It's a long and weird one.

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Passions in Prose

It's a long and weird one.

CobyFeelsMyPain
New Member

since 2003-10-12

Posts 6

0 posted 2003-10-20 08:13 AM

As the worm plunges deeper into the cave I watch the snakes writhe with some confused panic. In that all too fleeting moment, as I gaze nervously at the red, blue, green threads, this creature, this Medusa, represents unadulterated and unrestrained beauty. She sits majestically, legs folded comfortably upon her throne, her eyes buried deep inside some sacred tome, a smile of pure compassion spread across a clear skinned face. The rude bright lights of this terrible worm do not steal anything from her; and I imagine she has done many good deeds. An open mind to consider the pleas and pains of everyone - the shade of her skin suggests a multi-racial background, brimming with culture and exciting foreign practices for me to learn and accept. But too far now, and guilt smashes as she’s turned to look at me, somewhat uncomfortable at my awful glaring. I hear myself offering an apologetic and dry-throated, rasping laugh in the cloudy distance somewhere, and a thought pierces aggressively into consciousness: What on earth is my motivation here? Am I trying to initiate some sort of love affair with this woman? Is she in love with me? Desperate panic pummels me as I realise that this cannot be, as up until now we’ve never spoken, or even been formally introduced. What is going on? I wondered. What is this lack of communication? Resigned, bitter, terrified, I rise from my fold-down seat, and it snaps back upwards with a sickening spinal crunch. I yelp pitifully, and then out into the station, grey and crumbling with dusty duplicity, out and away from this strange love of my life.
I am lost, because I’ve left the tube train at the wrong place, and it has already continued its crusade through the winding intestines of our fine city. I stand for a while, confused, but the strangers begin to mutter, and so I blindly continue to walk the platform, towards the steps. There are 23 of them, and there is a strange sense of triumph at the top. Like a drunkard I lurch unpredictably through some humiliating corridors and before long I’m being dragged, feet first, upwards, upwards by the shiny metal jaws of a moving staircase, and as I ascend a voice over the telecom repeats the same dreadful passage from Mark 13:
“And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved….”
At the top of the escalator shines the bright light of the outside world, and a choir of angelic voices welcomes me towards it. It suddenly dawns on me that this experience has become a religious one, and a sense of righteousness, purity, happiness washes over me. Then and there, climbing that staircase, my eyes begin to melt with the intensity of this glorious light…or are they tears? Why am I crying? Have I become so emotionally involved with the beauty of the situation that this is necessary? Suddenly, a cold hand is thrown roughly across my face, and my cheek blossoms with stinging pain. The light fades, Mark 13 is silent, the choir screams to a halt, and my smile is knocked from me. It is then that I realise that my arms have been clasped around the waist of the woman ahead of me for the past few minutes. She is old, her skin falling from her pale face, and she is fuming from the ears with hideous rage. Like Quasimodo she is hunched over, about to pounce. Her eyes burn red with sulphurous flame, and the sharp, pointed tail whips menacingly at my neck. I begin to sweat with the heat, and the staircase changes direction, plunging me down, down. Flames lick tauntingly at my body. A low, rumbling earthquake of a voice punishes:
“I WILL END YOU!”
I cower, raising my hands to save my face from further assault, screeching woefully like a starving cat. I have become horribly pathetic in the face of this spectacle. I am sure this is the end, my end – I screw my eyes tight closed and wait for it. Suddenly, saviour comes in the form of the ghostly commanding voice of Anton LaVey, as he screams into my ear:
“If a man smite you on one cheek, SMASH him on the other!; smite him hip and thigh, for self-preservation is the highest law!”
Adrenaline, excitement screeches through me, and my limbs begin to viciously slash and thrash at this demon, my teeth grind, my ears ring. This is my only hope of escape from this awful mess. The demon wails in what sounds like excruciating agony, getting louder with every blow I deal. The beast’s terrible screams make the place shake and shiver. This moment is my epic struggle and it is working, I will defeat this, and as soon as I realise, I hear shouting:
“Back, back foul Hades! I am man, with mind, soul, and fists, and I shall have my freedom!”
Outside the wind offers me a congratulatory kiss. The world is my happy family.

This euphoria lasts for the shortest of minutes. Where am I? The surroundings are not familiar in this place. I disembarked at the wrong stop, but where was I going in the first place? What is my purpose? The street is foul, that is for certain – all greys, sucking the life out of everything. Busy, bustling, crowded and oppressive. Gnarled and twisted homelessness smothers the pavement with stinking cupped hands.
“You will spare some change. You must spare some change.”
The majority of the crowd are penguins on business, in their black and white suit-tie combinations and briefcases. They push through, heads down, hands at sides, their faces blank, hair slicked back with shine. A man holds up a newspaper, asking who will buy it from him, but nobody seems interested this time. A woman wearing near-nothing leans against a wall chatting hyena-like into her telephone, hysterically smiling with comical width.  On the opposite side of the street, a group of youths dressed in tattered rags (“al bismotered with his habergeon”- but no such eagerness for pilgrimage here) nod their heads to the sound of garbled nonsense blasting from their stereo, too fast for interpretation. As their music plays, I can only understand a few words here and there:
“Liberated…possess… gateway… Abraham…sacrifice…”
Suddenly, my attention is jerked violently from this scene by a blaring of horns, as someone driving a small grey car hits another vehicle on the road and begins to scream and scream with fear and anger. It is a tiny blonde woman, with sticklike arms clutched ferociously around her steering wheel. She has the features of the shrewd fox, and she will not stop her cacophonous screeching, and sounds like a broken baby. The whole street seems to freeze in observation of this spectacle, either in shock or sheer startled admiration for this woman’s ability to keep this up without breathing. It pierces on and on, and the sound soon loses all meaning, becoming all engulfing and unbearable. Just as I think I may cry with the pain of it all, the man from the other vehicle lurches from his car, which has been sent for a distance into the pavement. He’s obese, with the left-legged lameness of Hephaestus coupled with the frenzied righteousness of Ares. He limps threateningly over to the window of the shrewd fox, and bellows:
“Whaaaayaplayyyyat?!?!?!?!?!”
Instantly, the intense screaming stops, and the small grey car drives off with the woman inside. The crowd turn away suddenly, and continue struggling their way through the street. And the man is left wide-mouthed and slack-jawed in the middle of the road, scratching his baby-like bald head. For the briefest moment, the look on his melancholy face resembles that of the classic tragic hero; condemned by his own weakness, trapped on an inevitable course. For the second time in the hour I am nearly moved to tears, as I watch him standing there, seeming so confused in his naïve innocence. For an instant he is Oedipus Rex, blinded by tragedy, lost in darkness – exiled by his own words. I want to offer him support, a friendly smile, a hand to hold, a shoulder to weep against. I want him to know someone understands. However, as quickly as it started, this second passes, he remembers himself, and angrily storms back to his slightly damaged car. And off he goes.
What do I make of that whole scene? I wonder. It strikes me that in order to make sense of all of this, I need to sit down. My eyes scan the street for somewhere before resting on a greasy-spooned café across the road.
Not finished obviously, but what do you guys think of it so far?

Dusk Treader

Moderator

Senior Member

since 1999-06-18

Posts 1187
St. Paul, MN

1 posted 2004-01-10 02:22 AM

Wow. There is a lot of words flying in this piece of writing. First of all, as is my general wont, I would say a bit of white space would make this piece easier to read. Double spacing after paragraphs will help the eye keep track of where it is much more easily.

Secondly there are a lot of really good images in this piece of writing but the connections between them are sometimes hard to draw. I get the impression of a man who loses himself repeatedly in reveries related to what he is seeing. The first one with the worms and the snakes was an interesting introduction and the sense of oddity and surrealism was kept throughout.

Definitely interesting material you have here, though it is a little hard to follow. It may just not be my style. Some really good images and phrases in here though.

"Knowledge is far superior to Belief, for Belief is the way of the uniformed." - Scott Cunningham

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