The door opens to reveal a magnificent sight. The guard nudges me inside though there isn't much need for it given that the beautiful sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and even tastes laid before me all compel me forward.
Inside is a beautiful and elaborate garden. Ahead of me is a tranquil pond that reflects the gorgeous greenery surrounding it. I look behind me and see that the guard has closed the door, which is handless from the inside and is sealed against the rest of the wall.
I look at where the green, stone wall goes and see that it extends in to a gradual curve, completely circumnavigating the massive courtyard. Above me, there is no roof to speak of, but there is a shimmering canopy of vegetation that allows small beams of sunlight to gleam through the misty and peaceful atmosphere. Little birds hop back and forth in the trees, singing and playing with one another. An assortment of butterflies flutter and oscillate throughout the garden, making it seem as though it were fidgeting with inhibited anxiety.
Just like me.
I take a few steps forward and continue observing this place. Suddenly, I notice a strange shadowy figure looming beside the pool. I'm surprised I didn't notice it before. It is obscured by shrubbery so I press on to get a better look.
As I move forward and become immersed into the now foul smelling mist, I become somewhat lightheaded. The mixture of fluttering butterflies and flickering leaves seem to pulsate along with my heartbeat now. I have a hard time focusing and am fixated on the ghost figure who is drifting towards me.
Or am I drifting towards it?
Either way, it gets closer. I get a clear view of it, and cannot believe what I'm seeing. It is a hunch-backed phantom that is almost seven feet tall, clad in a dark-gray cloak, and looks too solid to be a ghost. Rather it looks like a shadowy, phantasmal wraith.
Despite everything I see, it is what I hear that haunts me the most. It breathes. A shallow, sickly concoction of inhalation and exhalation.
But the worse thing of all, it talks.
A "Hello, my angel." whispers out of its pitch-black void of a face.
I stay silent.
"My angel, you have finally crossed over to the other side. Allow me to show you your new abode." He puts forth a gray, skeletal hand and against what remains of my volition, my hand compulsively gravitates into his. His long fingers wrap around my relatively puny wrist. It's neither warm nor cold; instead, I feel as though I'm holding hands with air.
Where the hell am I?
"This is heaven." How did he know what I was thinking? Can he read minds? Or did I just say that out loud? I feel so disoriented, so numb and detached from my body.
"My angel, this is the Otherrealm. The one that the great Nihil created for the people in the Skyrealm to descend into."
No, it can't be. Malakai always told me this wasn't real.
"Oh, but it is. Your friend is a misguided soul. He has lost his faith. Luckily, you kept some of yours."
So, I'm dead?
"Yes, but you have been redeemed for most of your sins. After all, you did brave the Abyss and for most of your life, you led a pious path."
He glides, I glide; we both glide slowly through the botanical courtyard as he talks.
Skyscape, Part 3, v1.0
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:17 PM 1 shrieks of tortuted souls
Subjective Image-Concepts: creative writing, fiction
Skyscape, Part 2, v1.0
The top deck palpitated with footsteps and the blurry crowd prattled on and on into an intensely unsatisfying hum. The colossal airship seemed so jerry-rigged and crudely tied together in the twilight sun, that it almost seemed to fall apart and decay like the clouds surrounding it.
A strange man stood at the edge of the deck, staring off into a billowy nothingness as he shifted his weight and leaned against the rusted side railing. He was puffing on a cigar, intentionally ostracizing himself from the throng of visitors. His aviator goggles gleamed fiercely against the pink and red sky. The man wore a brown leather vest that insulated a muscular torso which was crowned by a plumed collar that shimmered in the breeze like an aquiline creature ruffling its feathers.
Pilots from all corners of Skyscape were congregated into tiny groups, telling tall tales and sharing unheard news. All sorts of planes and aircraft of varying size, make, and model gathered at the end of the landing strip. It seemed as if they too were in their own little social structures, sharing amongst themselves the same silent conversations as their owners, bickering about their pilots' mechanical failures and miscalculations.
He was completely bald except for long sideburns that stormed down either cheek. Tattoos emblazoned across his arms in dark green ink, spiraling into symbolic swirls and shapes. Leather gloves were strapped around either palm as each of his fingers emerged from fingerless openings. He was harnessed in to a pair of baggy, denim pants as steel-toed boots crawled up either shin, buckle by buckle. He coolly lifted up his goggles to reveal a squat face. Wrinkles and sinewy tissue converged towards a sternly furrowed brow. He had beady eyes and a large nose that tapered into a pair of wide, flaring nostrils. Thin lips suckled the dirt-brown cigar and tightly hugged a set of grinning teeth. This phalanx of molars and canines defended a long lashing tongue that affectionately tasted the tobacco.
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:15 PM 0 shrieks of tortuted souls
Subjective Image-Concepts: creative writing, fiction
Skyscape, Part 1, v1.0
How sheep-like was I to have fallen for such crap? Who was Malakai to just suddenly whisk me away from my comfortable teddy bear and replace it with a dirty rifle? To tell me that everything I held so dearly was simply trivial; something to be forgotten.
He told me to not fall for what anyone had to say, no matter how convincing their answers may be. And yet, I went on, like the buffoon that I was, falling for those very words. Like some sort of naive little girl who was being seduced by the devil himself.
I feel like such a fool now.
I know Malakai didn't mean any wrong, but how can you preach against preaching? How can you just tell someone to abandon everything they ever loved or ever knew and not offer something to replace it with? It's pure rape, I tell you. Rape. Babies never ask to be born, but they are. So, why strip them of everything that would at least soften the harshness of this ugly world only to leave them to fend for themselves?
It's just evil.
For all I care, Malakai was the naive one--naive for having done that to me. He was too caught up in his own ideas, and went about preaching them like the messiah. Sure, he had wondrous, almost genius things to say, but he was still a slave to his own thoughts nonetheless.
That's what made him crack. He could no longer bear the weight of his own ideals; they were just too self-destructive. To adhere to them would also mean to reject them. I'm sure this wasn't at first apparent to him, but as he went on refining his answers, affirming his views--newer, more paradoxical questions began to arise. And you can't answer questions with questions.
It's hard to believe in much of anything while being aware of your surroundings. When you're aware of your surroundings, delusions aren't as vivid. And when you're not delusional, apathy ensues. Let me tell you, Malakai was the most lucid man I've ever known.
It was sanity, not insanity, that killed him.
He died in the name of something that he was barely starting to only half-believe in. Oh sure, in the beginning he was as vehement as the best of them. But as time went on, his apprehensions grew. His exhibitions became inhibitions.
He began to question himself.
But that was later on in his life. When I met him, he was just an over-opinionated bald guy. I was the bartender. He was the drunk going on philosophical tirade.
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:09 PM 0 shrieks of tortuted souls
Subjective Image-Concepts: creative writing, fiction