as he spoke then on his phone
“You see . . . yes?! It’s so tragic . . .
This place was once our home . . .”
IV. IT ALL WENT JIGGLY
It all went jiggly.
Yes, it certainly did this time.
Robertson’s guts were streaming out of him like he had his very own personal ticker-tape parade going on.
I sort of laughed, but it was more of a ballooning up of my cheeks, with the speckled spray of my last, long gone meal, dancing all around.
It was quite a show for a few parasecs.
I think we all must have admired the rainbow sheen that came off his glistening lower intestine as the starlight struck it.
Yes, quite a show.
Things re-stabalized at semi-normal sharply as ever, leaving Robertson with a slightly goofier expression on his face than normal. I have to ask myself about the use of that word these days though, I surely do . . .
These things happened. You just lived with it. And I don’t mean that in a sort of shrugged-shoulder kinda way. We had no choice.
We’d been on an everyday mission, a normal clean-up, nothing fancy. Go in, clear whatever goons, infections or harm-candidates we could find, prepare the ground and depart. Straightforward pre-colony ErDep duty. Nothing to it. The same old. The job, normality, know what I mean?
But I tell you we’re deep in the paranormal now.
Ever see that old tri-vid Groundhog Day? Well, nothing is EVER the same for us from day to day! Only we don’t have days. Now is all that we have here and all that we will ever have until someone, somehow gets us out of this.
Thank the saints we don’t suffer through tiredness or depression or any of that other shit. That would be unbearable. We’d be madder than loons within secs. No, we aren’t in the jiggly long enough for that.
No, we’re always just right here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, privates on parade.
The old wallscreen vid Clockwork Orange comes to mind, remember that classic from the good ‘ole days? Alex, eyes held wide open to catch every nuance of horrorshow onscreen. That’s us. Only nix the screen.
Stuff happens. We’re here like we were that first sec. (I wonder just how long ago that was now, decades, millennia? I have no way of knowing.)
I see them across the bridge, all at their positions just like they were when normality ended, gazing at the starfields through forward shield. (You know, even when the job had become as routine as dog shit that never paled, you never quite lost that awe.)
I see them, well, I say I see them. I see them to one degree or another most of the time. Sometimes there’s a mist, often debris and so much weirdness I couldn’t even begin to tell. And of course there were Robertson’s guts. I’d laugh at the thought that the inside has got almost as interesting as outside, but it’s too sad a thing underneath to raise a smile at, you know what I mean?
We’re never coming home folks.
And I don’t even know who you are. Are you someone I once knew? I feel stupid, I don’t even think to use Mom or Steve to talk to now. I’m speaking to a stranger. I feel awfully sad thinking how stupid I am doing that.
It’s okay, I’ll feel nothing in a sec or two.
And really, I don’t have a goddamn clue why I’m even thinking these . . .
In Those Days
In those days
there was the dark.
Nestling in comfort
or in danger
close by cheek,
enclosing,
cocooning
the flesh around
In those days
was the hearth.
Place of dreams
where exhaustion
faded to sleep
and warmth
flickers
on tired cheeks
In those days
was the death.
Ever present,
hanging as dust
in the ever grey air
breathed in
with each heartbeat
perhaps now
the last
In those days
was the cycle.
Of time
and of work,
only seeming
neverending
of dawn breath,
noon sun,
and finally,
eventide’s slumber
In those days
were the demons.
And the angels,
who’s breath
touched our cheeks
and danced
in corners
of eyes
and eves,
everywhere . . .
waiting.
Earthrise: The Silkie’s Promise
They were too fine to be seen with the very best lens
They came from the oceans, the lakes, the fens
Fled here and stranded by Man’s dreaded means
Looking down on the Earth, its pale blues and greens
Earth’s legends of old had no place in their home
From the waters of Ness to St Peter’s Dome
All driven out by a most inglorious age
Where no respect was given to Silkie nor sage
Each secret crevice of Earth’s sweet lore
Man had delved in to expose and explore
No mystery was unsolved, no tale was unscorned
The world of the Elders had by now been unborned
They gazed on their old world with a visage sad
How had it come to this? To a time so bad?
The Earth looked just the same as it had before
When they existed and were legend in days of yore
They had enlivened the very air itself
The collective spirit of angel and elf
Imbuing the woodlands and lakes with elan
Mighty among them stood the great god Pan
Familiar then they had been in those days
Seen as wisps of smoke or golden rays
Glimpsed they were through the corner of an eye
Whether goblin or goddess they’d raise a cry
Now bereft was the planet, all driven from home
Each gremlin, gorgon, griffin and gnome
All fled to a refuge grey, stark and cold
On a pumice mountain never to grow old
In the deep of lakes or at Earth’s deep core
They were the essence, the life force but no more
The Earth was in drought, dying from within
The fluid energies gone now cracked her dry skin
Storm, drought and pestilence, each destructive force
Now seemed destined to take their course
But the Kelpie, the Silkie and the Harpie had vowed
They would not forever stay there so cowed
Looking down the legends now made common cause
To forgive at last Man’s manifold flaws
To seek some way to wake His mind
And another, far older, way to find.
In The Land of Eternal Sweetness and Light
In glowing rays the sugar mountain did ignite
Spreading saccharine lava both left and right
The air shone so gaily in glorious beams
As heavenly birds twittered only sweet dreams
Rivers of tearful sentiment flowed to the sea
Where tongues lapped up all the golden honey
Where all the marzipan minds so soggy and wet
Looked forever forward to the best treat yet
Their smiles curved round to meet at the
top
Of gorgeous heads, rosy-red and fit to pop
They gorged on sweet licorice and M&Ms
While angels twittered their ahem, ahems . . .
The tribe, too caught up in swallowing sweets
Didn’t hear the angels who fell at their feet
Trampled by sneakers, syrup sticky and brown
As along came ‘Jesus’ dressed up as a clown
Oohs and Ahhs then filled the glad air
As the horde bore down on his flowing hair
In a flash the dream-jesus was then totally bald
As a phlegm of pure sugar his poor head did scald
Dancing and twittering the crowd could not see
That they trampled their hero to obscurity
All laughing joyous and shouting out His praise
The last vestige of the poor man they did erase
Now sugar mountain all the while was building to burst
A volcano of sweetness in a land so cursed
With much beaming and smiling and spreading good news
By brainless grinning drones without trace of clues
Suddenly it erupted with a cataclysmic mega-fart
Showering down a zillion tons of sugar making them tart
Like tiny bright baubles they floated on the new lake
Making beautiful sweetmeats on their white planet cake
Still smiling and singing with joy in each heart
Arms flung up through the sugar, pink candles dart
As a lovely peach sunset looked cheerily down
The sweet happy people did smilingly drown.
The Grey Men
The grey men sit behind their desks
As the wan sun sinks on another day
The far horizon cannot be seen
Grey smog across the world does lay
The office ants scatter on Wall Street
Going home now through the mesh of steel
Shafts of insipid light try to guide them
With blank eyes they cannot feel
Like zombies they ride on auto-trains
Speeding clockwork through the summer night
The seconds tick by in the great machine
Human emotion has no more fight
Like clockwork too our failing sun dies
An old star burning to its nova home
Across the world we await the end
Taking tiny steps towards our tomb
No longer feeling we are really alive
No longer buying, nor even creating
We see the grey skyline turning to black
At last Mankind together stands waiting.
V. THE INHERITANCE
Dear Nephew,
I never knew the man who bequeathed me my inheritance, and so greatly altered my life as it had been until that day. But in a way, I now know him very well indeed.
But I am moving too far and too quickly toward the misty distance. Now I shall return to the day when it all began . . .
~
The carriage had given me a somewhat rough ride but I hardly noticed, my mind being so taken up in its pondering over the mystery of why this had all come about. I was distantly aware of intermittent scenes of bleak moorland and dense forests hung heavy with damp dripping mosses but other than this my journey passed in a decidedly meditative haze. So it was a shock to be woken from my reveries by my driver’s rough voice informing me I had arrived at my destination. By the time I roused myself enough to step out of the carriage door he had already brought my bags down and was ready to let fly his whip. I had hardly begun to remonstrate with him as to where the devil I was when with a loud cry he lashed the horses and sped off down the rutted track.
I looked around me, still half in a daze. Sunlight had been weak and in short supply that day and so the panorama before me held few details for my weary eye. To right and left some slight lessening of the tree cover allowed some faltering rays of sunlight to fall on tall and somewhat oppressive rhododendron bushes before me. I saw that I stood before a gate of ornate design. And beyond lay a winding muddy path which disappeared around lowering rhododendrons in the far and dim distance. I stood in a strange silence and suddenly realized I could hear no birds sing. As I stood a light misty rain commenced to fall and I now roused myself from lethargy, swung open the curious black metal gate and took my first faltering step down the muddy path.
To each side of me the rhododendrons encroached upon the path in a most oppressive fashion. There were no blooms in evidence as it was late in the year. They hung low to the ground, some gnarled and ancient, others burgeoning with growth, but all without exception hung glistening dark green and sopping wet around me in the most intimidating fashion.
I am not a man particularly prone to fancies but I must say there were moments in my weary perambulation along that dark, winding path which caused my heart to beat a little faster from time to time and my head to turn to make sure no other pair of eyes followed along at my back. I stopped to rest for a while where the light from the surface of a large lake came into view relieving for a space the darkness of the trees and rhododendrons which had crowded ever closer around me. The vision of the mirror-calm lake lay spectral before me, a thin grey line, seen as somewhat translucent through the ever falling mist of rain. A shiver ran up and down my back as the rain penetrated my tunic at the neck causing my whole body to involuntarily shudder. I resolved it was time to press on and visions of standing before a warm roaring fire filled my mind.
The silence now was almost total as night fell fully around me. Scarcely able to discern the sodden path in front of me I trudged on, having no other choice but to do so. Then, suddenly, my eyes beheld an enormous shadow of deepest black directly before me. Then, despite my weariness I felt arise within me a chuckle of self-ridicule as I recognized what stood before me. They were the angular walls of a great house rather than some frightful supranatural entity.
I sighed, partly in weariness, partly in nervous trepidation. What would greet me behind these walls? What kind of road was my life taking which had arisen so unbidden and so strangely before me?
I lay my bags upon the stone entrance and proceeded to fumble in my pocket for the great key which I had turned incessantly within my grip on the long carriage journey into this distant and god-forsaken county. I soon felt its cold steely touch and hesitantly brought it within the lock for which it had so long ago been made. It turned stiffly until suddenly a very loud clack sounded which gave my heart pause in its beating. Evidently the door was now no barrier to me and as I swung it open I remarked to myself on the wondrous and manufacture of the ancient thing and the carving with which it was so richly adorned.
I know now I stood then in a great hall, a vestibule for guests. I reached down and touched the floor for I could see little. Ice cold marble met my damp fingertips. I made a few tentative steps towards a slight lessening of the gloom at my left side. As I moved the grey smudge of light grew wider and simultaneously my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness surrounding me. My ears too seemed sensitized by this space and the dull murmur of the falling rain outside reached them in mournful whispers. I became aware I had reached a wall . . . more marble. Evidently this had been a place of some stature in its time.
My eyes by now were fully adjusted to these new conditions and as I looked around me I began to make out several features. I was in a hall of some size. Around it stood a number of doorways and two corridors leading off to either side of a staircase. I made my way still quite hesitantly toward the staircase and proceeded to climb upward.
From the landing on the first floor I peered across and down over the hall. I could just make out a frieze running round all four sides and dimly made out a Greek element or two within its theme though what manner of myth
or legend it portrayed I could not at that moment tell. The banister I now grasped was of wood with tiny rounded metal protuberances inlaid within it. There was no reason for me to continue to feel my way along this banister as my eyes were fully accustomed to the low light, yet I found I was loathe to loosen my grip. I turned and with my back firmly against the banister surveyed the back wall of the first floor landing. To my left hung a great window allowing some dim star light to enter, somewhat distorted by the droplets of rain still running dimly down its glass. Then came a doorway. As my eyes moved directly ahead I made out the rectangular form of a portrait upon the opposite wall. But I could make out no details of what scene or face might grace its canvas. Moving my gaze to the right I could make out yet another doorway and a blank wall where the staircase emerged from the vestibule below.
Considering that the leftward corridor might provide a greater degree of light than the right I loosened my grip on the cozy harbor mooring of the banister and shuffled toward the leftward door. Upon gaining it I turned the large, heavily worked knob of the door handle and stepped within.
I was in what was evidently a long corridor. To my left ran a parade of long windows such as the ones I had encountered upon the landing. Each one let in a miniscule amount of frail grey light. I supposed the thin sickle moon I had seen hovering over the bleak moorlands from my carriage window had now been completely hidden by the thickening cloud cover. To the right hand of the corridor lay a doorway directly facing each window in turn the whole length of the hallway where I stood. Now I was faced with a decision. The hour was late and my journey by carriage had been long and the difficult walk from the road through the forest had worn me down terribly. I craved warmth and sleep. In which of these rooms could I find both of these desirable commodities which now dominated my thoughts so insistently?
DREAMWORLD DAWNS Page 5