Below, a river flows. A river.
I have fallen for many years.
How many have taken this journey that I have taken?
How long can I last?
The void opens as I walk on, my consternation becoming palpable as sweat forms on my brow, licking my face and picking up dirt from my face, leaving streaks, streaks of bloody worry and anxiety.
Who can say what humans are here for? Humans. It’s all so utterly useless. I gaze around. Nothing much has changed. Nothing much. Humans….Who can take this path? We’re not here to be important. A damn afterthought of the immortal.
Something drips down from the ceiling. I glance up. I’m going to glance up now.
Something ahead grabs my attention.
Something behind.
No.
Something ahead of me.
The void forms into an understandable shape, the complete blackness forming into lighter inky shades, into the aquiline petals of a rose. I finally see what I’m walking in. There’s a black reflection on the liquid I’m treading through, each step sending oily ripples, as if what I’m stepping in is reluctant to let me go.
It’s raining.
Wait. What?
It’s raining.
I gaze up as the rain taps persistently against my face. Let me sigh. I go on my knees, chest deep in the river. So good. It feels so good. I open my mouth, letting it seep through cracked skin and the debris and detritus of disgusting remnants of what I’ve crawled, treaded, crawled through.
Water. Mm…
I cough. No. This isn’t water. A slightly metallic odor pervades my mouth, filling me with immense, disgust and panic. My heart beats loudly, drumbeats against the symphony of the ever flowing river. Coughing. Coughing.
I vomit, throwing my empty stomach against my mouth. Nothing to come out, to explode out in the fury of the emotion we call disgust, the primal instinct that protects us from infection and disease.
Blood! It was…..always blood!
The Unfolding rose of the void explodes, the petals forming into shards that scream EPIPHANY! EPIPHANY! EPIPHANY! EPIPHANY! Before ramming into my body in bloody glory.
I tremble, filled with so many conflicting emotions that I cannot bear it. Humans, we fragile vessels of the world! Oh pity, pity!
The maelstrom of Destruction and Pity unfolds around me, wrapping it’s smoky tendrils of Masochism around me, enfolding me in it’s loving embrace.
My heart quickly beats it’s tempo, as an insane maestro, conducting the dreadful Void as it proclaims my glory. Listen! You have achieved Epiphany! Listen, you are at Glory! You know the Truth, the dreadful truth! Look above you, my friend!
My heart rips savagely from it’s fragile container, ripping apart my rib cage as it drops uselessly beneath the current.
I glance above, keening and screaming, my face a death mask, in an unimaginable rictus of agony. I howl and scream even louder as I realize what the petals are composed of.
Thousands of bodies, weaved into the politely formed petals of the beautiful rose, all roiling as if a day on the angry sea would be like, howling, an honor guard for my doom!
Come join us!
Conjoin yourself! The bodies slowly, terribly fold, creating a vacant area for me, a place of honor!
You’ve made it so far! You, in all your glory! You FOOL! Who are you to think that this is a great ordeal! You blasted FOOL! Oh, and oh, the giggling irony! Who would have thought, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT! Here you go, your worthless enlightenment! The Honorable realization you so craved! You and the millions of others! Here, join us! You’ve attained it! Your honorable place in society! Here, it’s worthless! COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!
Screams, echoey and wavering, abruptly stop as my throat blisters and melts, sliding down my chest, as my heart grows claws that rip and burrow into my body. My stomach erupts, forming hot blistery acids that crawl and slither, deforming my body.
No!!! No! NO! It can’t…..
Just a dream! Please!
I’m a fool, no….
I fall, submerged inside the blood of millions, as above me a million eyes look two million ways.
And in these final moments, I gaze squarely into the void through a sheet of black glass, and the void gazes back filling me with the kind of terrible dark intensity reserved for the mad or the divinely inspired, and right now….I realize that there’s little difference.
Below me, a river flows...
The Devil's Alternate
The cracked skull rolls desolately to my feet.
The dreadful sadness rolls over me like a thick drape,
In a dim, suffocating theater, pitch black.
Feeling omitted from life.
My enemy is killing me, I want to surrender,
To play the martyr...
My enemy is my best friend
But I can't just tell him to leave
My hate for myself is all I have going.
The suffocating sadness
And a million eyes looking two million ways
Losing communication...
Satanic ways, cults, no longer needed.
To walk into such a life, bogged down into a horrible marsh of life.
I am evil incarnate, no longer so pure,
The Devil’s alternate.
And I look up,
Through my tear stained face,
And ask….
“Is this what you really wanted?”
Apart
Above me is the twilight, filled with the stars.
Nature’s wonders, shining so bright.
Little wonder that they are actually the fruit of our labors.
Heavy ordinance streaks the sky,
the only one hurt,
the only one left,
is I.
The Aftermath
Up till last year, you could see their corpses in the meadows. You could go from the remnants of the tollbooths on the highway straight down to the meadows. They were already in the late stages of decomposition, broken humerus bones pointing every which way, like broken spears in the aftermath of an ancient battle. I would walk around them, until the diseased and speckled grass retreated to form winding paths around every corpse. And that’s where I found my secret. Contained within ten yards, under a curious Oak tree, grass had already long ago surrendered to my feet and knees. But I was considerate. I would walk among them all, the four meadows divided by bramble and thicket. In the winter, the poisonous snow would suffer the same fate as the grass. I visited each one, talking, making sure no one was left out. And on summer evenings, after my daily rounds, I would gaze back upon this scene of carnage. Everyone was now at peace, no longer suffering, no longer able to gaze upon the fruit of their labors. As the toxic rain would fall, drenching me and liquefying my clothes, I marveled at how it no longer hurt. Physical pain was a dull throb, something that my abnormal calluses and sores could withstand. But it can’t compare to the emotional pain within. As the sicknesses come and ebb, I don’t sigh with relief. Death is a spouse that refuses to visit. With every sickness, I feel Death’s kiss upon my cheek, not fully providing me with the liberation I so desire. And even the meadows and fields have now escaped. The small pink backpacks, the clothes, the military hardware that has fused to the ground, all are gone now. The bleached white bones, my companions, among them. And now I feel what it is like to be truly alone.
I remember the harrowing dangers of that day.
Everyone had exited the cars when the EMP bombs had arced through the sky. Since then, the only electric things working were the military cars along the highway and the soldier’s gleaming visors. People were sinuously gathering in front of the lines of soldiers, pushing, all wanting to get to safety, the perceived safety just behind the soldiers and their guns. Most by then, had given up. My family included. My father unpacked the lunch we had brought, while I wandered of towards the line of soldiers on the highway. Everywhere there was the taste of fear, the stink as it flowed from everyone’s pores. The United Nations was losing the war. First to go had been the British Isles, with the fury of nuclear warheads. Then Northern Africa, the Virgin and Midway Islands, Mexico, Japan, and Israel. All shattered. The gears of a terrible machine, a beast of war was demolishing the pinnacles of prosperity and justice formed over the millennia by man. This combined with the inherent qualities of mankind itself. Division was assured, the quarrels at first petty. But we are too proud to let someone tarnish our ruined emotions. We let the fruit of our labors fly, the manifestation of our collective evil settling on the planet. I remember the planes flying overhead, their terrible children dropping from their open wombs. And watched as we were torn apart. And I torn from them. Those stars. Racing towards me. Eternally shattering my skies.
It’s late autumn now. The deformed trunks of the trees greedily gather frost as cold sets in. My secret is gone. We are gone. From us. Sometimes, matters are not there to be understood. But we’re not worried. We wont be divided very soon.
Before me, the aquiline petals of the rose you left me is held loosely in my fingers. I gaze inside, perhaps pondering on the many memories we’ve created. None real. None false. What many falsities we create to make one real. You’re not here. Then, neither am I.
It is beautiful this winter. The gray snow is falling thickly enough that the incinerated city cannot be seen. The cratered farmlands look healed and tranquil as carpets of pernicious snow blanket them. And I am changed because of the snow, each denatured crystal blanketing and healing my festering sores. Nuclear autumn has it’s own beauty. I’m lying down, letting my sores be alleviated by the snow. But the earth has no answer for the festering sore inside of me, screaming at the iniquity of it all. Close my eyes, let the poison flow from my body. Eternal slumber for those left behind.
…
I can finally sleep now.