On the first one, the man could not be called such yet. A preteen, you could say, no more than twelve, staring at a camera in a home settlement. You could see a kitchen similar to this one in the background. Yet the lights were dimmed, the smile of the person standing into the first horizons was clear. If you were to see such a smile, what would you think of it? Surely, the stuffiness of the cheeks and the slight hue in its cheeks might give you the impression that this is a happy smile.You might think that the picture is adorable, in fact, there was nothing in it that could clearly point it was not, but I could not see anything else but force and intimidation in that image. That child was not smiling, but clenching its face in what seemed like a smile. An animal would have the same posture upon being on the brink of death. Why did I hold such an image in my house? It was disgusting, terrifying, a violent display of falsehood. Was it to terrorize me even more? Beside it, stood another child, seemingly hiding behind it, you could say it looked like that, with an unamused expression. Under its bright green coat, there were scabs and scratches, a band-aid laid on the side of his cheek, still fresh (you could see the blood in a hue that seemed fresh, so it would not be unfair to assume that) and clenched teeth as well, but this time in clear displeasure. The boy seemed not to know how to hide what it felt really well. Its tanned skin was drenched in sweat, hair unruly, as if just back from a day playing in the sun with the desire to head back home quickly. Stopping by for a picture would be more unpleasant than not. A clear contrast, I've come to want to figure out what made the two so different from each other. Maybe it was the hand on the first child’s shoulder, womanly, stern, that made it fear and resort to smiling? I could not know.
Ah, the second, I sighed in relief, the desperation it brought me for some reason had disappeared. Behind you could see a school environment, supposedly it was spring, or summer, I could not know too. The same child stood in the first horizon as well, this time, older. The smile was not of an animal at the time, but you could not humanize the image so much as to call the younger man a person. It still seemed sad to observe. Tidy clothing, polite hands and an expression that reassembled one of a painting. Someone could have drawn that, maybe as a commerce image, this is how soulless I have seen it. It was not disturbing like the last, but it was not pleasant to see either. I again wondered why I had such a thing in my house. It was too artificial to admire, it gave no feeling to look at. One would wonder what is even the point of taking a picture without any feeling. Is it any better than trash tossed out of your hands? This is what I wished to do with this representation of normalcy.
The third.. I asked myself, what could I have possibly been looking at? No, there was no face at all to look at. Neither a clear background, this is what made a picture tell a story instead of being a slip-up. It was a kitchen knife, stabbing a pig’s heart and exposing its stomach open. The hand that committed the deed was attached to the knife, without a body for it to belong to. Maybe such an act could have gotten rid of its individuality completely. Disgusting, it was, its guts pooling out of the small mouth, someone had put it there like it was for display. This brought me more terror than any of the three disgraces I have seen. How were the three connected in any way, worse, how did they lie so closely to my body and I have not paid any mind to them? The third picture, it was taken with two hands, was it not? It felt like something I was not supposed to see just yet, a sacred that was yet to be revealed to my mind. I could not comprehend it, and what I could not understand scared me the most.
… The amount of time I have spent thinking of the representations was enough for the water to have boiled completely. I knew they would linger in my thoughts for much longer, but until I found an answer to these questions, I would have to keep on living. Another fish in the waters that lead to nowhere, I was, but such is life.
Such is the life of the undead.
Hunger haunts me again. Since I have started to submerge under the pressure of my own thoughts, I still have not eaten. The dilemma of the possibility of doing so, considering I was both nauseous and now unsettled, still weighed heavily upon my shoulders. The attempt, although, would not go unappreciated. I felt as if there was no energy to be used inside my body, even to rise from my bed and, then, prepare myself a meal before my day starts. There are some obligations from the counterfeited human society that cannot be defied, and one of them was to arise from one’s rest to engage in social interactions, to conform with social roles and to play a part in the theater that is life. Either as a judge to murder without weapons, as a medic to heal the wounded, a commoner to preserve these institutions, or to choose among other masks that you have to wear in order to survive. There is no choice in this world, you ought to do so.
Very well, so what I did was just that. My spine groaned terribly upon the exact moment it was moved just slightly, yet, I had stood up. Trying to not pay mind to the keloid scars littered across my abdomen (excluding the widest one, it wrapped around my waist similarly to how a belt would, there are stitches across it to keep it from ripping), I searched for the torn shirt I put on to sleep. My eyes would bump to my own body, there was no possibility of me not engaging in the activity, but shame would quickly consume. How disgusting! Is that to be such a disgrace to displease me every time I wake up? I wonder how my wife has yet not abandoned me to rot, considering such a terrible sight lies in my own bare body. Despite my desire to ask for the reason, I simply could not. I am afraid that if I break the sigil that holds us together, she will leave me, and I will be alone once and for all.
We have not spoken too much since I was resurrected, I cannot say for sure how much time it makes it. A month, or two, it could have been more. The silence feels terrible, as if something eerie and dark stood in the same room as us both, and at the slightest sound, it would pounce at whoever uttered a single word. Her face, the workload has not allowed me to see it too often, so I forget it. I do remember the green-hued dress she wore around the house, it had always looked too much the same. Something to be easily remembered, I am grateful it exists, so that our love doesn’t fully slip away from my memory. Her voice, neither that I have recalled in a time longer than I’d dare to say out loud. Looking behind, I would see her asleep in the same bed we had shared for five years. Her body sprawled, and yet, we hadn’t touched each other at all, not embraced in our sleep or undressed. Her face would be too hidden under the covers for me to glance at it and remember it again, I couldn’t afford the luxury.
My foot gently tapped on the tidy wooden floor as I descended. It was lustrous, the care put into it could be seen from the reflection of yourself in it. Yet, looking at my own face through it, I felt nothing but sadness, so I suppose there was also sorrow in how clean it remained. Perfection was twisted in its own charms, how unchanged everything around myself was simply disconcerting to put it. Thinking about it, everything has continued to be perfect. I am perfectly constricted, along with how my life continues to progress. Perfection has not left my arms at all since death, but unlikely, I wasn’t fond at all of it. Routine, is there a more horrid thing to live through? How many times have I seen these stairs, much more, foot after foot, as I’ve thought the same thing? Sequentially, I have also come to despise it. My hands stretched across the wall beside my body, but realizing the instinct had come too many times, as to break normalcy, I retreated.
The kitchen of the two-floor apartment I have bought to my name was scarily vast. Almost the entire floor, leaving only a few meters of perimeter to the living room. It took some time to wander all around it, and it was comfortable to stretch on. I have come to spend most of my time in such a place. The occasional sounds of the birds as the windows laid open, the silence, harmonized with the humming of the fridge, the dripping of faucets, all made choir to the serenity of this space. Here was also where my endless hunger, that I have told you, that bothers me restlessly, meets its temporary end. I cannot stand it as it lasts, this place, logically, is one I associate with much comfort. It seems irrational as I linger over the memories, but it is true, it really is special. It is also where the entry door of my home leads, as I grow exhausted from labor, entering such a place could be automatically linked to safety. You could compare it to how a cat would associate the imprisonment of four walls to unlimited, unconditional food, and come back to it constantly after walks in the neighbourhood. Despite it all, the cat will step foot into the house, give its graces to the house owners, and leave. But always with the intention of walking inside again. The loss of complete freedom to guarantee temporary rewards. Such is the way we, as well, choose to survive. You could say that a man is no different from a cat, but it remains stupider, more suffering and uglier in appearance. There is more brutality in the man, to a way, you could also compare it to a complete monster.
… I think a monster is more of a correct word. I’ve decided that this is what I should call humans. People, all of them who breathe, have always scared me. The closest I have felt to fear was the fear of other people, for I cannot understand them. I remember, since I was a child, that I’ve never grown to understand people. Not men, and much less women. Extremely less women, since I had been raised in an environment full of men, and only one woman that eerily stood in the backstage, my mother. My cousins were the teachers of the masculine nature that I did not have, due to a blurring father figure in my life, my mother was the teacher on how to be a father. But it is impossible to provide without first understanding what should be provided, so I think of myself as not having done well. This failure is the birthing womb of the further distresses in my life. I believe another chance has been given to me as my wife has come into my life, but I cannot know if I, too, will be able to succeed at what my background has given me as a direction. Though, I wrapped the apron around my waist in an efficient manner. I believe this is a skill proven useful, teached by no one but myself in my early childhood. It should mean that the path ahead of me is not extensive, if the knot is made in such a neat fashion, that leaves no failures to speak of.
As the boiling stoves warm up the waters I would soon need, I was left in a wandering state in the vast surroundings.Into my view, first came the fridge, where in a few minutes I would need to dissect to find what to prepare. It remained nothing special, everything else that also adorned it wise. Magnets I’ve gotten as gifts surfaced, two or three, of messages I could not read, colorful. Under them, laid pieces of paper, that I did not look very much at. Suddenly the desire came to me, and I was compelled to it. They seemed like…
Part 3
… Another time, consciousness comes back to me. In a faint whisper of the wind, the window to the outside world has opened just slightly, enough so the fragile glass to my inner world has cracked. Ah, I had woken up. And in the context of which that happened, I did not wake up satisfied. There was fear, not just it, but another emotion of which I could not name, an emotion that perhaps in its brutality and faceless non-mercy, has sung just loud enough so the transparent vertebrae that surrounded my soul would give way to it. And so it did, and so, I have felt it strongly, strong enough that it cracked my heart in more than two pieces, matter of fact, more than a thousand, and stabbed my stomach over and over again. In between mundane routines that I had grown myself used to, in a way that was humanly mechanical and unusually robotic, I had a nightmare. Better to say, that I have been having a nightmare, more accurately as of my daily life. I have crawled in a nightmare and a nightmare has been my own skin for a few sundowns. One that lingers in the joints of my scarce body for a few hours before I can forget about it and wander normally with my usual life. Usual, could I really say that it is usual? The thought has come up to me a few times, and I cannot say that any of them has made me less afraid. Humanly? Could I have really understood that? I do not know, and until that thought keeps lingering, I am still inside the nightmare that I’ve had in my unconsciousness.
When the thought of the word “understanding” comes to me, I am brought back to the need of tracing down to the start - for a better word - the roots of what I interpret as a nightmare. This terror that keeps coming back to this carcass - I deem it putrid, dead. Laid down in a bed for two, as I look upon my only two hands, I cannot bring myself to stomach the sight. The utter nausea I feel upon looking at the blasphemy that was imposed to me, unconsciously, is enough to make them tremble under the faint light of the morning that has started to come. Revolting, it is, revolting until where these fingertips can reach. I lose my composure before even starting to process what had happened in the night that had been past me, so much that the saliva resting above my rough tongue starts to warm up, foam in a disgusting cloud of bad premonition. I had known that treading under these riskful grounds could have no use at all.
I have gone sick. Yes, I could not explain it, but to sink deeper into this madness made me want to throw up. Not just that, it had made me want to crush my skull until these fragments that remained ever after my awakening would disappear from my memory right away. My stomach grumbled, but not from the hunger that haunted me as usual. Not quite from fear, I could risk speaking affirmatively to myself as well. Repugnance, worse than disgust in its glory. Repugnance tangled in the arms of terrible fear, drizzled delicately with uncertainty and wrapped among the arms of sadness. There was sadness too, even if I had not mentioned it. I feel like I had felt everything negative at the same time, at this right moment that I have woken up to be unlucky enough to be the one struck by this misery.
. That being said, unfortunate, disgracefully, I might still have to go over the details of what has unraveled. With my terribly damp hair, my head finally had jerked away from the pristinely white pillows. An instinctual reaction, nonetheless, an action that I had still taken. I think of my body and mind as two separate, in short, I do not take any more mind to the shell that I reluctantly own and that takes me places with the activeness of a swan.This body, that I do not know if I can still give the name as mine, and neither as of working. A few minutes had transpired in which I had just stilled in the moments of disbelief of what I had seen, silence, where I’d stared at my ceiling passively. Passive, as I was. Passive was the way I did not tell you what happened.
Passively I prayed, as I have grown used to resorting to, for this feeling to wither away, so I could brush it off and start my day, as I could always do, usual, but it stayed as that. Unmoving, I knew that my words had fallen to no one to listen. The faith that still remained in me was faint, a heartbeat fading just closely to my ears, kaleidoscopic, as if it would just slip by my thin fingers if I so much let go of it for a second… This sentence, from where do I remember it? Fragile, was the memory that still remained. Eventually, I would have to do something of my newfound nausea, for my stomach twisted and turned with every word I dared to think, my back solemnly rested against the crumbly drywall. Yes, I could feel the discomfort of paint peeling off and poking my spine, cold crawling until it reached the bare skin of my upper body - I must have taken my nightwear while I was asleep. Yet I did not know of this, I could not look down either, as the sight of my body would have brought me disgust. One of the meticulously, man-made stitches that littered my unsightly form, that creased, repugnantly, over my skin as centipedes that squeezed my limbs together to functionality. It was functional, I had to vehemently admit. Yet it was painful, yet it humiliated me at every step I took and tingled my mind to the border of insanity, somehow, it worked in ways I still had to understand. Not understanding, still, I felt like throwing up at the thought. Thought, the thought had hit me that I was nothing more but a reassembled pig. Should I have cut open my brain to see if there was really a difference? No, I must think like a pig as well. The disgust I had once felt doubled over, and I should have bent alongside it. The burning ache in my stomach was unbearable. In a pitiful situation I had found myself in, before morning ever had the chance to greet me.
… I must calm down. At last, you have come. I should no longer leave you waiting for the answer of what I had dreamed under the quiet moonlight. Sit comfortably, as my body calms down from its rise. You, who have seen this, I apologize. The sight of an insect all but writhing under its own mental disturbance must be quite a sight to witness.
One breath after another, alas, even my own breathing has come to disgust me. I would like for this conversation to have risen in a more serene moment, because I apologize for the disapproval of what I will say from further here will cause you. Though not ever things are how we would wish them to be, I sigh at the mockery that this situation has been. For pleasure, imagine that around us, despite the terrific scenario that I have built in your imagination, lingers the scent of recently-boiled bitter coffee. I tell you this once, It should have, if the times were more forgiving, it is morning. Soon enough, if you stay long enough for the thought, grace me with the action of lending an ear, there will be, or so I hope. If I recompose enough, I have to, there will. Burning as a stove I’ve turned on countless times before the graceful sun has dawned upon this hemisphere, one that runs down your throat with conformity of a common individual. The taste should be about enough to ground us to the realities that surround us. If blessings are within us, then, the conclusions we’ll take are not as distasteful. Even as the worst unravels through our exchanges, you will still gobble it up, could I be incorrect to assume? Such is the human, consuming what is not of the best taste, just so the feeling of hunger ceases to haunt it. Likelihood it is, curiosity. I guarantee, then, you will step closer to hear what I have dreamed of.
I ridicule your impulses in equality of which I despise my constant rumination.
Yes, the dream I’ve had. To this point, curiosity might have already strangled the will out of you, with hands that are righteous. I would have bored myself as well. The will to continue to find your path through this endless maze, to turn corners that to nowhere lead is one not acquired easily, I could say as much as to something you cannot acquire fully at all. Cold, white walls, dimmed gray under the lack of light, in which you take a gander as your restless eyes keep open due to something unwitnessable. Unexplainable, it is, the walls of this maze. Thus, you grow lost with each step you take into this world you have yet to find out the functionality of. What is to do with a man whose life is to find the exit path to a maze that he did not enter willingly? I realize that I have not left the state in which I found myself laid down with my chest wide open. The dove’s hands that traced and reassembled the cold ridges of my dead tissues was yet to realize that I remained awake. Though I did not feel at all the pain, as I never had come to the same way, My insides were known to me in a way that felt forbidden to nature itself. Seeing a picture of yourself as you were unaware you were being watched, and now you see it, the you that remains within other’s perspectives even as you submerge in your own thoughts. My mind floats light as a feather, towards the inevitable path where reminiscing lies. And do I despise it equally at each time that it happens, to be courted back to the very place where this life has once again started.
His arms, gloved, and may I never forget this image, coated to the elbows with thick ichor, running down and pungent in the small ambience where the heresy that gave origin to the beating of my heart was birthed. The blood - mine, was everywhere. The weird hue in which it rested is still to be comprehended by myself. Not quite crimson, deeper. A red so alive it glowed by itself. It reeked, stenched. Of decay, of sweat and tears, it reeked of dust and it had smelled like shame, of deep shame and it still had felt like sorrow. I cannot bring myself to picture his face. I remember only the feeling of horror of looking at the same semblance that I’ve grown up with, a sweet child, furthermore, committing an act so cold-blooded that even the devil would have been startled by it. The pale, paper-white skin that has ever so much worried me when our bodies were so little, smudged to no end with blood, there was endless, endless blood. If hell could so much have a sensorial feel, I would so much imagine this could have been it. I was terrified, and within my heart that didn’t quite beat alone (there was a machine to it, although I do not remember how it looked like, or the sound that it produced), I could be sure that Baron, too, was scared. Worse than murder, I realized, was resurrection. Rather than balancing myself through the purgatory, I would rather death to strike me a thousand times.
He has cried. Over my ambiguously stated body, he has weeped infinitely. Rather than the pain of the incisions that pierced my tissues, all I could feel, nothing else but this, was the dampness of my insides as his tears pattered over. I could see that he was trying to contain them at all times that he would enter the institution, when he was not paying attention to my face, I would open my eyes so that I could see his crying face, or a face that was holding back tears. At most times, realizing he has started to cry (which happened unusually late, the man was one to cry silently and to not jerk his body or sob, barely noticing until pointed out, must add that made him look freakish, for the lack of a better word, as younger, as his crying habits less resembled the usual children, the sequence has not grown to be less off-putting ever since), his shoulder would immediately tense, akin to a scared rabbit face-to-face with its demise, and quickly rush off to acquire countless instruments to prod the area in which had been stained, simultaneously to trying to see with dampened irises (i reckon it to have been difficult), before disappearing to the restroom for countless seconds, or minutes, perhaps hours, I could not know the passage of time. Aside from the rare sting I would feel when this had happened, I also recall that, on the first time it had happened, it was when I realized my body was frozen still. Because I could not reach out to him and tell him that he was crying, neither could I open my mouth to say that. No, he had anesthetized me, that I was sure. But the dull ache in which my withered heart felt at these moments, the cold, unchanging helplessness that struck me as shockwaves, could not be stopped. I would wonder, back then, what had saddened him enough so he blubbered for hours and would not notice? There always seemed to be enough of these for himself, and I imagined that witnessing a dead familiar would be another weight to bear, alone nonetheless. But I wondered, and if I could ask.
He has cried. Over my intestines, his sorrow has fallen, and over the arteries that littered my cadaver, his gloom has entangled, making its way through my blood vessels as a parasite, planting itself, rooting, rotting. Not knowing if I was the subject behind his sadness, I had felt more disrespected by his wailing than another weight for his tragic, soliloquous life. I was more than a reason for his sadness, I knew that much. Yet, my pulsating chest still oozed with grief. My stomach, in which, for a reason I could not know, he seemed to shed over the most, I had felt every single time that it happened, more than anything. Even as I live in a fully recovered body, this stomach of mine still weighs upon my carcass more than anything. Warm it remains, as if the sadness that once involved it was never properly washed away. Had he so much cried over this body, that the sadness that looms over him has been buried deep within my body in ways I cannot describe? The emptiness of my stomach aches more than that of when I was alive, for it reminds me of the emptiness of his heart. I have emerged from death hungry, eager to fill in this hole that was left in me. A hunger that is never sated. For how can I sate what I do not know I need? Hunger, it has haunted me ever since I had risen, once again, in my own bed, as if nothing had ever happened. Might Baron have laid me safely in such a place that could make me believe what I had experienced was a dream? Could he have, as well, wanted for it to happen with himself? Even if the knowledge would bring me nothing but even more grief, I urged, urged for it. Yet he has attempted to soothe the emptiness that comes with starting life once again, my stomach remains empty. A hunger not even his hands can pry away. Could he have sliced at it as if it was a stubborn wart? I plead, could he have anesthetized this sting that has yet to leave me alone?
Under the soles of my still warm foot, laid sand, grazed by the sunset, kissed by the sea and warmed by the light that the sky hid with its orange-hued clouds, drifting silently above my head. My eyelids did not lay as heavy as they do, I must assume, I was younger in the vision that I had. My skin still felt plump, and I remember, I could still run free with nothing to weigh upon my conscience. I think, then, I must have been a child, as the trees felt unusually more monstrous and larger than they now do. With wonder, I looked over the branches and to the birds that in their nests remained. I could not see my face, no, but the glimmer in my expression was palpable. The colorful feathers, somehow in ways I could not explain, fascinated me to a childishly fantasious degree. I wondered how it would be if I was, myself, a bird. In this dream, the weight of wanting to be a person like the others wouldn’t have haunted me until much, much later. The innocence made me want to transform into a gentle creature as a pigeon was, and I realize, I matured to wish for the innocence to still have that desire within my heart, Therefore, to be a child, or to be a person without pain. A child is nothing more than a small animal, fleeting, with a life as short as a breath. All but dependent on their mothers, and all but a few years await them once they leave their nests, until their time comes. To think about it makes you desire such a short-lived wonder.
My hands, outstretched, another wish of mine, was to reach for the nest and touch the birds. Why? Children want such foolish things, but there is no harm to the attempt. I jumped around, my small knees straining under the continuous hopping, I believed I could have reached it. One of the birds, the smallest, most malnourished one among them, chirped lowly, in a tone that could make you believe it was crying. And at it, I looked restlessly, hands where my eyes could see them, I wished to reach for it, to ask it why it cried. For what reason would a bird want to cry? I wanted to know, and again and again, I jumped, but no matter how much effort I put into it, I could not. My wish had changed, and the sun hadn’t even set. I wanted to grow up quickly, so I would be tall enough as the branches were, then I would reach the bird that so quietly cried, and calm it down. How long would it take? I asked myself, when the sun set, would I be tall enough so that it could be done?
Dreams are strange occurrences. In the blink of an eye, instead of a child reaching for a nest, my body had stretched in ways that should not be possible. I was, for sure, grown up enough. Maybe, this could have been considered a hopeful mirage, as my wish was magically granted by forces of my own mind, my own hopeful expectations. I could have, in that instant, considered it as such, if with my height, as well as with my more precise hands, I was able to reach the bird that made so much noises that bothered me. Maybe I had only wanted to shut it up, I could have not known what my wishes were. Even as my hands were outstretched, in a distance that clearly I could assume would make me reach the untidy nest, they would just not reach it all. I did not understand why that was, and it frustrated me.
At the same time, I was a fully grown person, and a blatant infant. I was surged with rage, my fists, big and small simultaneously, curled into tight fists. My blood warmed, there was rage, and at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to harm the bird that of my understatement laid far. Rip away its feathers until I reached its heart and pulled it out of its chest, hearing it scream, for that way it would not be crying anymore. That was the way I could initiate change. For anger is better than sadness, no? I can understand it.
…
No, I cannot believe that I had really done it. My fist had smashed the mass of life that was once a flying wonder of the skies. It felt warm, under my fingers, I could hear its screams fading away. Its peak poked at my hand, desperately, despair, it was, for its own life. But not with enough strength to harm me. Perhaps it believed that I could look at it for the last time? Agonizing, the death it faced was agonizing. Until the last second it breathed, I could see that it was afraid.
There was, I reckon, a part of me that did not understand what it was seeing. Maybe it was the childish part of my soul that I carried within that dream, that could still not feel the pain of others, no other feeling other than its own. The child that asked and observed with wonder, trying to learn what it was not born with. The kid who feared and was detached from other people and wanted nothing more than to wear a mask that reassembled them. But as maturity has bathed me in its cruel waters, I now did understand. Not because I had been born with this blessing of a heart, but because I had learned to make one to beat as artificially as it. Nonetheless, I killed it. Brutalized it willingfully because I couldn’t understand why it was sad.
The tree where its dead shell rested melted under my fingers as I rested my palms over a branch to breathe. I could not understand, either, my heart beat more rapidly than it should. The skies around me morphed. Everything shook, even, I tell you, my own body. Instead of a tree artery against my skin, there was blood, a mass of it, everywhere. With a red so alive it dissected me without even the need of touch. It burned, it still remained warm, and that by itself caused me even more agony. I would not feel so much anguish over such a gory nightmare usually, so why, I ask, did it bother me so much? The leaves that adorned it fell to the ground as teeth and hairstrands, bloodied as well, and the sand under my feet bruised when I stepped over it. The harm would not stop the longer I stayed there, but I could not leave either, I was suddenly frozen, forced to all but be a witness. As everything broke down from what I’ve known it. The childish paradise I had created in which I had an innocent wish, my hands have turned it into that. If I closed my eyes, would it disappear? Me being a witness should be what made it so terrific.
I closed my eyes, and felt something stab me into the stomach. It was cold, and it had a slow strength to it that you could only imagine was for torturous reasons. No, not even as I looked away, it hasn’t stopped to torment me. What could I, then, do so this pain would stop? The more I clenched my eyes shut, the deeper the pain got. And as I opened them, it was gone.
So I had stabbed myself with the branch in which the bird had once laid, and abruptly woken myself up. I am sorry, for the dove that I had let down for countless cycles, but I was unmoving, unable to stretch far enough as to linger closely.
From the knowledge I have acquired over the years, an excerpt from one of many books I read flashed across my mind whilst I explained to you what happened, I should mention as well. According to the renowned psychotherapist and author of many theories, Carl Jung, dreams are their own nature (as well as an extension of ours, we do not separate from our dreams), as well as they hold their own language. Much of the material that the dreams hold does not originate from our consciousness, no, it couldn’t be said that dreams are just thoughts. Still, the dreams we have reflected on our deepest desires and biggest fears. For they are an unconscious repetition of them, dislocated between memories and cryptic as to what they mean about our mental state. There are dream archetypes, one of the only things we, as observers of the dreams, can really infer a meaning and assign an importance. These repeating patterns in our dreams (in my case, a nightmare, a terrific one), what could they mean? Jung could probably have used the dream in which I had as an example of how dislocation of memories in dreams works, as it becomes clear, once you read it once again, that this dream does not speak about a wounded animal only, nor does it lie only beneath the tree that had melted under my hands. There is more to it, and the more disturbed my life grew to be, the more these dreams have repeated themselves, come to bother me even in the peace of my sleep. Perhaps, this could be why I felt a stabbing ache once I closed my eyes in that realm. I am no psychologist, and neither have I been to one (despite, you might think, the obvious growing necessity for one, given my clear instability), but some connections are as clear and concise to make sure that no further strength is needed. I enjoy these easy rational paths, even more, when they are not bloodstained and taste of vomit.
...
Just like in the dream I had, I could still not reach the salvation right in front of me. There seemed to be something that I forgot. My fingers were wrapped around it, but I was blindfolded. What… could it be?
(Part 2: First Person)
Among the delicate fabrics that, perhaps, blown by the unyielding fate that in turn surrounds us, solemnly weave together the fabric of hopes, sorrows, filth, and shame, which we have affectionately come to call “body" and grant it, albeit reluctantly, much more unfortunately, the honorific title of “ours,” the remnants of your face and the toxins of your repugnant throat tear open this putrid dermal surface with its only gaze, it corrupts it in such a way as to form, within its unique imagination, a terrible worldview, a derogatory way of observing its surroundings that are yet to come. An undeniable process, moreover, I still hold within my chest the ability to sensorially perceive the warm palms of your hands beneath my shoulders, I reject them, they make me sick, fingers that descend down my arms and then trace the blue and green-hued marks, fine lines that tremble beneath the crimson sky. I think, then, you never touched me. I wonder, in what way, how can I feel your cold, thinly-veiled wrists shamelessly penetrating, with almost perfect glory, with almost sudden terror, horrifying reality, into my flesh? Pulsing before my muscles and artistically, painfully rearranging my organs within my chest, so as to make me fear death itself? Like wet ground being trampled after a cold, merciless rain, the reckless marks of your feet remain on my surface, even as you hold the rusted shovel upon my laid body about to, by itself, alter me forever, curse me inadvertently. Please explain it to me, I beg you once more. How is it that you do that?
There is something that I remember. Something I want to give the thought to and something. Terrifies me the thought that I cannot reach it with my own two eyes, that words will fail me upon trying to describe it. This nameless agony that follows me as a phantom would follow, read you, mindless you, through the ridges on your limbs. It has become one with me, this doubt, what have I forgotten that could be so important to me? Though I beg for it to come to me in a dream, though this memory that I dance with, yet with no hands outstretched, nothing will answer me. Prayers that fall on ears that belong to no one, and therefore, I suffer because of it. I suffer because there is a thought I can’t hold, I do not have the time for it.
Ah, it had burned my hand again, yet I lit another cigarette. Yet it sickened me, I had done just that again.
Though I shouldn’t give you any justifications for my sudden halt, I must stop my path to rearrange my mind. Who do I talk to? Nosy-you, that gets in the way of my solitude. Though I look at the moon and forget you just then. Just about as transient as the rest of this life, two-faced and ever-changed, the night sky is never the same. It stares back at me as if I should not look at it. What do I have the right to look at, then? Is this a joke? These days, even the slightest wind irritates me profusely, I start to notice. Another drag, one elongated of rage, before I discard the pitiful tip of the cigarette on the ground.
…
Noticing I had hesitated to step on it to snuff out the flames, with twice the strength, I crushed it with my heel. Yet comes another factor that irritates me, just as everything that comes with this sort of life. I humanize too much what doesn’t breathe, and upset makes me to think that it doesn’t. To my own disappointment I build a path, and this sort of unease writes itself to be quite unpleasant to deal with. I do not like that I construct my own suffering. It irritates me profusely, I cannot stand it, live with it as if it was a part of myself. Because in this impulse, I can’t see myself, not even as I look down upon my reflection in the cold puddles of deceased rain. My reflection does not look as someone who plants suffering and expects it not to bloom upon their head. Yet I bury this irritation down, an attempt not to focus on the bitter taste between my lips that the cheap cigar has left behind.
Continuing to walk upon these streets, I decide that I wish to take upon a different path to bring me home tonight. Roaming across a night in which feels so unimportant, what is there to fear to tread differently? Submerging, my body sinks further into the comfortable breeze of the loneliness that carried this vessel, of these glasses that were tinted darker so that the stars would not have shone as bright. A ballad it was, and I had followed just as the steps had commanded me to. Turning a different road, unexpectedly so, the tired eyes that to me have belonged for so long stare at the newfound sightings that I had never once thought to see. Ridiculous it was, that it fascinated me so much, ridiculously so, that the lights that distantly flickered seemed just as bright as the stars I had dimmed with my will alone. These stars, I would have followed them.
Ridiculous, it is, that I continue to walk. There is silence, silence everywhere in the dim streets that I pass by, silence in all but inside my wretched brain. The words that pulse under my cranium write themselves over the walls of the unkempt gates, scratched and scribbled over, There is joy and laughter, I recall for some reason, behind every color that my eyes come to land upon. If I could have seen it, there would be children around the same fences that I see littered in stars and poorly-drawn animals, laughing and sharing stories about their first loves and favorite memories. One of them would have gotten a new haircut, their long hair now nothing but a well-kept masculine do, pale skin tracing silently the scribbles made by his dear friends. Even if he didn’t say it, or didn't say anything at all, I could see the love and tenderness in the gesture. There was nothing but full admiration in his pitch-black eyes, that seemed to swallow all the light around his haunted self. Too quietly he approached, that one of his peers would soon jump away, tears already in his wide eyes, hands that carried a paper bouquet quickly shot up in fear. Another one quickly picked the flowers up, hesitantly placing them across his own hair, smiling rarely at his own reflection laid on a nearby puddle.
One of them, just close by, wielding a plastic knife, had just made a wonderful meal out of crayons and chalk, colors that built a sadly unappealing dish. Proud about being able to sneak in a yellow apron, stolen from his sick mother’s kitchen, hair neat (brushed by himself!), smiling happily, running after his companion, who wore a ragged-down green jacket, skin sun-kissed and tan. Loud, booming laughter, as one chased another in playful banter.
I could vividly feel the heat of the sun graze my skin as I immersed myself, unbecoming even to myself, I hovered closer, closer. Suddenly, I was fully drawn to what I had seen, I could not pull myself out of this vision, of faces I didn’t know, of a fence I couldn’t recognize. I couldn’t understand, and my head hurt the longer I tried to. I walked closer, closer. Trying to read words from somewhere much distant, that I could no longer reach. The cold air embraced me, as I stared at the fence. Small hands, so small I could not see them in myself, hovered over it. How does a human survive this little? I could not understand. Have I been this small, and that I don’t remember?
These voices, that I could not understand, between laughs and smiles, talked to each other. Everything felt faint, and just as faint, the wind roared. The sunny sky that I had seen suddenly started to darken, and the children talked about getting inside. It was getting late, the smell of homemade stew filled the alleyway. Somehow, the smell of it brought back the feeling of which I couldn’t explain. As if I stared at myself through puddles and saw something familiar once more. It embraced me as well, and from one of the windows, someone hummed a song. One that I could well remember. An old voice sang voices like they were a bedtime story.
“Agora era fatal,
Que o faz de conta acabasse assim.”
One verse at a time, my body had long abandoned me. The rain has started to fall, but I haven’t noticed, or cursed the skies for wetting my hair.
“Pra lá deste quintal
Era uma noite que não tem mais fim”
Suddenly, the fence in which I absentmindedly observed was open. The lock was long gone. Everything felt old and dusted, as if not a single soul had lived there for a while. The children that I had heard quieted down. There was silence, and the notes that got through my ears still.
“Pois você sumiu no mundo sem me avisar
E agora eu era um louco a perguntar.”
Under my feet, laid the lawn. The song, the melody that was so familiar, so familiar, filled my mind, depraved me of any thought, made a man possessed. Why was I closing the distance, if I did not know what laid there, that somehow I recognized? The closer I got, the fainter the song got.
“O que é que a vida vai fazer de mim?”
With that, the last traces of the poem slowly withered away. Together with it, the sun from the scene I had witnessed, and the laughter too. Together with it, the warmth had also gone away. The rain overwhelmed my senses, and suddenly, all I could hear was a conversation from far below. There was rain, and there was dread. There was a deep sadness I have carried for some reason, and I didn’t even know it. There was something.
…
There was a voice. One which I heard very clearly through the haze of the movements that were no longer upon me to decide to pursue.
“Noman!! It’s getting late, I’ve got to go.”
A blatant child muttered. A boyish voice, in which I…
“Mama will be worried sick if I don’t get home.”
Can’t forget. In which I could not forget. How could I? But I have.
“Noman!!! It’s raining!”
There was a higher pitch this time. Indeed, it was raining. But suddenly, I could not move. My boots were soaked in cold water, and yet, nothing compelled me to continue walking. There was a feeling, I knew that my name was not being called upon, but of a
phantom, that wore my skin with a playful smile, one to disarm your defenses for. That tone in which I heard, the smiles and the playful banter, I was but a passive witnesser of it all.
“You’re scaring me, Noman! Why won’t you move?! Hey!”
Faces inadvertently flashed to the consciousness of my mind. Faces that I could not recall. Names that I suddenly have remembered. It ached, in a way that suddenly, barely, almost brought me to bitter-tasting tears. I felt compelled to open the door. A lullaby, I suddenly felt tranquil.
Ever so gently, that was what I’ve done. I would find the woman who hummed it with so much grace, steaming plates atop a table, adorned with roses and crystal glasses, patterns that I would have traced my fingers across while waiting. From the window, I would see these children, who were the holders of such faces…? I couldn’t remember the woman’s face, not a single feature at all, but she had greeted me countless times before, as this door was crossed. Despite my memories, it was dark. All the lights were turned off, the windows closed with yellow-black striped tape. Locks were placed through the entirety of the house, but for what reason could it be? I could not know, yet there was glass. Shattered, across the carpet. There were recent attempts to peel it off with bare hands, nails engraved into the floors that I have had to step, yet some of it remained. Footsteps, dust littered the scenery. Stained it was, but from what, I could not see in the dark.
“Noman.”
I did not respond. I continued walking. Where was it…? This warmth that I had once seen, how did it disappear? I would search all across the house that buried itself under this darkness, under this mystery of what I could not remember.
That to make me halt my pacing, something of soft feel could be felt under my grimy boots. It was wet, I could be sure of it. The tip of my shoes pulled back the thick, slick mass that covered it. I stepped back to take a look at what had suddenly unfolded.
…
What stared at me through the haze of darkness was indescribable. What I was looking at? Surely, this could have not been explained with words solely. Such disgust that I felt, that I could throw up inside the corpse that stared right back at me. With eyes that resembled my own, tears that have dried with time and left a trail of red across the morbidly grayish dermis. Frozen, I was, as the image of my own chest was shown before me, cut open and dismantled. The organs that composed my entirety were sliced apart, spread across the room like ominous warnings that ridiculed me. Disgusting, it was disgusting, the smell of rotten flesh, the sounds of larvae crawling through the crevices, as I disappeared. Terrorizing, it was terrorizing.
Bending over on the nearest surface, my stomach was emptied out. Under my own vomit, I screamed. Why had I been the one to witness this tragedy, if I myself had died? Where was the warmth I so much seeked? What I had encountered, I could not name it as warm, I could not name it at all. I could not remember it, and now I knew, what was it, that I could not name. The strength left my body entirely, I was left powerless, and it irritated me more than anything. In a second, there was no laughter, and the blood has long disappeared,
The room in which my body kneeled had always been empty.
How was it, I asked, if I had seen it? If the scent from the withering of my own essence had filled my nostrils and possessed me with an urge to sever the memory away completely. What have I lived, had I really lived it at all? I despised it, I hated it more than anything. Looking down upon my hands, this time, I found blood. I had found strands of my own hair, I had found puke and I had found tears. From where was nothing, I had created my own reenactment of when death took me away, I had created a repulsive sight with nothing but my grief. And that irritated me more than anything ever could have the chance.
Unbecoming to myself, once again, I had run away. I was unsure of when the running had started. Long ago, when I had made the mistake to cross this path, I had already lost full control of my body. I sprint long past my legs aching from instability. I had to. Not even now, when answers have found their way to myself, I didn’t know where I was going, I didn’t know at all. I ran because I needed to get away, I needed to get away from myself and for that I needed to cease to think. I ran because I wanted to find a place where I would not be, and I did not know where that would be.
Urges. Urges. I urged.
Clumsy-paced, I rushed into a liquor shop. Yes, this would be the place where I would hide from myself. I hadn’t known, I couldn’t process just how fast it had happened, but I urged for it to. My trembling hands, that surprised me in how still carried me around.
A curb to rest my legs, cheap rum to run down my throat warm my senses from the cold that had found me. Yet I felt cold, the pavement felt scorching to touch. Despite it all, I felt colder than I could fathom. My hands struggled with the opener, I shook, panic took control of my body as I counted the moments until the end of this torture. The torture that is to feel, to have a thought at all. If I could see my face like I had back then, my eyes would have been blown wide, my lips pale and quivering with terror.
And until morning came, I wouldn’t have been home. Until the ghost that is memory shared a drink beside me in the empty streets of a dead suburb. Sugary alcohol that blinded the senses, warm bliss that had courted me once again.
Such is the life of the undead.
(Part 1: Third person)
Greeting the voice of the hopeless, a situation of endless wallowing, a ray of mechanical light, blinding all that was outside the cocoon of solace in which the Yesman found himself in. Was it sundown, could the singing of the birds be already heard? Was it the middle of the night, in such a silence outside that couldn’t be broken even by the whispering of the people in the city? Was it disruptive, the sound of the cars passing by, cursing and screaming at each other, could it be heard? Drunken men laughing along with the screams and cries of children, the loud thoughts of those who were overwhelmed by their lives, could you see it through the fog of darkness, a veil draped around the city with cheap street-lights? Was it even real, you’d ask, could he even touch it, perceive it, connect to it in a humane way? To string a relationship with the outer world as if it was a part of your own reality of reach, as if a dance with space and time was nothing but the usual plate to be served and tasted down to inexistence. Was it possible?
The sickened man, locked up in the prison of machinery, tied by shackles to a warm, artificial body of stitches, spat-up ichor and cruelty, would never know, wouldn’t have a single idea at all. Hands moving against his constricted will, eyes cutting from screen to screen in the equal force of blades clashing for a victor, cold sweat, a headache. He wouldn’t know, therefore, and he’d never, never care at all. The privilege of conscience was one he was much a stranger to. Such a relationship to his own mind could be compared to a patron and a cup of warm alcohol, where one does not know where the ambrosia that numbs them comes from, but before it can even think about it, the ichor of toxin already embraces their lips, runs down their throat, distorts their minds and paints a taunting idea of destruction to be lived upon the separation of sobriety.
“To the vermin that left me disoriented, distorted the borders of what once could be considered life” - The man of which we talk bit his tanned lip shut, a harsh bang of a vested wrist, a curled up fist into the faltering panels, hands that reeked of smoke and constellated in blisters of pressure and overheat. A terrible, terrible sight, that to the eye, resembled nothing more than a misbehaving hound growling at the wind upon the thought of something infuriating. - “To the repulsive insect, who, without my permission, struck me once again with an unwished-for, non-understood life.” - A conformity that was forced upon each one of his thoughts like a gunshot, a slap to the neck, the sting of a burning tip of a cigarette to the back. A jolt of discipline. It was infuriating, such a daily life that imprisoned him. To be frothing at a situation of the likelihood would not be unusual, control and dissatisfaction established.
“Yes, this is the vermin I talk about. Are you listening?”
“My never ending questionings, my indignation, my resignation.”
Everything in this world has started with an affirmation. A molecule said yes to another and, thus was invented life. Before the prehistory, a prehistory even further back than that already existed. There was denial, and there was acceptance. An affirmation started the beauty of what existed, as it also had long started the destruction of what was pure, thus Pandora has done, we had done it much before, once and once again. Came then forgetfulness, to attempt to stop this unforgiving force that would, for sure, destroy us all. Numbness, the inexistence of anything. But what beauty there is, answer me, for you I plead, without feeling? What peace of mind is there, without a mind for it to reel into? The two concepts by their own limitations, contradicted with each other, an Oroboros of unbearable torture and tangible insanity, at last. The chasing that would follow was to be infinite, so why did all point to an inevitable end? Which end, could be asked, did the endless have to look forward to? - “How do I foresee what will come if I have never lived it in the first place?” - While answers wouldn’t come, he would continue to think it away. Or else, the unstoppable force that was his drive. A self-injury inflicting whip, that reminded him of his insignificancy, the pact that he had made with this cycle, the lack of control of his own life, the lack of love in his own heart. This was but about the death of innocence, the realization of how wicked all could be. The falseness of free will, in its fullest glory. - “For there is the scream, and I have the right for it.”. - He thought - “The scream that is the thought, the act of thinking at all.”
A reflection that was rooted in deep despair, a thought that ran down the concaves of his shoulder acidically, a nail to the rotten wood that was his situation. A few hours had passed themselves in such a space,the pointers had already made a full turn, he’d remembered. To him, it was as if eternity dawned again and again, so that he would be stuck inside the confinement of Hell until the apocalypse dawned. Such was the weight of the unbearable overwork and the unreachable, endless boredom of his, repetition, repetition, another cycle dropping unconscious as another arises to take its place. Helpless, was the word for it, and he was sure this kind of place could count as Hell by itself. The suffering of souls that echoed like mechanical buzzes of lightning, striking ever so deeply into his heart, slicing in half his mind again. To have nothing to take his focus out of it but reflecting upon his sin, as he on his own existence was a sin. Dirt on history, filth under his own tongue.
And last, the flames, even not there to be seen by the naked eye, slickening his tanned skin with scorching sweat, darkening even more the shade of neutral beige, reddening, itching. It itched, the uniform of his, like a plague, revoltingly so, it ached, it itched, from under the skin, his own epidermis, to rip away until the urge had left his system. A hunger for any sort of release, stimuli. His booted foot tapped against the metal floor, cursing it all under his breath.
“Yes,” - The Yesman affirmed solemnly - “Such is the life I live.”
As if looking for something he had lost, and didn’t remember what was, he stared at the vibrant yellow-green static on the screens. Hunting, searching, looking to remember. There was something he had long forgotten, and he was trying to remember. No, it wasn’t anything he had previously thought, so he had to ground himself. Memory was a funny enemy of his, one that swore to murder, oh so heinously, and grasp in between his digits with care all at once, one of the faces he had very much forgotten in between the wires that embedded life as he knew it. The mind-ruining pressure was back at his feet, he could almost hear the clock ticking off, how his time was running out thin, an explosive, death pointing at him, disgrace breathing just beside his ear, tainting, tainting. He’d wish for anything but life, given anything for the release of this torturous fate, but the demise of this curse has gotten it once again after losing it, fortunately, wishfully. Loathed, he loathed it, and he wished for anything but this life. No, it wasn’t that, as well, that he wanted to remember. It was something else, of which he has lost and has yet to recover. So what was it? How could he remember? Desperation, desperation. The heat to his head, the fire to his throat came back rushing just in time. Illusion, illusion. Illusion of what? Questioning, not knowing how to proceed. Still, frozen, flowering, wilting with the hands of the devil in grasp. The memory of which he talked hid in the depths of his mind, a child, no, an infant of playful nature that ran in a game of catch, carrying a kite with a wire so sharp it cut, it severed open his heart and made him unable to remember. What colors graced the kite that his mind would carry? What did those hands, fingers entwined in weapons, look like? He wouldn’t know, he couldn’t, shouldn’t. What were the colors that once beautifully graced his dreams? He couldn’t remember at all. The lights of the memories, of what he has thought of incomplete, that built up his train of thought, made him once again dizzy, brought him once again to distress.
Ah, but memory was such a concept that easily slipped away, the breeze that it left behind left him so tranquil, so…
With the calmness that suddenly took control of his body, he puffed out smoke from a rusted cigar. Two minutes, he had, before the lights faded into dark. His lungs warmed with the sudden long-familiar tobacco smell. He wasn’t a worker to smoke, not that he had a choice, his inside, against his choice, were already infested by machinery grime. If he had lived past twenty-five, life ahead waited for him, unconsidering his putrid habits. Peace, it was, as if he touched the heavens with each cloud that formed around his heavy helmet, lightening his head to the skies. A kite that childishly flew across the winds, for just a second, before landing headfirst into a fence that would, too pierce its chest and cause its death. A tragedy, it was upcoming, could he think about it later? This soothing embrace, that was suddenly granted to him like a wish embalmed in honey, until the lights turned off…
Words that were not savored. As the hours struck their end, the machinery slowly ceased to chant. Perhaps, there was forgiveness for someone of the likes of him. The feeling of being able to rest under the pressure that overwhelmed him was a long one he’d grown addicted to. These vices that held him stuck in a life of which he did not want to survive under. These fists that rested around his wrists, broke them reason free.
One breath after another, no energy remained on his body. The clattering of teeth, as the ache that enveloped his body after coming back to his senses. The man he became while stringed incapacitated by wage was very different from that man that held his heart, that, with uncertain steps and surely, surely unsure traces, constricted his life, or what remained of it. Another person rested atop him, and to stand up and hold its hand towards home was to be the path taken. One breath after another.
One boot after another. The green-vested boy had finally straightened to rise. Words that made themselves happen, over and over. His steps were heavy, albeit not directionless. The path in which they went was unimportant, for himself, there was no place to go that felt like a destination. A midpath between work, it was, what he called momentarily “home”. That was it, where he was supposed to walk with his damned legs. Cowardly, he gave himself the right not to think about it. A coward, was he, that walked anxiously through the corridors, wishing to take one glance at the night sky. That craved a bottle of cold, bitter - “hooch”. The condensation dampness on the glass, very much so, resembled his own face. He was a man who always had a hot-head, figuratively and literally wise. Once this was over, he’d get rest, drown himself in more thoughts, walk through the unkempt pavement of his mind. Drown, again and again, in his own unconformity.
…
Yes. That seemed about what he should do.
"I'm searching, I'm searching. I'm trying to understand. Trying to give someone what I've experienced, and I don't know who, but I don't want to keep what I've experienced. I don't know what to do with what I've experienced, I'm afraid of this profound disorganization. I don't trust what happened to me. Did something happen to me that, because I didn't know how to live it, I lived another? I would call that disorganization, and I would have the security to venture out, because I would know where to return to later: to the previous organization. I prefer to call it disorganization because I don't want to confirm what I've experienced—in confirming myself, I would lose the world as I had it, and I know I don't have the capacity for another."
"If I confirm myself and consider myself true, I will be lost because I will not know where to fit my new way of being—if I go ahead with my fragmentary visions, the whole world will have to change for me to fit into it. I lost something that was essential to me, and that is no longer mine. I don't need it, just as if I had lost a third leg that until then had made it impossible for me to walk but had made me a stable tripod. I lost that third leg. And
I went back to being a person I never was. I have what I never had: just two legs. I know that only with two legs can I walk. But the useless absence of the third leg makes me miss it and scares me, because it was what made me something I could find by myself, without even having to look for it."
- Clarice Lispector, Passion According to G.H.
“To the vermin that first gnawed at the cold flesh of my corpse, I dedicate as a fond remembrance these posthumous memoirs.”
“To the vermin that left me disoriented, distorted the borders of what once could be considered life, to the repulsive insect, who, without my permission, struck me once again with an unwished-for, non-understood life. Yes, This is the vermin I talk about. Are you listening?”
“ I have…”
The sink, as weary as the man’s voice, was running down without anyone’s request. The rotten flesh of the molding marble screeched, writhed and trembled upon being leaned into by rough hands, nestled by intricately neat rubbery gloves, with each skinned fingertip making a squeaking sound upon touch and slide with the surface. The rain tattered across the small cabin, squeezing inside by small cracks on the ceiling, running down the wasted concrete and pooling onto the filthy, stomach-churningly, ground. The mud, the cries, the storm and thunder, all made their part, sang with their all-might voice, in a harmonized symphony directly by Hell itself, in all its cursed glory and sickening comedy. All prayers found themselves hopeless to such a heinous sight, all laughter withered with the sorrow. All holy creations, divine laws, violated by the hands of a sinner, who weeped and laughed to himself. All ties to good intentions cut, all doors to desperation open. All hope shall be abandoned, for whom dares to enter this godforsaken mind, to understand this wicked chimera of a spirit. A crazed terrorizer, was he, whose scythe to destruction, whose singular weapon to suicide, murder and genocide, was…
“Both… the liquor of ressurection and fresh blood on my hands.” - “It” cried in response, with deceiving lips foaming with venom, whom was kissed and delicately courted into his mouth, carnally slid into his pointy, wine-stained tongue, ardently forced into the back of his throat, lustfully digested and repelled right back up. The words it dared to mimic, pretend to understand and utter were prideful, bathed in self-pity and covered in a veil of humanity, as thin as his own definition of the concept. - “For it stenches of alcohol, the undead that were dragged six feet above by my hands, and strongly of antiseptic.”
The hands sustaining the weight of a shaking body gripped the stone surface tighter. The thin, pale arms faltered their straight stance, the clothed, weak legs barely holding on. Another sharp sob, followed by a soulfelt cough, dirtying the dusty mirror with alcoholic-infused saliva. Surely, the human limitations, being stuck in a human vessel, was exhausting, borderline excruciating. For someone who deems - or should deem - himself superior to such shackles, it was a pity he still imprisoned himself in them. The humanity that inhabited it was already long decomposed, so living inside a body you no longer belonged in, or at least alone, was futile. But there was an attachment to it, to the flesh that surrounded his bones, the heart that kept beating and beating, to the brain that kept repeating apologies, to the vocal chords that lost their ability to speak for themselves, to comprehend what’s being said. It was truly, truly a disgusting sight, of a weakened, man-made mistake, that imitated the first sin of Prometheus, and stole a force that was not his to retrieve and give away. Did he think about the monstrosity of what was done? The risk of creating life? As his hand wrapped around a blood vessel, as he carded his nails through a cold bodily tissue that was not his, did he consider how terrifying the action was and what it could lead to? How petrifyingly gross he was? Ah, but he has done it anyway. No Greek tragedy redeems a tragic hero as its suffering echoes in its mind, as it reflects on all the misfortune it has gone through, as its tears turn into the crowd’s terror and pity, entertainment, catharsis in its purest form. In short, it is still destined to die on its own, quod erat demonstrandum. The peasants would still drink his blood in a theatretical joy despite his regret.
“Do I… really have the right for this?” - It dared to ask, though it knew the dire answer Of course it knew. - “The license to decide someone’s will?” - He muttered the last word, pretending he knew what it meant, for others and for himself. Will, one that was silenced by the forceful close of the faucet. Wailing must be kept silent. The damned doctor knew his cue, and purposefully tore it apart.
“But once a life is brought back” - He continued - “Bringing it back down is not an option.”
“It’s, for all, love’s fault. Compulsion’s fault.”
“After all, you knew what you were doing. Didn’t you,
Viktor “Baron” Frankenstein?”
With a disruptous sigh that carried the weight of the world as he knew it, the door was slammed open. It dragged on the floor, sickeningly so. The scratching of the polished yet unkempt flooring hurt his ears, making him physically recoil. The cracked, vandalized walls of an abandoned hospital immediately came into the focus of his dark irises, his pupils dilating to process the new setting of bright colors. The purple, almost opaque light that bounced through the half-destroyed building dimly lit the cold, rancid corridors, guiding the steps of the white-vested demon through the rooms, that surprisingly, were still occupied. Voices of the sick, of the nurses, of the doctors and of the dead could be heard. The clanking of metal, the coughs and of the stabbing made unconscious conversations with each other, making sure that everyone chiming in knew what was happening, including himself. And he knew what was happening, he knew that this place was a slight centimeter from putrefaction. It was rancid, he thought to himself. It made him uneasy, the unfamiliarity and the darkness... - “Whoever comes into this unkempt place has quite the death wish” - He stated, yet, despite himself, kept walking. Wandering alone in such a place, was the equivalent and alive similarity, the explanation and exemplification of White Night’s melodramatic sight. Just like the distracting narrator that dreamed and fell in love with life itself in Saint Petersburg, he heard across the walls and what they told him about, paid attention to all and everyone around him, and relished on the later time, on the moon’s rise, to feel secure in his own body and how he was perceived by the people passing by. - “How low can people go just to get taken care of, to find salvation?”
He quickly cut the train of thought off, to avoid finding his journey to be way too similar to the people he looked down upon. It was an useless energy spending habit, one that he should dispose of. After all, everyone was haunted by the same pointless wish of salvation. Everyone lets their blood run down cold just to find a glimpse of a warm “welcome home”, of familiarity, of a fervorous ballad of bodies, the pure connection of hearts and unclothed limbs, of passion. Everyone has a fixation, a figure that looms over their shoulder, laughing at their choices, tempting them into pointless love, driving their will short little by little, devoiding them of their own choices, driving them to the edge of insanity, savoring the wine of lust with tongues tied, draining them of their treasured purity, painting their spread legs lipstick red, injecting guilt and self-hatred in the places where it hurt the most; straight into the heart and mind. These people, who let themselves succumb, who can’t control their visceral, epicurean attraction for what was human and mundane, useless, deserved to be destroyed, obliterated by the harsh reality of situations to witness, of the tragedies to pass by, before it was done to them by the angels of death and justice themselves.
As if called upon, summoned by the thoughts circling in his messed, dirty, ragged brain, the one who was mentioned showed up. - “Keep telling yourself that, Baron.” - …He was certainly speaking for only himself. And he knew it. - “It’s quite the show, really… You could have just said it.”
Baron halted his pacing, not even looking behind him. This voice, this mind-wrecking voice. “Can’t you… leave me alone?” - he muttered, as lowly as his perception of his own self, looking down at his stained hands, that gave away his own criminality and guiltiness, not much on his stress and anger upon being disturbed, in such a moment of self-reflection, which could also be referred to as self-loathing, even if it was a justified hatred, as even the purest form of life and consciousness would also loathe his actions, pathetically so. His arms rested against the sides of his body, his muscles clenched as a dire attempt to keep his composure, but even so, they were in constant agitation - “I need some time to think. Please, I’ll do whatever it takes… ”
The decomposing curtains gave way to the faint moonlight to get inside. It danced along the glass shards on the floor, briefly illuminating the ceiling, to finally fall on his delicate, pale face. The jazz music from the club nearby was dizzying, slowly seeping into the cracks of his tired mind and giving a soundtrack to his sloppy despair. De facto, it wasn’t truly despair, but an overextension of his automatic task-completing, robot-like behavior that was starting to wear off. Not that he would be exactly aware of it, but observations must be made. Not that he would exactly figure out what desperation means, as his pulsating heart has gone cold and dead. Not that he would know about anything at all, as this was but a reflection of his mind, scattered and begrudgingly kaleidoscopic, lightly floating by in a spectrum of hopes and naive wishes, one more disturbing than the other; a landscape as fragile as the slight sound of the phonemes that it contained, just about ready to slip away between his fingers - the memory of it all, leaving a faint scent of lavender behind, a faint, restful sigh, to echo on his mind as far as the memory would let him replay it. A dream of efficiency can’t be lived forever, after all. A tool needs sharpening and disinfecting after being used, for it can still continue by, for it still needs to serve its filthy purpose.
“So, that was what I really came here for.” - A click of his tongue and the rubbing of his forehead. Baron continued to mindlessly walk, now with a supposed destination. - “This is messing me over...” - A whisper of his, but not that it actually mattered to him, as far as he could distinguish his own persona from his ideal self, as far as he could seek into the remnants of what he actually knew about who he was. The deepest secret of his own, that made sure to terrorize him deep within his psyche, that weighed at his inner consciousness in a way that he couldn’t ignore, was his most powerful neurosis; his instinctual pull towards what was messed up in nature, for what would make his consciousness question what it was and what it could have been, that made him quiver at the possibility of ever witnessing it happen, feeling it on his own skin. He would throw himself on burning fire, not for the selfless action of helping others, at most, but to feel it happening and to come back alive to remember what was.
“Well, if you’ve forgotten, the laundry is in the room just next to your very body….” - A slight brush of her hand to his shoulder was all she needed to do. Sneaking right behind his thin structure, pressing up against his tense muscles with meticulous strategy, roaming a hand across his curved, bent spine. Her pointy chin lightly rested against his shoulder, her mouth coming to curse his mind with a teasing, breathy whisper - “...You won't pass by it again, will you?” - The cunning voice purred just close by, along with a laugh that he swore that it would taste just like sugary decorations. Counterfeited, but undeniably sweet. A slight note of a flute, it was, one that the Snake of the First Sin would play, luring you in to hear more, with a plump, honey bathed fruit in its hands. A head-aching temptation that left a savory taste behind. - “Your clothes could use some tending to, Franken. As well as the disheveled face of yours.”
He listened to it, as intently as he could, despite not wanting to at all. He halted his pacing to finally give her the affirmation that she so much seeked. that she was able to not only affect him, but to make sure to do it when he couldn’t fight back, when all the battle in him was completely drained out, when he was out of breath. And oh, did it not work, he’d be damned to ask. He hated it, how his hips slightly leaned their weight against her cold, uncaring hands, he absolutely despised, with all his will, how he lifted his heavy head for her own to gain more access to his neck, for her words to reach further inside, hoping, yearning she would go further up, or further down. Just as much as he hated her filthy touches on his body, the way she squeezed herself into him without knocking first. He had grown used to it, he really wanted to believe he had - “That is, maybe if you quit talking for just a second…” - He snapped - “I might not.”
Baroness quickly picked up on the unusually sharp tone of his voice, gently making her way further up, slowly altering their positions so her mouth was barely touching his forehead, their bodies entangled, face to face with each other, as if to make him miss the contact, explicitly request for it. She knew it was not the time yet, and yet… - “My, oh my… Someone is quite responsive today.” - Her breath warmed his skin, leaving behind an ache that only she, who intentionally caused him, knew how to soothe. Purposefully locking the antidote away, are we…? A move worthy of its torturous delight. - "Am I finally digging my way into these weakened nerves? Isn’t that nice, Baron?” - A shot in an already dead corpse. And a perfectly aimed one at that, straight into his weakest places. All of them. Baron leaned against the wall, sliding his weary body to coat the walls. - “Truly, truly a wonderful day! Oh, I missed that heated tone of yours… You may-”
The woman, as rapidly as she appeared, ready for slaughter, retreated back into her meticulous shell, in surprise. That he was not resisting she was sure, and could comprehend, even expected for it to happen in such a dire moment of his grieving. Yet, even with her weakened senses, she swore he felt his ragged breathing hit her face, followed by the imperceptible sound of a tear-stricken gasp for much needed air. That, for sure, was strange. Frankenstein wasn’t one to show clear emotion or sadness with ease, or even at all. He was a plain-white canvas, it was practically impossible to know what was going on in his nasty mind. And as much as this trait was unassuming to one such as her, who craved for intense reaction and havoc, the opposite happening right in front of her eyes didn’t exactly cause a positive effect, as per se. Still, considering the factors she stood for, a show must be continued until the curtain falls, and a perfect smile must be kept until the entire theatre finds itself empty. Such a harsh reality, it was, but it was terribly easy to keep going on with life with such a mindset. She couldn’t lose the opportunity to strike even harder, as she wasn’t even sure if she would ever be in front of such a sight again. With her meticulously constructed charm unaffected, the choice made by the woman was to leave the important questions for later. Leaning her torso against his, she made sure his back was harshly pressed against the wall. Not as a way to restrain him, but to push him jointed with his shame, that she much was aware that existed. His confidence, just like a wounded bird, unable to fly, was fragile and useless for most. Her fingers lightly brushed against his cheek, that was humid with still warm tearstreaks, smudged eye makeup and cold sweat. She could sense the warmth and dryness of his cartilages, even through rubber. - “Baron, isn’t that strange…?” - She feigned concern, her fluttery voice even higher in pitch. - “Or have you really grown used to not processing anything at all?”
She knew she was pushing it, indeed pushing the limits farther away this time. Her, the dangerous Lady, was one to constantly get physically close to him, wander her hands across his body to purposefully irritate him, talk in a softer, breathier voice, but this… She wondered if he would react in any ways at all. And she hoped he did, he was a previsible man, in all his biases. Her toying around with him always ended up in the same way. Both of the souls, as much as not admitted so out loud, have wishes that could not happen, that went against one another’s nature. A snap of the thin ribbon that tied their composers and identities together could change everything, unfold situations never expected by any of them. She wasn’t sure herself about how much longer she could handle playing around, and Baron seemed on edge himself. She could feel his almost too thin muscles pulsate under her hands, as if he was struggling to stay still, to contain his emotions in a single body. She was sure that, soon enough, she would be abruptly surprised.
Alas, even sooner than that, Frankenstein, with the instinctual fierceness of an animal, with the agility of a carpenter wasp, and with the thoughtlessness of the unfeeling, shot a violent blow straight into her direction, de-estabilizing the always composed Baroness into a shocked, confused and harmed mess. The mistress didn’t have the luck to process it all quick enough, her head spinning at the sudden, unexpected chance of environment and position. Looking down at her legs, that now shook intensely, she brought her sleeves close to her face, as to wipe her now scarlet stained chin, falling onto her knees straight on the ground once the action was finished, in utter pain. His pitch-black, glass-like gaze pierced right through her, all through her, reflecting both his newfound fear, his wavering pride, his backseating anger, as well as his never-ending tenacity, that was, for once, unfortunately shattered, even for the smallest of the seconds. It seemed like his intention was solely getting out of her grasp, yet, it was hard to say for sure. After all that unraveled, nothing could be said certainly, for both. The silence extended itself for an intelligible amount of time, but it was useless to try to count how much passed, not that it was an important matter.
As Baron snapped out of his shocked daze, as he had, indeed, done something unfathomable (even to someone as himself), he ran away, not giving himself the time or chance to look behind. Running away wasn’t only literally, as in the physical realm, as in the sense of pushing his body away from something. Baron knew what he was running away from, and why he was running away from it. He was running away mentally, from his part in his world as a human, emotionally. In a drinking party between his feelings, his sadness and grief would be the first off drunk, hugging each other’s shoulders in a pond of tears, drowning in an ocean of intensity, pathetically, so he wanted to silence that. He had to silence that, this weird sinking feeling in his gut, paralyzing him from the inside out, making him shiver and tremble. It wasn’t pleasurable, wasn’t ideal at all, so it had to be terminated. As his foot rapidly tapped and scraped against the halls, he could feel his clothes rustle and crinkle against the cold wind, he was admittedly going against the current.
When the time and distance, that moved alongside in a disturbingly undemanding way, finally came, the heavy, rusty metal door made a loud screeching sound against the walls and his own hands, coating his now exposed, roughened up skin in copper-brown debris, a cocktail of the long decomposed iron and the oily dust, meticulously built in within the creases created by human contact, poured into a fine glass. It made his body recoil, as he slowed down to process the sensorial sensations of it. The absolute disgust, the feeling as if he was being mocked by life itself, almost made the bile in his stomach rise further up out of pure rage. As it was open, it left behind a trace of unfathomable mortification, as if the mere sight of such a broken, barely working engine wasn’t worthy of display, even in comparison to such a dreadful ambience. Like cracking a pristine porcelain vase filled to the brim with drinkable water, the start of instant action did not give place to futile thoughts. Baron was rushing in a strangely urgent way, as if something was in absolute risk. A hammer strike in the delicacy of a cold breeze. He swiftly took off his coat, which was stained by all sorts of fluids, coming from dead or alive origins, and quickly turned on the washing machine. slamming the entrance closed with his shoulders, leaving Baroness behind.
Marinating himself in the silence, exposing his skin to the frigid, botheringly uncontaminated air felt like stripping himself naked in front of his worst fears, introducing himself bare to what would, with all certainty, destroy him completely, leave him gasping for air, begging for forgiveness, wishing for respite. Alone, he was, and he was now sure of it. Alone with his wrongdoings and his newfound impulsivity, that has driven him to unjustified, carnal violence. He was always alone, in his consciousness of it, but having no one to gaze upon him at his lowest, a moral motivation to keep himself upright, even if negative, tempted him to let his barriers shatter whole. He urged, therefore, he had to get out of there, of this vulnerable situation he had caused upon himself.. He could no longer stay somewhere silent, where it was quiet enough so he could feel his lungs contracting, the blood running down his veins, his bated breath. Where it was so quiet so he could feel, be aware, notice. Suddenly, what his eyes saw, his fingertips felt, his heart signed and his body gravitated towards, it was clear. Still, working in a place so empty and so full at the same time, thinking wasn't debatable at all, he had to, somehow, confront himself or what was attached to his spine, draining him out.
He had to wait for at least three long hours until the next part of his shift as a doctor of a ridiculously low-budget intensive surgery clinic started, said clinic where he had the displeasure to sleep in and wake up to, recognize all the perimeters by memory, build his life over his very grave, the place which so much terrified him . And to stagnate was the declaration of a foreseen, inevitable disaster. It was clear to him, of course it was, as clear as it could be.He could feel the palms of the hands that traced his disaster roam through all the places of his complexion, running nails through his unkempt, knotted hair, squeezing his guts dry and fiddling with his very soul, in a fashion that was both painful and strangely, utteringly familiar. And so, he found himself relapsing, succumbing to the feeling of resignation. He looked at his wristwatch, hoping that the hours would pass by quicker, that all his agony was enough for someone, anyone to feel merciful and cease his suffering, making the minutes tick by with swift speed. Of course, he was hit with the harsh truth soon after. Only 30 seconds, in reality, have passed.
Not having any more suitable options, he decided to take in his surroundings after what they went through. This room, he had stepped on in countless times, but the last one would be forever imprinted on his memory. He took a glance at the clothing that were hanging on the window frame, they were still there, to admire how they swayed with the cold wind and dripped with the residuum of his defiance to the cycle of life, the clothing he used during the revival process. He still hadn't found the courage to touch it, move it around, or even wash the handprints, the leakings and wine-colored tears that covered the thin wool sheets. He didn't even feel the right to touch it, like it was too sacred, delicate and horrifying, it still held the moment it supported perfectly. He could almost feel how their cold, clammy skins felt, how he was stared at all through the process, with eyes that no longer held any life in them. How the memory was almost all he had left of them, and how no contact was secured since, how the detachment of the body, organs and soul was all well known to him. How he had deceived nature in a stomach-wrenching disgusting way... It was hard, torturous not to think about it. It was like a leech or a vermin, squiggling, eating and hollowing his brain from the inside out. Clawing at the back of the nerves of his eyes, and making him eternally blind,consuming the flesh that covered their path, and keeping him conscious all through his suffering. It was sickening, it was so sickening he felt the urge to gouge his heart out and rip it apart. And despite it all, ignoring the agony that shook his body to its death, the sadness that threatened to destroy him completely, he couldn't help but deeply love everything so much as he loved himself and foolishly hope, illusion for the best.
Noman, the ever Yesman, he hoped that his cousin, even if he wasn’t quite close to him, was alright. His body was least damaged of the two that he had to operate on, at least he had a moment of mercy, considering the maelstrom he went through everyday. Excluding the sore muscles on his shoulders from the labour, his calloused hands, with digitals barely recognizable, he found his body with several fractures along his spine, an open wound on his neck area, almost ripping his skull from the rest of the body, and an accelerated decayal, his skin already pale purple, most of the fluids on his body dried up. He was an impeccable worker, his skill undeniable, he was loyal and undefiant. Baron has come to admire his willingness to stand up for what he believed in, his ability to maintain himself stable, even through dire situations. It all felt like a violation towards him, bringing him back to such a complicated living, but he hoped he did what was right. He could foresee the scowl on his face as he took notice of his harsh reality, and he couldn’t help but be grateful he wasn’t able to see it in person. Nicole had his limbs ripped out, the bones cracked from the inside out, his stomach ripped apart and the rest of his body beaten, wounded and spit up. Despite all his efforts, he wasn’t capable of attaching his head back up perfectly, it was still susceptible to falling off, which wasn’t pleasant, at all. He imagined the young man, who was the prodigy of the family, his parents’ most prized possession for his early marriage and career achievements, would despise him equally. The worst is, he couldn’t blame him for it, not at all. He would be the luckiest person at all if they didn’t inflict the same torture on him, for it would be fair and an expected response. It sickened him, and he didn’t know what to do with his consciousness.
With a vow not to let the blood rise to his head, he turned on the sink, washing the ichor away, hoping it would also cleanse the despair from his mind. He couldn’t dwell himself out of his body, not yet, at least. He could feel his arms starting to limp from the built-up stress.
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