Underneath the Draconian Sky

by Chatwin, Dale M.

  “Come inside Mr, the night is cold but the bed is warm,” Nancy Mooring moved with a seductive grace. Lying on the bed, her smooth legs open, sliding her soft fingers inside her wet pussy. She whispered one word before moaning in heart breaking pleasure:

  “Eternity.”

  The Guy took a single step forward, and then backed away, regret filling his soul like an electrical current.

  “Not now,” he said, and closed the door.

  His feet beat the concrete pavement like a butcher would beat meat to tenderise the raw flesh. Crooked trees loomed over him, judging his actions with twisted branches and hollow eyes.

  ‘I despise myself, all of the lurking in saloons, scouting vermin, it seemed only to emphasize the moment that exists now.’

  All he saw was a crimson veil surrounding his mind, disconnecting him from reality.

  ‘Eat the golden virgin.’

  Run, he drank rum, now he runs, forehead sweating, moistened hands, blood curdling and an effigy of a saint molesting boys with eels. Advertisements of a sordid night where Babylonian princes shook hands with dragons, sealing the promise of immortality. Under a burgundy lamp a barbershop quartet sung until their eyes popped like swollen blisters, ants crawled inside the empty sockets and devoured the men from within.

  From inside of Alberto’s door there came a soft, rhythmic thrum,

  ‘A dull drum, tap, tap, tap.’

  More pressure, his ears popped and the world no longer sounded like he was wrapped in cotton wool. The sounds of wind and trees creaking and laboured breathing.

  ‘My breathing.’

  Modifications were being made and medicine was being supplied; but who was the one supplying? The Guy touched the spherical bronze door knob; it began to throb and had the texture of mincemeat.

  ‘Since I have. Since I have not.’

  He saw a leprechaun masturbating behind a leather sofa and the Guy cocked his eye in curiosity. The pot was not full of gold, but full of semen. Duty, respect, lost, gone, fled away, it’s a meal that foretells our darkest secrets during digestion and excretion. The Underworld is paved with the denizens of his devious affairs. Smoke opium, breathe smoke, be free, be helpless, be at liberty to squander your emotions on some whore who took you in from the wayside and cherished your cock. Is the rock not cold? Has the shadow not shortened since the light of your day?

  ‘The hour of reckoning is upon us, we have found our reaching point in the beat of existence. Let us not trample our decisions with trivial admissions. Come, pray, sacrifice and dismay.’

  Could he manifest a doomed state of mind? Was it the dying void?

  ‘Tortured souls inhabit the chasm between dimensions, mayhap I have been summoned to this place by some higher force; a cosmic force. Will I ever gain recognition for my dreams?’

  He stood back and kicked the door off its hinges and from the opening there flowed a pale amaranth light, it brought on a migraine. Gruff laughter exited from inside, the sensation was intense; the aroma of tobacco filled his nose and made him choke.

  Choking, choking. Breathing deep, oh so deep and tender.

  The Guy lunged through the door, arms out ready for the attack

  5

  And found himself throttling a man he did not recognise, but the rage did not subside.

  “You won’t murder me while I stay in my silent slumber, not now, not until I have served my purpose,” he screamed, grip tightening, tightening, feeling the unknown man’s life drain away.

  “I’ve let the rabbits out of their cage to play with the hamsters, come and see,” the voice belonged to a girl, when the Guy turned his head, he saw her: Nancy, the little girl from the Industrial Complex. He let go of the man’s neck and heard him gasp for air.

  The man was 8ft tall, something the Guy did not take into account during his fit of rage, but this giant did not seem fazed by what had transpired, he just sat in the grass rolling a cigarette, which appeared to be tobacco rolled inside a leaf.

  The girl’s eyes were vacant; she didn’t recognise the man who had saved her life. The Guy heard a key being turned and then the night was filled with sweet music that came from a box that appeared to be made from a sapphire geode. The tall man held it in his palm.

  “My name is Thaddeus Melvin, my apologies, 1107, I did not mean to cause you any…distress. Discomfort, strain and trauma, it was not my intention,” he said. Thaddeus had long, curly hair the colour of ink that spiralled past his shoulders and he sported a beard of the same calibre. His eyes were deep set craters that held glistening pearls that looked like frost marbles.

  “My horse, Heliodorus, I remember...gunshot…then delirium…coughing…the stench of death all around me…”

  “Your horse has passed on, my apologies for your loss, it was not me who pulled the trigger.”

  “Then who?” it was a pointless question, the Guy knew, it might as well have been a ghost. Though he wasn’t wearing the goggles they should have sensed motion, heat or audio and alerted him. There had been nothing, not a blip.

  “I’m not sure, once again, my apologies. I was in the forest waiting for you, then I heard the shot and found you here like this. You was not wounded, but your fits of coughing were enough to draw out all kinds of unsavoury creatures of the night. So I treated you here, the tall grass helps provide cover,” Thaddeus pulled on his cigarette, exhaled with satisfaction and offered it to the Guy, he took it and smoked long. The tobacco was smooth, but made his head swim like a school of Blue fin Jacks.

  “The girl…” was all he could manage before vomiting.

  “I found her wandering through dark places, places not even I would go. She don’t say much, just keeps talking about letting her rabbits out of the cage to play with the hamsters. You know her don’t you? I can see it in your eyes, 1107.”

  Once the Guy had emptied his stomach onto a patch of grass behind him, he spoke:

  “Her name is Nancy, I saved her from a piece of vermin known as Gerald Danmouth, deceased, along with some other children. I told them to get on the train, I had been riding the locomotive before it broke down at the Industrial Complex. After that I don’t know what happened to them. I was too focused on my own trials and tribulations,” he sat himself up and touched Nancy’s cheek, she never flinched.

  “Do you want to see the rabbits? I’ve let them out of their cage to play with the hamsters, come and see,” she said, half smiling, half drooling and fully vacant. The Guy felt a sting of pity, of remorse, remorse for the Nancy he couldn’t save in Lament’s Corner.

  “It seems to me like you don’t get much luck, your face tells me stories full of tragic beauty, maybe you will tell me some of them, it has been an age since I was regaled with tales from the Island,” Thaddeus lay on his back and stared at the stars, drinking in their blooming symmetry.

  “Who are you Thaddeus? There was a time, not so long ago, when I could know things before they happened, or know a person before I met them. But that ability has passed, now all that remains is a hunger for knowledge, and you mentioned you were, waiting for me? How did you know I would be arriving at this place?”

  “I am an immortal and it was the Gods who told me of your arrival, right here, in this very field.”

  “The Old Gods are dead.”

  “I never said it was, old Gods die and then new ones take their place, only they cannot interfere in mortal issues like they used to. I came to this Island hundreds of years ago to find my inner self, and find peace from a life full of ruin. The Fields of Drejyl, for that is their real name, took away my soul and kept it close. I made an oath to the ancient Gods that I would serve them and their ancestors loyally if they would let me live to see the fields prosper. This was at a time when Gods had true power, they granted me immortality, but it came with a price. I could only reside in the Fields of Drejyl, if I was to cross the borders then my age would catch up with me. I made my home in this forest, for a while the people of the Island were aware of my existence and were not
troubled, but the passage of time breeds paranoia, hate and fear of the unknown.

  Slowly people became uneasy of me, they never tried to kill me, but the air would grow thick and stale whenever I made an appearance. So I hid myself away, and every now and then a curious traveller would come seeking me, either for wisdom, or because they were fascinated by the Giant of Drejyl, or the Giant of Moffatt as it became known in this modern era. I was told who you are, 1107 and I was told of what you seek and where it is you must go. You have stepped onto a dark highway, usually I would not get involved with such matters, but the Gods have spoken and this High Occultist,” he spat, “his death is the key to destroying the Aakmanu. I cannot follow you to where it is you need to go, nor would I go if I could, but I have the means to get you there. Rift Walkers cannot pass into the dream realm.”

  The Guy was still in awe of Thaddeus’ height, and his slim build. He wore a faded and patchy suit jacket that used to be black; underneath he wore a stained shirt and a tattered red tie. His hair was long, past his shoulders, and curly with flakes of silver strewn across jet like stars in a pure night sky. Thaddeus’ beard was also long and jet, though it contained no trace of silver, but it was dreadlocked, filthy and possibly crawling with suspicious critters. The Guy scanned him from feet to head, drinking in the sight and then caught his eyes; they were precious stones of indigo, flawless, no white sclera or black pupil. Just indigo.

  It was as if a ghost had entered his mouth and cooled his lungs, slowed his breathing and stole away with the oxygen he needed to survive.

  He hides them because they hold a power, now he has revealed them to me. Are his intentions manifesting a benevolent spirit? Or is this another trial I must face in order to be sewn into the fabric of space?

  His head grew heavy,

  His arms are so long,

  and he took hold of Nancy, cradling her as if she were his kin. She never complained, only accepted.

  The music box chimed its tune a final time, leaving only silence. Thaddeus snapped the lid shut, the sound made Nancy jerk slightly and she roused.

  “Do you want to see my rabbits? They’re out there playing with the hamsters; they’re out of their cage and playing with the hamsters. You should come and see,” she said with a softness that held a deep buried pain, a sadness locked within its own Pandora’s Box.

  “Come into the forest with me,” said Thaddeus, sitting up, “it is where we must go in order for you to continue your journey.”

  “Are you taking me to the tangerine tree?”

  “Yes, I am. You know of its existence?”

  “I spit upon His jaded revolution,” said the Man with the Emerald Eyes. Thaddeus momentarily stared, then sat up. Those indigo eyes harboured no emotions; he was an impossible being to read, but the Guy felt something he had not experienced in what seemed like years: respect.

  He and the slim man walked together with Nancy riding Thaddeus’ back and staring up at the aurora borealis.

  Mr Nowhere Man, wandering alone in his Nowhere Land, making all of his Nowhere Plans for Nobody.

  6

  They entered the domain of the tangerine tree; it was located in a clearing in the forest. Its trunk was like a tower of snakes interweaved in the act of coitus, like the double helix. It was circled by a scintillating, translucent moat of the purest water the Guy had ever seen. The tree itself bore no fruit, its name derived from the rusty leaves that appeared to be locked in an eternal autumn, there were Dahlia Moonfire flowers blooming from the tips of florid branches. The scene was unlike the one he had witnessed within the dream created by the High Occultist.

  Dreams are brittle structures trying so desperately to imitate reality, in the end they always collapse into the chasm of our waking eyes.

  “Go ahead, cleanse yourself in the water, the sins fade but the moat remains the same,” said Thaddeus as he placed the girl down in the foliage.

  The Guy cupped his hands and dipped them into the crystal liquid, he doused his head with water and felt refreshed, like he was standing on the edge of a pier crying into the sunset, relieving himself of all emotional tension.

  My emotions are bruised and bitter and my love will crawl through dirt and dust to be at one with the sky.

  He heard the tree creak and moan and saw the trunk twisting, writhing, squirming; a living organism aware of their presence.

  “It has been here since the creation of the Island, a creature of organic splendour, indifferent to the disgraces of mortals. When someone spends their life in chains and expects a sister of mercy to unbind them, they wander and seek this place in hope of finding some clarity. It does not judge.”

  The Guy took out the guns he had taken from the dead gunman and laid them in the moat. He saw movement in the ripples and things that looked like thick worms wrapped themselves around the shooters and dragged them into the mud.

  “Where I’m going, I’ll have no need for such weapons,” he said to himself.

  “Come with me, we’ll wade across, the water is shallow,” said Thaddeus, touching the Guy’s shoulder with his slender fingers.

  “What about the girl?”

  “She will remain here, do not fear, she is safe as long as she keeps dreaming about the rabbits.”

  The Guy’s vision lingered on Nancy; she sat in the lotus position, staring up at the aurora, her thoughts far away. He stood and began to cough again, a violent spell, and hacked up a blob of maroon mucus. There followed another pain in his chest, it felt like a comb of razors was brushing up and down his throat. Once it had subsided he made his way across the moat, Thaddeus by his side. The water was warm.

  “I have not been 100% honest with you, Rift Walker. I told you I am an immortal, that is truth, but my tale of how I became immortal was not. I am an Operator, well, I am THE Operator. The last of my kind, I was exiled to this place. The Gods allowed me to reside in the forest on the condition I do not leave the borders, the punishment was truth. My immortality would be stripped from me and I would have to pay back the years I had cheated.”

  “Why not tell me this when we first met?”

  “Operators were frowned upon. Our purpose was not wholly good.”

  Like Rift Walkers, the Operators could enter other worlds, only there were certain ways they could be seen by the inhabitants of that dimension. They would then choose targets to extract from that world and place them somewhere else, be it another dimension, or the unconscious realm.

  “If I had told you this in your, fragile state, then it might have jeopardised the journey.”

  The tangerine tree had a nectarous aroma, the Guy heard the leaves whispering their age old secrets while the flowers radiated their beauty upon his eyes.

  “The process begins,” Thaddeus grabbed the Guy’s shoulders and pushed him against the tree, he felt the enrapturing bark slink over his body, pulling him inexorably towards his fate.

  Snakes have splinters, tender pricks like frost in winter.

  The Operator’s mouth opened, his jaw unhinged, a great yawning beast. In that gaping gorge he saw a swirling kaleidoscope of emerald and amaranth, hypnotic, horrifying and seductive. Tar began to rise from the ground, he felt it climbing up his legs, up his body like poison ivy. The tree expelled steam, a mist that engulfed everything.

  Sleep walking through each week that we’re apart, the letter I sent you has gotten no response, and I wait and I dream I’m made of steam.

  Thaddeus cradled the Guy’s face, his fingers like eels, fingers supping on brain waves. A voice spoke in his mind:

  “Run darling, run. We all begin to rot on the petals of the magnolia flowers. The road stalls our delight, averting our eyes from the untold stories, destiny sees all and controls all, control your revenge. Fade in, fade out, cracks in the pavement breathe sighs about tomorrow’s unknown destination. It will do you no good, if we could die tomorrow then that would be a gift. Instead we linger on, living, I know, I was losing those feelings when I disappeared. Stop and stare, face i
t with no contempt. Drown in my arms.”

  Drown.

  He drowned into the abyss, His abyss, dragged beneath the world feeling like he had drunk from a poisoned cup. There were no songs in this place, he didn’t care about having no guns, didn’t care about the laws of man. He would pretend that sweetness was a potion created by those who think they know it all. Self-righteous attitudes are not free, the cruel dogs clasp them in ball and chain, and he never saw the sickening birds that came home to roost.

  “Have I sunk into the pit of lunacy? I think that, maybe, I have been here all along. I am mad and someone is in my consciousness eating flesh, chewing bone as the stars show the lost that the twilight finds those who fan the flames. They all have teeth. What else is behind me other than a past soaked in trepidation? I chose to stay forever, but the wolves knew better. It is chaos, I lust for it, the trees retreat in the candle light, I take it as fact. Beating hearts and beating skulls, the fire moves creating dancing ghouls, slowly, ever so slowly advancing on my soul. The knives are being sharpened for the encore. I am caught in a maelstrom of madness.”

  The void opened, releasing mechanic sounds, buzz saws, e-bow guitars hummed, robotic rhythms that chugged through space.

  “The reaper sows the last breath when the pieces are scattered over secrets and blood. A carnival of fiendish rapport, a procession of beings hoping to grasp the concept of love but instead only receive skin on skin relations, dirty mouths, lecherous tongues and perverted saliva. Their bodies twist, giving up their virginity for a treacherous melody. Carry me, welcome me into the bath house of toads, warts, crawling parasites. We’re all desperate to be slaves, desperate to be licked by reptiles and penetrated into submission. I’ve got a soul that goes into the rain, a brand new destructive force.”