbit with a zipper in its back by my bedside. Opening it later revealed an ornate box, and inside that was my favorite gun: a revolver my niece had once painted over in a mix of yellow, pink and green one day in July. I remember not being able to get mad at her for it; it hadn't ruined the gun and it was strangely fitting for the white and blue paper targets I shot at on the range. She's gone now too... Hit by a drunk driver while playing in the driveway. God, I loved that little girl and I love my gun, it's becoming my only friend in the world against the magnetic whispers in the back of my mind. I made sure to take great pains to hide my friend from the prying eyes of the hospital staff.
Nobody believed that the things I had seen and felt were as real as they seemed, but how can you blame them when all the facts point to no more than a vivid coma dream? The days that went by proved that to me and me alone. My ruined financial status left me with less than a thousand dollars to my name, and all my possessions sold to help pay for my treatment... all except my clothes and the revolver. For a while I slept in a homeless shelter among other vagabonds, hiding my gun beneath my heavy brown leather jacket, seeing all that dirt and grit that we hide behind new coats of paint...
Memories and visions crept back in like a walnut in a man's lung. The black skies of Praecord... people, places, things, ideas I heard all around me all drawing connections to Praecord... And there she stood in the center of the cosmic mix that was my mind, reflecting any beams of light in the darkness to blind me. It couldn't leave me alone, none of it... It stayed there in the back of my mind, heckling at me. It was supposed to be over... IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OVER! But no, they still talk to me in my dreams... letters written and sent from across plains of reality in my dreams. Lay me down to sleep mama, let me hear the words of pieces from a world with no sun...
The Innocent:
"Pain… There are so many different kinds so far removed from one another it’s almost seems senseless to keep them all under one word. It’s because we don’t want it… What drew me here should have fled when it had the chance but it was brainless… brainless, blind, horrible, despicable, adorable, destructible, untrustable, unsociable, unbreakable, divisive, seductive, reclusive, elusive, deluded, end of all… So close my rose and yet so far from my prison as I fall apart, hiding myself from your eyes… hiding myself from my eyes… My Muse… my derailer… my friend… my victim… I victim... I innocent… You prepared in a field dressing… I criminal… you doe… you hunter… I prey… I lost… I’m lost… I’m tossed. I'm lost. I’m so horribly lost. Pathetic, blind, obsessed, vendetta, the bars of my cell can’t hold me without a shell of form… No golden lantern to shine a way out as I rot before my eyes I cannot sleep, I cannot rest, I cannot relax, I cannot even delude MYSELF ANYMORE as that’s when the worms crawl inside my brainandgiggleas theyeatme fromtheinside. I want it more than anything, but none the means or time. Pieces betray THE VERY FLESH THEY CLING TO for utility or waste away. WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO SEE the cloudy fog before my eyes with the straw man lying pretty in the center of this plain of rotting hay. I have no crimenorrhymeorreasontrappedforevernomattertheseason…
Aphid… Aphid… I can hear your silent, tortured whispers even now… Deaf I still hear them… Lobotomized my mind still clings to you… empty shell I still feel you… Oh god if I could only still touch you I would rend the flesh from your chrome bones while I lick your brain clean of the filth that covers me now in my cobweb hollow. Cometomemyrose, fadeintothedarknessofmyabyss,myribknifeawaitsthenectarinyourneck. It's all running together... "7 years bad luck is worth 4 years of torment." Shelved, I spoiled, trapped I toiled… and now the audience watches as the decayed yet undying missionary goes to kill its god.
The Central:
Even if I run they will find me… the scarring may be too
great and it’s likely too late. The things that I’ve suppressed the nudges I’ve
repressed always waiting in dark places… My brain pulling away at itself... I don’t know what I want nor truly
need and it… tortures me, keeps me in a rack while I’m pulled till I snap, and
self-destruct. They advise me against who I am, they are me but they are not. I
fear the urge to kill or even to harm one sooo close. Just the worst of days at
the best of times for me to finally face myself and collapse...To finally collapse... Pulling myself apart, hoping the
pieces don’t fit into the other clockwork heart lieing in a barrel by the trainstation. Lay me down to sleep, so
broken and beat… hoping to never awaken to find one of my halves has taken
control. I’ll try to hold control boss, but the scraps of what you got lefta’
you ain’t holdin these two together very well.
All for an easier life… All for an easier life… All for an easier life…
All for an easier lie… All for an easier lie. All for an easier lie.
The Red Eyed Wolf:
Morning left me with no ends to the cacophony in my brain... there was no other way; I was liable to hurt someone if I didn't deal with this. I had to go back to that place that horrible, intriguing, necessary, confused, evolving place named Praecord. This will never ever, never leave, never degrade, never hide itself, and always looking at me with its eyes from the corner. Things must be done, pieces of myself avenged, questions answered... Setting out on a walk, a walk about town trying to find the only place I could count on sending me back into that twisted plane of existence. The unpainted bits of gun shined under my coat, fingers fondling the small faded cardboard box of bullets beneath my sleeve. October air cold, sidewalks the pale color you grow up to know them to be as I take what may be my final looks at the world around me. Staring into shop windows, mirrors and other bits that give off a clear and unfiltered reflection I'm struggling to suppress the urge to smash or dent them. They just remind me too much of Aphid...
The sun is shining in that morning way it does, the few birds in this dusty little town are tweeting, and I can't enjoy a single blessed second of it due to the thoughts of her. Could things possibly have been different? Why was I such a coward? Was the interest ever even there? Why do I feel like such a child in a man's body? The questions wouldn't stop, no matter how hard I tried...
I don't think this place could possibly be for me... I could care less about who was seen as now unfit for his position because of public shaming and moral outrage, the values of things that should be common sense, the straw man arguments formed by opposing sides to make the fight easier, nor the masses who shout the coming of a 1984-esq dystopia from oposite masters while their own bigwigs with smokescreens good enough to hide their wrongdoings setup the frame for their own dystopia of hypocritical agendas. All this screaming and no action behind it... But what am I but a hypocrite to that as well? I'd like to see you push a power line pole a mile without removing it from the ground or tipping it over. But I digress, all of this is pointless to argue about...
The trees across the street, all the lower branches cut down that obscured only a blank wall. The smell of the trees in the wind briefly showed me an alternate path I had at several times seen... A path of freedom and friendship in nature, one of the one who sees pleasure in the simpler things, who sneaks out at night to talk to strangers by campfire mostly alone but sometimes with a companion... one "Clarisse Mclean" and a convict from another world. A child of the night who saw beyond the stacks of paper, the plaster, the green strips of paper and the lies we tell to ourselves silently at night so we have reason to get up in the morning. They are an extinct kind now gone in our world of houses partially covered in vines for that "rustic look" in rural areas because we're too lazy to choose between the sterile clean and living like wolves in our world covered by screens that will burn our eyes faster than a lifetime of taking glances at the sun. A world of the blind, a world of the vapid, of the apathetic lazy and self-indulgent masses hiding their eyes from those without the means to live such a life. That dystopia future is here and now ladies and gentlemen! You want to try to survive a zombie apocalypse? Try to be an individual in a crowd and not feel hurt into conforming by the looks they give you or the words they send your way. I need to go back. I need to find a place so simplistic and yet so impact-ful as Praecord... even if it means it may be a one way trip.
I arrive at the steps of the ramshackle church, abandoned by most these days and kept alive by a devoted few attacked by those punching a straw man formed of mentally unstable half a world away flying under the banner. The cold steel of the revolver feels real in my hand... real unlike most is to me when my feeling is this numbed. I prepare the revolver and kneel down at the steps of the church... they'll accept just about anyone with regards to common sense, but I need not the church nor the man who may be watching from above. The cold steel of the muzzle I press to my forehead, the tip of the gun then moved to the spot between where my nose joins to my forehead and the corner of my eye. I stare up at the clouds for a brief moment... The strike of my left palm spins the cylinder and after it stops I count down, pulling back the hammer and pulling the trigger as the cylinder rotates.
"One." *click*
"Two." *click*
"Three." *click*
"Four." *click*
"Five." *click*
"Six."
----------------
.
.
.
Don’t
give me paper vipe… You know the score. You know the reason I’m here and you
don’t questions about what I do to keep you alive. I bailed your ass out, a
convict on the run from the law. She touched you in a way you can’t take back
and as retaliation is a rule of survival, I will end her for what she did to
you. I’m far from dead and so are you... WHY
DO YOU CALL HER A FRIEND?!?!?! JUST LET ME END HER!!! I CAN’T HURT YOU SO LET
ME HURT HER!!! What’s so hard about that? What’s so hard about understanding
that I can’t let you slip into the crevice you want to slip into? What’s so
hard about making her hit hard concrete? What’s so hard about seeing that life
is all that matters? What is so hard with letting me do what I am made to do?
Cut the leash boy…
I’ll
make it all better. Force is something everything understands, from the rocks
to the trees to the birds and the bees…
Sin
and Guilt are only words child… open your eyes and see the great farce that you
unwittingly played a part in… After the first few messy ones you’ll stop
caring for the masses of pulp that perpetuate the lie below your feet.
Morning left me with no ends to the cacophony in my brain... there was no other way; I was liable to hurt someone if I didn't deal with this. I had to go back to that place that horrible, intriguing, necessary, confused, evolving place named Praecord. This will never ever, never leave, never degrade, never hide itself, and always looking at me with its eyes from the corner. Things must be done, pieces of myself avenged, questions answered... Setting out on a walk, a walk about town trying to find the only place I could count on sending me back into that twisted plane of existence. The unpainted bits of gun shined under my coat, fingers fondling the small faded cardboard box of bullets beneath my sleeve. October air cold, sidewalks the pale color you grow up to know them to be as I take what may be my final looks at the world around me. Staring into shop windows, mirrors and other bits that give off a clear and unfiltered reflection I'm struggling to suppress the urge to smash or dent them. They just remind me too much of Aphid...
The sun is shining in that morning way it does, the few birds in this dusty little town are tweeting, and I can't enjoy a single blessed second of it due to the thoughts of her. Could things possibly have been different? Why was I such a coward? Was the interest ever even there? Why do I feel like such a child in a man's body? The questions wouldn't stop, no matter how hard I tried...
I don't think this place could possibly be for me... I could care less about who was seen as now unfit for his position because of public shaming and moral outrage, the values of things that should be common sense, the straw man arguments formed by opposing sides to make the fight easier, nor the masses who shout the coming of a 1984-esq dystopia from oposite masters while their own bigwigs with smokescreens good enough to hide their wrongdoings setup the frame for their own dystopia of hypocritical agendas. All this screaming and no action behind it... But what am I but a hypocrite to that as well? I'd like to see you push a power line pole a mile without removing it from the ground or tipping it over. But I digress, all of this is pointless to argue about...
The trees across the street, all the lower branches cut down that obscured only a blank wall. The smell of the trees in the wind briefly showed me an alternate path I had at several times seen... A path of freedom and friendship in nature, one of the one who sees pleasure in the simpler things, who sneaks out at night to talk to strangers by campfire mostly alone but sometimes with a companion... one "Clarisse Mclean" and a convict from another world. A child of the night who saw beyond the stacks of paper, the plaster, the green strips of paper and the lies we tell to ourselves silently at night so we have reason to get up in the morning. They are an extinct kind now gone in our world of houses partially covered in vines for that "rustic look" in rural areas because we're too lazy to choose between the sterile clean and living like wolves in our world covered by screens that will burn our eyes faster than a lifetime of taking glances at the sun. A world of the blind, a world of the vapid, of the apathetic lazy and self-indulgent masses hiding their eyes from those without the means to live such a life. That dystopia future is here and now ladies and gentlemen! You want to try to survive a zombie apocalypse? Try to be an individual in a crowd and not feel hurt into conforming by the looks they give you or the words they send your way. I need to go back. I need to find a place so simplistic and yet so impact-ful as Praecord... even if it means it may be a one way trip.
I arrive at the steps of the ramshackle church, abandoned by most these days and kept alive by a devoted few attacked by those punching a straw man formed of mentally unstable half a world away flying under the banner. The cold steel of the revolver feels real in my hand... real unlike most is to me when my feeling is this numbed. I prepare the revolver and kneel down at the steps of the church... they'll accept just about anyone with regards to common sense, but I need not the church nor the man who may be watching from above. The cold steel of the muzzle I press to my forehead, the tip of the gun then moved to the spot between where my nose joins to my forehead and the corner of my eye. I stare up at the clouds for a brief moment... The strike of my left palm spins the cylinder and after it stops I count down, pulling back the hammer and pulling the trigger as the cylinder rotates.
"One." *click*
"Two." *click*
"Three." *click*
"Four." *click*
"Five." *click*
"Six."
----------------
"Where
have I been all this time?
Lost,
enslaved, fatal decline
I've been
waiting for this to unfold, but
The
pieces are only as good as the whole...
Severed
myself from my own life
Cut out
the only thing that was right...
What If I
never saw you again?"
-Slipknot "Danger;
Keep Away"
Was I ever, even a friend?
It is not
over, as every story regardless of if the audience sees it or not, has an epilogue.
The
story is not over my friend...
