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At my side a vague shadow trembles - something flickering into this world.
Mother, father, I know not.
But the guiding, gliding shape is comfort enough - leading me somewhere at last, somewhere safe. Another step, and more they fade, back into my trailing memory - soon to release me entirely, the familiar grip to slip away.
The road, lined with derelict houses, welcomes me in - one of the same, a fading relic, coming home. I’ve been wandering, wondering so long ... the foundations are ready.
We can walk in the road - right in the middle - it has been a long, long time since any car rolled out the tarmac. A fine film of dust, fragments of what once was, has settled down over everything.
Two sets of footprints; the shadow distant only to me.
Picked out in clinical white, one house stays in tact, straying closer to the road, longing for extra contact. It mocks my pain, ready to embrace - retrace - the tangled route. Faces stare down from the windows, a recognition there: here’s another, led by the clean, dying to be cleansed.
Yet they seem no better than I.
The shadow stops, a shapeless hand wafts through my shoulder - prods and pokes me towards the house. Farewell - one last hope.
We can do no more.
The shadow leaves me at the door.
“Welcome! Welcome!” As mocking as the house itself, the voice cut through with reality. In the doorway, the top of his head blends in with the darkness beyond - part of it, melting into the black. Another hand on my back.
The neat, white, still-standing front was just a facade. This house is as rotten as the others, the shining windows make-up on a dead man’s face. Inside, the decrepit stench coils up tight inside my nostrils, strings of damp on the peeling paper, new carpet tinged black at the edges.
Endless corridors, doorways, staircases, reel off into nowhere.
“This!” He announces, waving his hand around, fingers fading into the poorly patterned wallpaper. “Is Mim Markopan.”
And from nowhere, an old woman appears. All I see is her empty eye sockets, remarkably, sharply in focus against the blurred background of her body and face. There are no shadows there, every blood-crusted welt more vivid than anything in years - showing off her lack of sight, proud to be less.
He stands back against the wall, arms folded. Below the ankles, his feet melt back into the crumbling skirting board. Like I’m supposed to know what to do, while he bleeds away into the walls.
Mim moves towards me, blurred arms outstretched, black bones shining through grey flesh.
She cups either side if my face, the brittle fingers touching more than skin, their warmth unnerving, prying. Straining to explore within.
The fingers trace my jaw line, across the red lashes of acne, pushing back the soft, new hairs, up behind my ears through the dead skin, briefly pinching at my lank hair. They dance around my face, pausing over open pores, noting the strange curve and bump of my nose. Working small circles at the temples - bringing the world back a little, back to me. Stroking the slight bruising under my eyes, then deep into my sockets.
Her fingers clasp around each eyeball, testing, prodding against my locked lids. Searching, scouring for something only the blind can see. Writhing in my sockets, twisting, sensing out the limits of my sight. If she wished, she could see again - with one sharp movement, regain what was lost.
But she let her hands drop, with a slight sigh, and was gone.
He walked on - calmly, undisturbed - down the corridor. One shoulder streamed off, up the stairs and into the rafters, but he did not follow it. I stayed with him, the rape of my features unnerving - even to me, void of nerves. There was a lot of walking: on, until the new carpet straggled into boards, the walls warped out, and the ceiling sagged in. Until cracks broke, and water seeped - far enough away to as not disturb him.
“This is your room.” He seemed disappointed with me, like I didn’t fit. He shut the door, but through the faded panelling I could see his stare - an unconvinced glare, as though I wasn’t ready to come here, wasn’t far enough gone to stay. Yellowed eyes - drifting away in the lamplight - scanned my face, looking for worth.
The tut, the slight shake of the head, were unmistakable through the hardwood door.
The room is lit well, from the hundreds of matches hanging from the ceiling on black silk strands - each one burning brightly, beacons to another place. But do not want that place, only the reality can satisfy me now - the shadow cast clearly on freshly painted walls.
I take refuge in the bed - heavy blankets, worn away - under the snide, swaying dots of firelight, gather what thoughts I have left.
For years I have drifted, beyond the mortal, guided only by the unknown shadow. Now, back among the derelict dead, I was promised a cure. There was no such thing waiting.
Mockery only.
This is no way to rejoin the living reality. To have the shadow snap back into focus - to leave this warping, fading world. My eyes long for the structure, the life - to live, through real perception.
The matches burn out, the silk ignites. Silence, darkness, makes the night.
Mim Markopan’s presence fills the room, unannounced.
There she stands, in front of the window. A viewless window, closed to me. Moonbeams, shattered by the glass, sweep across her face, lighting those empty eye sockets, swirling her night-dress around her legs. I can’t see past the vacant sockets, but something is there, within. No sleep for me tonight.
Precious ... precious are the eyes that see. For you: the truth, born out from me. Come - and know - what you may be.
We run, deeper on, through the corridors, past the doors. The ceiling sinking lower and lower, the stains growing and dripping. Her bare legs and feet shimmered across the calling boards, sweeping me up and along behind.
The walls are riddled with bullet holes. Charred and dented, scared and pitted from sword strokes, gunpowder flash, artillery hail. The seeping stench of a thousand deaths.
Ancient runes, drawn out in blood; the tidemark of an well-planned flood.
Stacks of bricks, sheets of steel, the rotting remains of a final meal.
Chalk-drawn plans, tanks of gas - a miniature bible for a summarised mass.
Weapons line the corridor, stacked up through the ages - guns, knives, bombs, swords. But we race on, through everything, easily through the taste of struggle. Through the bitter screams, endless war, hopeless cause. Through the pointless charge, through those who hoped to end the fight - through the failing wish, through pain-rent tears. Through gritted teeth, the final push to reach a cure - to define the boarders of reality, until it consumes, until the living life hangs over all. Through the desperate, clinging hold on the rigid, pushing away the dreams.
Through the rancid denial of what may be, we run.
Another hundred meters past the last signs of death, the corridor ends. On the dead-end wall, only a tiny hole - a mouse hole by the floor - marks a continuation.
She nods gently downwards.
Do not regret what has been made. To turn back is to lose, to fade.
I can barely squeeze my fingers in - the wood fresh, still smelling of sap - but the cool, sharp air beyond stretches out my limbs. Draws me in, a vivid embrace, to see what was fought - I will not join the lost, the left behind.
Up to my elbow now, straining through the gap - up, up past the shoulder.
My head pulls in beside, through the living wood, inside. Through the tiny hole I glide.
Between the walls, the cure is near, I have wavered too long between the worlds. One or the other, one or the other. Something must consume me, I am too far stretched. Something must win, something must be lost.
And now up, between the walls, inside the rotting timbers. Climbing, over and over, until the old wood springs into new and slides back again into rock, the granite beams hold tight, spring upwards still, lose the damp, until the bolts regain and, at last, the metal twists in, swells, and locks in place.
He is there - no longer fading back, limbs no longer bleeding into nothing - against the metal, his form is new, sharp. The eyes, burning red now, swell with tears which burst out, dapple craters in the shining steel floor. Perfectly defined, in a single place - no longer flickering, unsure, leaning back to reality. Solid, rooted.
Yet I wonder if he’s here at all.
Mim again appears, sockets sunk in shadows now - starkly black against the shining grey, the spherical room laced with copper strokes. Beckoning darkness, briefly lit by tiny pinpricks of flame.
He blinks slowly, like I’m supposed to know what to do.
And I do.
Flickering between worlds, I know.
The shadow sighs, stands and calls. They can do no more - their support cannot reach me here. I am beyond that, pressing further beyond, straining the bonds of perception.
Forget
With steady hands - dry palmed, tinged red - I cup either side of her face. The skin is papery, fake, dead. Thumbs reach up into the shadows. Across the blood-crusted welts, deep into the sockets. Within.
To lift away the mask, the ship’s final, sinking mast - to release, embrace, the world beyond.
Beyond the rotting dereliction, the halfway. Beyond that - pressing on, past the dreams of reality. Bloom into new life.
Precious are the eyes that see.
Mother, father, I know not.
But the guiding, gliding shape is comfort enough - leading me somewhere at last, somewhere safe. Another step, and more they fade, back into my trailing memory - soon to release me entirely, the familiar grip to slip away.
The road, lined with derelict houses, welcomes me in - one of the same, a fading relic, coming home. I’ve been wandering, wondering so long ... the foundations are ready.
We can walk in the road - right in the middle - it has been a long, long time since any car rolled out the tarmac. A fine film of dust, fragments of what once was, has settled down over everything.
Two sets of footprints; the shadow distant only to me.
Picked out in clinical white, one house stays in tact, straying closer to the road, longing for extra contact. It mocks my pain, ready to embrace - retrace - the tangled route. Faces stare down from the windows, a recognition there: here’s another, led by the clean, dying to be cleansed.
Yet they seem no better than I.
The shadow stops, a shapeless hand wafts through my shoulder - prods and pokes me towards the house. Farewell - one last hope.
We can do no more.
The shadow leaves me at the door.
“Welcome! Welcome!” As mocking as the house itself, the voice cut through with reality. In the doorway, the top of his head blends in with the darkness beyond - part of it, melting into the black. Another hand on my back.
The neat, white, still-standing front was just a facade. This house is as rotten as the others, the shining windows make-up on a dead man’s face. Inside, the decrepit stench coils up tight inside my nostrils, strings of damp on the peeling paper, new carpet tinged black at the edges.
Endless corridors, doorways, staircases, reel off into nowhere.
“This!” He announces, waving his hand around, fingers fading into the poorly patterned wallpaper. “Is Mim Markopan.”
And from nowhere, an old woman appears. All I see is her empty eye sockets, remarkably, sharply in focus against the blurred background of her body and face. There are no shadows there, every blood-crusted welt more vivid than anything in years - showing off her lack of sight, proud to be less.
He stands back against the wall, arms folded. Below the ankles, his feet melt back into the crumbling skirting board. Like I’m supposed to know what to do, while he bleeds away into the walls.
Mim moves towards me, blurred arms outstretched, black bones shining through grey flesh.
She cups either side if my face, the brittle fingers touching more than skin, their warmth unnerving, prying. Straining to explore within.
The fingers trace my jaw line, across the red lashes of acne, pushing back the soft, new hairs, up behind my ears through the dead skin, briefly pinching at my lank hair. They dance around my face, pausing over open pores, noting the strange curve and bump of my nose. Working small circles at the temples - bringing the world back a little, back to me. Stroking the slight bruising under my eyes, then deep into my sockets.
Her fingers clasp around each eyeball, testing, prodding against my locked lids. Searching, scouring for something only the blind can see. Writhing in my sockets, twisting, sensing out the limits of my sight. If she wished, she could see again - with one sharp movement, regain what was lost.
But she let her hands drop, with a slight sigh, and was gone.
He walked on - calmly, undisturbed - down the corridor. One shoulder streamed off, up the stairs and into the rafters, but he did not follow it. I stayed with him, the rape of my features unnerving - even to me, void of nerves. There was a lot of walking: on, until the new carpet straggled into boards, the walls warped out, and the ceiling sagged in. Until cracks broke, and water seeped - far enough away to as not disturb him.
“This is your room.” He seemed disappointed with me, like I didn’t fit. He shut the door, but through the faded panelling I could see his stare - an unconvinced glare, as though I wasn’t ready to come here, wasn’t far enough gone to stay. Yellowed eyes - drifting away in the lamplight - scanned my face, looking for worth.
The tut, the slight shake of the head, were unmistakable through the hardwood door.
The room is lit well, from the hundreds of matches hanging from the ceiling on black silk strands - each one burning brightly, beacons to another place. But do not want that place, only the reality can satisfy me now - the shadow cast clearly on freshly painted walls.
I take refuge in the bed - heavy blankets, worn away - under the snide, swaying dots of firelight, gather what thoughts I have left.
For years I have drifted, beyond the mortal, guided only by the unknown shadow. Now, back among the derelict dead, I was promised a cure. There was no such thing waiting.
Mockery only.
This is no way to rejoin the living reality. To have the shadow snap back into focus - to leave this warping, fading world. My eyes long for the structure, the life - to live, through real perception.
The matches burn out, the silk ignites. Silence, darkness, makes the night.
Mim Markopan’s presence fills the room, unannounced.
There she stands, in front of the window. A viewless window, closed to me. Moonbeams, shattered by the glass, sweep across her face, lighting those empty eye sockets, swirling her night-dress around her legs. I can’t see past the vacant sockets, but something is there, within. No sleep for me tonight.
Precious ... precious are the eyes that see. For you: the truth, born out from me. Come - and know - what you may be.
We run, deeper on, through the corridors, past the doors. The ceiling sinking lower and lower, the stains growing and dripping. Her bare legs and feet shimmered across the calling boards, sweeping me up and along behind.
The walls are riddled with bullet holes. Charred and dented, scared and pitted from sword strokes, gunpowder flash, artillery hail. The seeping stench of a thousand deaths.
Ancient runes, drawn out in blood; the tidemark of an well-planned flood.
Stacks of bricks, sheets of steel, the rotting remains of a final meal.
Chalk-drawn plans, tanks of gas - a miniature bible for a summarised mass.
Weapons line the corridor, stacked up through the ages - guns, knives, bombs, swords. But we race on, through everything, easily through the taste of struggle. Through the bitter screams, endless war, hopeless cause. Through the pointless charge, through those who hoped to end the fight - through the failing wish, through pain-rent tears. Through gritted teeth, the final push to reach a cure - to define the boarders of reality, until it consumes, until the living life hangs over all. Through the desperate, clinging hold on the rigid, pushing away the dreams.
Through the rancid denial of what may be, we run.
Another hundred meters past the last signs of death, the corridor ends. On the dead-end wall, only a tiny hole - a mouse hole by the floor - marks a continuation.
She nods gently downwards.
Do not regret what has been made. To turn back is to lose, to fade.
I can barely squeeze my fingers in - the wood fresh, still smelling of sap - but the cool, sharp air beyond stretches out my limbs. Draws me in, a vivid embrace, to see what was fought - I will not join the lost, the left behind.
Up to my elbow now, straining through the gap - up, up past the shoulder.
My head pulls in beside, through the living wood, inside. Through the tiny hole I glide.
Between the walls, the cure is near, I have wavered too long between the worlds. One or the other, one or the other. Something must consume me, I am too far stretched. Something must win, something must be lost.
And now up, between the walls, inside the rotting timbers. Climbing, over and over, until the old wood springs into new and slides back again into rock, the granite beams hold tight, spring upwards still, lose the damp, until the bolts regain and, at last, the metal twists in, swells, and locks in place.
He is there - no longer fading back, limbs no longer bleeding into nothing - against the metal, his form is new, sharp. The eyes, burning red now, swell with tears which burst out, dapple craters in the shining steel floor. Perfectly defined, in a single place - no longer flickering, unsure, leaning back to reality. Solid, rooted.
Yet I wonder if he’s here at all.
Mim again appears, sockets sunk in shadows now - starkly black against the shining grey, the spherical room laced with copper strokes. Beckoning darkness, briefly lit by tiny pinpricks of flame.
He blinks slowly, like I’m supposed to know what to do.
And I do.
Flickering between worlds, I know.
The shadow sighs, stands and calls. They can do no more - their support cannot reach me here. I am beyond that, pressing further beyond, straining the bonds of perception.
Forget
With steady hands - dry palmed, tinged red - I cup either side of her face. The skin is papery, fake, dead. Thumbs reach up into the shadows. Across the blood-crusted welts, deep into the sockets. Within.
To lift away the mask, the ship’s final, sinking mast - to release, embrace, the world beyond.
Beyond the rotting dereliction, the halfway. Beyond that - pressing on, past the dreams of reality. Bloom into new life.
Precious are the eyes that see.
Page:
I ween
Utterly disgusting if you ask me.
*Ahem*
*Ahem*
Well, it would be nice to win - or at least come in the top 3, which hasn't happened yet. Shocking, I know.
*Waves flag*
*Waves flag*
It made a very good read indeed.
I'm very torn between this as monsieur Thraves'.
And the heavyness was fine I thought.
Not too heavy at all I felt.
I'm very torn between this as monsieur Thraves'.
And the heavyness was fine I thought.
Not too heavy at all I felt.
I'm a-thinking you're deserving to be a-winning this time Mr lots of F's. I want you to win anyway. Woo!
*waves little flag*
*waves little flag*
Thankyou kindly.
+ bump
[S](but shhh)
+ bump
[S](but shhh)
I like the reference to Madam Mim. Very good read.
Like Kyz said, thought it was a bit heavy, but maybe it seemed that way as I have just spent a hour cleaning my bedroom - exhausting mentally and physically.
But I did think it was ethereal and cryptic, two beautiful qualities to incorporate.
But I did think it was ethereal and cryptic, two beautiful qualities to incorporate.
Cheers guys.
Yeah, my stuff is pretty heavy - especially compared to the more efficient style you and Meka use. 'Tis just how I write.
And, yes again - I know it's pretty bitty, jumping around a lot. Time and energy restraints made it so - and in the end, I get bored of re-working things and just throw them out.
Also, there were going to be a few more characters, but long stuff never gets read (and I was running out of words for faded. ahar)
Personally, I'm not too pleased with this one.
We'll see.
Yeah, my stuff is pretty heavy - especially compared to the more efficient style you and Meka use. 'Tis just how I write.
And, yes again - I know it's pretty bitty, jumping around a lot. Time and energy restraints made it so - and in the end, I get bored of re-working things and just throw them out.
Also, there were going to be a few more characters, but long stuff never gets read (and I was running out of words for faded. ahar)
Personally, I'm not too pleased with this one.
We'll see.
It was too hard to follow to enjoy.
Beautiful use of descriptions and vivid imagery as always but I felt this just didnt flow, it jumped crookedly like a bent slinky descending awkwardly down a rickety flight of stairs.
Perhaps I'm in a rather slack mindset and I've been revising for three hours and am quite mentally exhausted but this was by no means easy "light" reading.
Beautiful use of descriptions and vivid imagery as always but I felt this just didnt flow, it jumped crookedly like a bent slinky descending awkwardly down a rickety flight of stairs.
Perhaps I'm in a rather slack mindset and I've been revising for three hours and am quite mentally exhausted but this was by no means easy "light" reading.
Page: