The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Here the days pass by like years. The snow always gently falling, but never accumulating beyond a set level. The sun occasionally breaks through, shedding a small bit of life over a place severely drenched in anti-life. Breathing is like doing so inside the corpse of a collapsing star, and all the while, the skin never darkens. We stand as pale as ghosts here, in a way, I suppose, rightfully so, for we are far more touched by the hand of death and sorrow, than by that of joy and life. When the sun shines here, it is more of a mockery of how things are and how they should be. But it’s getting colder, the sun is setting, and the snow is losing its glow, the sky no longer sparkles.



I only have my brother and my instrument here, and in some way, the screams. Day after day I sit, and compose, here at this piano, the pain of living released by my fingers through sound. In the distance, below me, I can always here the screams and moans. The final gasps of agony as the breath of life escapes another. Note after note, chord after chord, melancholy fills the air, as it pours from me. In the past, perhaps a laugh, that of a small child or a loving father, could be heard in these walls; but not now, no...not now.



I lost compassion for these people, for the very gift of life, so long ago. The screams are numb to me now, the looks of helplessness and pain in their eyes bring no feeling. The only feeling that runs through me is regret. Regret of so many choices passed by, so many chances looked over. Love lost in the streams of time. I can hear my brother playing as he does, endlessly, upstairs. His playing is that of a score for this. I suppose really, there is no reason for what happens here. No vengeance, no greater purpose, and certainly, no nobility. No bias in choice, a person from every walk of life has been graced by the end of me, by us. A mother, a father, children, old, young, sick, healthy, they all come here. In essence, we are more than we once were, in another, far less.



The sun now gone, the once visible pictures are black with shadows. This place lit only by the candle before me. It’s being without elegance or beauty. Only a simple mold of wax and wick. A think that for life, its purpose is small, yet even so, more needed than most. For a moment, I cease playing, for, the sound beneath me has stopped. Looking down to my age worn hands, the only audible sound is that of the outside wind. Light at times, gusting at others, the room stays cold. For so long it has been untouched by the warmth of life.



A new one before me, a new life. So small, so young. A child who’s shy look could bring the most vile being to warmth. Her soft green eyes are scared, her lip quivers from moment to moment. Her hair visible as auburn even in the dim lighting of this room. At the edges, water is beginning to form. Her bottom lip dropping exposing a mouth slightly empty of teeth. Above, as if knowing, brother begins to play again. The little girl before me is shaking. Nowhere to run, her eyes are now overflowing; a pain beginning to seep into me. The music above sombre in a way I have never known before, the pain here is rare. The girl can’t speak, only whimpers are heard. Moving forward, blade in my hand, I can feel a tear of my own slip through, and hit the cold floor. As her blood begins to trickle down, as the slow cuts are made, her screams aren’t that of adults, something weaker, a more bawling involved, something that I’m pained to hear.



I can feel the pain he feels through her. This one a life ceased in a way almost too tragic to comprehend. Tears of my own fall to the keys below, evaporating in the light of the candle. Its presence to that which holds life capable of heat beyond description, but to those that have flown from the mortal coil, as cold as ice from a frozen hell. The screams heard from there, could tear a soul loose from its bearings, the pain within too much to hold.



Even after the screams, the true death is beheld. The ending of mortal life and snaking into the second death that comes, the first must be shown. Even through my tear filled eyes, the image is clear. An empty rotting room, windows covered in filth, the outside cold and grey. Dead trees line the brown horizon as the sun passes few glances on its downward fall. The little girls eyes are now my own, as well as my brothers. Together we look out, a man standing overhead, his face dirty, his appearance brutal. His belt of his pants undone, urine stained boxers exposed, they seemingly seem ready to fall at the slightest movement. In one hand, coiled barb-wire reaches to the floor, in the other, a stake. The child’s whimpers echo throughout the room, on occasion broken by the heaving grunts of a greased monster. Eyes empty and shallow, hair disheveled and balding, body un-cared for and exposed. A whisk with a flash of brown and the pants fall to the floor, a movement of the clubbed hand and the boxers follow suit. Phallus exposed, his grunts now drown the air. Jerking forward her frail body, the grunts grow more violent and frequent. The horrendous of his half naked body sends a putrid repulsiveness vibrating through the air. A cry is emitted on impact and met with a violent lash of the club. Slightly stunned she begins to weep, tears rolling down onto the rotting mattress. A final thrust and a look of relief and accomplishment drowns his face. Looking down, there’s still no light in those eyes. Reaching forward with the barb-wire covered hand, he begins to wrap it around her throat. Blood trickles out to the mattress below, only matched in intensity by a different wound, savagely torn by this bastard. Breath begins to come shorter and shorter as the barb-wire tightens and cuts deeper. Taking his end he pulls up, the child near dead now, naked and exposed before him, dangling on this metal wire. Walking to the edge of the room, his pants still at his feet, he wraps the loose edge around the closet rail. Alone and dangling, the final gurgles of life escape as her eyes lose focus. Grunting again, the man turns, and with pulling his pants back up to proper place, he exits the room, the final rays of light and life escaping over the horizon.



Standing now before her, her bleeding body nothing more than a tossed aside rag-doll, my brother looks at me. Moving toward her, I gently raise my left hand and close her tear swollen and bloodshot eyes, the pain of this life now gone from them. My brother turns and leaves, and with a look around, we are back where we began. The girl’s crumpled and bleeding body lies on the floor before me. A second death to match the one in life, I despise what I am, what we have become.



The candle has burned itself down, and with it, the first rays of morning begin to seep through these aged and webbed windows. The music at my hands has stopped. With it, I stand, and move toward the picture previously hidden in darkness. An old and fading image, the only one that hangs on these walls. Fold marks running rampant, the image is black and white, and old home, in an older time. Two boys, twins and smiling, their father, grim faced. Dressed alike, with the boys blonde and the father of a darker brown. The father unshaven to an extent, lean, and tall. The ones thrown away to the mess of time. Here now, this hollow un-life, something between one life and the next.



I’m drawn to the piano again as below, a moan can be heard, another era of pain before us.

Broken rays of half-hearted grace adorn the smothered summer drapery, falling as whispers to the leaf-laden ground. There is dread in the air, something beyond the reach that words can grasp, but beneath the sweltering weight of the humidity, a roaring can be heard. Something is ahead, hidden beneath the overlapping hues of brown and green. Audience to the descent of something recent, the broken limbs that line my path lead to my inevitable end.



Festering in rot the roar I hear is that of flies. Here nestled so far away from the lines of humanity is a beaten and abandoned truck. Against the shattered back window blood is patterned in the shape of butterfly wings. A vibrant black nebula of conscious time, moving at its quickest to make us forget the happening here; inside is the wilting body of a man forgotten. Beneath the veil the blood provides pieces of face and mind are spread about the cabin. A shotgun lies in the floorboard, covered in that much like everything else here; a grin is smeared across the remaining stub of a head, pointed absently toward the sky. Blood drips from the cracked and cheap leather seats to pools and waiting insects below; a swarm of offspring from the flies makes the sea of itself known between the tattered and frayed edges of clothing. I know this body. Something is closer than perhaps I am capable of realising.



The sky has clouded with monstrous forms of white and grey. A signal of the onslaught to come lightly graces across my cheek. This has happened before; I can remember this all too well. Cleansing moments of heaven’s stare will not last against the blood here, thicker than time with eternity in its sight. These cold momentary releases from the world at hand are blurring out in digital gaze. Damnation in falling, their screams will be forever unheard.



This is something that must be revisited. That night in sequence with eternity. My gateway to that point is clear; this pool of water reflects everything of the world above, still untainted by the blood that runs deep within the ground. And so I fall.



To a world unknown however is not the case. Materialising before an enigma is what was known would occur, and it is so. A Providence home screams of its occupants torment and misery, itself given away to the decay time brings us all. The beginning tempest I left is here replaced by another in full swing.



Above, the swirling mass stays clear of the eclipsing moon; all starlight gone from the sky tonight. But outside the inner circle the tears of angels create an almost impermeable wall of water, soaking everything within through to its very essence. The soft glow of the single light beside the house is the only indication of direction in this darkness. Heat is suffocating everything beneath the blistering negation of this unborn sun; there is no lightning from those clouds which can produce light; only within me is there any natural light that burns beyond the barriers.



Removed from the rain brief respite is brought by the falling porch roof; here taking moments to let something other than the rain soak in. The woods here long since given to the throws of decay are softened by the rain in their protest to my steps. The front door, caked in rust and neglect, shakes violently with each new gust of wind. Across the floor before the door welcome is broken up in faded letters, mud dripping from edges, pooling and falling through the spaces between the boards.



Pushing past its weakened state, the door gives way to a tomb-like kitchen. Soiled dishes and cabinets, nuances of all surround in a surreal grey glow. Small bodies of motion scamper through the shadows, precursors to the greater beings within; those very beings displayed here in a photograph on the wall.



Sepia toned and fading at the edges; two stand alone before this home on a much brighter day; eyes peering and minds aflame in wonder, the sonic weight of silence here is almost too much to bear. Deafening in its onslaught I can feel the breath of deities unseen crawling across the back of my neck; the hairs risen, each dancing to a separate cosmic rhythm from the rest. Placing a hand against the wall, screams overtake all other aural streams, bleeding out into hushed tears and groans.



The stilted sounds of sliding flesh are masked by whisper of nails against cloth. It is too much to take, too much to see from here. I remove my hand, and through the darkness, begin my ascension of the stairs in the corner, to the awaiting abyss above.



With each step closer to Heaven, solemn cries resonate deeper and sharper to ear. Breath fills the air, acrid in its taste and burning in its wake. The wood that makes up the walls are becoming progressively worse in their state of deterioration. Breaking onto jagged edges, they catch the tips of fingers; drawing out into the air fresh samples of life force to drip across the railing.



Incessant creaking; voices of steel pain slithering through the air like meat hooks into my brain. Grunts overlap sobs, a symphony of misery and cum orchestrated out before me. This act underneath the desolate rays cast down from outside, is that of bodies bending in twisted unity. Beds of sweat that glimmer in sync with the breaths their owner takes; shadows cast over these whitened bodies; the air intensifying with the repetition of each cycle.



The grunts are becoming deeper: the motion quicker; but above all is the deafening impact from the smacking of him against her skin. Pulsating against the clammy textures the mucous covered and un-sterilised world her sanctity provides; she is made his by submission of will. He is pushing even harder now; the smacking, the fucking smacking, maddening in its droning. Everything in this resonant Hell is beginning to slow, the aural impact of his testicles against her pushing the lines of sanity that humanity often holds. Her cries scream out above this here and now. This is too much. Too much for her to take. Even with every instance before it, it still hurts like the first time. Even in darkness, everything is clear as day now. Beneath the drops of sweat that fall from the tip of his nose to her face, she is looking up, remembering everything before. Each and every day locked away behind cold smiles, waiting for the torture each night will bring. All those nights peering up behind tear masked eyes into what hope that night will bring. Only the trembling of her body is audible now; removing himself the primordial silver damnation drips against the torn sheets. Appeased sighs find their way to life above the sobs that pour from within her; naked before the light outside, the stench of his motion burning at my insides.

In his exit, her inhibitions to cry lessen, and mournful sobs fill the stagnant air. Here in her nakedness is something barely beyond that of a child, left to carry the sickness of humanity inside of her; weakling pulling her legs together, she rolls onto her left side. A Small pool is beginning to form beneath the open wound on the bed; it is in this place and state that I will relieve her of her agony, release her to the light that has always been just out of reach.



But I cannot help but find restraint in my forward descent. Those eyes are open before me, veiled in misty sheets of glimmered hope. Hope that today the sun will rise for her too; that every moment it burns so brilliantly will not be an everlasting reminder of the Hell she has to live, so it will not be a reminder of the crippling fires of agony that rage inside of her with every unwanted embrace, for every violation. The rain outside has ceased; only the solemn tears of misery embodied fall. Small streams smoothly marked across her cheeks. I cannot deny the hope those tears hold: that someday a saviour will come.



Distorted sound pours from elsewhere here; drowned out and garbled somewhere a radio sings low of past perfection. Inevitable collapse is at hand: I must hurry. Placing a hand across her face, I press down, creating a gentle coverage of suction denying entrance or deliverance of air from her body. She shakes harder, body convulsing, struggling for air; but only instinctually. She will not resist the end: she welcomes this. And so after a few moments of whispered revolt, movement ceases, and the rain resumes. Looking down, there is a look of euphoric escape on her face: her mouth frozen in that of a content glance; a few loose strands of dark hair spread unevenly across her eyes Reaching down, I close them, granting them the sleep free of nightmares they have always been denied.



With turning away from this release a cold air flows through; it is toward the tortured sound that destination awaits. The boards are silent, the walls cynical observers to something they were long ago desensitised to; open doors and twilight shines from within this negated sun.



Broken gospel hymns crackle forth from the aged and battered radio, aural landscape to which these dreams and nightmares are scored, to this which his own futile dream is about to end. The only window is boarded up, sounds of the weather outside seeping through; the walls tattered and torn of paper that was once radiantly proud. But here and now, the only feeling in the air is that of shame, for themselves as unmoving observers, and for this fleshly mass they know as master.



A soiled wool blanket covers most of him, his upper chest and head still visible, balding and wrinkled in its age, stubble lines both his face and uppermost edges of head. He, like the girl, is unclothed here, though his, I can assume, status is by choice. So frail and stretched, his skin barely hangs from his ancient bones; so much is his decay; so much, it seems, is here on his end.



Beneath the cover, a mound has risen, standing tall in a place where it finds itself safe. From my finger tips, the edge of claw-like blades begin to rise; their purpose one of vengeance and absolute malice. Reaching I beneath the covers the phallus is within my reach, ready to be seized. Light is beginning to trickle down from within my eyes, the burning seas of rage beginning to churn within.



Stretching the fingers out a final time focus is met and the hand clamps down around the skin. Blood immediately clouds the former mound of cover as his point of joy is obliterated underneath my strength. He is awaken and rising to scream, but is met with a heavy sideways fist to his chest, snapping the brittle bones inside instantly; this blow sending him back, broken winded and unable to scream. The sound of sliding flesh and bursting veins peak over the distortion of the radio; its tone changed to that of a slow burning collapse. He is capable only of painfully grunting, his body violently convulsing beneath this fountain that was once his groin. Release the massacred mesh of veins and flesh my hand finds itself free, dripping with strained strands of blood and moment of release urine. Light is pouring from my eyes, as my non-bladed hand grabs hold of the insolent fuck’s neck; revealing in the light blood streaming down from his eyes like inverted tears. His eyes are filmed over; his teeth grinding together, ready to burst under the pressure. To free the cycle and end all of this a finger from the bladed hand is quickly run across the throat, sending a silent spray of red glory into the still air. This shower of blood inside flows in rhythm with the distortion of nature the radio brings. So as the radio begins to skip out and cut away, so does this world begin to fall to pieces around me.



Back to the present, the wood once calm with the cleansing nature of rain is now aflame. Blood is raining down along side fiery stones from the sky; far off to the east, the very foundation of Heaven lies in ruin, burning in ashen release. Inside this burning corpse of a vehicle, my memory hath returned to me, and this face that puzzled me so, I realise is mine.

“Can you feel it?” her voice a soft murmur between the downpour sheets.

-Pleasant would be an understatement I am afraid. Almost as low.

“I would be happy if everything stopped rigt here, this moment crystallised.”

-If I did not know that it could only get better, I would agree with you. With these words my arms wrap themselves tightly around her.

These voices, hers and mine, cease beneath the gentle onslaught of a pre-dawn shower. The air is cool and the world outside finds itself under a thin layer of orange distortion from the street light. But beyond being lost in the world, I am lost in my intoxication in her; graceful undulation of spectral rays portrayed solely as scents, the skin a texture that simply melts underneath the fingers. Everything in this moment a soft haze of euphoric release; and with it, everything is fading to the ambient score, sweet digital gaze: surreal envelopment now surround.

***

Silent snow. Gentle falls of words through facets transparent. Words are failing. Tempers are searing. Those that are barely beyond that of the primordial are ruled by that barely beyond themselves. Conflict. None understand in this vapid crawl. Futile continuation. FUTILE. Soft realisation. Sweet revelation. It is deafening. The weight. The anticipation. Slow beneath the pale. Dissolution in the face of obliteration. Signal down.

***

A turn of the wheel and so I stand within a cascading stream of conscious eternity. Each radiant moment of focus glimmers with a vividness of absolute obscurity. Fingers behind the veil in a momentum of stilted continuance; consciousness flows in and out of mind here before the fall; observance in dripping silence as all the sun is refracted out before the eyes. The embrace of spectral breath, the stillness of humid air; the singing so soft and so near is quieting. The drops are ending as the extensions fall once more to join the whole. Of this whole I am an extension. A finger from a cohesive source. These minds are one. This one is humanity.

“Feel better?” complacently placed across the room her gaze is affixed on me.

-Indeed I do, all systems purged of impurities.

“Oh my aren’t we technical tonight”

-Nothing wrong with giving ones self to the throws of machination.

“Dissolve that robotic will and come here” light stroking the sofa seat with her outstretched left hand.

-You I cannot deny. Lying down and stretching back out across the end; my head resting squarely in the centrepiece of her lap. The splendid scent of of her intoxicates once more. Gazing down from above those eyes have nothing to hide, and leave nothing to be hid. Defenseless and flailing, I can only absorb. Circles sovereign over the infinite, blue haloes above a limitless sea; there is nothing not to love in this embrace, there is nothing out of reach of adoration. In this bond we swim beyond that which is defined otherwise. Quixotic to some, they are bereft of that which is base, the weaving of the divine dare act fatalistically smile here. Euphoria bales beneath this; Elysium of old only beckons the fall, but from this to hear that there is no escape is nothing less than a blessing. It is in these drowsy eyes that the walls of broken perception begin to collapse, and through the whispers, darkness overtakes.

***

Cold days are almost no more. The once barren street sides are now beginning to fill with colour. Of course below this stream flows the same irrelevant of the seasons; though I cannot help but sense a force of will in its motion that would not otherwise be.

“What are you by chance doing down there?”

-Bearing Witness.

“To what?”

-Beauty in being.

“Oh, is that all?”

-Looks to be.

“Wouldn’t happen if I bore witness with you would you?”

-Normally I wouldn’t at all, but I do believe this position in bearing is no longer healthy. A rather profuse waft relevant of that of mud and sewage seems determined to overtake my position.

“Then get up silly boy, we’ll find a more pleasant spot elsewhere in which to bear witness. We have the world at our disposal after all.”

-I dare say elsewhere in the neighbourhood will work just fine. The world as it is can wait.

Above the living mirror we are silent shadows, hand in and; floating atop the whispers the newly borne immortals weep. Crystallised and glimmering we are as one here beneath the sun; visible between the strands that separate from the source the light magnifies only that which I can see. She is turning to face made, radiance insignificant beneath the white and blue, shimmering before the gates. I have to stop and just lovingly stare in wonder. All that I could ever need embodied in this body parallel to my own. She is smiling, letteing her head title to the side.

“What?” her tone inquisitive yet friendly.

-I am just amazed.

“By what may I ask?” A strand of hair falling down across her face, glowing in reflection beneath her cheek. A darkened shade of blue resonating with a warmth beyond words.

-That I am here, sharing this time and space with you.

She only tightens her eyes, raising her left eyebrow wishing to know more.

-I could have never known I would become one with the living embodiment of the divine. I hate to put it so simply, but in this I am one with beauty in which every other source in this world or any other seems nigh more than trivial. But anything other than the worship these eyes can provide seems to fall miserably short in justification.

At the edges her eyes are beginning to tear. A look that no rendering or order of language can bring to light that which is presented here. Leaning forward, it is in these arms the world fades into a distortion of elation. On those lips from which the taste of immortality seeps. The very world is coming back to life through this, through us the world is waking from its winter sleep. Vision beyond that of any match.

***

Sickly rot consume the afternoon sky. It sings, it calls echo out over the infinite. Fields of wheat neglated and wilting with decay; each head rattled with screaming thoughts of failed hopes and dreams. A billion broken after lives careening into the maw of nihility. Death was kindness, what lie here tears far beyond what most could ever comprehend. But the air is not yet alive; something heavy is abound. Something is about to make itself known.

And so the whispers here are maddening; voices calling from the void, all wanting some form of release. The air is frigid but breath is absent; mounting and preparing for collapse, these whispers are lashing and tearing at my mind. But now this: silence.

Deafening, the moments pulse and pivot beneath this void; building beyond that of a black hole the very state of being seems to be being forced into submission. A rift, a tear through very fabric of existence; but te silence is beginning to subside, a light breeze coming to life. The horizon above the field begins to contort and blossom. A low rumble commences above; but the clouds blacken with the interspersed hues of brown and grey. Winds are quickening, a pulse is beginning o resonate through earth and sky.

And in unison the field bows. A storm of sound in snapping brittle hallow lives as a vortex is birthed above. An extension coalescing into shape, growing in stature and mass, rapidly in its rotation. It is here that the elevated takes shape of one so familiar and associative with annihilation and terror. Too thick to bend too much, it tilts slightly to the left top side, an inquisitive being ready to lay claim.

Slivers of black and grey turn in and out of the sky; but it is the roar that is beginning to encompass all, bearing down on the mortality that wraps me. Vision blurs as the beast continues to spin, a collage of sight and sound flooding my sight; overtaking the previous desolation of oblivion. Memories coming to mind; the lifetimes poured over this eternal plain.

White lights and bright smiles, handshakes and initiations. The clawing of fucking and the shrieks of murder. Family days and nurtured resonance of gatherings gone sour. Darkness into light while the cries ring out with each new day and the bell tolls above the worn cement crosses as forsaken angels sing for the departed. The rain is a downpour above the open grave; faces indeed grave in mourning for a nother faceless moment given back to the cosmic. Draining fails to justify the immensity of all of this; but the sights are blackening out from a standstill. And as it does, the oblivion plain is still under seige by the storm; paling in size I am left standing beneath.

A guttural monotone glacially paced rings out from every surrounding. Speaking is imminent; what is going to be revealed unto me? What required my exposure to this embodiment of negation? But here and now rays of light are starting to break through sporadically as far as the mortal eye can see. Layers of dust and divine residue filter down, a layer of distorted snow blanketing the ground. But despite all the motion in action at this moment, this air is completely still; distant, almost inaudible, is a sorrowful piano playing. But I can feel this now, the moment has arrived.

“Beautiful is it not?” the guttural voice booms.

In this instant the words that could poor from my tongue are but held back in awe and fear. The hairs across arms come alive with the winds, having ceased to obey any indication of control from within me.

“The path is open, you are standing only at the beginning foot of your ascension.”

-What is this?

“This is an image, this is your mind.”

-But what is this?

“This is your introduction to what lies beyond those simplistic mortal perceptions you carry. Very few, if only one or less in an ordinary lifetime, are born instilled with a present disposition toward this. Your lineage is few; to transcend to exist above the rest. You can hear it whispering to you when you float in thought; when you are amidst the many, staring into the sea of empty faces. This the cohesive mind in which the whispers originate, this is the metaphysical realm of which so few have ever fully grasped.

-Wh...

“Why? The reason could be any, depending on that from which you hail. Whether it be divine favour, fate, or many various other sources of why they heavens turn. But one thing remains the same, that the ascension of humanity will take longer to complete than humanity as it is currently known will last. At this state population growth is outpacing capacity; all the while civilisation no longer gives itself to the pride of evolution of knowledge. Pursuit of this is left to those bereft of feeling, of warmth and care.”

“But part of you is torn. It is not sure whether you are ready to dissolve into the dissonant. You do not with to be separated from her. It is horrifying to you to imagine going beyond and leaving her to the void. Worry not, little soul; for she is part of it, part of you. Intertwined at birth only to be physically united in life, to separate one is to negate the other. It is why the rest of you is not afraid f of this, you were born for it. But you are quiet, your thoughts are not those easy to dissect.”

-Given though that a certain predisposition has been instilled since birth, this is a bit much to taken in at once, after a lifetime of only simple musings and clues. Beyond the whispers and designs the sky often leads one to see, I cannot help but feel that a certain part of being human I will miss to a painful degree. What is the point in existing if you lose the perception coupled with the mind in which to process and evaluate the meanings and significance of those perceptions?

“Because that are fleeting. You are cast from the very core thread of being. Perhaps only one or two gradients beneath that of being itself; you are initially beyond that which they take for granted. Your indulgence is warranted, but alas it is something that if prolonged is inevitably destructive. Just as mortal are given to moments of elation and distortion of perception with drugs and alcohol, as the moments multiply their bodies exponentially deteriorate. If you continue in mortal form, madness is the only inescapable end. But as with mortality, and with most any extension of reality, choice is till a factor. It is not to be made here or now, for at least a fraction of time ito weigh which is most significant is needed.”

-I just...

“I will not lie, it is not an easy or simple place to inhabit. No longer is one afforded the solace of silence. Privacy is a trivial thing in which disappears in this state, there is nothing to those similar that is not already known. The surreal will become everything. Rules and laws as your mortal mind defines will cease to exist. But this is the close. You will awake, and motion will feel different. Things are changing. Threads of light will pierce all facets, and given chance and will, transcendence will occur.”

-Sweet sleep no longer provides the release and restoration it once did. There is no denial or escape from this, no longer even is time an ally.

“Such is what you are. Such is the reality of this.”

And so it ends. Spectres fade and the negation slowly gives way to the present. The sombre piano is now more dignified, filling the air with sentiments of the melancholy. Breaking through the layers of morning veil, the realm of sight and touch is now open for my will to experience. Heavy steps as focus coalesces and life, is as most would define it, is normal again.

“Remember”

She is there at the piano, lost in the euphoria the sound provides her. Growing in intensity each note is struck successively harder than the last; I am taken back, entranced by the sadness in the air and the level by which she is enthralled in playing. A lament for something unknown to anyone but her, she is alive beyond life in her connexion. A tear traces its way down, silently falling to the floor. And in this moment of total catharsis she throws her head back and her body lashes with hands thrown out, the keys laid silent to pronounce dirge no longer. Stepping forward my hands fall to her sides, gripping hers and taking her in embrace. Her breathes weighted as if to cause her to collapse, gentle sobs ring out from deep within. Quiet tears already making their descent down her cheeks; eyes slowly opening to burrow into mine. Words are held back, impure for the beauty of catharsis at the hand. As she turns I drop down, joining her in closer embrace; quivering by emotional nakedness of situation, the moment begins to stretch. Years in as single moment as one would believe as all the subjective world seems to melt and blur. Restoration complete, a kiss marks separation. Her calling is identical to mine, her definition only delivered in a different light. Toward the outside I move, a calling that must be answered.

The gateway unfolds to a field opposite of that of dreams. Mist blankets the tree lined edge above which the sun wakes for the new day. Before the line these breaks of momentum let the source seep through. Outstretched rays pervade and soak through this mortal encasement. On my knees with arms out I can feel the grace pulsing through me. The warmth fills the void and begins to drip into the infinite. Her hands fall to my chest, the rest falling to meld into me. bringing my arms back to cover hers against me, absolving is nearing. The rays are breaking through, the separate beacons are intertwining beyond that of what was before. Te whispers are beginning to take cue with the dissonance of being. Undulate and reeling, wills dissolve into the absolute.

And so it is with infinity in our hands that mortal being has come to a close and the grand since of existence beyond physical matter is realised.

“Fucker!”

The calling echoes over all the world as he races toward me, tossing aside his belongings in a frenzied onslaught. On approach his fist readies to the side, its target undeniably some portion of my unprotected body. Unwilling to brace for the inevitable, I simply stand, awaiting the breakdown of motion. In predictable fashion, his fist careens into my faces with a swell up of muted doom. The world swirls out into shades of black and red as my elevation drops. This action, these moments, well choreographed for repetition; his being a daunting walking nightmare for as long as my memory can grasp. A torturous being outside the woes of the roost, angels sigh with certain care as his screams overlap one another in a race to see which can pierce my ears quickest.

Feeling pain caress my ribs my eyes are opened to the onslaught of his feet. One after another meeting flesh in a union of misery; a drummer boy without an army, life dependent on the unsteady beat and rhythm. Lying still, refusing to acknowledge his presence, he ceases in his pestilence. In a hollow scoff with his foot grace the pavement surface, he spits down and turns away. Whispering something into the chilling air, my eyes roll up to catch the quickly turning sky.

In this stunned state of echoed dissolution, a soft voice begins to distantly call. A longing to help perhaps, or a longing to mock, method masqued in trotting smiles, I cannot tell. Sliding into view is Ariel, a face painted with caring, eyes an embodied definition beyond any recognizable strand of the word to my mind. Hushed words that fade out amidst the static storm filling my head, her lips are moving to a voice that isn’t registering. Setting her belongings on the ground adjacent to the pavement, she reaches her hand down to me.

Closing glints streak longways across her hair in swaying motion. With each descent of strands, a scent is presented before my numbed self, each intake of this scent spreading a warmth and life where only the broken shell of smiles once lived. Feeling this warmth stir inside that I have never known I reach out to take her outstretched hand. Pairing strength on grace in a shovel motion backwards, we raise me to my feet once more. My person is covered in filth and spotty patches of blood, pieces of the fall, and lastly the spit from my near broken jaw.

Looking down into her eyes paired with mine, there is an immense weight of comfort behind those soft eyes, looking over me without a hint of malicious force. Using her left hand to push aside a few strands of fallen hair, she reaches out for and grasps my right. Peering sympathetically at the pavement raped skin, she bends forward slightly and gently kisses the wound. The knees are nearing collapse under the potential of this embrace. The warmth of ages building and building before my eyes, this euphoric release that brings time to a silent stop; its crescendo is radiating in her wide smile. All that remains is the inevitable fall from grace. My smile, breaking through the enormous layers of doubt, shines through. In those eyes, those unending pools of green existence, an innocent cloud of forgotten hope lies glimmering. I can feel myself breaking. I can feel myself letting go.

And in this moment it is with such oppressive weight my heart sinks into cold isolation. Brought back into present from that detached state of realized absorption the wind stings sharp in it’s chilling act of dethronement. Looking down, into those eyes I could lose myself in, they’re turning a different shade in view of my own. A shimmering and long forgotten pale blue, in agonizing remembrance of the embrace I am so foolishly giving away to the wind. Let the wind erase me, sighs beyond sound left to fall into the silent ground.



After a few moments pass by in stilted momentum, I turn. Looking back in her direction, she is still moving. The sea of autumn surrounds us, sending out messengers of dying praise. Her hair once more screams out, reflective of the weeping sun. All warmth that has built up in me, the euphoric release of her smile, crumbles to ashes as her image is overtaken by the vast woods beyond. A drowning leaf grazes my wounded hand; her touch reverberating throughout me a final time. A frozen memory, a metaphysical kiss beyond thought. A thousand years of binding in a second of being. All away, all thrown down.

An agonized sigh is looking toward the mute surrender known as home. A bleak front yard dotted only by the carcasses of leaves let go, is the expanse before the crumbling front steps, the broken upward path to Hell. The cankerous porch rails surround a rusted front door, Nihil’s maw, endless in its enclosure.

In longing glance I take a look around this living world a final time before stepping into this depraved resident embrace. At the end of the darkening sky the final gasping rays of hope in life its grace provides is failing. At my foot an orange leaf falls to silent rest, a messenger brings ward of inevitable doom ahead. But my will to resist what awaits is broken, I press forward; throwing myself to the whim of whatever fate my lie waiting.

Before and above on the left end of the porch the once virtuous swing hangs broken. With only a single chain still attached to the splitting porch roof, its once glorious volleys of motion are now nothing more than a ruined sway. Its long lost beauty screams sorrow. Sorrow for the lives it’s touched: sorrow for the world it’s in. A muted creak carries on the breeze; its sonic impact more immense than any conceivable scream. Its position as an abused loved one smeared across its peeling skin, hollow cries unheard to all but me.

The overwhelming weight of darkness represented by this door breaks the release this sudden moment of reflection has left me in. Behind its rotting surface and rusted hinges, a lifetime of broken hope and living nightmares crawl beneath the skin. Within the walls the source of all my suffering outside the shallow halls of the academy. A radical obsessive in original sin; a need to destroy that which isn’t there to see. The whore to which I am slave, the bane of existence in the womb of which my happiness and feeling are stillborn. An unending shadow to which there is no escape, eternity used in a mocking sense of the word; damnation, however, in living colour.

Slowly pulling back the split and limp screened door, its ancient hinges scream out in discontent. The immense front door that lies behind, reluctantly opens up, unwilling to protest to my progression. Clawed and peeling, fading green hues jump out to die with the slightest touch; their roots drowned out in melancholy sleep. Filtering out with tremendous force the stench of human abandonment and apathy; in parallel with the voracious wall of heat, clash with the chilling, sterile autumn air within me, tearing me at points between moments of fascination and the unflinching need to vomit.

Within this Hell the walls are adorned with shining light. A hundred reflections from the fire off to the side. I stand apart from the man material faces of Christ. The martyr to self indulgence, the strict light that guides my mother’s hand. The lifeless gaze peeping down a hundred times upon my sea of shadows. This inferno, keeping this room, and on quick ascent me, nauseatingly hot. Within the orange fingers, the cleansed purity of untouched white screams beneath sound. So pure in its appearance, it’s met and balanced by the bereft and decrepit existence surrounding me.

Given the silence filling these rooms, there is a building feeling that something immensely dark is approaching. The untold tales of autumn drapery to ring true it seems, malignant thoughts live in my shadow, screaming to be brought to life. The usual dread that seeps from the walls is growing to absurd proportions, silent premonitions as to something on descent, the flight of a malevolent behemoth. Signal down, the stairs beyond await.

Giving the fire a final moment of my presence, I move for the shadow draped staircase. The splintered and stripped walls reflect of an age when neglect did not turn the seconds into lifetimes. Each step met with painful reply the stairs stand used beyond their years. The solitary photograph that lines these otherwise barren wall is of a time so long ago forgotten. My youth, my smile, all surrounded by the sea. The sun that ignores my being once held me in such divine care. Innocence and purity long since gleefully raped away with vehement acts, replaced only by the years of torturous regret. Only a few steps remain before the heavy darkness of the upstairs consumes all. Letting my eyes and head fall, with a sigh seeming to echo throughout me, throughout the room, I turn, ready to give myself to another night of solitary rot.

Somewhere deep within I can feel my heartbeat quicken and things become more acute. But in this moment, this still shot of everything in the surrounding world, everything that is and has been, comes crashing down upon my unprepared skull. The crushing force of pure contempt upon my senses, thrashing out and explosively rippling through my body. Throbbing orange streaks overtake my conscious and in my descent to the floor her pale and excessiveness shows clear. This is the beginning of the excruciating end.

Cold and white, sterility playing out before my mind’s eye. Despite the calmness in vision there is a distant, resonant screaming. Slowly mixing between the desolate cries are the slow and fading pulses of a dying heart. The sight is drowsy, a stumbling vision of which is growing more so with each surreal moment. The screams, moving through pitch variations of high and low, close and near, increasing and lengthening through levels of distortion. The sounds of glass being fractured beneath flame spilling out beyond this white nothing. Vision now pulsating in and out, breaking and beginning to shatter. An overwhelming roar encompassing all conscious presence. Bearing down the static and white noise drowns out the screams in accelerating negation. There is only an indescribably flaring and enveloping meaning of pain slowing time down to nothing. Dragging present into eternity, tearing the seams of definition away and bringing replacement in the form of atrophy to this. In full shattered collapse the sound of steel suns grinding one another into oblivion violently brings the minds eye into view of my own.



In an unfocused blur my eyes birth conscious sight to me once more. Time a slow burning weight of misery as more and more becomes clear. Beneath this muted wall of static pain in my head the screaming coming from my heart slowly filters through. An overpower pressure of heat and stench saturate the air. A failed attempt at breathing is taken in between each quickly bellowed scream.

An intense flame is rapaciously burning within my arm. Something foreign is felt spread within the flesh. With the full world in present view things go from unclear to nightmarishly surreal. With my arm pulled back and over I can only glimpses of my torture. With the indescribable pain growing to the insurmountable, abruptly it is let go. Slowly falling -with each moment of surrounding air sticking within the wound more than the last- it lands before my eyes.

Grey wire laced through the swollen and bleeding skin reads ‘Christ’ across the bottom of my left forearm. Red streams beyond that of rivers raining down and soaking into the barren mattress. No attempt to rise, to fight back against this weight upon my shoulders. Sight becoming unstable still yet, the speed of pain exponentially increasing with each new breath. Breaking down the consciousness is on continual decline. Close to head I can feel and hear her breathing, torment in each caress, it burns what is left of my open eyes. Balancing her knees on my spine the silent echoes of a blade being dispensed drown out all else within my ears. In soaring eclipse the weight overtakes all thought as the blade slides into the skin.

Distant, resonating, somewhere in this immense, universal black, a light glows. Only the silent hum of life streams out and echoes. The black slowly beginning to materialize into the room I have always known. The light remains, standing tall against the overbearing blackness of night, its rays pouring through, splintered out by way of broken glass.

My head feels as though the corpse of a dead god lie across its width, its throbs soundly bring back what is as my eyes focus and I begin to rise. The vacuum of feeling in my arm burns without life. And now a torn sensation covers my back, tensing each muscle sending near crippling signals of pain to my brain. Feeling dried patches of blood tearing free from their bindings on the soiled mattress, it stings the unwounded portions of skin as I tear myself free. Looking down at the striped patterns in which the blood has dried, the imprint of wings are apparently spread. Standing is a trial of uncertainty, an immense hand seems to weigh down against my efforts to be in motion.

Shadows push the walls in shattered patterns moving with the gentle wind outside. The light beyond the window flashes in uncertainty from time to time; its age and circuitry well beyond that of mine. A few partial fragments, fallen victims of the windows unknown accident, sparkle beneath their parent wounds. All of this void, so close yet so impossibly far from the warm glow encased outside.

In this daze the will is found to move forward. Each step weight more than I have ever known weight to be. Pain lashes and coils with every moment as shadows and light blur into a mess of sickened black and grey. The stairs are met at end with an intense glow, the searing furnace below me to which this world burns. Each step falling silent beneath my stilted motions; this slow descent is an unstable sea of thought. The fringes of the oppressive heat are beginning to fold the numbed bridges instilled throughout my body.

Descent complete, the bane of my being lies loudly snoring in her diseased chair. To her left the box cutter, the blade so maliciously used to engrave the ironic symbol of love under light into my back lie in a reflective pool of me, so lovingly spread on the floor. The blood dried against my persona is beginning to peel and drop away under the flames unseen fingers, settling in piles of red ash on the floor.

A glimmer of light reflecting from the fire between the dried fields of blood foretell fate. In her heavy breath she will remain unmoved; her life soon to become silent. Hands resting together in her lap, the edges of her sleeves still covered in my blood. All of this pain of mine torn out and spilled across her upper body; this burns within me beyond words.

Silent motion right, standing in her shadow. Lending left arm to the floor, retrieving the tool of my demise, its previous user to be its next unwilling victim. Sending my arms around and rising to full stance, my left hand is just beneath the throat. Likewise my right on approach to just above her forehead. For a moment the wire is illuminated passing through the glance of the fire, each letter a giving off a flame of its own, on both levels of being. Before these flames the wire is coming alive, this nightmarish memory springing to life with it behind my eyes. The screams, the futile resistance, the unmerciful brutality as the wire was rendered and bound to my flesh.

At the eye of the sea of Christ, an embroidered plate reads scripture.



-Do unto others as you would have them do unto you-



All reluctance torn down I open my eyes and force into place the hands. Pulling the head back to jut out the throat, the blade is brought swiftly over and pushed deeply through the thick skin. Beneath the split the crimson fall begins to cascade down. Bubbles forcing their way out as breath begins to fail and grunting overtakes all voice as it bleeds out to air. Leaping to her feet her eyes are terror stricken in realization.

The wave of thought and disgusted remembrance is overwhelming. Arms finding strength where there was previously none and direction where there is little. Pouncing on the mound of torn flesh she is quickly becoming, causing a red sea to fall from a ground bound sky. Slicing the box cutter through her skin with dire force and malice, cutting deeper with each moment spent beneath the surface. Meeting her outstretched hand and knocking it down, the blade pierces into her chest again, a silent spray of red matter painted across my face with ethereal hands. Her screams choked and exiting at the throat; its usually clear pathways mal-rendered and falling apart. Her hand makes another swipe at me; repercussion is enforced with the forced loss of a precious eye, a violent shutter felt beneath the sound of the gently popping white. An eye left open, rattling within its socket, pulsating to a burning desire to see an end, it’s granted such release. A spurt out and a full cry and things begin to slow. Reversal in oppression, beneath the passionate and despondent glare irony screams forth. Fire is consuming everything, the fire of rage, of vengeance, everything left of this once life devoid being now is nothing but a obliterated pile of wounds.

Sweat is pouring down my body, a reaction against the intensity of the furnace before us. Beading through and soaking up the dried patches of blood on my, now mostly replaced with her own. Smeared across my chest and shoulders, dripping off my finger tips; in the pool on the floor my reflection is shimmering. In its undulation the intensity of the fire seems almost inviting, calling a name, something unheard, something unseen. Who am I to deny it?

A glow is upstanding over most of her glistening body. Its masqued reflection begs me, its calling, wanting this. Thrusting down and behind with hands, jumping back placing my feet to the floor, taking hold of her ruined shoulders and using all the force possible from within me to jerk her bloated body up and out of the chair. Strands of matted and bloodied hair swing out, edges catching my jaw, all in build for the descent to cleansing.

Head first crashing into the wood scattered hearth, ashes and sparks explode out. Catching slowly the flesh begins to blacken, the fingertips of divinity crawling across the plains of deviant fields. Spreading to the clothes the smoke begins to plume out. Only mind to watch it burn, I defy; and move to leave. Another face awaits release in this age of purging. With smoke beginning to blot out all sight within the room, the fire finds itself burned out.

Finding release through the door to the bitterly void October night, the wounds begin to sting once again. Their parasitic presence, though a constant reminder of what has to be done, had found temporary cease in light of whores destruction. Looking down, passing through my breath, the inflamed letters are cooling, spiking down into the muscle; behind the spine screams underneath the crackling wounds that take unkindly to cold.

Beneath the creak of the broken swing the beat of my heart slows. Above the limbs of leafless trees scratch against the walls. The light is dying; its final blinks are finally met by inescapable void. This vessel shall follow the same course soon. Blinks remain, far more behind than what lay ahead. The stars in full observant slant, distantly dance in harmonic joy; far below a line of clouds threaten to overtake the lunar beacon. Now in void of light, the temperature seems to tower, coupled heavily with the half-hearted eastern breeze with the final drops of mother’s blood drying against the extended blade and my frigid body, I follow the road toward the one from before, the eternal spite of academic progression.

It sits alone before a blackened backdrop of trees. Single, dimmed lights lie as beacons to the nihilistic expanse, hooks cast into a dark sea. Crystallizing over open flame; spare moments slow burning as each step connects with the frozen ground. Childhood distractions lie like battlefield corpses across the frozen yard. Surreal seconds and ethereal breath dances to a song beyond sound. Slow motion memories revisited here now in perfect time within my head and before my eyes. Things only I can see; pains only I can take David and Goliath basketball, the ironic unison of Caine and Able. Caine and Eve mixing burning words; Caine and Adam trading pieces of being over failed opportunities. Adam and Eve falling out in tears over the shielded and long forgotten Lilith, pleasant days, unpleasant nights, the smiles of treachery brightly shine as decay consumes and presence sinks further beneath acceptance. Break the skin, poison the blood. Everything that is sour and spoiled is soaking up these moments with unmerciful brutality. Thorns reach out and tear down. My foundation warrants collapse here before the climb. These moments and minds dissipate, focus of sight is sinking, support has to be found. Silent fall to the chill stairs, each breath binds more and more to skin. The gentle taste of blood warmly slips from my lips, thin and torn beneath the air of seething winds. Its taste serves as a drive to continue. Rise, this graveyard, follow the light and embrace the motion of Icarus.

Heat fades beneath the soft, dim glow within the door. On reach the knob is almost frozen throughout. Gentle twisting and the door pushes forward; this place of obsolete crime leaves people with inflated senses of security. Lack of foresight is my upper hand, we move to overtake.

Non-protest marks my new location. The door lies open in coma catching the light breeze outside. Beneath the glow of the security light a leaf catches sight in sporadic moments. There is a static sound in the distance, somewhere above, somewhere away. A stagnant memory lingers in the air, something from the beginning, without years of decay left to set in. Ornamentation in organization rings sterility; of love, of life, of communication. Something is calling from behind the kitchen, a non-existent source of sense, damning but undeniable. I must fall, so fall I do.

In this darkness there is an obscure light, far beyond sight and motion, it is within my mind. Direction without knowing, this is now clear. To my side a lamp lies coldly dormant; with a twist an imitation sun is born, capturing in grace all things beyond shadow.

A game room is where I have found myself. Trophies mounted, heads of beats slaughtered from the surrounding woods. Lives captured and put behind a show for all to see. A photograph hangs below the hanging head of an ancient deer, the captured moment post-mortal escape. Smiles adorn blood, memories in violence. Through this, we are all bound.

And there, against the back wall, reflecting back through its flawless mahogany skin, a cabinet rests. In grasp the doors swing out in silence. Here trophies of potential sorrow hang in tiers. The royal hierarchy of the fingers of death. Cold and black they sit waiting my frozen touch, to be turned now on former masters. A shotgun and a pistol are removed, loaded from nearby hidden ammunition. Preparation is completely, moments to pass beyond words.

Shadow is consuming the obscurity of the game room fading behind corners. Time ceases to exist under this glacial breath of progress as eyes lose focus and the staircase stretches for miles. There is a warmth in the air, not oppressive like the past, or inverted as nature, but a soothing point to which my pain lightly subsides. From somewhere a light voice is ringing. As the length between each step lessens, the voice intensifies; however slight the intensity may be, clarity and a small sense of relief screens over. Mounting the end, an outline stands lit, a closed door with an occupant within.



Spread out between open doors the whispers of sleeping minds dance between the walls. A tint soft in blue blankets all betwixt the stirred and snowing dust. In thought the gates of oblivion lie open waiting for the soul to cross. Eyes gain sight within the darkness, everything given a soft glow and surreal touch. Across the walls images of athletic deities and music icons share wrinkled and glaring existence. Trophies line shelves, gratifying monuments of plated gold and finished wood. Perhaps here, soundly sleeping in contorted place, is the most painfully earned trophy of all.

Amidst the trophies pictures from past to present stand and hang. Always present the smiling father, hand over the shoulder, backing down, emanating pride. A showcase of triumphs where past failures once rang, a living display of make one overcome what never was. Breath is failing me; time is ever more running short.

Held so long now within the pocket, the box cutter is brought out, its crusted blade is protesting in extension. Letting the shotgun rest on the left arm, its tip lying against the carpet. In mid-rise, the blade will pierce the stomach. A gentle decision and jarred descent occurs; only a moment to realize the inevitable end. Buried deep the white masque being overtaken by crimson. Twisting to the side the blade minces much of internal requisites, a scream with spurted blood erupts to the wayside. Letting go of the box cutter the shotgun is taken once more with two hands. Pointing between misty windows the horror of clarity saturates the air. Tear coated eyes and a blood covered grimace cave in beneath the orange glow of the blast. Spraying out in all directions, staining the proud moments and angelic figures, drenching in and soaking through the lacerated bed. Outside the steam and smoke of the remains a scream rings through the walls. Pieces settle over the rumble of disgruntled footsteps.

Reversing face to the opened doorway, the father stands crippled under the weight of the attempt to fathom what is before him. His own flesh and blood, his pride and joy stuck and painted about his sanctuary. Without allowing hesitation the shotgun is aimed once more and outside the cold flare his body is struck. Lifting him up into the wall behind he breaks down multiple moments once savoured, crashing down and falling apart in fractured chance beneath his bleeding corpse. Strands of hair knocked out of formation dangle in failure above shut eyes; a single trickle of blood above precedes the wealth below, pooling within the carpet, expansion relentless.

Everything is falling silent once more. Hollow screams and singing voices dispute into the extreme weight of dread. Before the hall the bathroom lingers between shadows. A distant whimpering replaces what was once silent singing; the strengthening scent of maternal instinct in the air. The body can no longer support the weight of the shotgun, it finds itself lying beside its owner. Stepping back into the oblivious black, I remove the box cutter from its titled fixture still within his stomach. Slipping out, some remnants of entrails still untouched, the blade is retracted, all attachments falling quietly to the bed. Ungraceful steps mark the doors return. Within the outline I am, steady being, ready to see, ready to know.

Beneath this rot there is release. Hands unified in torture her second coming lies in frozen dissolution. A smiling scream rings out and in resonance shakes planets loose from their bearings. There is only the heartbeat beneath her falling breath, only smiles and handshakes, anthems to spreading grace, these glaring eyes will cease. These eyes collapse beneath beyond. Waiting for everything to sink below. Her third rendition is blank with hollow eyes. Depression and the maternal ring of heaven tears itself apart at the seams. Red storms swarm in escape over the shining golden falls. The sun failing softly as blank expression overtakes youth. Waiting eyes, and bleeding minds. Body topples beneath below this crippled colony of flame. Velvet dust settles across the imitation stone, limbs lie limp, voices falling silent. Motionless and grey, the heartbeat remains. This vessel trembles under its rhythm, and through it, transcendence is almost realized. Only one obstruction stands unrelenting. Oblivious, choked protest ensue.

Reaching out from the tile soaking pool of her former radiance, a silent stream creeps closer to crumpled clothing. The former shell left lying to cleanse the stained within. A shade of yellow swiped between hues of white and blue. An accident to some, anxiety to others. Golden haze fogs the room, the touch of warm wetness forming on every surface. Water in ripples spread out, rippling sound, rippling pieces of life. Breathing hoarse, a child sits, bare from influence, bare from warmth, in this centre this youth will change. Soon. So near, so far. Weight of eternity smile. No mercy. No forgiveness.

There is only the echo of heartbeats and rasping breath as our eyes refuse to disconnect. Soft whispers try to pierce beyond skin, but it finds no reprieve. Stepping forward and falling to one knee, he pushes further back against the bath wall. Reaching across the seeming chasm I take his left hand in mine, pushing the pistol inside an open pocket.

His attempts to pull away are futile against my strength of years. But letting loose of his right hand, the box cutter is grabbed from a pocket, bringing it out into the light. In extension the cries of protest intensify as the water is forced into violent motion. The outskirts of heaven are burning, everything is crashing down.

What was once only whimpers is now slow paced tears. A weighted sobbing, anticipation of the foreseeable end. His eyes are swollen and dread from saltine production, his lips quivering from the cold surroundings. Turning his left wrist over, the blade is on approach. The few years under his belt of life grant him freedom of voice, and simple understanding of words. Above all, his understanding of no is clear. Sloshing with his right arm the water he can, his mouth is open now in erratic bawling. In desperation he screams no, no no no, using that free hand to smack at my own. Shaking and contorting violently in futile chance of breaking free. Small teeth glisten under tears as the cries grow sharper and sharper. But now the cry is taking a different tone as the blade caresses and opens up the thin layers of youth. Streaming from within the railed arms, his life begins to shrink. With unmerciful decision, without hesitation, a second gash is opened across the remaining white of the right wrist. The mouth is gaping open and the cries of why and no rapid pulsate through the heavy air. The body is breaking and trembling beneath its own failing vitals. The force of suffering is at a level that would seem to cause this world to fold. But above the clouding out of his life beneath the water, the shaking and staining, his motions begin to slow. With lines between blood and water blurring into void, the sobs cease, and the breath once held escapes a final time. The waves fade to silent ripples, and the swollen eyes drowsily fall shut over sniffled hiccups.

Now, gaze stuck to a blood splatter on the wall. What provided life, the means to run, to jump, to smile, is now only resonant regret. The days of the beach are long forgotten, time when I fell within the grace of the sun, when the sky was kind, when the blanket of innocence still kept me tucked in at night. Before I could see and walk.

Vision is beginning to skip; this body’s momentum set to soon fail. Dropping the box cutter into the water its disruption creates sound where the silence is deafening. The light still skipping scenes, the red sea is departed from, its once vibrant clarity left to silence.

It is like waking up again, only the blood covering all is not mine. Waking up from somebody else’s nightmare, this void, this corruption now left to be forgotten. The whispers of once felt pain and derailment now hang silent, there demons exhumed and to be put to rest.



Spark things away, leave these cleansing hands of flame. The city of heaven is burning, crumbling in place, descent is marked and clear. God’s kingdom is raining down in flame, grace is over. Motion creates void.

The kitchen, its use so clear, mother standing over the sink, breaking up food her family will eat without second thought. Throw plates down without a hint of gratitude or glint of remembrance; walk away leaving respect to mold. Waste, broken bonds, broken hopes, broken dreams. Above the sink curtains hang stagnant, providing shielding from a sun that never shines. Tearing down, it falls in frailty, warping to the slightest touch. A flick of the wrist and the stove comes alive, a natural fuel providing a brilliant blue.

Spreading the curtain across the flame, the blue transforms into dull orange. Climbing the walls in reverse, shades of red begin to take root. In exit the door refuses protest still, giving itself around this flaming wreath of my leave. Dancing above my head the roar is growing, spread thin by the popping and cracking of destroyed light. Numbing is the old October night, its chill forgotten beneath the faux warmth within the home. My wounds tearing themselves anew on exit; at the se-saw my skin is becoming I can feel the gentle streams drip down my body.

Freezing on the pavement beneath my falling breath, the end is almost here. I can taste it in the blood filling my mouth, in each reluctant step I manage to take. Only a few steps, a few hesitant steps till silent slumber overtakes.

Trees behind and surround, the great flame burns away, giving tribute to the rising sun. Above the clouds leave only the horizon to consume, the air at the coldest in this moment. Above orange, something catches the eye. Against the skin wetness lands, from above, so below, to be covered and forgotten. Snow is falling, gently, slowly taking its time, no rush for the end of the world.

And so it is without heaviness of heart that I now feel complete. The body has reached its end, and here there is nothing left to do. Readying for the final use, the pistol feels light as air. Into the sun my eyes are set, beneath the crimson sky ruby streaks overtake sight. That in all the pain, there is joy in this. Breath dissipates and the world loses feeling. Heaven is resting in ashes, its God dethroned and destroyed; the onslaught of winter to bury everything now under an endless sea of white. All things fall forgotten, left now to sink within dawns embrace. Deep within this body motion lie still and memories pour out. With such the kiss of frigid eternity a sigh escapes this withering world. Underneath the tortuous oppression face of living, there is now the weightless euphoria of death.