Part III- Dreamscape. The Friend In Waiting
The morning light shot through the window and seeped inside between the sills and the drawn curtains that were a beautiful, deep, maroon color, almost matching my sleeve from the stains of the night before. The clock rang out eight bells for the hour of morning. Startled, I rose to my feet with a very strange inner calmness I should not have felt, at least not without feeling a bit sinister as well. Though I did not.
I once again gathered my belongings, attempted to straighten myself up and hastily walked to the stairwell. As I mentioned, we humans are such curious things, but I dare not procrastinate any longer. I had already over stayed by several hours, just as I stepped in front of the stairs to leave I heard a knock on the door below. I froze in place. It was my worst fear realized, Ms. Vanderbreght was here to clean. But did she have a key? No! Amelia wouldn’t trust that snoopy old quack with a key to her own home, but would she? With nowhere to run, I crept back a few steps as to be out of site completely from the door and watched anxiously that cold iron doorknob. “She doesn’t have a key, I know she doesn’t. She’ll have to come back later, after I’ve had time to do something about all of this. She’s leaving now isn’t she? Of course she is! Yes, go home Ms. Vanderbreght, you stupid old bird. Go be about someone else’s privacy, peddle another’s business for a cup of hot coffee just as I see you do, endlessly.” Though this old woman had done me no harm directly, she was quite liberal in making assumptions about my drawn curtains during the day and organ playing in the evening.
I heard the knock again, louder and longer this time. As if she was already growing tiresome. Indeed she would be leaving soon. And then, after another long silence, to my terror, I heard a jingling of keys. That ignorant woman had given Ms. Vanderbreght a key alas! She stuck it into the keyhole and commenced to turn the key, as she did this I could only watch in agony, feeling as though I had laid out the most extravagant trap and placed myself in the midst of it. No! That would have been better, then, I would know the workings of said trap and therefore know my way through. No, this trap was iron clad. I was a deaf man in a labyrinth of foreign language. The jingling stopped, the key was pulled from the keyhole. Then turned the black doorknob. “oh my god” I thought, what was I to do? Where could I hide? Surely the sight of this all would cause her to faint, cause her to flee or at least stun her long enough for me to make my escape. What has this become? I creep into this house as a predator and run from it as prey? Oh, how demeaning!
As the door opens and she steps inside with a glance up the stairs I can do nothing but feel my body tingle as I start to lose consciousness. She began up the stairs, slowly but just as sure as there was a bloody corpse in the next room, she was nearing me, and at once an idea! The window! The open window that I so hurriedly attempted to leap from the night before was still opened! She had several steps left, but was not more than ten feet from me. She was looking down now managing those narrow little steps; this was my very last chance of escape. I had to take it. As she was halfway up the stairs, I ran across the top of the stairwell, over toward the window and now had to squeeze my body out of it and shut it before she ascended the last 8 stairs. I did this by sitting out on the ledge of the window facing the house with my legs still inside, then, one leg stepped up onto the ledge where I sat while I held on to the window that I felt was going to come loose the whole time, after all, these windows were not made for murderous madmen to clime out of each morning. Maybe this window would afford me just one morning.
As I stepped my second foot out onto the ledge and steadied in a squatting position, I promised the window it would be only this once, movement caught my eye from inside, it was Ms. Vanderbreght’s gray head of hair ascending the stairs, she only had a few more to go! With a deep breath, I gripped the window tightly and as I dropped from the ledge I pulled it down as far as I could without slamming it shut. Of course, at the speed my body dropped, this was not an easy task. I hit the bush with more force than I thought possible from a second story drop. I broke most of the branches yet the plant kept it’s form while I broke no bones. It had indeed lent me a hand in my getaway.
I sped through the backyard and through the walkway, passing her garden. As I drew close to the street I heard a blood-curdling scream. Undoubtedly, it was that of Ms. Vanderbreght. “Dear me!” Had I forgotten my tools after all? Did I just put myself through that agony only to be caught? How ridiculous! I felt my wrist for that blade and was still there. I stopped and felt my boot for the Lister knife, oh dear, it was there as well. I thought I must have been going insane. What a pathetic understatement that is. I murder my one true love and then walk home questioning my sanity.
Well, maybe I should question such a notion. It may be a bit outlandish after all. I had spent many days, many nights deciding whether or not to follow through with my plot, spent many lonely times recounting her sheer wickedness in what she did to me. How many times did I count that she had lied to me about Albert? It was too many, far too many. How long were they involved with each other before that night when I made a fool of myself? Obviously long enough for he to place his ring on her finger. Perhaps I had gone to far by not letting my studies work for me. It was the Magick that delivered her dear Albert into the street on the same night those black stallions leading a carriage of politicians ran wild with rage and stomped him out. It was my foresight and became a reality. Maybe I should have left this work to my words and will as well. Regardless of what I should have done, what I HAVE done IS already done and I lack the know how to turn back time, at least for now.My mind ran unrelenting on my stroll home.
After I returned to my residence, I locked the doors, pulled all curtains not drawn, hid away in my sleeping quarters and laid on my bed to await the news. I found myself to be unremorseful; just the way that I was the night before. It was strange, almost as if all of my emotional energy had been drawn from me and I was emptied of any logic to ponder the happenings any further, at that I fell fast asleep. It had to be the deepest sleep I’d ever experienced.
As I lay in slumber, I fervently believe that I left my body in that pitch-dark room which was fixed in the front right corner of that rather spacious house which sat on the corner of Eden Avenue and 7th. I felt no rising of my soul, no glimpse of myself from the corner of the room, no loss of senses or gain of a second mind. I embarked on a journey that would, as I had come to find, show me much of the years to come, not only my years but also years beyond me and beyond those of even the youngest children in my time. This visitation was one of extreme insight, it was frightening, exhausting to the mind, yet I must say my will to believe what I had somehow been privy to was exceedingly unproblematic to except.
I sat in my reading chair, looking up through the window opposite of me I could see the moon light through the leaves of the trees that were hanging from the branches that draped over the north end of my house. It was a mostly clear night with thick, heavy clouds sporadically interrupting the bright reflection of the sun off of the moon.
The wind would blow, sending an ominous howl to caper around my home. As I was pondering what I was about to do, I heard raspy, and seemingly labored breathing, it grew louder as though something was making it’s way towards me. The sound was very odd and resembled that of a wounded animal and one of great size at that.
Suddenly, I spotted movement outside my window, but could not see anything that was not in the light of the moon. Still behind me, the gravely tone of breath grew even more loudly and I became a bit reluctant to stay in my study. After what has taken place so recently, I was quite on edge and was beginning to pass this off as perhaps delirium. I refocused my sight just beyond the window and squinted slightly to try once more at making out what the devil was outside my house. At once they came into the light of the moon.
A haunting! The breathing now all around me and rumbling deeply, stripping my courage down to the core, I turned in my chair to meet a most unearthly, hellish creature standing in front of me! It reeked of burned hair and flesh; a stench that caused vomit to spew from my mouth and nostrils the very second it drew near enough to affect me. I fell to my knees in dizziness. Frightened, I leaned back, elbows resting on my chair, I propped myself upward and at an angle so as to face the apparition, vomit sodden on my front. This being was not of imposing stature, but rather bore imposing features, those of a human, but not of this world.
His face struck a fear in me that I had never felt, not on my loneliest of nights, nor in my darkest, the essence of my nightmares would cower to he and I dare say that even the most senseless beast would suddenly know his place upon sight of this, this thing. He stood no taller than I, in fact, if I were to wager I would say my exact height. As I said, he was of no extraordinary stature, most probably of my exact measurements; we could have probably shared a wardrobe. Although, that is where we differed.
His manner of clothing was a mixture of those seen only in paintings with other fashions of the queerest form. He wore a robust cloak draped over a hard, shell-like, close fitting vest with full-length sleeves. The vest had shoulder pads made of what looked like iron and stretched far out past his shoulders several inches with large tassels, one hanging from each shoulder pad. The vest had buttons aligned down the front and on each side of the torso. On the sides, the buttons ran from just under the arm down to the waistline. The buttons in front ran from the neckline all the way to the very bottom of the vest, which came to a sharp point in front of the pants he wore, which were also quite curious. They were extremely form fitting, the leg tapered down to a pair of colonial styled boots fastened in front by one large golden buckle and elevated by a heel in back with a pointed toe. Eight of his ten digits were adorned with silver and onyx rings. His skin was a deathly pale, pale to the extent that one could make out a vascular system beneath the thin, cold skin, blue veins running wild all over the visible surface of the body. The hair was white with hints of blue, as well from the veins on the head, but eyebrows as black as the experience I was nigh upon having. The face bore no nose, only a gapping hole; the ridges outlining the hole were jagged, resembling a flesh wound by design of a bluntly sided carving instrument. Fleshy fibers of the face lay exposed near it. With sharp features and gray teeth, he cast a gaze upon me and caressed me with a fear that only my own gaze the night before could liken.
Before I could speak, or even know what to say in any astute manner, he opened his mouth and with black saliva soaking his teeth and tongue, lips and gums, spoke to me in what seemed to be occasional rhyme, as that of a poet attempting to reclaim a flare for his passion that was birthed, or rebirthed mind I, out of something most unworldly.
“Upon thy wrath have I road to thee, save delay. We two have nobbut an reason to dwell dolven in waning existence and it will be writ up on the doors of all days for every ear to hear and have spake and to pray away those ominous things, which were spirits down yon. Ye hath not what vision wilt compel thee on to netherworlds, though erelong will I bring ye unto a straightened path unscathed by yon dissention, he that dwells upon the stallion of great stride. Also doeth he dwell upon where the watcher sits, does hunger for thine soul and flesh and to feed with voracious appetite on ye heart.
For I do not cozen thee, you, in good company shall see through thine eyes a journey of demise, that of a world so pure, which doeth end not needlessly, but doeth give way to a greater thing. Come, hasten ye pace, for centuries have cradled I to thine slumber, ye time is nigh, in the gloam of this eve, we shall tarry no longer. T’was I, of baneful madness whom did taint the world before thee, the world of which I was begotten and so was cast to grimness of rasp in the soul as to and did show a will and a way, t’was the end of a life what did drown me in discord but here ye, know, t’is I to stay. Be ye keen to thy greatest need, thou wilt do as I say”
As I sat kneeling, still perched back on my chair while this ghastly orator spoke, standing with a cane carved from bone to a sharp point clutching in his right hand, it became clear to me I was indeed in the presence of a rare being. One who may bestow upon me the clearest yet understanding of an ever-apocalyptic nature this earth was beginning to conjure upon its once beautiful surface. It was upon that last sentence that I knew, whether fate or merely my careless hand had, in some way thrust me into a realm that would tear me quickly away from this life, or my way of life, as I knew it.This ghastly shadow of a man proceeded in instructing me to write a series of proclamations for him. These proclamations were of a very sinister sort. As he would recite, myself would write them down. He spoke of some of the most terrifying and horrific acts I could ever imagine being committed by we humans! He dictated to me exact dates, names, physical features of individuals in astonishing depth and clarity and urged me to maintain as much detail in my journal as he in speaking and so I did.
After many hours I became weary, hungry, thirsty for water, thirsty for sleep, thirsty for fresh air, but to no avail he prodded me along, quite literally in fact. As I began to waver and fall off to sleep, he would raise that crudely shaped cane and jab my leg with wrath like force as if to convey his disgust for my need of rest.
It was in the beginning that i remained excited; eager, hanging to every next word that sputtered out of the death infected mouth of the queer messenger, but it would not be long before I struggled to hold my head at an upright angle. My neck tingled with pain, tightness of my musculature overwhelmed me, my hand cramped as if It had altogether revolted against me, I could no longer deceive neither he, nor myself that my mind had wondered on to another path, one that lead nowhere, but at the same time lead my belief to a falsehood, selling my trust on the idea of food, water and rest.
This was a journey indeed. As I sat in my study writing what seemed to be a book of some overtly hellish future, he had by now perched up on my desk as an eagle might aside a cliff, waiting for me to desist once more with that now bloody point of a cane resting just to the left of my writing hand. I could not tell one how long this ledgering episode lasted, I only knew that I was exhausted, famished and began to experience extreme dizziness.
With the last passage entered, he bid me a farewell and gave me much reason to expect his presence again sometime in the near future. At that he seemingly dematerialized from my study. I felt my body moving on a horizontal plain, even though I was in fact sitting opposite of that, vertically.
This was, with no doubt in my heart, the most vivid and most inexplicable dream I could or would ever have.
Ever.
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