The Grey
Life, Chapter XVII
That
such a disgustingly evil place as this exists in the universe is a
matter of shattering amazement to me. I look about myself now, as if
to try and clear away that deep and clutching haze that has been
fogging my memory, but everywhere there are clouds, the same
torturing pain in the curve of the branches that snicker above us.
Bare and blasted is this place, now caught in the dead of winter, yet
marked with the certainty that it is always so, always grey, even in
the midst of the most luscious summer. After all, there is no room
for healing or love in such places of obdurate purity.
I
am not sure how I came to be here, or what the day is, or what has
gone before. All I know is who is present, and the looks on their
faces, that none of us ever meant to come here. But then again, I
suspect we were drawn here by invisible hands. How else can I explain
what is happening now, or what I know is about to come to pass? In
such places there is no future, no present or past. All are melded
together in a somnolescent knowledge that precludes wonder or hope
because the outcome is already known to the players. No, in such
places as this, we do not act out the tragedy to discover the
outcome. We act because we are forced to act, and for the mere
pleasure of the audience.
Reality?
Nightmare? There comes a point when it's too difficult to tell. There
are the hellish aspects of a dreamscape all about, the lack of
background or even meaning, and yet I can remember times when I felt
much the same, and was as far from sleeping as I ever could be.
"Oh,
my God!" Anne's voice trembles slightly. But there is no God.
This place has been blasted by too much judgement, perhaps even his.
A courtroom? Perhaps, yes, but ancient beyond mortal conception and
more present than any construct of feeble, human hands.
How
different this places seems in the daylight, under the rain of light
from the cold sun, and yet how much the same. The smell is stronger,
of course, but now that I can see what it is, can try and come to
terms with it in my own way, the urge to flee is not so strong. But,
oh, how I know we should flee, all of us, because it is so obvious
what is about to happen, what will happen. In such places, there is
only room for cold and demonic judgement, judgement to satifsy the
vindictive hatred of the judge and that is all. Why are there such
places? I suspect that there are other entities in existence that,
like ourselves, have their own law, and must keep to it.
The
floor of the clearing into which we inadventently stumbled is bare of
even a blade of grass. The soil is hard and rocky. It is not
difficult to discern that no shred of life will ever be harbored
here. Hanging from the sky like dusty curtains, leering with all the
power of titans, are the grey and lifeless trees, as frozen it seems
as the soil. Eerily they crowd around us, making a border of some
sort, but between what? Bare and blasted and heinous we have found
ourselves, oppressive and keen with hurt, and desire to hurt. Through
the echoes of the wind I can almost hear the peals of maniacal
laughter.
It
is then that I notice that my clothes are torn and my skin cut. I can
taste the curious combination of blood and dirt in my mouth. Like
little pricks of fire I can feel the bruises, scratches, and
abrasions covering my body. Yes, more and more is coming back to me
from out of What Came Before. These injuries, they are simply the
mark of my last madness. I must wear them now, here, like badges.
But
the most horrible thing of all, what reeks most profoundly of
desecration and impossible punishment is at the center of the place.
Anne is standing halfway towards it, looking up in sick wonder, but
the rest of us hang back by the perimeter, staring. For there in the
center of the clearing grows the most horrible and twisted tree of
all, rising horribly ashen out of the ground, comprised of stone
passion and slaughter, the trunk an unhealthy shade of black and
mottled uncomfortably. It has unfolded its obsessively broad limbs so
that what open sky there would have been is completely obscured.
Around the trunk of the tree there is a dense growth of thirsty
folliage, thick and lacking any healthy emanations whatsoever. The
leaves hang dead from the branches but refuse to be severed. It seems
to be on the verge of death, desperately seeking fresh blood to
remain alive another season.
Hanging
from one of the lower branches hangs the partly decomposed body of a
man. His clothing has been shorn from his body, eaten perhaps by the
same carrion that sometime ago plucked the eyeballs from his head.
Those dark, empty sockets, embedded in the thickly red and swollen
flesh, seem like deep wells of crusty anguish, and it's hard not to
look at them. There is no breeze to stir his body. Limply it hangs
facing somewhere off to the left of Anne, gaping stupidly. Crude and
rotting, his hands are caught in the loop of the noose at the front
of his neck, as if in the final throes of death he had suddenly
changed his mind. As if he had fought so desperately he had somehow
managed to squeeze a finger or two through before losing
consciousness. The meek denial, the laughter of the trees always just
so close to perception, must have been very loud in his ears then.
The silence is so loud now, distraught with great booming peals of
impending laughter, that I am mildly surprised I can hear Anne's
shrieks.
Her
hands have flown to her face, her knees have buckled. Already she is
staggering towards the body, too afraid to fall to the frozen terrain
and yet too weak to resist the direction in which her body is taking
her. The five of us simply stand and watch her lurch towards it, not
exactly sure what happened to this place. All filled with trepidation
and mourning and, of course, terror. But of what? I do not know, but
it presses down on our meager bodies like a heavy shawl and will not
let us breathe.
After
a long moment her legs betray her and she falls toward the twisted
growth, strikes the legs of the corpse with a hard smack. Yes, of
course, the thing has been frozen in this Martian air for quite some
time. It swings lightly above where she lies now half hidden in the
undergrowth, her screams eerily and unnaturally muffled and her legs,
quite visible, thrashing about.
The
leaves of the foliage thirsty appear to quiver slightly with
excitement, and the thought of what it might be sucking from her face
jars me. Somehow, I find the strength to run to her. But the distance
seems to lengthen as I fight to move my legs, and I get the sense
that, as I force my way through the rancid air, she is squeezing just
too much screaming into the moments.
Now
I am kneeling beside her, fighting to get some hold on her legs, to
pull her out. At first she resists, and then she lunges out of the
underbrush at me. Frightened, trying not to touch the corpse as it
passes near to me, I fall backward, but she lands like a sack of
potatoes on my chest and takes me down her with to the hard ground.
Fierce pain in my head now, streaking down my back and neck. For a
moment my vision is dimmed, like a flashback. Anne's face mad with
rage, ravaged and twisted into a mask of fury, is suddenly looming
over mine, incredibly close and powerful. Her eyes, they are no
longer her own.
Above
her now I can see Antonius, and the expected blows never land. The
fiery goddess is removed, struggling vehemently against Antonius'
firm hold, but entirely unable to escape. For a moment, in the
unsettling calm, they are as powerful and as present as if they were
gods, and here I am, mere mortal flesh, to witness the awesome
passion of the struggle between divine wills. This place seems
undaunted by the suggestion of so much raw, uncontrolled power,
exhibits the signs of esoteric purpose and the stringent and timeless
demand for the perfect devotion that deities, I imagine, would leave
in their colliseum. For a moment the hovering laughter becomes
audible in distant snatches, and with the exaggerated booming in my
head of my heart laboring, all I can do is simply lie here, absorbing
the sleeping cold into my body and watching the corpse's feet trace
circles above my head.
"No."
Emmanuel's voice now, cracking and frightful in the loud silence that
accompanies permanent madness. "No!" This time a loud and
painful shriek. "It's just like the dreams!"
"Canine!"
Antonius' voice slashes through the air like a machete.
"Yes,
it really is him." Shanai sounds so close, as if she had
approached, dreamlike. A subtle power, this one, but perhaps even
more dangerous than the others. She has the capacity to deny the
warring duo the pleasure of their fight, she has the power to forbid.
And, especially here, to judge. The Queen of Archangels herself, come
now to guide us to where we were inexorably going anyway.
"Don't
call me that." Emmanuel's voice has thinned to a whine. "My
name is Emmanuel."
"It's
that man who gave us the box, David. The one in the wheelchair."
The entranced wonder entrenched in her words forces me to sit up
suddenly. There is Shanai, standing not ten feet away and staring
calmly above my head towards the lecherous face of the corpse. She is
glowing now with the flexible power of the Archangels. With an
unconscious thought she has dismissed the godly wrestling, her eyes
never straying from their mark, as if she were aware of everything at
once that she required.
And
directly behind her are the others: Emmanuel, the Prophet, his mouth
hideously aghast and staring bewildered into the ground somewhere in
front of him, trying not to believe, and Salvatore, trying not to let
us all see that the terror has completely eaten him away from the
inside. As my eyes come to his face clenched with the electricity of
exhiliration (because all madmen eventually come to love their
affliction), I cannot perceive what he is here for. Is he Judah,
perhaps, even now pondering the betrayal of his friend the Prophet,
or is he Peter himself, who was fated to deny his Lord three times
before him?
"It
can't be the -" Emmanuel whines.
"He
had help," Shanai answers, still staring at the frozen body, and
that is all.
I
look around and wonder if the help were still here.
As
for the moment, the god Antonius stands to my left, his eyes
searching his primary lieutenant, wondering what it means when the
servants know more than the masters even in the House of Heaven.
Antonius, so thin and tall, all bones, as if he were about to fall
apart. And Anne. Antonius has let her go, she has run off to the
right, staggered and on her knees, clutching the trunks of one of the
obeisant trees along the perimeter. Her breathing is shallow and
sharp. She looks defeated.
Antonius
turns to look above me, but I am afraid to see that suffering man in
this corpse's face. It is then that Emmanuel stumbles forward. His
eyes, too, are pinned to the hanging corpse. "Just like the
dreams!" he cries again. His arms are making awkward gestures in
the taught air. His face is filled with revulsion. "What has
become of us?"
"Be
still." Shanai's voice hangs beautifully between us, with the
intricacy of a spider's web, oddly stretched though, as if by the
forces at work here in this awesome palace of duty. "You may
upset the balance."
"Me?"
Emmanuel shrieks. His hands have flown to his cheeks, kneading them
with his fingertips as if in reassurance that he exists. It is plain
that he has come to some sort of crucial and unexpected crisis. "Are
you mad?"
"Shut
up, all of you!" Salvatore spits into the void. But his words
sound weak and pathetic in the din, subtly diminished by laughter.
"The gods have lived here. There must be respect."
"Gods?"
Emmanuel seems stricken. He is shaking his head. "They come to
me at night," he says, whispering now. "They show me
things."
"Enough."
It is Antonius again, and the power of the command is striking.
"No."
Salvatore's answer is softer now, and I have to actually grasp at the
words to hear them. "Those are demons."
"Enough!"
And for a moment, I think that I have been reft of my power to speak
altogether. "There is payment due -"
"
- in places such as this." Anne does not move, does not turn
towards us. The fact that I can hear her voice from so far away,
through this thick air fraught with laughter and derision, does not
surprise me, not when accompanied by so much power. But malevolent?
beneficent? Power cannot be described in terms of intent. After all,
who am I, mere skin and blood, to pass judement on the divine?
"I
have been here before, too," I say then, and rise to my feet to
face the others.
"Yes,
so have we all," Salvatore belches. There is anger twitching on
his face.
"But
the dreams, Antonius! The dreams!" Emmanuel is clutching his arm
as the god stares at the hanging body with something like calm
calculation in his eyes. The absence of wind allows us no relief from
the stench of judgement and decay.
"We
all dream, Emmanuel," comes the answer. Then, he turns his eyes
toward the Prophet. "We dream of ourselves."
"I
have had no dreams," I say.
"Nor
I," echoes Shanai, and now she is looking at me. There is
something frigid in her eyes, not the warmth I would have expected
from the Queen of the Archangels. I am suddenly blasted with despair,
and in that frame of mind I turn and behold the very face of
wretchedness, the object of the scorn of humanity, dangling from the
scorched limbs of this horrific tree. The sacrifice that has been
made in our honor. But what price is there to be paid for sacrifice?
and what is the cost of penance? I cannot believe there is any
justice in gods who demand these things. Are we not all doomed to
hell? Are we not already there?
"Antonius!
Antonius!" Emmanuel is leaning heavily on him now. "What do
they mean?'
"Your
dreams?"
"Yes,
yes, Antonius! Explain to me my dreams!"
Even
Anne looks up from where she sits grieving, and in her eyes I can see
that she is holding her breath. A ghastly power flickers within,
anger she seeks to hold back. Shanai turns, too, and my eyes leave
the screaming effigy in whose face and empty sockets I can vaguely
discern my own haggard fragments.
"You
know," the god replies slowly, solemnly, unwilling to meet the
gaze of the Prophet, "that I cannot answer that question."
"Cannot?"
Emmanuel echoes the word, virtually wretching. "Or will not?"
But Antonius does not respond, mutely continues to glower at the
rotting, purplish corpse. "But you must -! you must tell me
something, anything!"
"I
am not your god!" Antonius suddenly roars, stretching his long,
thin body over the battered young man in front of him. Emmanuel
releases his arm and steps back, disappointment and fear now bleeding
through his eyes.
"Emmanuel
-" Salvatore starts to say, and I can hear the reason he is
trying to push through his voice. Here we are, the six of us, at the
crux of the crisis, unsure how we have arrived here. The fact that
the thoughts and the visions in our heads are distorted and
insubstantial, that it is lacking any basis in our communal past, is
leading us all to the breaking point. But we think and act in a
microcosm, and the true knowledge of things as they are lies well
outside our own personal dilemmas. Somewhere, sometime, there must be
an answer, and I know that. The knowledge prevents me from spilling
over into the vacuum.
But
not Emmanuel. Now he has touched upon an explosion of unparalleled
release, and the powers behind the machinery of our minds are potent.
He whirls to face his twin, and I can see in his eyes that he, too,
has blurred the distinction between the world of the waking and the
world of the godly. "What," he sneers, "do you accuse
me?"
"Emmanuel
-" Salvatore takes a meager step forward, but Emmanuel jumps
away, flees toward the tree - toward me - and it is everything I can
do to get out of his way. Quickly, sensing that some juggernaut was
about to be released upon us, I draw Shanai back towards Salvatore.
Emmanuel, standing now to the left of the corpse, faces us with tears
of anguish splashing his face. "Accused!" he cries out into
the air, but the trees seem to swallow his words. Anne stands now,
comes toward the rest of us as we face the passion of the Prophet in
all his mad glory.
"Here!"
he shouts at us, and then turns to face the corpse suspended with
such finality from the blackened limbs of the tree, stares up at it
with his arms opened in supplication. "Here, after all this
time, before these -" He stops and throws an arm in our
direction. "Salvatore," he cries, "here I stand
accused! See me not?" And before any of us can speak, as if we
could stop him, he continues. "Yes, it is true. And I am guilty!
All my life I have run away. I have betrayed the ideals that once
made me proud. My people suffer, and I hide in your dormitory rooms
listening to you deride them. You deride me! And I laugh with you, at
myself!" Wrapped in his passion, he has fallen to his knees. His
arms are wrapped around his chest. His chin juts toward the corpse as
if waiting for it to strike him, but it mutely ignores his pleas.
"What," he gasps after a long moment, "is there no
compassion for me here either?" He is weeping now. "Am I to
be held accountable for my ignorance?"
What
could any of us say to him then? There was nothing, neither word nor
gesture to reach him now. This spasm, as I already knew, must come to
pass.
He
opens his eyes suddenly, and the sobs clutching his throat stop. "I
am here," he says aloud to the rude bark, "to be judged,
and without a word of defense I find myself guilty! Without
compassion, on all accounts. Do you hear me? I accept the guilt!"
But
the corpse does not respond. It stares emptily past him, gouged and
tormented with spite, locked in a firm and calculated denial. A cruel
silence marks us, hangs over Emmanuel as he silently beseaches the
cold idol of flesh that rots before us.
After
a moment he lowers his head, loosens his fists, but his arms shake
uncontrollably. "There must be punishment."
"Emmanuel,"
Salvatore breathes. "I never knew."
"O,
Emmanuel," Antonius moans, "why have you brought us here?"
For
a moment none of us can speak, can only stare at Emmanuel who is
looking back at us, eyes so cold that they seem to suck what little
warmth is left from my body. I can only think about how weak and
frightened he looked when I first met him seven months ago. But here,
now, I see that the submission is over, and even in this place of
incalculable madness I can sense some measure of satisfaction in the
struggle that he now undergoes. Here, for once, there is something
like resolve in the tone of his muscles.
After
a moment, he stands and walks quietly away, comes to a halt beneathe
the awkward bow of one of the outer trees, bent now as if they were
paying their respects.
The
five of us that remain do not speak, cannot for some time. Even the
god Antonius is dumbfounded, keeps brushing at his ears as if trying
to wave away a noisy insect. But my mind races. Punishment? The word
echoes like a backdrop to the thundering tumult of thoughts about
fear and death and what was it justice. I am led to wonder if any of
this is real. But that last question slips away, quicker than the
others, because it ceased to be a matter of any importance long ago.
"We
have been brought here for a reason," Shanai announces all of a
sudden. She is standing to my right, eyes turned toward Salvatore,
Anne, and Antonius. They look suddenly back, startled. But it seems
to me even from this awkward angle that her mark is for the tall,
unseemly god, the one standing uncertainly not far away trying to
maintain his stature. "And so, here in this ungodly court, I
accuse you, Antonius. Here, before your peers, where it seems that
justice is decided and delivered. We are all, it seems, to be
measured on this day. In that, also, I see the need for punishment."
Antonius
straightens himself, as if to muster strength. He stands firmly to
face her, his hazel eyes stolid with nothing but cold and endurate
granite. Somewhere up ahead, the trees are snickering.
"I
accuse you, Antonius, of malice. I accuse you of molestation. I
accuse you of mutilation, of deprevation, of intent to maim. I accuse
you being male. I find want in you of strength enough for yourself. I
seek retribution from you for my anguish, for uncaring abuse. I
accuse you, Antonius, of all these things. And I accuse you of rape."
The
god's mouth stands open, perhaps half in wonder that here the Angel
has power enough to cast the godly from their thrones.
"How
could you?" Her accusations have lost their rough edge, are
finding their way to self-pity. She moves in snatches as she speaks,
jerking her head from side to side. "You tried to change who I
was according to your needs. Although in that respect, you have
harmed David more than me. But what gives you the right to place
yourself above another just because she has different strengths? Is
it your height? Your penis? Do you really consider yourself
superior?"
"Rape?"
The word tears past Antonius' hardened lips. Now there is anger in
his eyes, refusal to submit. "How can you?" It seems to be
all he can manage to say. But his eyes are shouting fierce denials,
hurtful accusations of his own.
"Yes,
rape. The most horrid crime of all." She lowers her voice
dangerously now. "You raped my head."
Shanai,
my love! Why has your back grown so cold and sleepless? Why do you
submit to your anger?
"How
can you?"
"You
knew, dear Antonius. O, how you knew how to torment me! No," she
insists with determination, holding up a slender hand to silence his
protestations. "For once you will permit me to finish. You alone
knew what my father did to me, knew how disgusting it makes me feel,
and so now I seek punishment for raping me countless times, and on
every occasion. I accuse you of rape! I accuse you of raping every
single person I know!"
"Rape?"
Antonius shouts back at her, astounded still. "Shanai, I loved
you!"
"You
did not love me," Shanai responds petulantly. "Don't be
rediculous. You wanted me for a trophy."
My
head reels as if under a blow. For all this time, blind, it seems,
mistaking obsession for love. But whose fault was that?
"Oftentimes
now, instead of my father I see in my nightmares your face - your
arms pinning me down! your stinking breath in my face and your
terrible will -" Tears hijack her voice, momentarily steal it
away from her, but in a moment she has it back, hurls the last of her
words at him like mordant barbs. " - your fucking penis stuck up
my vagina even when I don't want it there!" And now she is
weeping. Soft, uncontrolable sobs wrack her, and I can see that it is
all she can do to stand.
Calmly
I approach her, lend her my arm to steady herself. Antonius simply
continues to stare at her, but her face has fallen toward the frozen
earth, allowing her hair to spill over it as if in protection. But in
a moment she throws away my arm and takes him into her sight once
again. "It is for this that I seek punishment."
"And
I deny the accusation," Antonius returns coldly.
Once
again there is silence. The two stand glaring at each other, refusing
to submit. Anne, I am surprised to see, seems the most calm, as if
unmoved by the passions of those who do not concern her. Her hands
are shoved in the bottoms of her pockets, and she glares toward the
tree and the grotesque corpse that dangles from it like a decoration.
Salvatore, though, appears to have filled with rage. His cheeks are
trembling, I can see, and there is the faint taste in the air of
apocalypse. Only Emmanuel has not moved, shows no signs of awareness.
"Then
I accuse you, Shanai," Antonius annouces boldly. The words rip
us out of the silent realm of infinity that seems to sink deeper into
our minds during each awkward lapse between judgements. But where is
the jury, and what good is justice to accusations denied?
My
love does not raise her head. She remains still, locked like Emmanuel
in reverence. She will not witness her own damnation, because she
already knows its nature.
"I
accuse you, Shanai, of faithlessness. I accuse you of not being here,
of never having been here. I accuse you of ungiving, of clinging, and
I accuse you of desiring punishment." He stands before us, tall
and still and cold and glaring, but the pain he has tried to impart
in his voice is starkly absent. It seems he has finished speaking
before he has even begun, because we all know that we must destroy
each other.
"I
am guilty, perhaps," Shanai murmurs after a moment, her voice
flitting between the spaces between the distant cackling. "Yes,
and perhaps the punishment will be the least severe because I desire
it so much. I feel guilty so much of the time, but I just don't know
what it is that I have done, or how I can fix it."
"Ah,
Shanai." It is Salvatore, and he has inserted himself between
them. His words are gentle with kindness, and for a moment I am
bewildered by him, because I had never heard him speak so. "Whatever
punishment does come, we will all share it."
"Shanai,"
I say, finding the words difficult and uncomfortable, but I have the
sudden and sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that she is
fading, right here and now, before my very eyes.
She
looks up at me, and takes my hands into her own. "Stars cannot
change their course, David." She pulls me closer and wraps her
arms around by chest, pulling me against her body as if trying to
squeeze me inside her. "Nor the fact that one day they must
die."
And
so the two of us remain as we are, rocking gently back and forth
against each other. She has passed her crisis, has staked her
accusation and been accused, and the punishment - if it is
forthcoming - has already been assigned somehow, somewhere. Who knew
how such things are decided in a place like this.
"I
have not finished," Antonius says to us after a moment.
"No,
please!" Anne's voice cuts between us, and for some reason I
flinch. Her eyes are desperate, flickering past everything around
her, unseeing. "No more! Please, enough of this madness!"
But there is no answer for her, and the anger working through
Salvatore pushes away the last remnants of compassion within him,
deepening terribly.
"I
accuse you, David," the great and horrid god decrees. "I
accuse you of inaction."
Strangely,
I am relieved to hear that my time has come. There is no escape from
infinite justice. But I will not give up my grip on Shanai. No, it
tightens. She still holds me close as well, perhaps infected by the
same alarming sense of bereavement. Together, in such a manner, I
accept the accusation. For in saying nothing, does not one submit? I
have done enough inacting in my life to know that such tacit
submission is deplorable, that of all options available to humankind
the most depraved and shameful is that of refusing to choose. The act
of abstention. Those who abstain from life must never have lived.
"Goddamn
it, David," Salvatore suddenly spits. "Can't you see what's
happened to Canine? You have the power of absolution, if only you
will use it. Say something! Anything! David," he insists, taking
a step closer, "you will regret it if you don't."
But
even his pleas do not break my slumber. No, my grip only tightens on
that fragile body. I do not want the two of us to ever come apart
again, am trying to will the fabric of our bodies together. The
laughter in the air, all around me now, rings hollowly with hateful
loss. Through such cocaphony, how could I have heard Salvatore's meek
voice trying to carry me back toward heaven? The only thing I can
feel is naked, wearing only my abrasions.
It
is then that Salvatore breaks. Screaming wildly, he rushes toward the
tree, leaps onto its trunk. The sheer ferocity of his cry separates
me from my love before I realize what I have done. Emmanuel whirls
around, his face a smear of dismay, his arms clutching vaguely at the
air around him. Salvatore is tearing some of the bark as he scrambles
upward, and I can see black ooze dripping from the fissures. All the
while he screams like a beast, and rains the thick skin of the tree
with blows. Before he has reached the first branch the skin of his
hands is covered with blood, but he does not seem to notice.
"Salvatore!"
Antonius cries out, perhaps fearing that the tree would animate and
attack. But, as I already know, the powers in this place are much too
subtle.
Now
he has reached the branch from which the body hangs, and he turns to
look over us. His eyes are clutched with fear, the cords of his neck
look as thought they are about to snap. "You!" he screams,
pointing a frantic finger toward Anne. She stands not far away from
me, stricken. "I accuse you! Filthy whore! Tramp!"
Is
is the first time that have ever seen Anne at a loss for words. She
stares back at him, shocked, one hand hovering over her cleavage and
the other extended, as if pleading. Her knees are bent, as if
straining against a heavy wind.
"I
accuse you of inducing this madness! I find you guilty of sedition! I
find you guilty of being needlessly stupid!" He shouts from the
tree above us, hanging like another limb above the corpse, blackened
with fury and self-loathing, so consumed by the bitterness of his
hatred and an utter sense of helplessness that it is difficult to
discern him through his words. He seems to flit about from place to
place, ensuring our doom, and now he is looking over us all, about to
cackle. "Welcome to my world," he sneers, swinging like a
monkey. "I've already been punished, you see. No need to
accuse!" And with that he begins to kick wildly at the corpse's
head.
Anne
is screaming, but she does not take her eyes away as Salvatore
continues pummeling the rotten, frozen flesh, watches with such
spiraling panic that she seems to be suffering his very blows. And
then, after a moment, a piece of the corpse's head falls away,
revealing something very black and uninviting inside, the same color
as those empty eye sockets, and now Anne is running. Screaming still,
she lunges into the trees, disappears immediately from our sight,
devoured. But her cries linger on, do not fade for some time.
Salvatore continues to kick at the corpse, breaking off larger and
larger pieces of its head until finally the noose slips over the neck
and the body tumbles to the ground. It lands virtually intact,
sitting on top of the deathly underbrush against the trunk, and if it
had had a head it might have been facing us. But there is nothing we
can do, frozen now like the rest of the trees, for we have become a
part of this place. So we remain as we are, staring at Salvatore
whose heavy breathing is the only sound to be heard, except for the
billowing laughter that by now has completely swallowed Anne's
desperate screeching.
This site and all its
contents are the result of the tumultuous workings of the mind of one
Adam Wasserman.
All rights reserved.