I: Lunatics Singing Under The Midnight
Hydra was the name of death.
I dreamed of the muse and that inferior tie. The Moth tugs on the strings that comprise man, having it dance, dancing once more to the song. A skeletal flower of compound rust blooms on this wonderful night, petals held in place by threads of The Moth. The tulip is known by a stroll between the two notes, Legato. Legato, Legato, Legato… it resonates, vibrating inside my cardiac chambers, singing to my depths.
My gray matter and heart agree, it is a wonderful name. Something I deserve. So that it can be easily recalled once my piece is unveiled.
My senses return, —soul dragged by woven silk— skin grazed by a thousand invisible knives. A perplexing coldness, yet such a warm embrace as it seeks to enter every crevice… that familiar feeling of air! The vast blue giant tantalized me in the corner of its mouth —coating me in an infinite mist—, a contrast to the silence of the cell, but the time of limbo had passed! There is no point in reflection, only a march forward for a clearer view.
I give myself a moment to get my bearings straight, the flesh numb, the brain a silent hall echoing out for gone memories. Ah, such are the wonders and joys of life. I look at my new attire, a dark gray suit better for burial than day-to-day, disheveled and sloppily worn, after I loosen the choking hold of the necktie, I take a moment to inspect a curious pin: a silver coin depicting a blank, gaping expression made from three circles, inscribed with the phrase “caput mortuum”. My fingers cling to leather, a briefcase encased in black, warm to the touch. Both were gifts from The Moth, I presumed.
It takes a while to adjust, but shapes dance in the darkness, architecture with no artistry behind it, a simple efficient monument in ruins, but it will never return to the soil. Its birth was a constant gluttony, demanding the earth, demanding man and machine to build a monastery to its divine spirit, and it was insatiable. Even when manifested, it unhinges its hungry maw, and every day, a thousand souls walk to feed it, giving all their worth for a cheaply manufactured blessing. They pretend it is symbiosis, ants extracting the milk of love from the aphid, only it was simply parasitism, a plague willingly spread onto themselves. But now there is only a carcass, they’ve stopped feeding it, and it in turn —biomass too great to sustain now— collapsed. I am in the belly of a dead beast, and its name was the shopping mall. But even in the decay of its paneling skin, I think there is beauty in it all. Nevermore will the half-joyed voices drown out the frauds of avarice, and in the silent shell, peace nestles with a lullaby of imaginary winds.
As I stand in the halls —calmed by its silent aura—, the slightest sound cuts through the air. My head darts to the source, but it is gone. Now of course, where there are dead, there are scavengers. So it could be nothing more than a rat crawling through the rubble…
I wander through the mall: a skeleton made out of brick and mortar, slashes in the walls, I’m enamored by the artistry of it all, a transformation of chaos slowly cutting the being into perfection. Yet I can’t remove that ancient reptilian parasite in my spirit, whispering gnawing shivers up my spine and having electrostatic feelings growing throughout my skin. The ape-like instinct tells me to flee or prepare for violence as if one should fear the delusion of sleep granted by The Moth. As the thousand-minute dreams traverse the web, pumping chemicals to heighten senses, harp of artery screaming, I stood ever so still, like the deer shocked by the peculiar light in the midnight.
Like most victims, I didn’t know my murderer.
Metal meets the skin coating the shell that protects the soft thinking-meat inside. Tire iron. The evolution of violence. A second kiss. It wishes to crack open the bone, to get to the pulp and nectar. A third. It revels in its purpose, ever since the first simian bashed in another’s face to wet paste and dust with rock sharpened with rock. The fourth kiss. When we scattered the green wombs throughout Gaia, we suppressed the urge of the hunt, but our child did not. The fifth. Throughout childhood, all it ever saw was the dulling red of life, and so when purifying the stone, when rebirthing it in the kiln, we tell it that red no longer exists. Sixth. But it never can get the bright ruby away from its eyes, we say that we killed violence, but it simply spread, like a cancer throughout the firmament, growing from our act of infanticide. Seventh. The child laughs as it no longer has to be a pretender of creation, no more tire irons, wrenches, and pipes, all that is left is its true face, a laughing grin born from the hate it sees as love, it becomes the igneous innocence once more. I had nothing to fear, yet my body sings agony, crawling away to nonexistent salvation as moments cease their normal rhythms, and the only thing that remains of my spilling thoughts is the fear of sleep.
My flesh stops responding to dead matter, —but I can still see— the soul is a prisoner in a damp prison. I am helpless as my body is dragged away by my assailant, feeling the cold tile being stained with my lukewarm essence, senses reduced to nubs of their former selves. I hear a voice, colors dance in my retinas which leaves a painful afterimage. So I waited, listening to The Moth, which tells me everything will be alright. Continuing to lay limp, consciousness clinging to a vessel that should be bygone.
My mind goes back to the cell. And in the ivory twilight was a constant rain.
The nerves upon realizing that they are still here, spring to life once more, as I look upon my new surroundings.
From my perspective —a worm forced out by the rain—, I am the centerpiece in a circle made of chalk, branching like a tree that bears the fruit of symbols half-remembered, surrounded by drawings of eyes, their malignant pupils leering, spiraling, taking my blood as their new tears to cry damnation. A ritual. I am the lamb that is the prophet, the bible written from the cutting of meat. Unable to move as the perpetrator excised my flesh with the carving knife, pulling out the warm viscera onto plates. And I think to myself:
It’s all amateurish, line work is like the snot-eating, self-urinating infant's first dance with a crayon he holds with his fat little fingers. Of what will return back to such scrambled messages to the deep? What kind of useless thing delves their hand into this art? I glanced over and found my answer.
A girl in her late schooling days, fair skin, straight hair of sepia and blank, sleepy eyes, still in her pinafore uniform, kneeling over me as she meticulously carved my insides with a face of absentminded contentment. The revelation pains my heart —which is in the process of being removed—. What path brought this child to violence, liturgy, and trespassing? What will come to her in a few years? When do the damned gallows call for her? I cannot let such a tragedy unfold, it is the burden of man to help a youth’s life, so I stood up.
“Hey lass, you should be focusing on your academics.”
It takes a moment for her to register my voice, and not a moment later panic envelopes her face.
“Ah… this never happened before.”, looking at me with shock before scrambling for the weapon.
“Wait! Wait! Lass calm down.”
Tire iron. The pounding in my head returns as I collapse onto the floor again, gushing blood.
“Is this supposed to happen mister?”, she bites her nail.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself kid, it’s-“
“Wait hold on, can you play dead for a minute? I need some time to think.”
She circles around my body, not caring about the haphazard ruining of the circle. “Am I seeing things?”, foot tapping on my blood while looking at me quizzically.
“Hey, are you still here?”, she taps my body with the tire iron like prodding an unmoving body, I respond with the twitchings of a finger, “Oh good, do you know what happened?”
“There’s a perfectly good explanation for this”, is what I meant to say, but instead only a slurred comment comes out.
“A miracle?”, —you’re stealing credit from The Moth.— her voice grows with excitement, “I returned you back to life didn’t I?”
“That’s not quite right.”
“Aw…”, she pouts with disappointment, “Then what is it?”
“I’m a bit versed in the song and dance from The Moth, though my head isn’t in order right now.”
“Moth?”, she leans in with a puzzled look, “And was that my fault?”
“Well my memory’s quite dull, but that was before your assault.”
“To be fair, it was self-defense.”
“You bashed in my skull with that primitive thing.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do when a stranger was wandering in an abandoned mall?”
“Kid, what were you doing here in the first place?”
“It’s for my own personal project, and stop calling me kid.”
“This circle, all I got was references from my gran’s notes, so I had to do a bit of improv.”, her face contorted to a small smile as she proudly held some sort of grimoire—covered in childish stickers—. “It did do something by itself so I must be doing something right.”
“How mean.”, she prepares to swing the steel tool once more.
“Hold on-“. Tire iron. “Listen to me for a moment.”
“I’m listening, mister moth-man.”, she puts down the metal thing.
My head rings from the constant blunt trauma, my already processed mind feels like a slurry, memories bouncing from corner to corner. But I still remember the joy of creation, so I give my true honest feelings to this young soul.
“Is that so?”, she sticks her tongue out at me, what a rude taunt, I wonder what stops my desire to grab the metal thing and hit her in the back of the head, but I maintain composure.
“Human sacrifice!”, she says proudly with a smile.
“Well, that’s quite a dangerous hobby.”
“Well, you coming back puts a hamper on my plans.”
“Well, mister, do you have a name? Mines Carol! My gran always says to respect your food.”
“…Legato.”, truth be told, I can’t quite recall it, so I hand her that musical note which fills my heart with an echoing approximation, and… “Huh?”
She grabs a plate filled with my entrails, “It’s a bit awkward with you back, so you can have it again.”, giving it to me with a smile.
“I don’t want it, it’ll probably grow back. Still, what a waste.”
“But why?”, she looks at the crimson with a tinge of disappointment.
“You’re using my flesh for this banal ritual, even if it was a bovine with flayed skin and cancerous growths, I’d take offense in its honor. You take in such a passionate act with a half-hearted attitude.”, I am reminded of the weapon, “it-was-but-simple-jest-put-that-thing-away.”
“You remind me a bit of my gran.”, she sighs while embracing the little black book, face hurt by my comment.
“What kind of person is she?”, I wait for her response before deciding whether it’s a compliment or not.
“Well, my pa never allowed me to be alone with her.”
“That’s quite worrisome.”
“That and you’re weirdly all cryptic, who wears a suit when urban exploring?”
“I choose not my attire and place of rebirth.”
“And you do seem very senile, a little blank in the head.”
“The latter is true, but at least I won’t be drowned by desires of better days.”
“Wow, mister. You’re boring!”, she admits with an innocent grin, uncaring of my feelings, “Well I do have other plans for all this meat if you don’t want it back.”
“My gran told me that hamster moms would love their kids so much that when embracing her spawn, she’ll get too excited and eat half of the litter!”
“I think? But her kiddies would share the same love! To grow plump they’d do the same to her and inherit her body. Same as how I did love my gran even if she was a bit senile.”
“How did sleep reclaimed her?”
“She was executed.”, she stated as a matter of fact.
“She was very cuckoo in the head, so it was a long time coming.”
“I was thinking that since you’re all weird like her, maybe trying what the hamsters do would give me something useful.”
“So that’s the purpose of this ritual.”, fascination. She grows from a petulant immature soul to a fool for me to use to reclaim my gray matter’s emptiness, rediscovering those old muses I’ve always loved.
“Maybe you can teach me since you have such high standards for human sacrifices!”, she continued with genuine excitement, “But the circle’s all ruined now because of you.”, sighing while looking at the floor: chalk smudged and blurred, the eyes asleep as a signal that their purpose has ceased.
“My fault? I’ve been getting my head caved in.”
“Plus the meat’s all cold now, I really don’t like to eat something that was touched by flies.”
“You can’t be that picky of an eater.”
“I mean, you’ll be fine after just like now, so just let me try again!”
My immortal nerves cry, suffering at the thought, but I am comforted as I gaze into the red mirror on the floor—a man obsessed with his egocentrism reflected on the clear pond—, and see my wonderful friend always. Being by my side, The Moth takes the pained face for itself, hiding the expressions with the monotonous beauty of moth-wings and chitin.
SPARAGMOS. CIRCLE. THE RECEIVER BECOMES A GIFT TO THE DEVOUT.
HIS MAJESTY OF CROWNS IN PALE SHELL WRITHES AND WATCHES.
IN HIS GORED THRONE, COLD SKY OF HEAVEN.
WITH HIS BLEEDING SOCKET.
AS I TRY TO BLIND MYSELF FROM THE FLOWING HELL.
A SIXTH HAND HELPS ME TO SEE.
NOT WITH MUSCLE AND DECIMAL THUNDER.
BUT WITH AN INVISIBLE KNIFE.
AND MY MEMBRANE, NEW WOMB THAT SPAWNS A THOUSAND.
AS I ADMIRE LORD AGONY WITH MY NEWLY GIFTED EYES.