Part I: Surrounded By Ghosts ( A Short Story)
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Part II: Pictures From A Previous Dream
Familiarity.
It can be comforting and soothing.
Or it can be menacing and terrifying.
At the moment, Robin has no way to know which way to feel.
He sits in the gloom pondering his current situation and feeling very much like a fool.
It all seemed so palpable. Real danger. Actual wounds with places now occupied by actual scars.
Memories held and skills learned while trapped in The Stone House. He’s had dreams before. Of course he has.
And although it’s not always easy to distinguish experience from fantasy, he felt like he had a pretty good handle on the difference.
Now…not so much.
If
If I’m Here, then it’s clear
Something is missing inside
Hurt that is learning to hide
In the sound underground
The Gallery hidden from view
Is waiting to wonder anew
Still and silent
Fire is feeding my hell
Faith is healing my shell
==========================================+
The boundaries of this place cannot be seen as yet.
But the sounds of his own breath belie the approximate size of the space.
Not much light here, but what there is, is dim and bluish.
At the edges of his perception there are frames defining the boundaries fading into view.
As the smoke loiters, the paintings are more visible than before.
Walls obscured by heavy curtains are dominated by enormous old frames enclosing a number of vivid paintings.
They are gathered here as if to a wake – watching him. Waiting for Robin to view them.
The overriding desire of all paintings is to be experienced. To be appreciated. To be seen.
Each possesses the essence of the one who created it.
Imbued with the passion, the anger, the lust, the drive that compelled the hand which brushed them into life.
They have hung here for an eternity. Waiting. Waiting to fulfill their purpose.
They have dark gifts to give. And they can sense that he is ready.
The first presents itself to him.
A gilded frame holds an image of a vast and forbidding maze hidden underneath a coliseum floor.
He is in that place, but only as an observer.
Robin feels the anguish, the defiance, the despair flowing from the canvas.
Many are gathered here, cowering in fear while holding to their courage.
Held against their will and forced to fight for the amusement of the king the chorus of prisoners is rising.
The din of the assembled mob in the arena above can be heard clearly.
To the far side of both left and right, rows of iron cages hold all manner of deadly beasts waiting for their moment.
The dust of war and death hangs heavy, flavoring the air with each ragged breath
Directly to the rear stands row after row of unmarked graves.
The warriors believe that the recently buried are ushered to their final rest by the ones that came before them.
Hypogeum
Down here the maze is without end
Stone breaks a promise to pretend
Left here to face what they may bring
Kept here in service to the king
All the bodies they buried
Stir where they lay
Showing each other the way
Live for today
And fight for tomorrow
Down here the night does not prevail
No soul is left to live the tale
Darkened now the lights that never shone
Struck down in anger they never made it home
All the torches they carried
Burn anyway
Showing each other the way
Live for today
And fight for tomorrow
—————————————————+
If I see through my fear
The face of my savior is clear
Painted to match what I feel
Angry and violent
The phantoms are rising unseen
Fate will not intervene
Down here the heart denies it’s pain
Bleeding near the rush to be insane
Held here suspended in the dark
Hope waits for someone to reignite the spark
All the torches they carried
Burn anyway
Showing each other the way
Live for today
And fight for tomorrow
+=================================================+
A new image moves in to present itself to him.
The frame is black, charred, nearly unseen.
The city is bleak and oppressive. Smoke rises as a continuous downpour soaks all.
Structures have been constructed here seemingly with no forethought to their impact on population or each other.
In jagged contrast slashes of neon illuminate the faces that he is allowed to see.
Vehicles of all manner and type crowd the streets and fill the skies.
Voices can be heard reciting orders to the masses, but cannot be clearly discerned.
The city shows tangible scars of the mistrust and hatred of its inhabitants.
The effect of all this is one of despair. Crushing and suffocating.
All who live here are resigned to their fate. Their world is dead, barren.
Cold, mechanical consciousness sits in judgement over all. This place wasn’t always such.
Behind the dark smear of desperate anguish, the bright green and gold of its past life can be seen.
Drawn inside the scene Robin feels the complete sense of resignation here.
He feels the abject shame of their knowledge that they are responsible for the state of their home.
Longing for that which has been lost and can never be regained.
All Our Yesterdays
The hate that we cling to for safety
Is dragging us down to the drain
No one is listening lately
Aimlessly shouting in vain
Descended from there into madness
Sowing the seeds of demise
Pretended the end isn’t chaos
Becoming the ones we despise
Endlessly filling the green in our eyes
Praying for time – See how it flies
Speeding to some destination
Blind to a treacherous bend
Anger consuming perfection
Never a thought to the end
Sparks of life that want to flow through us
Are waiting to be welcomed in
The last light that gathered around us
Seeking somewhere to begin
Endlessly feeding the greed in our lives
Playing the line – Kiss it goodbye
We have betrayed
All our yesterdays
And discovered a grave new world
We could have stayed
All was washed away
By forgetting the songs we heard
Of those days
—————————————————————+
Divisions that hide our horizons
Can only be seen from on high
The world falls apart as it rises
No gravity there to defy
Ascended from hell into hopeless
We carried the dust of our lives
Suspended the rest of our progress
And sold off the true compromise
Anxiously searching for truth in the skies
Playing for time – Living the lies
We have betrayed
All our yesterdays
And discovered a grave new world
We could have stayed
All was washed away
By forgetting the songs we heard
Of those days
+==================================+
Robin begins to perceive that his presence in this place is required by the paintings.
They are whispering amongst themselves of their elation at having the chance.
None of them understands why they were brought Here after having been created.
They have waited for what seems an eternity to reveal themselves to human eyes.
This is the fondest wish of any art. To be perceived. To be appreciated.
A fresh vision swings into view.
It shifts and changes seemingly at will. A lenticular.
The image is a wide smooth road with sides sloping away to either side.
The path disappears into the distance and obscurity.
As the painting closes the distance to him, it floats around revealing that which is behind.
The vista to the rear is much more visible, cloudy and cluttered with debris.
Moving away at an angle, the objects in the painting move closer, then farther from one another.
It is nearly impossible to see it properly. The representation keeps changing.
He feels eyes upon him, glaring in judgement.
Their impression of him is flawed, but they are unwilling to correct.
Parallax Error
Looking over shoulders
The past becomes a judge
The way ahead is clouded
Behind us not so much
Distance measured by grief
Feelings do not align
We assign the divine to the absent
We are faced with the evidence
Of things unseen
Life is not a mistake
+=====================================+
The room is nearly empty and yet it is filled with a tangible despair.
A battered wood chair stands waiting at the center lit from directly above.
Stepping forward carefully, Robin takes a seat.
The gloom is dense and seemingly vast.
He feels strangely claustrophobic in spite of it.
The sounds assaulting him all at once are overwhelming.
Voices, rumbling, explosions, children sobbing.
All moving in opposing directions causing one another to be cancelled out.
Perceptions disagree with themselves.
Above it all one clear voice is heard, and yet he doesn’t understand.
The speech pattern is random and distorted.
The words are being spoken, but their sound is alien to his mind.
The speaker has questions and wants answers.
It promises pain if its queries are left unsatisfied.
For a fleeting moment he feels that he can almost comprehend.
But as fast as the sensation appears it vanishes.
His thoughts turn inward at the exact moment the din reaches its height.
Suspended in the fog over the chair, knives coming in at all angles.
No defense. No retreat. Numb to the assault.
Schizophonia
Experience – Perception
Seventh sense – Deception
Future tense – Cannot become
Recording and deleting at once
The crest of the waveform
That crashes and flows
Learning to be there
Searching for somewhere
Modulate – Not quite blending
Hesitate – Not worth mending
Inner voice – Can’t duplicate
Straining to extract too late
The last of the white noise
That rises and slows
Wanting to live there
Echo to nowhere
If it sings to you, it’s music
And nothing else is there to hear
If it speaks to you, it’s magic
And nothing needs to disappear
Children of Harmony
Filter and grow
Reaching for some way
Nearing the last day
————————————————+
Random thoughts to organize
Holding up the final sound
Never seem to realize
The answer is the fate we’ve found
Breathing the real air
And knowing it sees
My face in the trees
Time to release
If it sings to you, it’s music
And nothing else is there to hear
If it speaks to you, it’s magic
And nothing needs to disappear
Children of Harmony
Filter and grow
Reaching for some way
Nearing the last day
===================================+
The king knows his time is short.
His realm is still, for now a bright and shimmering oasis.
It is a war torn country in a faraway land.
Almost by force of will he has kept this jewel safe and shining.
Battles fought and won. And lost.
Friends, families, people of all creeds have paid for this.
This life has been unkind to him.
Thrust onto the throne at an early age by an assassin’s blade he has always had to bear the weight of the crown.
His journey to now has been a fiery crucible
It has shaped and hardened him.
It has also left him damaged beyond repair in ways no one can see or comprehend.
His scars are permanent and painful.
But they strengthen his body. They give him resolve.
No person or army or deity will break his will.
He knows some things they don’t.
Broken
If I could hide myself
Behind the face I wear
Praying for no one to find me here
Don’t make me wash out the stain
If I could find myself
With no allegiance to swear
Waiting for Eden to reappear
Don’t make me hurt you again
====+
Something that was made to be endless
Nothing that was meant to be hopeless
Became that way
If I could see myself
As almost anyone else
The weight of the war will not disappear
No one can carry my chain
====+
Somewhere at the end I feel helpless
Nowhere to pretend this is madness
To live this way
Breaking the word never known
That someone tried to silence
It’s already spoken
Wounded where scars never show
Evil came to bend me
I’m already broken
And out in the open
———————————————————+
If I could be like them
The ones we don’t understand
Knowing that no one will help us here
The way to continue is plain
If I could help myself
Would I give me a hand?
Waiting for reason to disappear
Don’t make me love you again
====+
Breaking the word never known
That someone tried to silence
It’s already spoken
Wounded where scars never show
Evil came to bend me
I’m already broken
And out in the open
=================================+
William had made a mistake.
A very serious mistake indeed.
So many of his years had been spent bridging his two worlds.
Here, in this place he was a man of respect and power over others.
A figure of wealth and means to do whatever he wished.
He was accustomed to luxury and pampering.
Protected by forces both human and otherwise.
His followers were unshakable in their belief.
There in that other place, he was a servant to The Dark.
Charged with feeding a horrible presence possessed of an unrelenting hunger for flesh and spirit.
William had served his master well and fooled his neighbors for decades.
Now all that was coming to a crashing finish.
The doctors had told him it was terminal and nothing could be done for him.
William began to put his earthly affairs in order.
He tried to put on a despondent front to fool his supporters.
But in truth he was elated. He never really felt comfortable in this life. In this skin.
He was going to die. And finally receive the rewards he had worked so hard for all this time.
He was going to take one more before his own time ran out.
A final fling. A reward for services rendered. One for the road.
He didn’t know it Immediately although he certainly felt there was something different about her.
He had watched her for some time and had decided that she would be his last.
And after that he would return home to the void.
Lydia also lived her life across two very different worlds.
Her friends always thought of her as a sweet, unaffected person.
Always willing to help and support all those around her.
Her mother, Joy, had always taught her to keep her true nature hidden.
“Don’t make the same mistakes I made. You’ll go very far indeed”.
Both women had gifts of extraordinary insight and incantation.
There had been a few incidents in childhood that Joy had been able to keep quiet.
But nothing more than hysterical children believing they had seen something impossible.
Lydia grew to become very powerful in her twenties.
But, surprisingly had shown incredible self control as she became stronger.
The power had grown, but failed to corrupt her soul.
Joy could sense that Lydia was ready to shepherd a terrible spell that all of her line had passed down.
Once cast it would place the victim in their own personal Hell, in complete opposition of all their desires.
However, it comes with a terrible price. Whoever casts the Hex shall suffer the same fate.
And the day came that Joy disappeared.
Lydia knew in her heart that she was dead.
More than this she knew who had taken her.
He is coming for her. She will allow him to take her. And their fates will be bound together.
The Lazarus Hex
They believed him a gentle man
With a smile and a guiding hand
Too blind to know that they were blind
Living for the shadows in his mind
Feeding the monster all of the time
Holding the demons down
In the black light dimension he found
Too proud to care about the price
Nothing here could satisfy his vice
Burning alive under the ice
No embers alive
No cowards survive here
Imprisoned against their will
The phantoms that fell
Invited to dwell here
Resisting their tormentor still
The righteous move in for the kill
She believed him a gentle man
And she smiled as she took his hand
Too young to know he was insane
The monster didn’t even know her name
Pleading for time struck down the same
She whispered the words
Destroying the doorway
Aware of the price to her soul
The spirits that heard
Would judge him their own way
And take back the lives that he stole
The inferno would spit him back whole
————————————————+
He isn’t reborn
He’s not resurrected
He never had left this place
The ones that he knew
Had never suspected
The beast that was wearing his face
His secret is known
He’s stranded forever
And no one remembers his name
The spell that she cast
Would cost her forever
But he would be paying the same
A pawn in the damnation game
==============================+
Frank was happy Before. At least that is what he told himself.
He had worked very hard to build a life.
It was a life he could live with.
He spent the first eighteen years of his life searching. And waiting.
He also spent those years counting. Counting out time. And numbers.
Numbers were friendly. They made sense. They agreed.
So much of life was cluttered, messy, disorganized.
Numbers were truth. Equations were laws that kept everything in line.
In keeping accounts he was certain he could see the future.
And it all made sense.
She changed all that.
Mary came into his life a bright, breezy dose of summer sunshine.
Warm and intoxicating.
They both knew it from that first meeting.
During those “light years” time passed slowly but surely.
They made their promises and kept them.
They made their family together and raised it.
Carefully and cautiously built over time.
By the numbers.
They were happy.
Not without some measure of strife, but happy.
Until Mary fell ill.
Doctors came and went nodding their heads and grimly pronouncing their opinions.
She fought back the tide far longer than any thought might be possible.
In the end it was too hard and too painful for her to endure
And then she was gone.
It doesn’t add up.
The Sum Of What’s Missing Inside
I keep in my heart
Some of what’s missing inside me
Practice the art
Silently solving the pain
She added the dawn
And subtracted the dark
Dividing me from
That which I did not need
And washing the wounds
While I bleed
I’m still living behind
No comfort to find
What’s missed inside
Arrived at the sum
That’s missed inside
I carry the one
Who’s missed inside
In solitude
Something I said to myself
Wondering why
Hard as I try
No equation can find the remainder
Inside
She comforts me
Even though eyes cannot see her
Something I save
To convince me I’m brave
No ascension can help me to save her
I’ll carry the one
I stared at the shade
Questioning the answers
The light she made
Gives me nowhere to hide
Equations divide
What’s missed inside
Cross the grandest divide
I’ll carry the one
Who’s missed inside
I carry the one
Who’s missed inside
Arrived at the sum
That’s missed inside
I carry the one
Who’s missed inside
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