Underneath the Draconian Sky

by Chatwin, Dale M.

  “Forever the tar will flow through the rivers of unhindered lust. Hypnotic glass was forged in the fires of paralysis that made the network of miners call for united systems of power controlled by dragons and beasts of timeless worlds. Sensing that sensibility has taken its leave of the present and escaped to a past drenched in the sweat of fossilised brutes who chime a tune from their Precambrian lutes. We have all walked since Judea’s time, crossed the canyons of prehistoric lines; we have smelled the dust of eons and breathed coal through straws and drank the saliva of canary piss.

  Allow me, dear Archy, to recite an ancient verse:

  They will chase me down the hole

  These questioning thoughts of mine

  Into the recesses of my soul

  These times and highs are divine,

  It’s not something that evolved

  Out of my Primitive Fashion

  Neither a situation softly resolved,

  To absolve me of my passion.

  Take note and take heed, fall asleep and be at peace, then wake to find a world full of despair where children cry for their mother’s teat and dogs forsake their bonds with man and feast on Human flesh.”

  Archibald could not speak, nor could he move. He was lost in that amaranth glow; swimming in a lake of insanity, where he would do anything to be free.

  The High Occultist continued:

  “Free them. In grace we do not go searching for ends and beginnings on stems of life and budding flowers that soon decay in the season of winter, blow by blow they flow through the atmosphere and there, Aliens cheer. Free them. In torn and tattered clothes they yearn for something more, something tasty like in their days of yore where life was a pleasant routine of demented indulgence. Lock and key, cast aside all chains and sing songs of sex and six pretty virgins all lined up in a row, ready to be fed a daily dose of cock and sperm. Free them. To the forest folk they are nought but poachers readying their weapons to maim and kill, but in reality they are loveable critters, misunderstood and left out in the cold by society, it’s a shame when desire takes over logical reason. It is a mess, all a god forsaken mess, a waste land of doubt, deceit and damnation. Where will it end? I ask this as an entity concerned with the population of termites and other creatures that crawl with malice. Free them Archy and you shall free yourself from the constraints of time, free yourself from the world and the Aakmanu, most of all: free yourself from me.”

  A sonar pinged and brought tumours to life in his brain, they formed a civilisation who worshipped the R-Complex and there they sacrificed neurons to the empty space. A man wearing red sunglasses spoke in riddles and tore out his facial hair follicle by follicle, so many faces but so little time to register them all in a cold atmosphere, yet sweat persisted to leak from his pores like gas from a pipe. The structure of the universe was a bubble ready to be penetrated by a needle; it was time for lunacy and swift retribution. It was an injustice to see such things crumble into the subconscious flames. Archibald felt volcanoes inside his stomach; they belched out acidic fluid up his oesophagus, the sensation was eye watering.

  The amaranth pulsed like a heartbeat. His cheeks were wet from tears but Archibald Galbrieth felt no emotions, he feared that some kind of paralysis had set in and would cause his bowels to evacuate involuntarily. There was too much shame in that situation and too much embarrassment considering the mess that would be in his bunk when he woke up. He couldn’t think too much, wasn’t allowed to think too much, there was only amaranth and the halo that produced it. Slowly he could feel his consciousness leaving his body, slowly his soul unfurled and lost grip on its vessel, slowly Archibald was being drained like a man in the desert would drain his water skin out of desperation. It all seemed like it was all for nothing, a pointless endeavour that had no real meaning or back bone, but what was there to do? In some ways it was a welcome departure, he had lingered too long at Bachman Gardens as a security guard because after all, that’s all he was, no matter how they dressed it up. Archibald was nothing but a fat, sleepy and inconsiderate security guard who had found a way out.

  All too real.

  6

  The skin melted from his body into a puddle on the concrete and his muscles squealed in raw agony as he watched the liquid flesh crawl along the pavement; an entity of eternal mystery. Eyes attached to stalks protruded and peered upon Patrick’s naked form. His eyeballs rolled like golf balls in an egg cup gazing at the macabre world and across the street, two mermaids gasped for air as they flapped helplessly outside a 17th century furniture shop.

  All too real.

  It was the slapping of skin on skin that made him realize what lies beneath the eyes of immortality. If the self-loathing had not been set in stone, then tyranny would have surely fallen, but that wasn’t the time for such accusations. Neither was it time for the lepers to carry burdens across the desert. A dash of bedlam in a mutant brain creates a cocktail of businessmen who roam the barren lands; like priests coming to the conclusion that it was the devil, not God, who cleansed their souls. It wasn’t considered natural for him to have whisky pouring from his nostrils, but the tingling of chilli had brought with it a strange comfort, known only to those who have passed through the void unscathed. There was no redemption in that dead land and neither was there salvation for the weak and weary. The puddle of flesh oozed into the cracks of the pavement and created a twisted map to nowhere. Patrick felt the touch of oddity upon his left shoulder, when he turned he saw himself and what he had become; the High Occultist. The Halo burned menacingly and the eyes penetrated deep, casting spells of truth upon his naked form. A fire burned in a cottage and he saw 2 men engaged in sexual intercourse, a bearded man with ebony eyes was bent over like a bulldog, his head was inside the fire cooking, while a shaved man with sapphire eyes fucked his tight arse. His hand snaked around and wanked ebony eyes’ stiff cock. The High Occultist watched with devilish pleasure and smiled like a hyena that had found the carcass of a Zebra. Bliss in 22 seconds and wonders that hit like a tropical storm flexing nature’s muscles upon the world. His tongue lapped at a slab of walrus meat as he drooled profusely. 9 miles of tarmac and 2000 centimetres of saliva brought tasty treats from a Halloween gathering, springing pumpkin flesh and orange daughters. Rhubarb and blueberry pies swam over a blistering sea of diarrhoea while a Goliath drunkenly choked on metallic wine and spoke to a Hobgoblin about his swollen head. A pin might penetrate and cause it to explode into a naked, dancing clown with bleached skin.

  A rubber duck stared into a shower, not knowing what treacherous fluid might come from the tap; hearts and liver might travel through plastic gravel with soldiers carrying the weight of a thousand corpses. He had caused a chain reaction in the universe; it was a slaughter of stars and chaotic quakes. Was there a religion built from pure intentions, or was it all in aid of greed and incest? Apathy was the only answer, being indifferent created a confidence within his soul whilst smoking luxurious tobacco from tropical plains. In a park he saw children on swings surrounded by poppies and sunflowers, soon they began to slowly wither from the radioactive particles and somewhere, bigots celebrated their birthdays by bathing in caramel liqueur and eating processed meat. The High Occultist was pleased with the reality he had created, and the dreams he had molested.

  “Whoever said that only love can set you free was wrong. Only insanity can set you free. That is truth in its purest form. Lust and fragrant flowers will grow in a field of mouldering astronauts. Before the end, there is only insanity.”

  Dr Hades peered into the lounge of the cottage and thought about dissecting a duck billed platypus and observing the puppet strings of its life. The room was decorated with feathers from a wide variety of birds; the carpet was made from elephant skin and from the ceiling hung marsupial critters attached to dried veins. The air smelt of saffron and sage. The Doctor entered and closed the shaved rosewood door, inside a phonograph played saxophone and harpsichord melodies. In an old burgundy leather chair, there sat a figure cloaked in
obsidian silk, emitting an amaranth light.

  “Botswa Onyx, otherwise known as Doctor Hades, welcome to my humble abode,” said the High Occultist.

  “It is a cottage of the damned, a place fit for a king like you Patrick Holness. I had wondered when I would run into you.”

  “Hmm, indeed. Do you like my cottage? I’ve used the Moffatt Fields as my location, near the tangerine trees and the lake of lies. This is my world, Doctor and I have something special planned for you. Consider it a thank you gift for the kind work you did for the Aakmanu to aid my transformation.”

  “You certainly have a penchant for arcane dissension, but are you really the proprietor of the unconscious realm?”

  The High Occultist stood and faced him:

  “Let us find out.”

  Outside a 54ft Queen wearing a crown of peyote cacti was being molested by 2 dragons, each breathed purple flames into her orifices while she pleasured their humanoid genitals. Dr Hades looked with dread, and against the amaranth sky the trees shuffled toward the cottage. He found himself in a repulsive forest. Reality, his comfort zone, had been stolen away, the world span and the good doctor was overcome with a sense of infinity. His consciousness was being dissected by that cloaked entity. The trees were bleeding crimson; the leaves twisted into pigs tails and out of the behemoths came apocalyptic wails and bass growls. He saw amaranth flowers sprouting from the dirt, all the while feeling the presence of the High Occultist. Hands burst through the soil like zombies from an old horror flick and from the earth there came Orcs, crawling like serpents then evolving into erect malformed gargoyles.

  They wielded ivory phalluses and wore PVC armour, they surrounded Dr Hades and from there they proceeded to rape him without pause; he pleaded with them to cease their perverted actions, but they did not understand the language of Humans.

  The savage brutes grabbed his rectum and spread his arse open, penetrating with their sickening tongues. He felt his flesh being torn as they stripped the skin from his bones, the Orcs ripped apart his muscles and ate heartily, one plucked his eyeballs from their sockets and chewed them into a paste. He was being forced to watch the rest of the ordeal from the perspective of a dead ash tree. From there he saw his body being carefully picked to the bone; his genitals were fried on a skillet and served to 2 elf kings dressed in tuxedos. He tried to move the roots and branches but it was hopeless. For an eternity he would see his body rise from the ground whole, and the process would repeat; each time would be more appalling than the last. The good doctor would often wonder what had become of his physical body, out there in the waking world. Would he eventually wake up from this nightmare? He would never know. He was a prisoner in the High Occultist’s realm.

  “All too real,” he spoke to the breeze, as time began to unravel like a knitted scarf.

  7

  Emerald plagued his world; a civil war broke out in which there was mass suicide from the inhabitants of a diverse curiosity. Thugs made from emerald glass brawled their way through the riff raff, creating a revolution of the vortex. A glacial torrent poured emerald water into a murky lake where Dobermans lapped and quenched their thirst. Patrick felt the presence and discord that would follow. Hot springs bubbled while thin terraces precipitated a substance that was much akin to a loathsome bog, and the first beams of volcanic rust overlooked the midnight trains that burned across the land in tiny machines consisting of clouds. He felt the tectonic plates of his world shift.

  A Rift Walker has taken its form on the mainland, spoke Hilstrom’s voice, you must mark him and be the bearer of his fate. He could undo everything you have created.

  A shifting steam wove in and out of the cracks in a termite mound and to the south an army of insects marched to the beating sound of moth wings. Emerald has a resilient beauty, something that cannot be crushed like bone china, but something that must be dismantled like a carefully constructed machine. Before dawn the volcano erupted, lava flowed through ice caps and brandished chunks of solidified magma, triggering a steam explosion. The stratosphere was coated with ash and smoke and the traffic of termites were delayed by the massacre of their own kind. Patrick beat his fingers to a phantom rhythm and felt a plethora of amaranth course through his soul. Bottlenose dolphins leapt from the lava in magnificence, unharmed by the lake of fire, they chittered away about the evolution of their ancestors and how they were taught to be efficient swimmers in magma. Glowing emerald frogs fell from the sky, plummeting to an untimely death, resulting in rudimentary rouge splats on the ground and Arabic spirits protested in force about the struggle for security in the afterlife. His realm was in complete disarray. It had long been known that Rift Walkers and Dream Walkers could not exist on the same reality, but Patrick did not know the full extent of this knowledge. Above his head a rocket fired into the dawn sky, celebrating the wedding of the two Walking Men. The clouds began to look like long-fibre cotton; delicate and fine, fertile yet threatened by the pressures of reality. An albatross swooped through the smoke and ash, cutting a canal in the sky where air barges could travel to unknown destinations.

  How do they navigate through dimensions? Do they have an efficient energy source that carries them into other worlds, or are they born with chemicals colliding within their blood?

  There came a flock of albatrosses, letting out shrill cries that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard, it was offensive to the ears and for a moment, he thought the earth would split in two and put an end to the charade. No such thing happened.

  How far can this reality of mine stretch? My garden of lunatic paradise has been lost to the frailties of prophecy.

  His realm was crumbling before his eyes and it must be put to an end. He stood on a high hill and soaked in the panoramic view of the turmoil, it stirred inside him a feeling of admiration, it was an awe inspiring sight to behold, something that should be preserved and kept inside a museum. The frenzy had become a work of art, a stroke of genius that he could not have hoped for. A part of him wished to destroy the Rift Walker and another part wished for a union of both, but such a thing had never been achieved. Patrick saw starfish crawling through the grass toward him, a host of aquatic life had found its way to their master, weird barnacle beasts and crustaceans with oversized claws and cephalopods with glistening, leathery tentacles equipped with suckers that possessed diamond teeth.

  Suddenly the dark became light, something had flipped the switch and the High Occultist laughed in his gruff tone. The Halo throbbed and his cachinnation filled the atmosphere and echoed from every corner of his world.

  A long line of electric eels slithered up his leg and entwined around his limbs, he felt the galvanism charge his chakras.

  Bachman Gardens may be of some use to me, my pets.

  All too real.

  Intermission:

  Dyslexia Is Not A Format

  Our reality must make for riveting television on alien worlds.

  I can imagine a collection of squishy organisms with razor sharp teeth and antennas protruding from their jelly like form, all gathered to witness the diabolical schemes of that conjurer of dreams.

  Enlightened shadows prance in the streets, while in an abandoned shop in Lament’s Corner a family engage in an Ouija board; their psycho-babble echoes through the walls with talks of child abuse and demonic possession.

  A woman wields an iron sickle, brandishing it at the crowd who shunned her as a witch and a heretic.

  Her anti-religious revolution settled on the tongues of wise men like bitter sweets coated in foul sugar, her false accusations against an illusionist caused a lynch mob of hillbillies and twisted humanoids.

  It was apparent, in that part of the world, that someone who disrupted the peace should be dismantled atomically; their very DNA should be erased from existence.

  That was her fate.

  Nickel chains were interwoven to create a monotonous decoration in the halls of the dead, tombstones wept weeds and cried crawling ivory, the living were of no concern there, the
y were simply shunned as artists of severance.

  I spin a captivating yarn of desperation and perversion, but know this: once you are inside the chest of curiosity, there is no turning back.

  All things must serve the cosmos, for the cosmos serves no one.

  Belittling the procreating masses is a form of unorthodox torture, there is no man free to wander without his bonds and there is no woman free to birth a child without the agony of labour.

  But allow me to beguile you with a tale about a jester who was beheaded by his King for making snide remarks about the princess losing her virginity to a toad.

  She was enchanted by an amphibious deviant seeking to create dissonance within her teenage soul.

  A rebellious streak turned rogue when she inexorably drew the toad into her untouched vagina.

  “Slimy but exhilarating,” said the Jester. “Her pussy, I mean,” his yellow eyes flashed with sadistic vigour as he was carted off to the chopping block.

  They said he had an unnaturally long tongue that lolled out of his mouth when it had finished rolling.

  All night feral children roamed the forests, foraging for nature’s scraps, their feet bled and their nails had grown into claws; perfect for killing mice. I have spent too many nights conceiving thoughts that lead to operatic performances on a stage that doesn’t exist, but somewhere on a parallel world is that stage, and the performance of my life.

  Of course it may all be scruples and foibles in my personality, but I cannot see any different in this age of reptiles.

  The Aakmanu grow a cult of fungi, bursting and releasing their spores upon us, I see it now as I saw it then; a burden upon humanity’s lungs, an intoxicating gas of lies and treachery.

  It all seems too real. All too real. To the layman it may seem like a fantasy created by the mind of a lunatic, the ramblings of a man not connected to the right dimension.