Thoughts Held At A Distance
i refuse to hold you close to me,
afraid of commitment and intimacy.
the feelings that dwell in my heart beguile
and i know deciphering them will take a while.
it's not fair to make you wait
while i chase my thoughts as they dissipate.
i'll keep my thoughts held at a distance
until i solve the problem of our coexistence.
the way forward is far from clear,
but i know someday i'll take you away from here
and my distant thoughts will instead be by my side;
by my feelings i'll be no longer mystified.
Chapter 28: The Best Laid Plans
This is a bad idea.
“I know you’re struggling, Gareth, but trust me. I know what I’m doing,” Olban said, gritting his teeth. He was muttering under his breath, so as to avoid Gareth’s dad hearing him.
I agree with Gareth, Eloise said. This seems like it’s destined to fail.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eloise. Now be quiet. I need to focus on Mr. Wilks.”
Eloise wanted to protest, but luckily for Olban, she didn’t.
“So,” Gareth’s dad says. “What’s next up on the agenda? Teeth pulling? The rack? Maybe my wife will break my ribs again? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You never repeat the same torture twice. Maybe my son will rip my entrails out. That would be new and exciting.”
If it was possible for Gareth to wince without a physical form, he did. Although he didn’t voice the thought aloud, there was a growing pit of anxiety in his stomach: What if Dad never trusts me again?
Where are you planning to take him, Olban? Gareth asked. You said somewhere safe, but…
Olban gritted his teeth. Eloise, tell Gareth that I’m taking him to Master Stell’s workshop. All his tools are there, and I can probably find something I can use. I can’t keep talking out loud.
Eloise relayed the message, but not without some bitterness. It felt like this was all she was good for. Relaying messages. Things kept going wrong, and it was all her own fault. And she was helpless to stop it. Gareth and Olban seemed to be doing all the work.
Gareth was struggling with similar feelings. Here was his dad, so close to being saved, and Gareth couldn’t do anything to help. He couldn’t even talk to Olban— he had to rely on Eloise.
Olban, too, felt hopeless. He’d never been good at navigating others’ emotions. Now he was expected to restore sanity to a broken man. What was Master Stell thinking, trusting him with this? Eloise was more empathetic. Gareth was certainly closer, and more knowledgeable about his father. Olban was the least capable. Yet here he was… in charge.
Each of them felt more alone than ever. Each of them worked hard to hide their feelings from each other.
Brian Wilks was beginning to breathe heavily. He was not used to walking. Although his injuries had been mostly cured, and he was relying heavily on Olban for support, his endurance had been shot. It would be a long time before he’d be able to achieve the active lifestyle he once had.
Olban noticed. Finally, he stopped. He knew if he kept pushing Brian like this, he'd practically be living up to the expectation of torture.
“Ah,” Gareth’s dad said. “So… this is where it’ll happen.” He looked around, taking in the setting with vacant, hopeless eyes. Olban did too, albeit for different reasons. He needed to make sure they were far away from the Nameless One and his minions… or any other creatures that might be lying in wait. Luckily, they were in a long, flat expanse of grass. Olban hoped that would make things easy to spot if they got too close.
“We’re stopping here for the night… mortal.”
Seriously? Eloise said. ‘Mortal?’ That’s the best you can think of.
“Hey!” Olban exclaimed. “The Nameless One’s minions aren’t exactly known for their witty insults.”
Touché.
Mr. Wilks continued to look around, wary of any potential threats.
“Hey, meat sack! This tent isn’t gonna pitch itself!” Olban used a trick his master had taught him to conjure a wide sheet and several stakes. Olban tried his best to mimic an evil minion’s way of talking, crude and intimidating.. It fell flat in a way that was almost comical. Still, he clung to the charade. And Gareth’s dad, if he suspected anything, gave no sign. Instead, he helped Olban set up the tent. As Olban dragged Gareth’s dad inside, the man let out a sigh.
“You’re really not one of his minions, are you?”
Olban was stunned into silence.
“I mean,” Brian continued, “you don’t look familiar. It's been hours, and you haven’t killed me, or hurt me, or even left me to rot somewhere. The worst thing you’ve called me is ‘human garbage,’ which, while I’m sure it’s a scathing insult to you, is downright tame compared to what I’ve heard in the last… how long has it been? Days? Months? Feels like years.”
Olban rubbed his fingers against his forehead. “You’re right, Mr. Wilks. We are not working for the Nameless One.”
“The Nameless One, eh? Is that what that demonic psychopath is called?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Well, no wonder he turned out so fucked up. If I didn’t have a name, I’d get pretty damn pissed too.”
“That’s… an interesting thought, Mr. Wilks,” Olban said.
“So, if you’re not working with him, then… was it true? What you said about my son? Are you really who he’s been talking to all these years? And this is… your world?”
“Yes. I know it’s hard to believe, but—”
“These last few months, I’ve seen and felt so many impossible things, I think I’d believe anything. Hell, show me some evidence and I’d believe the earth is flat! But…” His voice broke. “If I’m in your world… and… and everyone else is still in mine… well, that might just be the cruelest torture of all.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Wilks,” Olban said. “Getting you home is our top priority.”
And the funny thing was, despite the dimensional warfare, despite the rioting and carnage plaguing Gareth and Eloise’s worlds… Olban really meant it. He’d get Mr. Wilks home. For Gareth’s sake.
Everything else would just have to wait.
As Olban closed his eyes, he could hear the muffled sound of Gareth’s father weeping in the dark. A broken man.
Olban hoped he could live up to Master Stell’s expectations and ease Brian’s mind.
For now, though, they all needed to rest.
Tomorrow, when they arrived at Master Stell’s workshop, they would have much work to do.
***
Eloise.
The Nameless One’s voice echoed through Eloise’s dreaming mind as a landscape formed around her. It was Nice. Or, rather it used to be. Now, what she was seeing didn’t look nice at all. Eloise saw rioting, agony, cities on fire. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“Eloise.” The Nameless One’s voice was clearer now, and Eloise could hear the remorse in his voice. “I need your help.”
“My help? H-How?”
“I am doing everything I can to contain the monsters I created. To keep them trapped in my realm. But, as you can see… the strange emotional link I have with your world is causing problems. Some of these vile spirits have escaped. The mortals don’t know it, and can’t see it, but they are feeling them. War. Hunger. Conquest. Death. Despair. Pandora’s box has been opened, and Eloise, I believe you, with your experiences, are the key to solving it. You are torn between worlds. Seal that rift, and we might be able to stop global decimation.”
Eloise felt a crushing weight in her chest. “But… I’m stuck here. I can’t help.”
“That is where you are wrong. Yes, you are here now, but… your ties to your original form cannot be erased. You could return to your body. Your home. Use what you have learned to fight against my creatures, in your realm. Let Gareth and Olban fight here, while you fight there. It might be the only way.”
“I… I don’t know. What about Gareth and Olban? I can’t just leave them. I…”
“I understand. Think about it. But remember that time is ticking. The rest of the Council and I are doing the best we can to hold back the hoards. But we can only do so much for so long.”
The view of Nice, her birthplace in ruins, vanished, and Eloise sank back into dark, dreamless sleep, with only a looming, subconscious dread to signify that anything had changed.
***
When Olban awoke, he felt as if he was jolted awake by some electric terror. He quickly swallowed the feeling and looked around. Mr. Wilks was still asleep. Good. He needed the rest, after everything he’d been through.
The sun was only just starting to show over the horizon, a thin sliver of light painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. Olban took in the view. Nothing in Gareth’s world had ever compared to the beauty of this world.
He became aware that Eloise was awake, but she stayed silent. Eloise was thinking about the Nameless One’s offer, and about her home.
She decided not to bring it up.
She’d come to a conclusion on her own, one way or another.
“I think it’s about time we wake up Mr. Wilks,” Olban said, as Gareth joined them in the waking world. “We need to get moving.”
He kept the source of his urgency a secret. He didn’t want to scare them by mentioning the strange, dark shadow that he’d seen on the horizon… a familiar shape, but one he didn’t like. It reminded him of the Nameless One’s minions. With their master subdued… how would they react? Where would they go? What havoc would they inflict upon the universe?
It was even more important that they made it to Master Stell’s workshop. Because if the Nameless One’s minions were here… it meant the boundaries between worlds were weakening. And that could either prove to be a useful step in their plan… or it could mean the entire universe was about to unravel.
Either way, Olban needed to talk to Master Stell. He knew this was a problem he couldn’t solve on his own.
In fact, he wasn’t sure it was a problem he could solve at all.
The Flavor of Gluttony
My first meal was a bitter one. Wrath.
It was a fire, an ugly one, that sent convulsions down my body, my throat closing, my stomach twisting, revolting against the sensation.
I wanted to kill. I wanted to maim. I wanted to hate.
This was the demonstration my benefactor provided me, that unholy demon. He gave it to me as a first meal, a small taste of the future I was to inherit.
When the all-consuming fire abated, I was left with a strange sense of satisfaction, a sensation that I had almost forgotten.
I was full. Full of energy, sustenance, life. As revitalized as if I'd just enjoyed a hearty breakfast.
It had been so long since I'd felt that. Years, perhaps. Maybe even a lifetime.
Despite the hate-filled nausea lingering in my stomach, I smiled.
And thus began my sampling of sin.
Lust tasted of cinnamon candy, burning and sweet all at once. I felt intimate moments, both tender and violent, and I savored them the way a kid savors halloween candy, the flavor often lingering within me for days.
Wrath was perhaps the most variable, with flavors ranging from pure agony, as my demonic master had shown me, to simply spicy. On the worst occasions, the flavor of murderers or criminals, it tasted of rot and decay, an unholy sensation that coated my tongue for days. The only thing that seemed to relieve this taste was that of Pride, although for what reason I cannot say, as it is my experience that Wrath and Pride are often accompanied by one another. Perhaps it is that the ultimate sin of murder is one that you cannot take pride in: you cannot brag of watching the light drain from someone's eyes, or of wrapping your hands around an innocent, fragile throat. The sin cannot be told. It is forced to fester, to rot alongside the dead.
Pride was unique in that there is no comparable taste. It was more of a sensation than anything else, a warmth, a confidence, seeping into every pore. I always found these meals the most satisfying. With Pride in my stomach, I felt as though I could do anything. However, it always weighed heavy in my gut, and I found that although it had the best flavor, it was the least energizing. I almost always followed these sweet meals with a long nap full of pleasant dreams, only to wake up and realize that my time for productivity was slipping away.
Greed tasted of copper and metal, like pennies settling on the tongue. I grew accustomed to this taste, as I found avarice to be the most common of sins— even more common than its sugary-sweet counterpart, Pride.
The consumption of Envy always left me hungrier than before. The taste of women who felt they were fat, men who felt they needed to be stronger, people who were constantly in search of betterment, so obsessively that it came at the cost of their own health. It was the taste of starvation, a taste I knew all too well, and so avoided at nearly all costs.
Sloth, on the other hand, was even more filling than Pride, although considerably more bitter. It tasted of sweat and crumbs, of static and exhaustion. It was this sin that made my eyes droop, and yet I found it to be the most motivating. In every lazy man, there is a deep pit of shame. The feeling of "I should be doing something... but I can't." The disappointment, the stagnation... the taste of it is enough to make even the most resolute of degenerates stand up and begin the process of betterment.
And at last, the finest taste of all: gluttony. I taste the meals of every man, the finest of cuisine, the richest of culinary delights. Through the rich man I savor the most expensive of dishes, and through the impoverished I feel the relief of a meal, however humble, after so long. I taste of excess and luxury, the finest of flavors.
The taste of Gluttony is what truly cemented the benefit of my decision. I knew I'd made the right choice in accepting the devil's deal.
And in feeding on the sin's of others, I found a way of perhaps cultivating my own sin's. Not intentionally, of course, but rather as a side effect of my condition. With my whole life defined around the consumption and discernment of sin, it was perhaps inevitable that I fall victim to it in some form.
That form came in the shape of a business venture: a weight loss clinic. A confessional for the desperate. Here I could feast upon Gluttony, revel in Envy, and satisfy my own greed. I could take away their sins... for a price. Thus I kept myself fed and clothed, all in one. I thrived on the insecurities of others. I kept them coming back, month after month, offering just enough progress for them to feel accomplished, but just enough subtle sabotage to prolong their sin, to satisfy my dietary needs for as long as I wish.
I continued along this path unhindered until the day I tasted a new flavor. It was the unmistakable cinnamon taste of lust, but there was a new flavor there, a deep, rich flavor, smooth as silk.
It was coming from my most devoted client, a woman I'd been seeing for nearly the entire duration of my clinic's lifespan— going on 3 years now, and 5 since my... dietary shift. She was married with an infant son when she arrived, and was struggling with her weight and diet as she recovered from her pregnancy. Her son was now three, but her destructive eating habits remained.
The emotion momentarily stunned me, and I stumbled to find my words.
She seemed to find my shock enticing, smiling at my blunder. And it was then that I realized what the difference was.
I was not just feeding off of her lust. The thing I was tasting was lust... for me.
I nearly laughed aloud. It was too good to be true. Here it was, the opportunity to have an endless source of food. I could feed off of her lust forever, indulging her forbidden pleasures while secretly satisfying my own hunger. It was too good to be true. Especially from one such as her, ripe with endless sin.
It was a delicate process, but I achieved it. With my insider knowledge of her feelings and insecurities, I could easily goad her into doing what I wanted... and all the while she believed she was goading me. It was a beautiful, complex dance of sin and deceit, and I relished every moment.
At first, our meetings were only once a month. Never before or since have I experienced such a delicious rush of emotions, both physically and mentally. It was, to put it bluntly, the best sex I'd ever had. The taste of her primal lust lingered in my mouth long after it was done.
We grew bolder, and soon we were meeting nearly every day. Sometimes even in her own house. Each time, her flavor grew stronger. Cinnamon and cream. My stomach, my tongue, my brain, was full of it. It became all I could think about. I wanted more. More. And more.
And finally, I got more. I achieved my ultimate satisfaction. In one of our meetings in her home, in her bed, bodies on display, at the culmination of our desires, I felt it, like the infusion of dye in water, spreading throughout each of my limbs. It was so deep, so complete, that I felt as if I would never need to eat again. In fact, I was sure this feeling would still remain in my system long into my old age, long after my body ceased to be able to perform.
I can only describe it as eternal bliss. Deeper than any orgasm, longer than any passionate love, purer than any drug-induced felicity.
For a minute, and then another, and then another... life was perfect. I could easily believe that this was it, I'd achieved the emotion that normal men could only dream of.
Then came the fire.
In the five years of meals I'd tasted, there were none as potent or painful as the first meal, the one given to me by the demon. No wrath, not even that of murderers, was ever as cruel or painful.
Now I understood.
The first meal was not a gift or an example.
It was a prophecy.
The demon was warning me, in his cryptic, mocking way, of the fate I would meet. The reason that the wrath was so potent, so cruel, so painful, was the same reason that my forbidden lover's lust was so much stronger.
Because it was directed at me.
Now, I was feeling the same fire that the demon had once fed me, though impossibly stronger and longer than I could have ever imagined.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Hell hath no fury like a husband cheated on.
My lover was sobbing. My body had not yet caught up to the shock. I was still erect in pleasure, still reeling from the violent shift between euphoria and agony.
Before I could react, before I could scramble for my clothes or run for my life, I found myself blooming with a new agony. At first, I thought it was a new, more potent sin. Then I tasted rot— the taste of murder— and I realized this agony was physical.
I had been shot. I was dying.
The world faded away into black. I waited for the end.
Instead, a familiar, grotesque face appeared.
"Hello, old friend," the demon said.
"What do you want?" My voice was stronger than I'd expected it to be.
"Oh, nothing in particular. I'm simply here to deliver your last meal." He chuckled to himself.
I flinched involuntarily, expecting an onslaught of wrath.
"No, no, nothing that violent. You've already tasted the worst I have to offer. There's only one sin you have yet to taste..."
"Oh yeah? And what's that?"
"Your own."
The demon raised his spindly fingers to my lips, and I felt the incoming onslaught even before I could taste it, like animals fleeing the scene of an earthquake or hair standing on end in anticipation of a lightning strike.
It was a meal like no other. I tasted the sweetest sugars, the bitterest unripe fruit, the distinct burn of spices.
The most overwhelming of all was the flavor of Greed. Copper pennies and salt.
I realized with a jolt that Greed did not just taste like money. It was not the sour flavor of metal that I was tasting.
It was blood.
The blood of all the people I'd exploited, all the sin's I'd encouraged. The blood of the wrathful man and his unfaithful wife that ended my life. The blood of the sick, the blood of the hungry. It might not be entirely on my hands, but it was in my mouth. I was tasting it. Drinking it like a vampire.
And then I realized I wasn't just tasting it. I was feeling it. The sensation of liquid was bloating my stomach, coating my throat. Hot and sticky, impossible to swallow. I found I was choking on it. Spitting it down the front of my shirt, yet still it kept coming. Filling ever orifice. My nose. My lungs. My throat. I coughed and spluttered, gagging on the invisible blood.
And thus it was my own sin that killed me.
Trigger Warnings
We live in a world where my poems must be prefaced with:
"Trigger warning: contains Something."
Suddenly the agony that forms Substance is to be treated
like broken glass,
a sign marking the landmine underneath,
in the hopes that will alleviate its danger.
But Poetry is built upon Pain,
like the shock of being immersed in cold water.
If I tell you the ending,
will you still want to stick around
for the Journey?
I have depression.
I have anxiety.
I am neurodiverse.
I am queer.
These are all things society has told me
to hide, to censor, in the name
of preserving the peace.
I have been told not to talk about my experiences
with suicide, with self harm, with addiction.
It could hurt someone.
It could scare someone.
Poetry is my way of sharing my experiences,
a guidance, a light shone down into
the black hold of my mind
in the hopes of someone casting down a rope.
Now, even among my art,
even among like-minded friends,
I am expected to censor myself.
I am expected to predict and anticipate
the reactions of others,
and then prevent them.
But those reactions are what makes my feelings Real.
I want to share what I feel,
even in my darkest moments.
I want people to see my life as it is,
with shock value that jumps out from
behind street corners
and leaves you shaken.
Just like it left me shaken.
I want to be able to share my opinions.
I want to be able to live.
I want to shove the research in their faces that proves
Trigger Warnings are ineffective.
They do not protect us.
They do not prepare us.
They only prevent us
from authenticity.
But I cannot say that.
It would make waves.
It would be disturbing.
So I guess I should preface my research with:
Trigger Warning: contains facts
that might prove you wrong.
Contains facts that might
scare you.
Because Trigger Warnings will not stop the flashbacks.
They will not lessen the anxiety.
They will not stop the self-destructive thoughts
that run rampant in your brain.
You must do that yourself.
With work, with therapy, with time.
And that's hard;
that's scary;
that's dangerous.
We are all searching for a Quick Fix,
and many have latched on
to Trigger Warnings as The Solution.
But alas,
healing is long and slow.
It is not as simple as a warning.
If it was, wouldn't we have recovered already?
Trigger Warnings are an easier solution.
They prevent us from looking inward,
from asking
the hard question.
If Trigger Warnings don't work,
what will?
A Roll of the Dice
whispers in the cherry red booth
of the local diner.
the equinox is approaching,
a merging of day and night.
an auspicious day, even for the uninitiated
like me.
only a week away.
i watched as they each ordered the same meal—
toast with butter.
they ate slowly, crust first.
that was perhaps the clearest indication:
something was very wrong with them.
an ordinary man may have feared them,
moved to the farthest booth, or taken his meal to go.
but i, in my privileged position,
had the booth immediately adjacent:
primed for eavesdropping.
at the word “sacrifice,” my attention was caught.
“… the virgin prepared?”
“of course. ready and willing. unaware, of course, of their fate.”
“good. The Order of Tyche will at last achieve
the goddess’s favor.”
the savior within me
roared and beat its chest.
to slaughter an innocent woman!
so young! so pure!
and blissfully ignorant of her cruel, twisted fate!
i could not stand it.
for many long, treacherous moments, i debated.
how to act? how to proceed?
i was trapped, at an impasse, protests
frozen in my throat.
finally, i resolved
to approach, a script
forming in my mind.
“excuse me, sirs? I heard you mention
Tyche?”
they stiffened, turning like clay on the potter’s wheel
to face me.
“who is asking?”
“well,” i said, the words
flowing fast and free
now that the opening hurdle
had been cleared.
“as a history enthusiast, i know
Tyche is the goddess of fortune.
and, well… fortune is something
i could certainly use these days.”
already, a tragic backstory was forming in my mind,
the likes of which would make Melpomene herself
weep in sympathy.
the men glared at me with suspicion.
“you think we can grant you fortune, fool? you think
we are some kind of magicians?”
“well, no… but evidently you are scholars.”
flattery, like the butter on the bread,
makes the lie easier to swallow.
“evidently,” i continued, “you must have knowledge
of the world that i do not,
to be such successful men.”
i gestured at their black suits.
the taller of the two, with piercing blue eyes,
seemed to accept my deception. the other,
his shorter, shrewder companion, continued to glare.
“we do not provide handouts,” he said.
“a position such as ours requires dedication.”
“of course,” i said. “what must i do?”
the two men exchanged glances.
the taller man shrugged.
the shorter man grinned.
and just like that, i was in.
i told them my traumatic backstory,
and they nodded with approval.
like a mouse among rats, i learned their ways.
how to earn the favor of the goddess,
how to prepare my body to be the ultimate host
(hint— it involved an unhealthy amount
of carbohydrates).
the equinox was fast approaching,
and still, i was no longer any closer to finding
the woman that they planned to make their victim.
i was beginning to lose hope.
the diet, the stress, all of it was getting to me.
and then, of course, there were the trials.
tests of strength, skill, knowledge.
they told me they needed to find out where I fit
in their Order.
at last, i received my robes,
and the dice that marked my reliance
upon Tyche and her blessings.
every decision was to be made
upon the roll of a dice:
for better or for worse.
finally, the day of the sacrifice came.
the preparation was over.
i watched as their leader, the short, shrewd man,
hid his face behind a wooden folder,
scrambled with his devices
in an unholy ruckus.
his associate, the tall, blue eyed man,
was in charge of the offerings,
great bowls heaped with delicacies:
cool ranch doritos and barbecue-flavored lays
(the cuisine of a true psychopath, i was sure).
we gathered in a circle.
my heart pounded.
i looked around, waiting for the sacrifice
to emerge.
“behold,” cried the short man
(I’d learned since his name was Liam, but
within the confines of our cult he insisted upon
the title of Master)
“the night is come,” he cried,
“where our latest initiate
faces his first trial.”
those surrounding me began to chant with joy,
each one using my cult-assigned name,
Ladon the Cleric
(after assessing my skills,
and my miserable failure at each,
they decided that, since they had no Cleric,
it would be simple enough to train me
in their sacred magic
to aid their cause).
“the sacrifice begins,” the Master cries.
“the woman is brought forth.”
i looked around.
no woman in sight.
“Ladon, as our Cleric, it is you duty
to hold the sacrificial blade.”
the group fell silent, and each looked at me with
anticipation.
i kept waiting for them to hand me a knife.
for a woman to appear.
for the ritual to commence.
yet they were looking at me as if it had already begun.
“Ladon,” the Master prompted.
“what do you do
with the sacrificial blade?”
i looked down at the sheet of paper they gave me.
i’d never examined it closely before— apparently,
it was the summary of my abilities.
there, in the top left corner, was a logo:
a twisting dragon, and the damning words,
a glaring representation of my ignorance:
Dungeons and Dragons.
1985
CHAPTER I: STIRRINGS
I remembered seeing his face in the newspaper. Something stirred in me when I saw it. Not dissent, no. That was something I could not comprehend. Not then. But something was there. Disgust, perhaps. Or pity. Some revolting emotion that rose like bile and quickly sank back down into my gut where it settled for the next hour. By the time the clock struck 13, I had forgotten the source of my discomfort and moved to the telescreen, which was announcing the current standing of the war against Eurasia. Rations had been increased (praise Big Brother!) and Eurasian casualties were mounting. Victory was clearly imminent.
I turned off the TV that day feeling satisfied. But in my dreams— for rebellion always starts in the subconscious, buried deep below the rote societal rituals and self-imposed boundaries— I heard his name spoken aloud, from the mustached lips of the poster that hung over my bed. Big Brother.
Winston Smith.
When I awoke the next morning, I had forgotten.
There were, after all, larger concerns. Most notably, my job in the Ministry of Truth. A name change here, a date change there. So-and-so is no longer in the favor of the party, and of course we are at war with Eastasia, not Eurasia. What a foolish mistake to make.
There was always, of course, a lingering doubt. I could’ve sworn, just last night…
But such concerns passed quickly. My job of censorship and revision was no more complex or morally wrong than adding a period to a run-on sentence or adding a capital letter to a name. I was an editor. Such things were necessary.
At the end of the day, I’d dump the out-of-date papers into the Memory Holes and go home.
I always slept soundly.
That was the advantage afforded to me by conformity. I did not need to dwell on the moral quandary of changing history, or stress over the ever-shrinking rations. After all, Big Brother had our best interests at heart. And rations were always going up. War was always closer to being won. Wages were steadily increasing… as long as I kept changing the numbers to fit.
Life was good. Big Brother was good. Oceania was good.
But after seeing Winston Smith’s face underneath the headline “Traitor,” my dreams were never quite the same. Day after day, week after week, his face, his name, seemed to haunt me, for reasons that I could not comprehend. I began to call him my Dream-Self, since I could no longer remember why he seemed so familiar or where I knew him from. The newspaper from that day was long gone, sunk deep down into the memory hole. Both literally and metaphorically. My brain was built on short term scaffolding, suspended over an endless pit of long term memories that had sunk into oblivion.
In my Dream Life, as Winston, I saw myself doing things I’d never dreamed of doing. Evil things. Traitorous things. All with Winston’s face instead of my own. At first, I hated him. Feared him, and all that he represented. The dangerous potential that he spawned deep within my own brain.
It was worse than rebellion. Worse than a betrayal of my mind and government. It was a betrayal of my own sense of self. The man named Winston who haunted my dreams was middle aged. I was 25, only a step away from my school years. He was a dissenter. I was… well, at the time I’d convinced myself I wasn’t.
But the key difference between us was the most damning of all.
He was a man.
I was a woman.
How could I see myself in a man? How could I, even in dreams, walk in the shoes of a man nearly twice my age?
It was unnatural, surely. But it was also impossible to deny. Somehow, as imperceptibly as air making its way into a vault, I had become the thing I hated most.
A traitor.
For two months I lived with that vile knowledge. Never acting on anything, of course— I was far too much of a coward for that— but the feelings were there. Alongside a new, forbidden desire.
At 25, the societal pressure to marry began to ramp up. Neighbors, coworkers, family members… all of them would wonder how on earth a pretty girl like you isn’t married yet?
Of course, the answer was always… complicated. Pre-marital intercourse was illegal, of course. But it was pretty much an unspoken rule that it happened. Even the Thought Police didn’t enforce it. It was enough of a threat that we knew they could.
I had quite a few boys try to get away with it. I always vehemently refused. I wasn’t in the mood. I wasn’t ready. We needed to get married first… all excuses, although it took being a traitor to realize that. All my vehement refusals were not, as it turned out, due to my unsealing loyalty to the party.
I didn’t like men.
But it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it, Amy?
Yes. Much, much deeper. With each day that passed, my traitorous mind dove deeper into its self-exploration. All the boys I’d dated… I’d never loved them, had I?
No. I’d wanted to be them. I was jealous of their short hair, the flat line of their chest, the Bob of the Adam’s apple in their throat.
I remembered being seven years old. Holding my father’s calloused hand, looking up in awe at the face of Big Brother.
“I want to be just like him when I grow up,” I’d said. My father laughed.
“Well, you can’t be him. No one can— he’s beyond any other man, after all. But perhaps you’ll find a good husband. One who acts the way Big Brother wants, provides for his family. That’s as good as it gets.”
I hadn’t been able to protest then. Hadn’t been able to explain that wasn’t what I’d meant.
Now, here I was.
A dissenter.
And worse.
A queer.
It was a word I’d heard muttered before. The crudest of insults. There had been many men and women executed on just the rumor that they were queer. Sleeping with another of the same sex? Preposterous. Becoming the other sex? That was truly vile. I’d watched a man executed after he was caught wearing his wife’s clothing. They let his body hang, lifeless, in the square for months. They killed him in his wife’s wedding dress. She was killed, too, but was at least spared the shame and indignity of being left on display.
I’d cheered with the rest as his rope had gone taut. Now the memory of it made me sick. I was just like him. A queer. A faggot. Good for nothing except burning.
Given another year, maybe another two, perhaps I would have dissented. Perhaps I would have shorn off my hair. Perhaps I would have even done the unthinkable and slept with another woman. Maybe I would have died the same way Winston did— tortured into submission before being put down like a stray dog.
But I did not have a year. I had three months. Three months of limbo, of treacherous thoughts and tormented dreams, nightmares of being tortured by a man with a thick brown mustache and a handsome face.
It happened during the Two Minutes Hate.
I always screamed the loudest. I imagined I was screaming at myself. YOU WORTHLESS CUNT. YOU FILTHY TRAITOR. DIRTY WHORE. YOU SLIMY, DISGUSTING, USELESS QUEE—
And then the bombs dropped.
Just that morning we’d been informed that we were closer to winning the war against Eurasia— it was Eurasia again, I noticed now that the names had always been changing— and now the Ministry of Truth was in ruins. My skin felt like it was being bathed in molten silver. Alarms that I’d never heard before were blaring.
The unthinkable had happened. Eurasia and Eastasia had suddenly begun an alliance. We were fighting a two-front— maybe even a three-front— war.
And they had bombed us. The bastards had actually bombed us.
I remember being in some kind of flying vehicle— a helicopter, maybe, with blades that sliced through the air like butter, or an alien spacecraft, whirring like it was powered by magic. Then I remember soldiers yelling unintelligibly. Then I remember another explosion.
By the time I came back to myself, the only thing I could think about was pain. In my face. In my arms. My feet. My legs. I could see patches of black crust on my stomach. Every inch of skin was either bandaged, bruised, or oozing a nauseating mix of pus and blood.
It was then that I saw the doctor’s faces for the first time.
These were not Oceania doctors. Their eyes were thin, and dark. Their hair was neatly trimmed, but in a vastly different style than the men I’d known from London. Their uniforms were different.
I was in Eastasia.
Luxury
sensual strokes
of a brush
on a pale-skinned canvas,
forms taking shape
smooth curves, unblemished skin
an ideal form.
perhaps with a familiar face, or based
upon a photograph of a loved one,
a character from a show.
better not
to ask questions. instead,
paint the answers,
in the form of
swaying hips and
parted lips
pornographic portrayals,
commissioned
paid up front.
draw by request, anything
your sick little mind can dream up,
and it can be yours... for a price.
it is the lesson every artist learns,
the progression from starving to success:
sex sells.
Madness
I.
“He is life's liberating force.
He is release of limbs and communion through dance.
He is laughter, and music in flutes.
He is repose from all cares— he is sleep!
When his blood bursts from the grape
and flows across tables laid in his honor
to fuse with our blood,
he gently, gradually, wraps us in shadows
of ivy-cool sleep.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae
***
They called it Morgellons disease. When I told the doctors about the vines that had begun their march through my veins. The grapes that had begun to swell under my skin, creating bulges and ulcers that stretched my skin, pulled at my joints. My pimples began oozing wine instead of pus. It hurt to walk, for my toes had been swollen with grape-sized bunions. It began about a month ago.
I was twenty-two.
My finals were next week. It was my senior year. All I had to do was make it through the next month, and then I’d be free. Free to pursue my insanity. So instead of being institutionalized, I left the doctors office, holed up in my dorm, and studied.
I looked over my classical literature. I was a Classics major. It had always been a point of contention with my parents. A useless major, they said. A silly fantasy, chasing after childhood dreams, rejecting common sense in favor of a beautiful but shallow dream.
Some people wrote. Some people drew. Some people sculpted clay. My art form was consumption: The Odyssey. The Iliad. The Bacchae.
The Bacchae.
Something about that story resonated with me, a deep, sacred sensation that wove its way through my soul. It was a feeling I had never felt before, a sense of belonging, of place. An identity. Where did it come from? And why, only now, was I feeling it?
I had found myself in the pages. Purpose. Life. Meaning. Love. Joy.
I gave up on studying and instead read and reread Euripides’s tragedy until I could practically recite it from memory.
And thus began my Madness.
II.
“Prepare yourselves
for the roaring voice of the God of Joy!”
― Euripides, The Bacchae
***
After failing my exams (an expected result, but still a painful one, especially my most cataclysmic failure: 13% in English, in what had previously been my best subject.) I resolved to dedicate the remainder of my life to madness. Contrary to popular belief, Madness, like any other skill, can be learned. Practiced. Mastered.
I freed the grapes from underneath my skin. Plucked them out and ate them. The wine that ran from my veins stained the carpet of my apartment, just like it stained my teeth. Red. Red wine.
My bed began smelling strongly of vinegar. Or perhaps it was piss. Piss and vinegar, ha, ha. I would wake up in the night clutching wet sheets, my body throbbing, the grapes growing larger and larger until my whole body was simply a mass of deformed flesh, and then shrinking back down again. Returning to normal. Except my skin was looser now. I was a vessel. A vessel for more grapes. More wine. More vines. My body was a vineyard, a winery. I was merely a field waiting to be tilled, a harvest of grapes waiting to be fermented into something greater.
No more college. No more job. I was a full-time Madman.
Of course, after three months of no rent and a foul smelling odor coming from my apartment, I was evicted. The rest of my savings went to paying for damages. Something about stained carpets. Alas, an unfortunate side-effect of my condition.
Madness, I have discovered, is a comfort. Insanity has freed me from those daily tediums. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ right? I am no longer a dull boy. Now I’m sharp. Like a knife. Or a broken wine bottle, with deep red-hued pieces that get lost in the carpet and stick into your bare feet.
It’s funny, I’d always thought a psychotic break would be terrifying. No idea what is real or what isn’t. But I know exactly what’s real: the vines. The wine.
I drank a lot of it, the wine. More than before. I’d always enjoyed liquid courage on the weekends, but now, with no obligations, every day was a weekend. More time to devote to my new god, Dionysus. He had chosen me as his apostle, his servant, his protege. A new Pentheus, Man of Sorrow, except I will not make the same mistakes. I will remain reverent. I have been chosen. Of all the Madmen, every person with the dark seed within them, I have been chosen to let it flourish, let it sprout, let it grow, let my dark fruit give birth to the finest wine: Madness.
I wandered the vine-encrusted undersides of bridges, cut my feet on the broken glass and stones that lined my path. Follow the vines. Follow the vines. Follow the vines.
Once a boy holding a shining smartphone dumped wine on my head as I slept. It awoke me, cold, sticky, sweet. He laughed as he stuffed his phone into my face.
“Look at this loser,” he said with a cackle. “I bet you’re addicted to crack, aren’t you? Ain’t ya? Ancha? Ancha?”
Ancha. Ancha. Ancha.
His voice distorts, becomes a chant. Like a prayer to some ancient god.
Without thinking, my hand closes around his wrist. He drops the phone. The screen shatters. I see my wild eyes reflected in it, twin pits, deep, bottomless, empty.
“You’re gonna pay for that, you crackhead bitch!” he screams.
I stare at him with cold, dead eyes.
“ΘΥΜΑΣΑΙ?”
The voice was not my own, the words, a language I did not recognize. The question was as much directed at me as it was at the boy. If only I knew what I was asking. What I was being asked.
I let go of his wrist. White marks on his skin turning red. He ran. I ran. Opposite directions. I just knew I could not stay here anymore.
He left the broken phone on the sidewalk.
I was aware after minutes (Hours? Days? Years?) of running that I was being followed. My shadow was in front of me, illuminated by approaching red and blue lights, the rhythm of my heavy breathing obscured by the pulsating rhythm of sirens.
I stopped running, surrendered. A deep feeling in my stomach, somewhere between dread and peace, told me it was time.
III.
“O Dionysus, Son of God,
do you see our sufferings?
Do you see your faithful
in helpless agony before the oppressor?
O Lord, come down from Olympus,
shake your golden thyrsus
and stifle the murderer's insolent fury.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae
***
I was twenty-four, and the padded cell made it hard to breathe.
Not in the literal sense, simply in the metaphorical. Here there was no wine, no vines to follow. Only white walls, too soft for me to crush the grapes upon it.
It was still hard to breathe. In and Out. In was easy. Getting out, much harder.
I have to get out.
I had been there, in the place they call Harvest Hospital, for two months before I resolved to end my life.
I thought extensively of how I would do it, confined to four padded walls and two pills a day. Antipsychotics, they told me. I learned it was in my best interest to lie when they asked about my “persistent delusions.”
The vines were still here. The grapes were still here. The only thing missing was the sweet sweet wine.
I found myself picking at hangnails until they bled, comforting myself on the miniscule droplets of wine that shed from my fingers. When I could, I smeared it on the walls— the padded walls may have resisted my flesh, but the wine it absorbed hungrily, a stain— in words I did not recognize, but that thrilled me with some infernal meaning.
ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΣ.
One of the therapists (one of many, an every rotating cast of professionals whose names and faces blurred together, psychiatrists and specialists and doctors and soothsayers and mindfulness coaches and every manner of well-educated quacks who claimed to understand what I was feeling, what I was.) inadvertently translated this phrase for me in a session.
“So what does Dionysus mean to you?” she asked.
I was startled into speaking.
“What?”
“Dionysus. The word on your walls.”
I was silent, mulling over this new significance. She continued to prod, but I ignored her. Dionysus. He was here, within me, exerting his influence. Closer than I’d ever imagined. It was a thrilling, almost sensual, realization.
It only strengthened my resolve.
I knew I needed to die. To kill myself. It was the final step in a two-year journey. The ultimate climax of Madness. I began my search. On the rare moments when I left my room, I was scouring the floors, looking for anything I could use. A screw. A broken bit of plastic. A discarded paper clip. Anything.
Nothing.
I scratched an itch. A particularly annoying pimple— a grape— I picked at until it oozed sweet wine. I sucked it away. A red ring left on the flesh of my arm where it used to be. An abscess. An absence.
I wondered if I could tear out my veins— the vines, ΦΛΕΒΕΣ— with my teeth. Perhaps I could. But probably not. I’m not crazy enough yet, I suppose. I must push myself further.
Once alone, I bite my shoulders, easily hidden underneath the cream white hospital gown. Deep red marks. No blood.
Not Mad enough. Never Mad enough. Get better. Get stronger. Rip and tear and bite and swallow the wine and the grapes and write His name on the walls. Dionysus. ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΣ.
I am close. So close. Very close. I can taste the wine, smell the vines, lose myself in the sickly sweet sensation of Madness.
I bite again. This time there is blood. A small bead of it, like a dew drop on a spider’s web, crimson. Red wine.
Closer. Closer still.
I surrender for the night.
Perhaps tomorrow.
IV.
“His blood, the blood of the grape,
lightens the burden of our mortal misery.
Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out
to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae
***
Blood. Wine.
Blood. Wine. Grapes. Flesh.
ΑΙΜΑ. ΚΡΑΣΙ.
He is trying to tell me something. It is written on the walls. I cannot read it. Yet. I have tried to decipher the letters, and nearly succeeded, but I cannot decipher the words they spell. Meaningless collections of consonants and vowels. Letters without words. Words without meaning. A lost language.
Blood. Wine. Flesh. Drinking. Hunting. Darkness. Heat. Shattered. Broken fragments of memory. Memories that don’t exist.
What does it mean?
ΚΑΤΑΝΑΛΩΣΑΤΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΥΠΗΡΈΤΕΣ ΜΟΥ, ΑΝΕΞΑΡΤΗΤΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΙΣ ΣΥΝΕΠΕΙΕΣ. ΤΩΡΑ ΚΑΤΑΝΑΛΩΝΩ ΤΟ ΜΥΑΛΟ ΣΟΥ.
It was a voice without form, without sound, without substance. An echo from within.
“I don’t understand you! What are you saying to me?”
Now I am swarmed with doctors. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud. I’m still screaming.
“What do you want, my lord? I’ll do it! I’ll do anything!”
One of the doctors, or nurses, or therapists, or just some random person, shoves a needle into my neck. The pain is short lived. But the darkness approaches. Perhaps I will meet him. Perhaps I will receive the answers I seek. In dreams. The sweet nectar of the subconscious rises in my throat like vomit.
I swallow. And then I am gone.
***
A black hole of memory. Dreams of parasitic grapes fermenting in my stomach. Innards turned to wine. A great black hole reaches for me, consumes the wine and flesh. A gaping hole. There is nothing. Nothing left. It has all been taken. Something sacred has been stolen. I cry out, my voice echoes, falling on deaf ears. Red spots dance in my vision, like mirages of grapes. A mouth stretches towards me, oddly familiar lips. Stained teeth. It sucks at my stomach, tongue licking my intestines, sucking away the wine. I am unraveling, eviscerated.
Then I am awake. Cold. Sweating. Afraid.
The mouth was mine.
V.
“The gods appear in many forms,
carrying with them unwelcome things.
What people thought would happen never did.
What they did not expect, the gods made happen.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae
***
The room is smaller now. Tighter. They give me three pills instead of one, and check on me at the top of every hour. I never leave. I have lost that privilege. I am “dangerous” now, unpredictable. There’s a red label at the top of my chart— I saw it when the nurse came in to check on me. She was afraid when she looked at me. Like she expected me to lunge, attack her.
She was pretty. Almost excessively so. It was hard to look at her, knowing that to her, I was an animal. A monster. This hospital was a zoo for her, full of degenerate monkeys. She’s forced to feed us, and every time she prays she does not get bit.
I found myself thinking about her long after she left. My food had grown cold. There were no shadows outside my door.
I wondered what it would feel like if we had met another way. Another time. Another place. She looked familiar.
But that is not what Dionysus wants for me. It is not what I am meant for.
But still…
I can so easily imagine soft blonde hair in my hands, kissing soft lips…
ΟΧΙ.
No.
There is a brief fleeting moment where I remember something. Understand something. Know everything.
The moment passes. I am gone.
***
Today is the day.
For twenty years I have been waiting in this gods-forsaken hospital. Scrounging what I could. Bargaining for what I couldn’t. An unholy cocktail of substances has both kept me alive and doomed me to a premature death. I could feel it. The vines grew fat and wide in my veins. The grapes began to swell into my throat. But the premature death was, of course, inevitable. It was always supposed to happen this way. Every day I awaited the day I could sink my teeth into my flesh and tear free the vines, taste the grapes, sink into the dark pool of the afterlife.
My teeth feel sharp. My flesh willing. Knives and fruit. Scissors and paper. Corkscrews and corks. Teeth and flesh.
I am watching the door. It is midnight. They will be coming to check on me, and then it will be a whole hour before they come back. If all goes well.
All will go well. This is all part of Dionysus’s plan.
Door opens. Face peeks in. I am pretending to be asleep. Door closes. I could hear the footsteps as they walked away. Maybe it was the nurse again.
One-two, three-four, five-six. Right-left, right-left, right-left.
Gone.
A wine-hued haze descends over my vision. I am frantic, manic, devoted, motivated.
Teeth ripping into flesh. Staining the clothes, the sheets, the floor. Running down my lips, my neck, my hands. Sweet wine. Sweet death. Liquid death. I am coming, Dionysus.
ΠΑΡΑΔΙΝΟΜΑΙ ΣΕ ΣΟΥ. I surrender. To you, Dionysus. My Lord.
Vision blinking in and out. No. Not yet. I need to bite more, rip and tear, bleed, die.
Oh Gods it hurts, it fucking hurts, deep red agony, ripping, tearing agony. ΑΓΩΝΙΑ.
I am shaking. Sobbing. Suddenly afraid.
It’s not wine. It is blood. My blood. Death. My death.
I am not ready.
Please, don’t…
Too late.
I’m
…
VI.
“You who are so desperately eager
to see those things you should not look upon,
so keen to chase what you should not pursue.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae
***
ΕΣΕΙΣ. Ο ΔΟΛΟΦΟΝΟΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΕΡΩΝ ΤΕΛΕΤΩΝ.
I feel the words. They pulse like hot blood at my wrists, through my vine-veins, oozing from each pimple and scab.
Then I understand them. Hear them. As if spoken, although I cannot see their source.
“You. The Killer of Sacred Ceremonies.”
“Who is there?”
There is a deep, rumbling laugh. No. Not a laugh. Laughter is too human. This was some unholy expression of Eldritch amusement. A horrifying sound, a sensation too powerful to comprehend.
“You know who I am, boy. As I know you.”
It seemed too good to be true.
“D-Dionysus?”
“Indeed.”
The darkness around me swelled with purple light, undulating, vibrant.
I looked upon the face of my God.
I expected a bearded man, a crown of vines, deep black eyes. I expected the Dionysus that I had seen in statues, in myths. Strong, powerful.
What I got was an abomination, an incomprehensible mass of flesh and vines, thousands of blinking eyes, a nonexistent mouth that formed Ancient Greek words that I could only half understand. The stench of decay mixed with sickly sweet fermenting grapes. Dripping with wine in all shades and varieties, wines as old as time itself. Aged. Sweet. Sour. Wine that by sight and smell alone made you want to lean in, take a long, endless drink… Ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, the taste of paradise itself, if only I could just…
I screamed with the raw terror that only a dead Madman can produce. The sound seemed to feed him, to stabilize the roiling mass of flesh into something distantly resembling a face, if you squinted.
His many eyes watched, and waited.
Finally, I could no longer scream. The terror had abated into a kind of distant, manageable dread.
I looked down at my body, suspended in the void, and I saw… nothing. No vines pulsing under my flesh. No grapes swelling at the edges of my bones, bursting at my skin. Just the loose skin of an addict. Wrinkled, yellowed, scarred.
I smiled.
“Lord Dionysus.”
Now I could finally have the answers. Why I was chosen, why he sent me down this path.
He shifted the roiling mass of his body. As if he was cocking his head to the side. Amused.
“You have a question, I see. Ask, child.”
“Why?”
He stops moving. His malformed face surges towards me.
“Why what?” he spit. His sudden malice rendered me speechless for a moment. But only for a moment.
“Why was I chosen? To be here? To follow this path?” I only seemed to make him even angrier, so I continued, hurriedly. “I mean, was it boredom? Obsession? A random impulse? You must’ve chosen me for something.”
Some of Dionysus’s anger abated. His laughter was dark, cold. It tingled in my ears. Like wine in the brain.
“As if I’d ever ‘choose’ the likes of you,” he sneered in a garbled version of English. It sounded as if he was mocking me.
Suddenly I wanted to cry.
“Punishment, then?” My voice shook. “For… for what?” I was afraid to ask, but as I spoke Dionysus seemed more amused than annoyed. The twisted face he’d formed grinned, impossibly wide, with teeth stained wine red. His many eyes rolled in disdain. Then he fell still, his eyes almost seeming to mist over with a gloss of tears… if such a thing was even possible.
“I see… so you truly do not remember.”
“Remember what?”
Η ΑΜΑΡΤΙΑ ΣΟΥ.
ΤΟ ΕΓΚΛΗΜΑ ΣΟΥ.
Ο ΒΙΑΣΜΟΣ ΣΟΥ.
“I don’t understand.”
Dionysus smiles, that twisted, inhuman expression. Like he wanted to swallow me whole. Pop me between his teeth like a fat, fresh grape. Plucked from the vine.
“You used to be quite the partier, Everett.”
Saying my name stirred a memory that I didn't recognize. Tried to taste the memory of parties. Tried to remember the last time someone, myself included, had used my name. Found that I could not. All I knew, all I could remember, was madness. At 22, my life began. Everything before that had been consumed into a darkness that I could not understand. I didn't remember my parents. My friends. Only the Madness. There was only ever Madness. What everyone saw as a fantasy was my one and only reality.
“What?”
“Everett Sterling. That is your name, isn’t it?”
His grin was cruel. I couldn’t remember, and he knew it.
“What is this?”
I was seeing things. Things with dim house lights and bitter liquid. Not wine. Stronger.
“You found yourself in the wrong frat party. One populated with the wrong kind of Greek Life.”
“I… I don’t… I don’t understand.”
Dionysus’s voice became static, burning into my eardrums, slicing into my brain, ripping me apart.
“YOU DISTURBED THE SACRED RITES,” he roars. “YOU DARED TO LAY HANDS UPON MY MOST DEVOTED FOLLOWERS.”
The force of his voice is enough to blow the greasy strands of hair out of my face.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“Of course,” Dionysus says, his voice suddenly cold and calm again. “To you, it was just another house party. Your friend Marty invited you, yes?”
I did not remember a Marty. But I was beginning to feel sick.
“He was killed after what happened, of course. He couldn’t be left alive. He was one of my own. A satyr, trained to seek and find those with the seed of Madness within them. He saw potential in you, Everett. The potential for Madness. The good kind. The kind of Madness that makes artists great, that makes men into immortals.” His smile was rueful, bitterness and sorrow. Not regret. Merely tainted with the knowledge of what could have been. “Everett, you were, in fact, chosen… in a way. Marty was trying to save you by taking you to that house party. I mean, seriously. A business major? You would’ve been miserable in a nine-to-five, and you know it. It’s why you gave in to me so easily.”
“So… what changed? What happened? What did Marty do?”
“Marty did nothing beyond extending the invitation. His punishment was by proxy. A relatively painless death. But you… you did the real crime. You entered into MY TEMPLE, invited to one of the finest revels in all of human history, and you decide to do what you humans are always so fond of doing: drinking. And taking. Except this time you went too far. You found one of my Maenads. My most vicious warriors. This time you decided you needed her. You wouldn’t take no. This time you were the vicious one. This is the one event where my Maenads are not allowed to attack, where gods and mortals can come together as one. And you used that against her.”
“No…” I pressed my knuckles into my neck. They are red, raw, thin. “No. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do that.”
“You DARE accuse me of lying, boy?”
“No. No, no. I just… I couldn’t… I don’t remember…”
“FOOLISH. You know what you did. You’re just afraid to admit it. Afraid to admit that you are capable of such a thing. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying: Alcohol doesn’t change one’s character. It merely intensifies it, reveals that which might otherwise be hidden. You are, deep inside, nothing more than an abuser. A user. A predator. ΥΒΡΙΣΤΗΣ.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t. Please, there must be some mistake… I would never defy you, Lord Dionysus. I devoted my whole life to you. To Madness. Please.”
“You merely served the punishment you were given. You think you are more noble than any other madman? The woman who drowned her kids in the bathtub because she thought that was the only way to save their souls? The men who devoured the flesh of their brethren to survive in the harshest mountains, bargaining with God to excuse their sin? Better yet, do you think you are any better than the women who fight back against their abuser, who live a life of pills and therapy just to come to terms with someone else’s senseless violence?”
“No. No. I just… I just…”
“You just refuse to accept that it is over. You wasted your life thinking you were better than everyone else, believing yourself to be chosen, the heir to my eternal rewards. Even before you fell victim to my curse, you thought you could do no wrong. Women were merely objects to you. Even holy women.”
I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Silence now. I grow tired of this talk,” Dionysus says. “We are going in circles.” Vines separate themselves from the mass, creeping towards me.
“Wait!” I yell, my voice finally coming. “What… What will happen to me now?”
“The same thing that happens to every other man like you. Just another shade tied down in the Fields of Punishment for eternity.”
“But…”
“But what, fool? You think yourself deserving of some special new punishment? Nay, boy. I do not dare lump you in with the myths of Sisyphus or Tantalus. Your tale will not be immortalized. You will not be remembered. Already, my Maenad has forgotten you exist, lost in a manic slurry of more joyful memories. She will recover. You will not.”
“But… It’s not… It’s not fair…” I was gasping now, the words coming out of me in desperate bursts.
Each and every one of Dionysus’s eyes lit up with fury.
“What do you know of fairness, ΑΝΟΗΤΟΣ? You dare to face your sin with indignity? This is your burden. You must bear the consequences of your actions.”
The dread was intensified into terror again, but this time the terror cut too deeply to formulate a scream.
“Di… o… nysus… My… Lo… ord…” My voice is disappearing. My already pale skin is growing paler, translucent. Transparent. Fading. “No-o-o…”
“Goodbye, Everett.”
And thus ended my madness.
Idle Hands
You know what they say about idle hands. Devil’s best friend, and all that. My hands are never idle, constantly occupied, twitching with some imagined duty. The devil has no place within my fingers, no hellfire comes from my nails as I strip them down so near to the bone. Teeth gnawing at the strips of loose skin that hang listless from my hands, enamel grinding together in tandem with every tick and tock of the clock.
I do not allow myself to rest, to sink into that sloth that invites sin. As long as I keep moving, keep twisting and untwisting my fingers as if wringing out a damp cloth until it becomes as dry as bones worn down by the desert sands of time, I will stay safe, protected from the darkness within my skull. Tearing at the skin around my nails, picking at the flesh of my lips, anything to escape the sinful thoughts that plague me, the devil that has taken residence within my ribcage and waits, sly and oh so patient for any shred of inactivity to prey upon.
I’m in my room, knuckles white around the leather bound Bible, gold leaf lettering on thick brown covers, thin pages so easily torn by careless fingers. I do not tear it. Each sheet is lifted and set down with a close precision, creases smoothed out and pages never dog-eared. It is knowledge and power wrapped in synthetic skin, a testament to the longevity of faith. It is holy, innocent, beautiful, precious. All the things that I am not. I’m staring at it, trying not to notice the shadow upon my wall, a girl’s figure that hovers in the corner of my eye, tempting me to look. Forcing the hairs on my neck to stand at attention, the darkness that causes my eyes to drift, ever so slightly, to her. To the delicate curve of her body, the slight part of her lips, the wisp in her hair that I want to smooth down with my fingers. Her name is Emily Baker. A good name, a holy name. The kind of name that makes preachers smile and nod, think to themselves her parents must be so proud. Not a name like mine, a name that makes teachers cluck their tongues and passerby turn their heads away in shame. For once I want someone to look at me, to smile the way that they smile at Emily. To look at me the way I look at Emily.
But I cannot look, cannot allow myself to be tempted, cannot allow myself to disobey everything my parents taught me. Cannot cave to the vile desires that lurk within me, Lucifer rattling his chains, constant noise in my head.
The girl’s shadow is gone; she was never here. Never here. She is a mere personification of my ultimate sin, a mere projection of my guilty conscience.
Guilt, what is guilt? Is it the frantic beating of a heart, the dry patch on the tongue, the picking of skin, the fear of idle hands? Is it the shadow on the wall that looks a little too much like her, or the magnified voice of Father Harry every Sunday, the itch of your stiff dress as you sit, hot and uncomfortable, in the cold wooden pew?
Idle hands are the devil’s best friend, and for that if nothing else I will never allow my hands to be idle, throwing myself into every task, tapping mindless rhythms on the school desks, picking at my skin, fists clenching and unclenching, hair pulled out one thread at a time, hands smoothing down the pages of my pocket Bible as I read and reread the lines, a futile attempt to convince myself of my own innocence. If I read them, maybe I’ll believe that they are true. Maybe I will find answers in old quotations, reprieve in these pages of history. Maybe there will be solace in the movement of my hands, the desperate movement of my eyes raking across the page. Maybe if I reread it again I’ll find what it is I’m missing, the secret to normalcy, to quelling the cruel desires that flood my heart. All that matters is that I keep reading.
Because if I allow myself to slow, if my hands cease for even a moment, then my thoughts will move to her, the curve of her body, the peace in her smile, the tenderness in her words. She is holy and good and beautiful, and I’m just the girl who sits in the back pew in a futile attempt to escape my shame. She and I are too different.
And, in all the ways that matter, too much the same.
“Flash” Fiction
It is 80 degrees, but still the man hugs the trench coat around his body as if he is cold. In another life, you might be concerned, might find him creepy or just plain sad. Another drug addict, maybe, or a homeless man. But you've grown used to strange people lining these streets. He is just another shadow, another background character fighting to be seen, lost in a sea of other outlandish side characters.
Until he peels away from the outskirts and begins to follow you.
You quicken your pace. He does not. But he remains steady, and you can, like a superhuman instinct, feel his eyes on the back of your neck. You pause at a crosswalk. He catches up. You take a step into the street, desperate to escape, even if it means braving near death and blaring horns. But you're too late-- his hand grips your shoulder, ragged nails catching on the seams of your sweater.
You turn to him, face his leering grin.
"Y'know," he drawls, clearly only half conscious. "I'm sure I've seenya sommere before."
"Uhh... I don't think so," you say. Before you can form another word, a question, perhaps— Can I help you? — you see that he has flung aside his trench coat, to reveal nothing underneath.
Nothing.
You expect to see skin, but that is not there either. No bone or flesh. All you can see is the back of the trench coat. He is a head wrapped in cloth, floating in some hellish semblance of a man. You look around, wildly, praying that someone else is nearby to save you, to reassure yourself that you aren't crazy. But the streets have somehow become empty. Empty? Here? Something— if that wasn't obvious before— is wrong.
Then the buildings are gone. The street. The lights. It's a blink, and it takes you several long moments to process the new absence. Another blink. The man's head is gone. There is a trench coat and emptiness. You and that goddamn coat are all that remains.
Another blink and you are standing at the street light. There is no trench coat. There is no man. There is no void. You shake your head, spinning wildly in circles. You've begun to attract some stares. Finally you surrender to the tide, drifting along between passerby. They have faded away into extras in a film. You have returned to that blessed, detached existence, and you float in it all the way to your front door.
The knob is stuck. It takes the weight of your entire body— no slight frame, either— to open it. Something is blocking the door.
You look down at this new obstacle. The scream dies in your throat.
It's the homeless man wrapped in a trench coat. Trisected: head, torso, and finally, his waist. Legs. Crotch. All barren, naked skin, wrapped in that godforsaken trench coat.
And a note, written in some eldritch script that unravels into words before your eyes.
You're Welcome.