by Shane David Morin
Inspired by “Arcs of Command” by Caspian
Time ticks on, unceasingly, as if abandoning me
Within deep chasms of a disillusioned and cracked psyche
Awaiting, unhesitatingly, for the next opportunity to chime
Bringing back to mind that this life is no longer truly mine
Metronomically my heart beats away in irregular fashion
While I blindly pursue anything that represents superfluous passion
A kind of five four Caspian style ratio
That causes broken memories to ebb and flow
As ancestral mallets continually pound against my ear drums
Causing a feedback within my somewhat scrambled neurons
That simply will not cease with the almost infinitesimal hum
Which buzzes about going on and on and on and on
To what can I attribute this painful passage of the pendulum?
From where does this absolute assumption that time even exists arise?
Is it found within the great Goddess Gaia’s compendium?
Or perhaps measuring the setting of the great bright ball, blinding our eyes?
The only resolution to this deafening ticking is to plunge
Headfirst into oblivion, into darkness wherein time exists not. No longer will there be an
incessant striking of the hour, nor the passing of seasons in which rebirths the flower once
decayed, to only regenerate in the bosom of May. ‘Tis here, deep within the darkness that I break
free of the ever haunting shadow that continually follows me.
Escaped have I from the ticking, the tables and scales by which man measures his life, by which
goals and dreams rest upon, by which the greatest illusion of death and life derive their ethereal
dominion in innocent’s hearts. Here I find no distinction between the compass nor the ground,
and realize that it’s yet possible that gravity cannot be found.
Yet, still I stand (upon what I know not!) as darkness embraces the entirety of sight, while my mind spontaneously fires a hundred thoughts, all indistinguishable as the space I now reside, realizing ever so slowly that I’ve crossed not into the afterlife but ascended within my mangled mind. A glimmer of movement flashes within the blinded corner of my squinting eyes. A man? A shadow? Too brief was the encounter that all logic within had fabulously floundered to come up with any kind of explanation.
Yet there it is once more, in great abandon, what abysmal revelation! Despite the dankness of this pervasive darkness, somehow this creature, this shadow of a man approaches, half walking, half gliding, as if by an ethereal catalyst. What is this…this being that blends into the surroundings yet I’m somehow seeing? Overshadowing my stature, whether he be man or creature, matters does it not; the only light that now exists are that which emanates from his sunken eyes, glowing red as if embers destroyed by time.
Atop this creature’s head rests a rustic fedora,
The kind that reminds you of Indiana Jones
From his presence exudes something akin to decayed flora
And a robbing of heat that penetrates into the depths of my bones.
Formless yet enshrouded in a distinguished cloak, I feel his eyes penetrate mine, searching as if sifting through a coal mine to, in finality, find the diamond of fear and failure in the recesses of my self-massacred mind. As I ever ignore my engorged ego, that icy tip of the depths of despair and chilled sub-consciousness, echoes as whispers emanate from what walls lie beyond my dulled perception, ricocheting off obtuse angles, growing, exploding exponentially into a chorus of anguish, a symphony of atonal fears that had somehow lead be to be here.
Here…wherefore I penetrated the veil and entered into the greatest of sanctums of the mind, to have come to find that this spectre has been awaiting for how long, I know not. How deafening the echoes have become, as the intensity of the cacophony drives me into the haven of being absolutely numb. Greater and greater does the shadow grow, eyes burning ever further into my soul, ripping away the carefully stitched scars that had haphazardly healed the void that I had carried since a small boy.
“Daddy, where are you? Why don’t you want to see me?” rages ravenously within the caverns that I so meticulously melded in forever. The scars that so profusely hold my heart together begin to bleed out, with each deafening beat pushing and pulling on heartstrings that had become too damaged to maintain integrity, shattering the deception that I’ve craftily built to convince myself that I possess some form of serenity. Such youthful innocence! What pain that abandonment seems to deliver to the psyche of a brilliant and beautiful daughter! Still, amidst the torture of these simple inquiries, the cloaked man continues to drill further into the core of me.
“Can I see your mommy?” reflects off the chambers of the heart that has fallen apart, scattered upon whatever ground there may be that seems to gravitationally hold me from falling further
into madness, the darkness giving way to a lighter shade of shadows, reanimating into skeletal structures of a nightmare that had been long forgotten, crumpled and tossed into the corners of my mind, until this instance where I once again have come to find that, even in the absence of time, the past will forever be mine.
“Mom! Let me out!” the more youthful version of my ego desperately cries, heart beating with the rhythm of a young boy utterly terrified of the shadows that have sinisterly come to life.
I spin around, with infantile attempts to locate any source of sound, finding myself within the halls of Genesis, yet somehow feeling a foreboding as in Revelations, sharply sensing separation of souls while I see myself with her, souls flailing, hers enshrouded by the shadows, kidneys failing. One last spoken word, filled with rejection, an unrequited hug, upon my sister’s cheek lie tears of desperation, her hear silently screaming, “Live on! Who are you to say your time has come?” One last sorrowed glance, a goodbye to life, left with love unreplied…
I hear the clanging of time, piercing my mind with knife-like chimes, and here I lay engulfed in darkness, deceiving myself into thinking I succeeded in this escape of mine. The Shadow Man, maintaining his sinister stance, afloat with vengeance of life, stealing away these fortresses of my design, melting all references of temporal passage to meld memories into a self-created Inquisition, me the Inquisitor, me the subjugated soul to myself, sinister.
Clocks out of Salvador Dali, chiming out of tune.
Gong! “Daddy, where are you?”
Clang! “When will I see you again?”
Bong! “Why couldn’t you have hugged me, one last time?”
Bang! “You’re your father’s son!”
Gong! “Don’t rush here. She’s gone…”
Clang! Memories once left behind, come racing back synchronous with the chimes, and a lifetime of running comes full circle, for the beginning has begun to devour the end. Between shuddering sobs and explosions of pain, I blearily blink away tears long enough to blurrily behold my tormentor, grinning ghastly, fades into the blackness that is my heart, that is my sanctuary.
Category: Fiction, Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing