falling scars

breathe in

there are a lot of things i am angry about lately. the fact that the death of a professional athlete takes precedence in newscasts over the death of soldiers and innocents caused by an ineffectual man in a sorta round shaped room. i am mad that a school stops the educational process because two not quite star athletes, and most likely members of the elitist few lose their legs in a tragic yet karmic wreck while surely somewhere in those hallowed halls a meek child is beat because 95 percent is just not good enough. i am angry that people do not have the courage to face their fears (feers) and admit the problems that life has dealt them are indeed their fault when looked at from the angry bitter weathered trunk. i am angry at myself, for not standing up in the face of adversity and claiming the mantle that is mine, purple velvet and bloodstains and all.
breathe out

i thought this picture was fun, and just more than a little hot.

ventilate

there are random visions in the place we go for the words, for the pictures. look into the flames and i will show you 4 worlds and 1 and a thousand pinpricks. look, squire. look

_

It is quite true that I despised the youth the minute he came through the doors. I never had much tolerance for worthless flesh.

The sentries that brought him in could barely hold back their revulsion as his blood oozed over their hands and arms. The wounds looked superficial, but those of us at the tower were not accustomed to any such display of gore, and usually the mere smell of it on the breeze from the southern arcologies sent some of the initiates running for their quarters. His body was limp in their arms, his eyes only half open, drool falling in silent strings of saliva on the stones of the foyer. A gurgling sound rumbled in his throat, more than likely the first sound in a thousand years to have been spoken by meat in these halls.

I remember the glances that were exchanged, the air of worry that trailed behind the boys feet as they dragged and skipped across that ancient and holy place.

No words were spoken. Few, if any, were among the initiates in the tower. Those of us that had earned the right to act freely mostly kept to ourselves, fearing that the knowledge the tower had given us would be corrupted by the perceptions of the other gifted. Taint was a threat that was ever constant, and those few who had been to the upper levels and tasted of its gifts knew that all too well. Benjamin told me later that when he saw the boy he made a silent prayer to the Engine to protect himself from the dark taint of flesh that was invading our sanctum. I looked to my partner, a simple thing that had been discovered in the wastes near Cormania, and with the steel of my eyes commanded him to ignore the scene and concentrate on our daily work.

_

The mask was uncomfortable at times.

Alone in the reception hall he longed to rip the molded synthetic from his skin, rip the nodes that had embedded themselves in his pores right out. He didn’t care about the pain, the blood. It would just be nice to be free again.

It was iconic really. There used to be a portrait in the archives, a lone king surrounded by snakes and mists, lonely and abused on a golden throne with stone knots at the base. His head lazily is in his hands as he stares into the darkness beyond the painting, over the viewers shoulders, a future as false as the wisps of smoke that coil around his feet. He always admired that painting whenever father allowed him to wander the corridors on their trips to the lower parts of the dome.

“That is your future,” his father used to quip, smiling smugly, as much as the reactive sythsteel would let him. The mask his father wore was different. Reds and blues flashed off the surface in certain lights, and in the dark it shone a sickly pink. The technology hadn’t quite been perfected and smiles and sneers looked eerily similar. He didn’t realize until he was thirteen that he had never seen his father’s face, but he always suspected that it looked similar to the foresworn king in the portrait. It wasn’t until the funeral that he found out how right he was, and how right his father had been.

From somewhere outside there was a commotion, It didn’t matter now. Somehow, someway, he knew this day was coming, that he was coming.

The night he put on the mask he had a vision. He was older, much older. The medicrats had warned him of the side effects of the nanotechnology, of the neurological damage and of the psychoactive nature of the chemicals they introduced. He sat on his throne, overlooking his empty kingdom through the guise of his hollow office. A flock of ravens flew above the dome, their cries ringing through the arcology. The domes were cracked, he remembered that the most, and the toxins of the great and terrible outside world were seeping into his locked lost land destroying all that he and the ones before him created, the lies and deceits and all to many lives that had been carefully structured and squandered in the name of progress. One of the ravens flew toward the dome, carrying that stench on its wings, that horrible decay of change and chaos that his line had feared for so long. The ravens beak shined silver, glinting in the dying sun of the domes.

The raven was now at his door, had killed his Paiges.

The gun at his side was no comfort, he knew instinctively. None of the pitfalls or traps that he had carefully had lain out in hopes of deflecting this moment.



_

the western tower has nothing at the top. i've been there.

_

three worldsets away, i can still hear him screaming. i always wonder, each time my skin burns and my soul twists, if that scream had fooled us all, if this was his plan from the very beginning. after all, if you can't be god, at least you can be moses.

he told me he had finished the machine on a thursday. i remember it well because the police had just found the third body, this one a woman. her face was a bluish hue with deep red lines cut in the cheeks that almost stared bloodlessly back at us when we laid her out on the table. i noticed right away that she had struggled, the hematoma patterns were all too familiar. her nails were ragged, her extremities twisted and purple.

'i brought the camera' tim called from the door. the detectives would want every inch on file. ashley still was having trouble calibrating the scanner, and i hadn't seen jonas in hours. we were like a hive, the murder and mayhem sent to us from the powers that be three floors above our nectar, the blind woman that overlooked market street our queen. yet in reality it wasn't really that exciting. it wasn't like the tv shows or the cheap paperbacks. you don't walk away from the comforts of your soulmate felix and don a set of scrubs transforming into a criminal investigating genius. most of the time you don't even get to see what your three hours of dissection and worship amount to until they leak it onto the internet or it comes up on a roundtable on court tv. hell, for 14 hours a day, we're lucky if we get to leave the room.

i remember this well. i remember too much.

i was getting the audio ready, and ashley had signaled that the scanner was up in between bites of a philly when jonas burst through the door from the file rooms he called home. "it's finished!" he proclaimed, a crooked madmans smile stretching from ear to ear.

we didn't pay attention. we should have.

_

did you see it? did you see the day the world died?

.......


nebulize

smashing pumpkins - eye

rememberance

ventilate


First they had bound his hands with twine. It was rough and it was only a few hours before his wrists had begun to bleed from his struggles. The cloth they had put in his mouth had begun as white, but now was a mixed brown and yellow, the color of sweat and blood. He had lain prone in the damp concrete cell for what had seemed like an eternity, their voices echoing in the dark hallways as they discussed what to do with him, and where to put him when they were done. In his mind he catalogued their voices, memorizing each intonation, each slight variation in dialect and pitch. One of them lisped, each s and t melding, words sounding more choked on then spoken. He imagined a pock marked flunky, rags barely covering his shoulders, open sores on his arms and legs leaving a trail of mucus as he walked. There was a woman with them as well. She spoke eloquently occasionally, but mostly sounded as if she tried too hard. Her face was soft in his mind, hiding years of beatings just as the stolen Paige uniform covered the marks of the stun sticks which had burned her thighs. She had been the one to suggest they just let him go.

Footsteps rang out in the empty hall outside his cell. There was a whirr of machinery, the sound of a keypad being depressed, and then the door was open. A musty yellow light poured in obscuring the bulky shadow that loomed above him. He heard others in the hallway, waiting outside the door, and a voice in the distance. “Grab him. Make sure you don’t put your hands near his face.” It was the woman.

Firm hands picked him up. From all around there was the smell of sandalwood, of dragons breath, the type of smells that the groundlings used to cover up the muck of the sewage they were forced to bathe in. He was lifted, almost gently, over this giants shoulder his gut embraced by a well muscled arm. Now he could see there were six of them, three men and three women including the one that now held him. He would have had to stretch to see their faces, and that was still too painful due to the wound on his neck. To his right the woman addressed him.

“If you do not fight you may live to see another sunrise. I swear that on my father.”

The woman turned and briskly walked down the corridor, followed by the others, the giant bringing up the rear. Other cells lined the hallway, their doors a thick dull metal with a single opening near the bottom for food and other pleasantries. They passed one where he heard, between sobs, a child singing a song that he had heard only months ago when they had traveled through the Cormanian highlands. It was a nomad song called Mary Madonna. As they passed one of the procession in front of him banged on the door, the voice falling silent. That is the man with the lisp, he thought to himself. That is the man that said he wanted to see my insides.

They walked for quite a while, the corridors of the dark prison twisting and turning in on themselves. They are trying to confuse me, he thinks, trying to make sure I don’t know where I am when we get to wherever they are taking me. After a time he heard the sound of machinery in the distance, shouts behind that. They were close to a factory.

“Put him in there,” the woman barked.

The giant turned to an open doorway and casually threw him to the ground. When he landed he heard a crack from his hip, but he bit his tongue to ignore the pain. Before he had his bearings he heard the metallic slam of the door and footsteps in the corridor.

“Leave me for a moment, I want to address him alone.” More footsteps fading, the smell of a cigarette burning. “Are you hurt? He set you down pretty hard.” Her voice was different now, softer.

“I’m okay. Nothing the medicrats couldn’t fix in a few moments.” He rubbed his hip, and then realized his head was bleeding again, the wound from his capture reopened by the impact.

“Where is he Tethriel?” The voice not only sounded softer to him, it sounded familiar.

“Who are you?” Beads of sweat began to trickle down his brow. They had talked before they came to the city, made a promise that if they were captured that they were on their own. The image of Jason running as the mob carried him away, beaten and bruised, was still etched into his skull. Suddenly he was filled with contempt, the thought of that elegant bastard running through the dark alleys never to see him again sending him reeling.

“I’m a friend, Teth. I always have been. I’m not surprised you don’t recognize my voice, it has been a long time. What is it now, two, three worldsets? You were my favorite the last time, you know that right?” He could hear her smiling.

One beat. Images flashed behind his eyes, scenes of faces and people and places, ones he knew he hadn’t seen but yet were so familiar. He saw the rise and fall of a great city, a thousand years flash through in but an instant. He saw the knife.

“Does that help?” There’s the sound of a keypad, and the familiar whirr of gears.

Vyvyan smiles, the shotgun at her side touching her shins. And in one moment Tethriel remembers.

“It’s good to see you again, Vyv.” There is the sound of the twine on his wrists and legs ripping, the smell of oranges as the wounds on the back of his neck and his bruised body heal themselves. “What took you so long?”

three days

ventilate

The domes of the Equivicol shone brightly against the noonday light, a glimmering beacon of stability snuggled into the horizon between brothels and murder tents. From somewhere below were the chants of the Paige Guard as they ran their patrols, the sound of stun sticks and children echoing through the alleyways up to his open window.
It had been three days since he had arrived in West Adria. Three days since he had last seen Tethriel carried off by the Seeker mobs. He still wondered if even now the poor boy sat wasting in one of their cells, awaiting whatever tortures the masses have clung to in the face of the Magnates subjugation. The boy had been an asset, that was never in doubt. But he was a casualty that had been foreseen and almost welcomed as the last days had come ever closer. Better to perish now than to witness the horrors of the remaking of the world.
The small room was equipped only with the necessities, both governmental and personal. A bed, a table, one chair, and of course the prerequisite camera and vid feed. A reporter droned in the background, singing the glories of the Magnate and his recent administrative visit to the Cormanian Boundary to deal with the Nomad issue. The roar of the supplicant crowd almost completely drowned out the low howl of the incoming shells in the background. Somewhere overhead an airship announced another victory in Irktuska, the quiet calamity of the Magnate’s voice followed, thanking his constituents for the opportunity to serve them in this glorious cause.
He went back to the window and sat at the table, gazing at the dome, and the sea beyond. The night before he had ordered a bottle of spirits and had drank most of it. He poured the last draught in his glass and swallowed it in one drink. He wondered what she would think if she was here, if she could share in his liquid banquet of discontent. She would probably smile and finger the trigger of her gun, thinking fondly of the days gone by when they drank to celebrate, not to grieve. He felt the hilt of the knife to his side, concealed by a worn cotton cloth that hung from his waist. It wouldn’t surprise him if she were there somewhere, walking the alleys below, stalking him, waiting for him.
Loudly, the vid screen beeped, an incoming message already displaying on the silver-blue screen.
WE HAVE THE BOOK. IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME NOW. PROCEED AS INSTRUCTED. MORE TO FOLLOW.
Smiling, he set down the glass. At least Ariel was still alive, still wandering the wastes to the west. It had been two years since he had seen her face, these messages his only correspondence. No hello, no how’s it going, always the plan. She did tell in detail of her detainment in the northern tower about 4 months ago, told of Michael’s warning to him. That was the longest, still only about the length of a paragraph. Jonas was with her though, the witless fool. He wonders if Jonas still knows nothing of the plan, nothing of their true purpose. The knife whistled at his side, as if tuning in to his thoughts.
The bells of the Equivicol marked midday, the hollow sound bouncing off the arcology walls into his open window. Beyond the transparent wall another airship, one of the military cruisers, opened fire into the open sea causing a ripple of fire and smoke. From below the water a black shape emerged and the airship fired again, this time causing an explosion that eclipsed the black shape entirely, and then it was gone. The airship made an exaggerated figure eight and was joined by another before both flying off into the western sky.
Another victory for the Commonwealth. Another step on the road to the end.
He hadn’t packed that much, the sum of his belongings arranged neatly on the unused bed. A change of clothes, an automatic pistol, a black box to protect the ammunition, and a satchel overflowing with yellowing parchment. He walked to them now and gathered them up in the rust colored satchel that hung from his shoulder to his waist. In the corner of the room a rat smiled up at him before making its way under the pale green carpet to its fabulous subterranean home. There were still some creatures that thrived in this world, and that thought lingered in him as he opened the door to the fermented hallway that had welcomed him three days before. Three days from now the hallway would more than likely not be there anymore, and that thought, more than anything else, was the one that made him smile.

venomous diamonds

ventilate

they heard the train in the distance, smelled the toxicity of its smoke, felt the rumble of steel against steele against wind shaking their knees. there was a fog, that morning fog that makes your stomach do loops in anticipation of the light that dispels, the light that heals. a midmorning fog, like liquid diamonds, a hazy crystalline rainbow of color and shadow. and behind the lingering voices of the arcology, the merchants, prophets and militants that trailed them, and eventually pursued them.

jonas stopped.

to my kind reader, i note this occasion. there are moments that shine like blazing beacons in the empty hallways of history, that live on in the collective memory in the form of legend and myth. some sing songs of deeds so gallant, or so heinous. those moments creep into the deepest dreams of sweet lovers lost, or conversely into the thousand blackened fangs of the darkest terror. they become spoken word handed down attached to names of power like achilles or tepes. somehow the overwhelming glory of that moment, that place, touches upon all moments, all places, and rings through the spaces between, a sort of subtle vibration between worlds. felt by all and recognized by few.

there was a mark made when jonas spoke that day. the others stopped and hearing this cocked their heads as a dog to the sounds of the dead. as he spoke his eyes shone like polished glass, reflective yet revealing.

i could repeat the words, but their power would be lost, the occasion rent asunder by grammar and assumption. to some they were beautiful, and will be found in gospels and hymns after the stigma of his deed comes to pass.

but as he spoke, from somewhere above them a sound like a horn blew through the horizon. around them the trembling earth began to lose solidarity. a rumble, the approach of a train. Ariel clung to Tethriel, her head rested on his shoulder in a pose of comfort and fear, a rampart against the gale force of what was to come. the others huddled frightened, awed and terrified by the gravity of the word, and of the forces that consumed them.

"a wise leader said once that when you are suffering, know that i have betrayed you. i don't think that's half wrong." his face contorted then into an almost scowl, the words seeming a pain to say.

that's when judith ran, and, at that moment, jonas went quite mad.

i think i fell in a bed of roses

ventilate

the red light pulsed a silent heartbeat outside the window, a neon 'u' screaming its death song among the joy of the other silently buzzing words and pictures that lined the avenue. he smiled, and continued to put his pants on, one leg at a time.

his thoughts went over the past few days, the past few years. he saw her and him and we and she and he and almost christ. almost.

a roach traced its way along the floorboards, leaving cryptograms of footprints in the ages old dust. she stirred, her breathing a clockwork of wheezes and sighs. he slowly walked to the window, peering through the bars and the mildew. he saw whores and johns, a wide array of dead poets, and the ones that called themselves muties. he saw those with the marks of st. alaric on their foreheads, wandering fools stained with the scent of commerce and filth. he saw the consulate, their iron masks hiding the sweat stained brows and their doubtful eyes. and the drums. of course he heard the drums.

he saw a light in a tower across the trees to the east. he knew he was waiting with his liquor and his wit. somewhere staring back at him across the dark expanse red eyes waited. the knife grew a hot silver when he spoke his name under his breath.

next time it will be a bed of roses, her name a thousand words of glory. next time it won't be like this.