Below me, a river flows...

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.