Barren; open; still

Empty;

Heavy like the weight upon the snow covered ground;

waiting still for better days.

Winter feels

Silent; isolated; alone

Violent like the cold;

and Death will certainly collect what’s owed.

Winter is

renewal; resurrection; rebirth

Beauty like the awe new life brings;

and promise that soon will come the Spring.

©S.J.Reed

—in the afternoon. I know right? like {hiccup} Oh my God. Haha!!

—Pooky, pooh, ooo what iss ittt? Hand me a tissue. Don't eat that—

—but we saw the Daily Mirror said "150 Strike Over Game of Brag"

He could feel something still. The snow, the damp, was creeping. He imagined his toes, same as his fingers, in slightest motion, walking-feet, white at the tips, maybe blue, or black even, like smokers'. Their consequences, of the Poor in judgement, and their lack, of Circulation. There was a warmth, too. He'd pissed himself, truth, and he knew that that warmth had already passed. It was another kind of heat rising. That which yields not from incontinence, but from ecstasy of the last thrusts of Life, the climax that is coming when suddenly frigid Death wills itself to finally, finally orgasm. He wasn't sure actually, why half-dead, he'd thought of sex. It'd been so long since he'd had his own hand, never mind, a woman. Yet fucked was what he felt. The temperature was numbing his body, not yet his thoughts, which strayed and roared like the stone lions in front of the Central Library, silently. No, sorry, he couldn't tell how long the body had been lying here in a foot of snow behind the park bench, waiting, for cataloguing. His eye lids lifted to the sky, bird's eye view, of the carcass in the landscape, folded and unfolded, like a claim ticket. It lies, lost. That was all he knew, though in his mind he kept searching the surroundings furtively.

He took something. Couldn't remember what it was, though. Of course, he'd got all the paraphernalia beside him now, still and mostly dispensed. The next of kin will inherit it, his legacy, in frozen assets and pins and needles, and empty shots.

(These thy gifts which we are about to receive...)

They will know this one died of overdose, of the excesses to which he was given, from birth and throughout the allotted shopping spree of growing up. And he wanted to be discovered: an Artist, manic depressive, rich and impoverished, fit to hang, a whole body of work, there upon the wall, framed and tacked. That was his profession. His work, he could see it, wallpapering the Capital coffin, a postage stamp for trade at the Metropolitan, the L'Ouvre, and all those places where bodies of ill repute are laid.

Blast it. Who will find this postscript? with his signature.

Bury me, please.

Bury me.

—Ho, ho! Bro, what we got here?

—What? Yesssss! Bum left some stuff. Anything good?

Light, light, a little breath, faint now. Smoke. Come closer, shadows of men.

A-amen, A-amen, A-amen, Amen, Amen

A-amen, A-amen, A-amen, Amen, Amen

Let me tell you something children

This little light of mine

I'm gonna let it shine

This little light of mine...

So goes the song, to the cradle of black people, the trodden brown hands in the ground, the specks of white rising up, the straight, the undefined, sung in solidarity. The protest placards and candleholders, that flicker, wavering in the zephyr. Balladry, it is, for the dance of life that grabs— by Jove that's not—

—Hey! Coppers! left, let's beat it.

A crushed remnant cigarette landed, moist, sizzled out, adjacent to his head, in the scamper and nothing to be done. Who will do a dying man a kindness and remove this stinking wet butt— ?

Hullo Darkness my old friend

I've come to talk to you again

Ahh, the face lifts itself in perpetual adoration. All tithings go to the holy church of Man. The entrenched milquetoast wants proper burial, palms pressed to the face, self-effacing. He would gladly forgo the biscuits dipped in tea offered by decorated pansies in their manicured gardens. Open the mound, like for the first snake bite, like it's the first time, Templar in the bush, with Dispensation. Or suck the bone dry, as a delicacy. Marrow after all is oddly enough, he remembered reading, believed to have been the "first" animal food in the human diet, buried like that, so that one must kill, and kill, and kill, cutting through flesh, muscle, tendon, and skeleton. He saw himself, drained, double crossed, deaf to Jesus Christ.

Bury me. Bury me with finality, if only like a turd in our global yard.

Bury me, he wisped through the thin crack in his teeth.

Mother Teresa, have mercy, she reached out from a sleeve, to pull. She had eyes like Saint Elizabeth, fingers like his governess. Her voice a creak in imitation of old floorboards upon a besieged pirate ship. There would be no mercy. The new cold draught stung, with contrast of subtraction. He remembered failing his arithmetic, confused by the minus sign. Fifteen lashes with the ruler, back in the day, though we no longer believe in corporeal punishment, do we?

—no sense in such a blanket goin' to waste now dear won't need it. Good wool, certainly can use it in this treacherous cold, somebody can, what's it to you now?

Thank God? He was not yet naked before the Lord. Shifting the corner of his coat was beyond him, there was not enough left in the tank, to move an elbow. Once he had filled the giant aquarium at Uncle Fredrick's, back and forth filling buckets like the sorcerer's apprentice, having devised a pulley system that required merely the lifting of a finger to adjust the tap and activate the crank. Leveraging imagery of the memory was too much nausea. He felt the first silent heartbeat. His first mature unexcused absence from the roster.

They pointed at him, small fry fingers on long arms. He heard the taunts in the halls. This is not an asylum. The broken leg was oozing blood, and he swore, a shattered femur would surely emerge at any moment. Like an ass he'd fallen over Miss Andrya's ankle, extended oh so delicately, gracefully begging to be looked at in nude silk stockings, envied by the ladies and caressed visually amongst all eligible bachelors, and he was a handsome nose, in a book.

Worm! flat upon his back unable to squirm against the giggles in surround sound.

—who is that?

—shit knows who

—wonder what his name is

—deadbeat, dumbass

—maybe it's Deadass, dumbass

—diddle off

Elementary youth, they ran on home, scattering in different directions, smaller than ever. He remembered the thin royal blue primer and his errors marked in red pencil.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, who's fleece was white as snow...? who sang him that as a babe? he could hear her voice, miles and miles away, her mouth expanding to full eclipse, echoes in a chorus. He remembered his mouth at the breast, and that blissful feeling of fullness, milky white clouds, and the scent of cookies in the cotton fabric.

His hair, once lively and ruddy as cinnamon itself, was white, fleeced, and against the drift it looked the color of yesterday's dog-walk urine. He couldn't see it, but in the fetid odors of the city, he could imagine it, pallid and as a squatter he knew it could just as well be human. The smell was, after all, his own, even Death was rejecting it.

01.17.2024

Banned-book Sequel Challenge @Prose

-----------------------------------------------

Sequel to Portrait of the Artist as Young Man, James Joyce, 1916. Protagonist Stephen Dedalus, as an old man, dying (having committed to suicide), lies behind a park bench, unable to communicate, but aware still of passersby and thoughts that surface. His one maniacal wish is to be buried. He has welcomed death, by his own injection. He rejects the idea of prayer, or God, and barely recalls his mother. No one gives a damn except to strip him naked of all his belongings. In the end, he is left, homeless, alone, ignored, yet leaving a body of work, somewhere, that he reviews in his mind as an obituary. As an Artist, he will be buried and unburied in endless cycle of exhibition. New snow blankets him, like a comforter, once again "faintly falling," as in Dubliners... a tribute to James Joyce's classic chiasmus.

boards of canada float through

the apartment space like lost

sparrows. jezebel makes some

chicken ramen. the room smells like

noodles and taste of san antonio

brand coffee, which is sweeter to

the nose than other coffees.

the song changes

and xylophones make an impact

they didn't intend.

The year died and then breathed again - like I, phoenix rising, baggage clearing. Plane almost landed. Soft or hard, bring it on. Night darkest before dawn indeed, let that dawn on you as your mind's sun awakens again, please. The year is waxing. That ain't a warning. Quite the opposite - not taxing. That proposition's simmering in your cranium, the crowd in your frontal lobe stadium roaring, the flow state waters pouring again. Rise and shine, friends.

In order to feel

I must inhabit the flesh

Disconcerting, yes.

Wonder! I wander…

Expansion, Self, Conscious Light

Creation-dabbling

I ordered the Bliss

You gave me Enlightenment

Through Sorrow, instead.

Forgiveness time now

Not for Biblical reasons

Just to know peace here.

We are cosmic, yes?

We are vibrating love bites.

Eternal, restored…

-JW

Delasity is a word of my own creation. Delasity is all that exists beyond our limited understanding or comprehension in this lifetime, as we know it. I remember sitting outside at night many, many years ago, watching the trees sway in the wind, seeing the many stars in the sky and the mood shining its light and casting its shadows. I felt at peace, and in complete awe. In that moment, I could feel everything that exists beyond what my eyes can see, and my mind was opened to the immensity of what we do not know or understand, and how even if we could know the answers to all the mysteries surrounding the meaning of life, we could never fully comprehend what those answers would mean with our human minds. It's just too big, too immense, too boundless and limitless to be contained within our human form.

This is Delasity.

“Eski.” My disciples knew what that name meant, or they thought they did. The candles pulled their flames down low. Even they sensed the presence creeping overhead. Everyone hiked their shoulders up except me.

I heard the screaming sweep from one end of the room to the other, the torment of a thousand souls howling from one central vessel. White, phantasmal faces materialized from a dark corner. They swam and twisted around one another, eternally confined to meander across the shape of a tall woman. Eski had no eyes, for she saw through her collection of faces.

My disciples turned towards the incessant screaming. Their eyes widened beneath their hoods, pricks of amber reflection caught in fight or flight. Eski’s thirst lingered so heavy on the air, my disciples began eyeing each other hungrily. One of them ran out from the crowd and bolted for the door. The defector’s hood flew back, showing me a blonde ponytail. Dammit, I liked that one, not that it mattered in the end.

Eski’s form broke out into teems of unbound souls—Fragments, I called them. My disciple halted mere feet from the door. Souls had grouped at her feet, restraining them as the wailing faces spread up her legs. Their cries grew louder the higher they climbed. The girl shrieked, trying to kick her way free.

“Screeeeeam,” Eski whispered. The shifting mass of souls ate its way up to my disciple’s neck, her moans barely audible over the resonant cacophony. They swarmed over the rest of her, suddenly cutting off her sound.

My disciples swayed in shock and inexplicable hunger. I once lived through that emotional cocktail before I was spared. Eski hummed as she fed. One final yell rang in my ears before the girl’s blood sprayed out from between the souls throbbing like leeches. The humming stopped. Every Fragment turned towards my remaining disciples. At once, they flew to the main offering. I looked over at the girl’s husk lying on the floor. I never could get used to that.

Screeching echoed off the stone walls as the rest of them were bled dry. The Fragments threw the withered skins in a pile and melded back into Eski’s female form. I fixed my eyes on the outline of her face. I had accepted my heinous role in this, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed seeing my disciples that way.

“Will this be enough until next month?” I asked flatly.

“More,” whispered Eski.

“Gathering people and getting them to trust me takes time,” I explained patiently.

“I chose you as my servant because you had the most to lose, remember? Their blood is your rent. You give. I take. You stop. I take.” Goosebumps prickled down my arms. I balled my hands, protecting my wedding ring. “More, slave,” Eski repeated. Her body of souls had grown, as had the bloodlust in their eyes. She backed into the darkness, but the screaming didn’t leave my ears until long after the faces had faded.

No one ever talks about Evelyn Pierce. She was an older widowed woman. No one really new her past. All anyone ever new was certain was that this old wrinkled woman’s husband, a man by the name of Nathaniel Patton, had died years ago, far before I was born.

Nathaniel had returned from harvesting their annual wheat crop. Evelyn had been baking a vanilla cake for a church gathering and she stepped out to tend to her flower bed. She left the rusted gas oven on too long, and it leaked. The gas swelled, filling the house, and one little spark flicker for a moment from that old oven... The whole house was enveloped with fire, tongues of fire licking the ceiling, while Nathaniel slept silently in his cedar rocking chair.

37 years later, no one has seen Evelyn. The rumors galavant about. “She did it on purpose!”

”I saw her running away as soon as she knew he was dead!”“She died in the fire too!”

I believe the last one. And you know why? Because I’ve seen her. Not in the daytime. Just at night. In my dreams. It’s dark. Then it bursts into a beautiful and yet horrible crimson-orange as wisps of fire begin to caress my skin as the house crumbles to ashes around me. I am Nathaniel in his rocking chair. Asleep as the world around me burns. I’m asleep but I still see the flames, smell the smoke, feel my flesh shrivel from the heat...

and I see something else...

and old woman...

cackling...

as she she tends to her lilies, tulips, and blood red roses...

And I just now saw the story prompts... oops

No bloody sacrifice is enough to appease the terrible craving for blood demanded by this horror. Born of a thousand tortured soul’s tormented screams he is a very dark demon who sometimes takes on human form. The superstitious people of the eighteenth century called him a vampire but before that he was known as Eski. He was banished to Iceland by an exorcist in 1906 but has been known to reappear at various times and places throughout history.

It is said that he gets inside the heads of crazy people and makes them do horrible things. Some say it was he at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Charles Manson and his "family" killings, and more recently Sandy Hook Elementary School. The twentieth century appears to be the bloodiest century of them all. It would seem that Eski is alive and well. Hope you’re in sound mind and body tonight.