March 13, 2018I could hear the sliding of old, heavy, red curtains dragging in the distance. Maybe it was a dream I had as a child and my subconscious decided to play some fragments of its soundtrack.
She was droning on and I kept chasing that feeling, that sound, delving downward into an uncertain state of mind. French horns and cellos accompanied my every swimming stroke into an abyss somewhat familiar, somewhat warm and welcoming. Echoes reverberated in overlapping voices which resembled a candor my mother had when she was drunk; frolic my father uttered when he rhapsodized meaningless magniloquence; serenity my grandmother emanated as she juggled housewife jobs immaculately.
“Are you listening?” she said.
“Loud and clear, Darling.” I replied.
“Well, like I was saying…”
The bed we were laying in waved placid contentment, it rippled as she uttered static. I caressed her leg to compensate for being elsewhere mentally: I dove deeper into the laughs, my father’s words, my grandmother’s toilings, and then slid stealthily, under the doors that led to the closet, gyrated in the pitch-black, penetrated through the walls, out of the closet, and into the plumbing under the restroom sink. I curled up into a fetus and spun in bubbles and then flushed down into the city’s infrastructure.
Had I become a lunatic who couldn’t differentiate reality from fantasy? Had time taken me into a future where evolution had granted each and every one of us the ability to live symbiotically in different dimensions whenever dull conversation struck?
Wolfman’s Lacrimosa played gently and I became erect. She stroked me as I burst into a loud, white flame and ascended violently through the ceiling to leave her there naked, going on and on about whatever nonsense she usually went on about. Her hand suspended in the air( the point where my penis would be). Birds, clouds, and plains passed through me, and I arrived at the exosphere, the uppermost layer of the atmosphere, reached escape velocity and smiled as I held tight to this mortal coil. My breath was zen and my heartbeat a gentle zephyr. I opened my eyes to behold winking stars and sighing gases in coquettish pirouette. I beheld my hands, my limbs, my erect cock and came instantaneously. My cursed seed gushed into the infinitely unknown to allow my unborn madmen to back-stroke microcosmically into the divine arms of God—to be welcomed with compassion, sympathy, and omniscient futuristic empathy for all the possibilities each cell could have had on earth: a scathed knee after a bike accident, a humiliating moment in front of a class room, rejection on a first kiss, neglect of the one you can’t have, and the lack of affection from the one you would, and eventually outgrow. I shot webs of myself all over His handiwork and smiled for I saw that it was good.
“…then she said I was a bad mother. Can you believe this bitch?” she said.
“Listen, Honey, I don think-”
“No, wait, that’s not all…”
The sperm explosion was like my own Big Bang and I understood the theory. Thor’s hammer finally laid itself down and I exhaled tiny, swirling heavenly bodies for what seemed like hours. I stretched myself into Christ-pose and rocketed past gases, quasars, galaxies and then into an imponderable whiteness that demanded silence and reverence. My face had transformed into an eel and hissed; fingers were scarlet ribbons shooting as far as my eyes could see-whirring; my feet cracked and metamorphosed rapidly into murdered maidens from times forgotten— eyes rolled back into their pretty skulls, mouths agape. And with a blink of one of their eyes, it all went away: the eel face, the ribbons, the maidens, and I hovered alone contemplating my reasoning for such an unworthy intrusion to a sanctified place. I began to weep and placed my hands upon my countenance remorsefully. I didn’t understand what I was feeling and wondered if all would be explained. Then realized I needed no explanation.
“You’re such an asshole,” she said.
“Why?” I responded.
“You’re not fucking listening to me.”
“She thinks you’re a worthless mother.”
“‘Bad mother’ I said.”
“Jesus, give me a fucking break.”
“You’re right, baby, I’m sorry,” she said while spitting on her hand and gripping me again.
“You should be.”
“So, anyway…then I gave her a piece of my mind. I said…”
Years it seemed had gone by in that empty nothingness as I waited patiently for something or someone. A faint humming began. I lifted my head eagerly and looked about.
“Brace yourself, mortal,” came a loud, authoritative voice that sounded like ten-thousand men mingled with thunder, terrible, and awesome.
I placed my hands against my ears and yet heard and felt the sound of countless horns being blown vigorously.
“Bring forth the bodies of all hurt small children,” cried a hundred delicate voices from a place unseen. And I beheld their eyes as they crawled and whimpered; they were severed and bashed. They had no one to console them and could not comfort one another.
“Bring forth those who lived according to false gods,” cried the voices. Some of the adults I knew as a child stood in the midst of an endless wave of naked bodies full of shame and regret. They ached and quivered like cold, lost orphans praying to be found.
“Bring forth those who preyed on the energy of others,” the voices cried again. And this ocean of people was like that of the first two. Their punishment was to be greater.
“Somebody…somebody get me out of here!” I screamed.
“Be at peace,” said The Voice.
I looked to my left and saw a multitude of sheep. To my right, a goat being exulted and its laughter traveled and caused their ears to bleed.
“Brace yourself,” said the voices. The foundations of the earth and the core of the universe began to tremble and my bones with them. All the guilty wailed and scratched at each other and themselves for their anxiety and dread were severe. Seraphim held hands as they stared into each others’ eyes trying to hold on; I stood motionless watching angels weep.
“Bring those who persecuted the enlightened,” said the voices. “ Let this be the day all confusion is put asunder. No man or woman will ever deny this day of truth, pain, and judgement. Let it begin…”
“Of these things do not write in your book,” said the voices.
I woke up the next day alone in bed in one place at one time. She was gone and I didn’t care. I usually checked my wallet to see if any bills were missing. Not this time. I ran to the typewriter and wrote the things I had seen including the part I was instructed not to.
After it was done I went to the restroom sink to wash my face and realized in the mirror that my nose had began to bleed. Getting this published was going to be strenuous, I thought. Behold, I come to you in sheep’s clothing, a ravenous wolf. I wiped the blood off my lips and with my index finger drew a smile on my reflection, where mine would be.
“Smile,” I said to myself in a terrible and awesome voice.
∞
